Vows (40 page)

 
She sat beside Josephine, turning her back on Edwin and Fannie, and took her mother's hand.

 
"I thought you'd like to know—Charles and I are going to talk to Reverend Vasseler tomorrow morning. We'll be getting married as soon as he can perform the service … right here in your room. Would you like that, Mother?"

 
"Why, Emily…" Josie's voice was a weak whisper, but her eyes showed a faint spark of approval.

 
"I knew you'd be pleased."

 
"But…"

 
"No questions now. They only make you cough. It's what I want, and what Charles wants, too. We'll talk more about it tomorrow."

 
Rising from the bed, Emily caught a furtive exchange of glances between Fannie and her father. When their glances lifted to her, nobody moved.
Papa, Papa. I wanted this moment to be so different. I had always pictured it with smiles and hugs.
But Emily held herself aloof, heart-sore.

 
Fannie alone recovered and rose quickly to act out the expected felicitations for Joey's benefit. "Congratulations, dearling…" When she put her arms around Emily and touched the girl's cheek with her own, Emily stiffened. Fannie stepped back and chided with false blitheness, "Edwin, for heaven's sake, have you nothing to say?"

 
Emily forced herself to stand in place while he rose from the cot and moved toward her with his contrite eyes asking forgiveness and permission. Waiting, her heart pounded with love and remorse. His lips touched her cheek with enough genuine affection to melt the hardest of hearts. "Congratulations, honey."

 
She stood like a newel post, resisting his endearment, his touch, the awful love she could not help feeling for him.

 
"I have to go tell Frankie," she mumbled, and escaped, leaving a roaring silence in the room behind her.

 
Frankie was fast asleep.
She sat on his bed and jostled him. "Hey, brub, wake up, huh?" Somehow tonight she needed to use the childish nickname from her youth.

 
He burrowed into his pillow and grunted.

 
"Hey, come on, Frankie, wake up, huh? I've got something to tell you."
Please wake up. I need somebody so badly.

 
"Get lost…"

 
She leaned close and whispered, "I'm going to marry Charles, probably before the week is out. Just thought you'd want to know.

 
He raised his face from the pillow and squinted over one shoulder. "Well, why couldn't you tell me tomorrow! Criminy, did you have to wake me up!" Face first he hit the mattress and pulled the pillow over his tousled head.

 
Frankie, I needed you, to hug, to get excited with. Don't you understand?
Of course, he didn't. He was simply a disgruntled little boy disturbed from his sleep. He knew nothing of the turmoil within his sister. Dejected, she went to her own room to find Fannie already there, preparing for bed.

 
When the door opened Fannie looked up from her seat at the dressing table where she sat removing hairpins from her hair. It was easier for Emily to remain frigid to Fannie than to Papa: she had not loved her an entire lifetime. Too, Fannie was the intruder, doubtless the one most to blame. In that tense moment while their eyes clashed, she saw the caring in Fannie's, but turned, rebuffing it, closing the door, going about her bedtime routine with insular disregard.

 
It was unsettling, undressing in the same room with someone for whom you felt such enmity. Neither of them spoke as they donned their nighties, turned back the coverlets, extinguished the lantern, and crawled beneath the covers, back to back, hugging their edges of the bed.

 
Through Emily's mind glimmered memories of the times she had confided in Fannie, times like this when they'd lain in the dark, friends growing dearer to one another with each passing day. But Fannie no longer felt dear. She had abused the hospitality of this house and had proven herself a two-faced friend to Mama, and for that Emily despised her.

 
Emily had been lying carefully motionless for a full ten minutes before Fannie spoke quietly into the darkness.

 
"Emily, you're wrong."

 
"Shut up! I don't want to hear your excuses any more than I want to share my bed with you!"

Fannie closed her eyes and felt tears burn inside. She crossed her wrists beneath her breasts and pressed hard, cradling the hurt tightly, as a mother might cradle a found child. Emily had misunderstood her meaning; she had not meant, Emily, you're wrong about your father and me, but, you're wrong to jump into marriage this way.

 
Oh, Emily … dearling … can't you see you're marrying Charles for all the wrong reasons?

 
But faced with Emily's cold rejection, Fannie let the earnest warning wither in her throat.

Chapter 14

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I
t had been a frustrating thirty-six hours for Tom Jeffcoat. If he had it to do over again he'd use his head and keep no less than two axe handles between himself and Emily Walcott.

 
At his anvil he beat a piece of hot metal as if it were his own head, which, he conceded, was about as dense as iron and needed some sense whupped into it.

 
You had to kiss her, didn't you, Jeffcoat? You had to go groping around in that damned dark closet and putting your hands where they didn't belong. You had to find out. Well, now you did, and what did it get you but miserable? Walking around here feeling like a cat gagging on a hairball. It's that woman who's stuck in your throat, and you can't swallow her and you can't cough her up. So just what in almighty hell are you going to do about it?

 
He beat the iron until the percussions rippled up his arms and jarred his joints. The iron grew too cool to shape but he kept beating anyway.

 
Emily Walcott. What was a man supposed to make of her? There were times when he wanted to throttle her. That temper—Christ, where did she get it? She seemed to stride through life in a perpetual state of defiance. Over what? She had nothing to defy!

 
But he admired her guts and her drive. She had more of both than most men.

