Vows (59 page)

 
"I'll be staying," she told him quietly, "to see after him until he's better."

 
Edwin's sad, loving eyes rested on Emily's.

 
"Yes, I know," he said, accepting her decision without dissent.

 
"And I'll be marrying him as soon as he's strong enough to stand on two feet."

 
"Yes, I know."

 
"Papa—"

 
"Sweetheart—" She was in his arms before the endearment had cleared his lips. More tears—hot, and healing—wrinkled the world she saw beyond Edwin's shoulder.

 
"I'm so damned sorry," he managed in a broken voice.

 
"Oh, Papa, I love him so much. He's just got to live."

 
"He will."

 
She sniffled and clung to his familiar bulk. His arms—oh, his wonderful reassuring father's arms—how substantial they felt and how badly she needed them at this moment. She may have defied him, but she had never stopped needing his comfort, friendship, and approval. Without them she had been miserable. "I thought I was going to have to chose between you and I didn't know what I was g–going to do without you."

 
"You won't have to worry about it anymore. I'm a stubborn old fool—Fannie made me see that. But you won't hear another word out of me. You're getting a good man. I knew it all the time, but I was too ornery to say so. I'm sorry I said those things the other night."

 
She squeezed him harder, feeling as if she had just emerged from shadow into sun.

 
"You're the best father there ever was."

 
He crushed her against him, then drew back, clearing his throat self-consciously while she wiped her eyes with a sleeve.

 
"Well…" Edwin said.

 
"Yes … well…"

 
Neither of them knew how to end the delicate moment.

 
Finally Emily asked, "Will you send Frankie back with some clean things for me?"

 
"I'll do better than that. I'll bring them myself as soon as I make sure Charles is settled. They took him to our place, you know. Fannie insisted."

 
"Good. He deserves the best."

 
Edwin caught one of her dirty hands and raised it to his lips. "I'm afraid the best has been taken by someone else, though."

 
"Oh, Papa."

 
"You'd better go see after your young man," Edwin said, dangerously close to getting emotional again.

 
She pecked him on the cheek in a fond farewell. "And you'd better take a bath. You stink."

Chapter 20

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C
losing the door behind Edwin, Emily stared at it exhaustedly. The bedroom seemed miles away. Her shoulders ached, her eyes burned, her throat felt parched and raw, but she forced her feet to move. In Tom's bedroom doorway she paused, studying his still form on the bed, holding her breath and listening to his. It sounded grainy and labored, no better than before. When he inhaled, an invisible wind whistle seemed to play in his throat. When he exhaled, his breath was accompanied by a rattling wheeze.

 
She stood at his bedside and studied him despondently, tempted to cry, realizing that to do so would serve no purpose. If only there were some way she could help. But Doc Steele had said, "There's nothing we can do for his lungs—either they'll make it or they won't. Clean him up some. Keep him warm. Keep the windows closed because the town is full of smoke. If he wakes up, feed him lightly. A resting body doesn't need much nourishment, it lives off its own fat."

 
Clean him up some, keep him warm.
It seemed too little to do when you loved someone this much and had rebuffed him the last time the two of you had spoken.

 
She knelt and touched her lips to his dirty right hand.
Don't you die, Tom Jeff coat, do you hear me? If you die, I'll never forgive you.

 
When she'd spent another bout of useless emotionalism, she pushed herself heavily to her feet and went to the kitchen, built up the fire, and drew warm water from the reservoir. Carrying a basin, she returned to the bedroom to bathe Tom.

 
She did so lovingly, with no burdening sense of impropriety. Instead, she felt entitled, for she loved him wholly and would—if he lived—see after his welfare for the remainder of their lives. She washed his face, with its motionless eyelids and its poor bruised features, cataloging each, praying that she might see that face on the adjacent pillow each morning for the rest of her life, that she might watch it take on years and creases and character as the two of them aged together.

 
She washed his long-fingered, calloused, limp hands, which would know all of her in all ways, would stroke her skin in passion and rub her tired back when she grew weary, would hold their children someday, and, with his forefathers' anvil and eight surviving horses, would provide for them all through years to come.

 
She washed his arms and chest—broad chest, sturdy arms—above a fringe of dirty white plaster, and paused with her hand upon his slow and regular heartbeat, then kissed him there for the first time ever.

 
She washed his long legs and feet, which would carry him down an aisle with her, and over a threshold, and into this room one fine, wondrous wedding day soon.

 
They would, oh, they would.

 
And when he was clean, she covered him to the neck, then dragged his over-sized kitchen rocker into the room, dropped heavily upon it, and slumped forward across the bed near his hip.

 
Edwin found her that way when he returned with her clean clothes—exhausted and haggard and dirty, but he hadn't the heart to awaken her. Leaving her clothes nearby, he tiptoed from the house with a heavy heart and a prayer for Tom Jeffcoat's safe delivery back to consciousness.

 
Emily awakened later at the sound of Tom stirring. She leapt to her feet and leaned above him, gazing into his unfocused eyes. "You're going to be all right, Tom," she whispered, taking his hand.

 
"Em'ly?" he croaked. His heels shifted restlessly against the sheets and he seemed to be searching for the source of her voice.

 
"Yes, Tom, I'm here."

 
His bleary eyes found her. His left index finger crooked against his soiled white plaster wrap as if trying to coax the rest of the unwilling hand to lift. He managed only two words in the same pathetic croak as before: "She lied."

 
"Tom?" Emily called anxiously, bending even closer. "Tom?"

 
But he had already slipped back into oblivion, leaving her with no opportunity to apologize or reassure. Disappointed and worried, she perched on the chair, holding his unresponsive hand. He had been through such hell. He had fought a fire that he believed was set by his best friend. He had lost his barn, some of his stock and his livelihood. He had suffered shock and physical damage enough to put him in a state of unconsciousness. Yet through it all his chief worry was that he might lose her because of Tarsy's lies.

 
Emily's unwanted tears started again, stinging like a douse of kerosene in her poor maltreated eyes.

 
I'm sorry I believed her, Tom. I should have known Tarsy would use any means available to get satisfaction—honest or dishonest. Please get well so I can marry you and we can put all this strife behind us.

* * *

In Edwin Walcott's home the baths were done, the invalid bedded down, the boy long asleep, and the place blissfully quiet. Dressed in a nightshirt, Edwin stepped from his bedroom and crossed the hall to rap quietly on his daughter's bedroom door.

 
"Come in," Fannie called softly.

 
He opened the door and stood framed within it, motionless. Fannie sat at a vanity table glancing back over her shoulder. She wore a dressing gown of pale blue scattered with violets, belted at the waist. Her hair—wet—trailed down her back; her hand—poised—held a tortoiseshell comb.

 
"Come in, Edwin," she repeated, swiveling to face him, dropping the hand to her lap.

 
"I just came to say good night and to thank you for having the bath water all hot. It felt wonderful."

 
"Yes it did didn't it? But there's no need to thank me." She smiled serenely, her eye's lingering on his wet hair, frilled with fresh comb tracks, his shiny forehead and the brushed beard, whose attractiveness still took her by surprise each time she saw it. It created the perfect frame for his lips, making him appear the more highly colored when contrasted against the dark facial hair, more soft for the beard's crisp outline. It complemented, too, his dark, dear eyes.

 
"You must be very tired."

 
"I am." He smiled softly. "You?"

 
"No. Just thinking."

 
"About what?"

 
"