 
He tried to imagine taking her back to Springfield and introducing her as his wife—his wife?—the one in the boy's cap and britches, the one who didn't want babies but would rather treat sick animals for a while. Wouldn't his mother pop her sockets? Especially after Julia, the perfect, proper, pregnant Julia. And his father would pull him aside by one arm and say. Son, are you sure you know what you're doing?

 
The answer was no. Ever since he'd laid lips on her in that closet he hadn't known what he was doing. Standing here beating a piece of cold iron like a fool. With a throaty curse he flung down his hammer and stood staring, brooding, missing her, wanting her.

 
She came, she met me, she lay with me and kissed me. And there were feelings between us. Not just heat, but feelings. Then the next time I tried to see her it was "Leave me alone!"

 
Frustrated, he drove eight fingers through his hair and roamed the confines of his smithy, picking up tools, casting them aside.

 
So what did you expect her to do, fling her arms around you and kiss you in the middle of Grinnell Street when she's engaged to Charles?

 
Emily Walcott was no dallier, he knew that. She wasn't toying with him as some women would. If he were to be honest with himself he'd admit that she was just plain scared. Scared of the emotional rush that had caught them both by surprise. Of the intensity. Of the eventualities that hung in the balance and the number of people who could get hurt if they pursued their feelings.

 
And what about you? You're not?

 
With a weary gust of breath he dropped to a low stool, shoulders slumped, arms hooking his widespread knees. He pulled her hairpin from his skirt pocket, rubbed it between his fingertips … again … and again … and again, staring, remembering her in a myriad of poses: glancing up across the crowded dance floor … cupping her mouth to shout the shrill Basque yell … riding toward him on the turntable. He heard again her voice coming to him in a close black closet, pleading, "Tom, don't. Oh God, please don't," because even before they'd kissed she recognized as well as he the fascination that had been smoldering beneath their surface antipathy. The memory of that first kiss brought memories of others—in Edwin's office, in a fresh snow, on his bed.

 
He covered his face with both hands.

 
All right, so I'm scared, too. Of hurting Charles. Of being hurt myself. Of making a wrong choice or missing the right one.
He lifted his head and stared at the glowing orange forge.

 
The question is, do you love her?

 
God help me; yes.

 
Then hadn't you better tell her without beating around the bush?

 
And then what?

 
Do you want to marry her?

 
He swallowed, but the hairball still stuck.

 
Then hadn't you better tell her that, too?
     

 
While he sat with the thought ripe on his mind, footsteps sounded on the floor of the main corridor. Somebody gave the turntable a nudge in passing and made it rumble softly. Seconds later, Charles appeared in the smithy doorway.

 
"You won't get much work done that way!" he accused, grinning.

 
Tom grinned back, struggling with torn loyalties, happy to see Charles while wishing he'd never met the man.

 
"Yeah, well, neither will you." Pushing off both knees, Tom rose from the squatty stool. "What're you doing hanging around here in the middle of the day? Haven't you got some nails to pound?"

 
Charles stepped forward, stationed himself just inside the doorway, and smiled broadly. "I came to invite you to my wedding."

 
"Your w—"

 
"Friday afternoon at one o'clock."

 
Tom nearly fell back onto the stool. "Friday? You mean this Friday?"

 
"Yup."

 
"But that's day after tomorrow!"

 
"I know." Charles clapped his palms and rubbed them. "The stubborn wench finally said yes."

 
Tom's hairball seemed to inflate to twice its former size. "But … so soon…"

 
Charles respectfully dampened his exuberance and moved farther into the room. "It’s because of her mother. Mrs. Walcott’s really bad now. Emily thinks she hasn't got long to live, so she wants us to be married right away. Just a small service, right in Mrs. Walcott's bedroom so she can see it." Charles's happiness effervesced again and he beamed at Tom. "Can you believe it, Tom? Emily's actually impatient!"

 
Or running
, thought Tom. "I thought she wanted to get her veterinary certificate first."

 
"She said she's giving it up." Charles's smile broadened. "Said she'll be too busy raising my babies to have time for anything else."

 
Night before last she told me she wasn't ready for babies yet.

 
"Well … I'll be damned." Trying to disguise his shock, Tom paced, running a hand through his hair. "That's … well, that's … congratulations…" He flashed a doubtful scowl, as he would have before he'd fallin' in love with Emily. "I think."

 
Charles laughed and slapped Tom's shoulder.

 
"I think you like her more than you let on."

 
"She's all right, I guess. Just a little mouthy."

 
"I'm glad you're finally coming around because I've got a favor to ask you."

 
"Ask away."

 
"I want you to stand up for me at the wedding."

 
The hairball threatened to break loose and pull his stomach up with it.
Stand up for him? And remain silent when Vasseler asked if anyone knew of any reason for this couple not to be married? And pass Charles the ring to slip on her finger? And kiss her on the cheek afterwards and wish her a life of happiness with another man?

 
Sweet Savior, he couldn't do it!

 
Hot seemed to turn to cold on his face. Thank God for the dimness in the room. He blinked, gulped, and offered Charles his hand.

 
"Of course I will."

 
Charles covered Tom's knuckles with a rough palm. "Good. And Tarsy will stand up for Em. She's over there asking her right now, at any rate. Can't see why she'd say no any more than you would." Charles squeezed extra hard on Tom's hand. His voice roughened with sincerity. "I'm so damned happy, man, you can't know how happy I am."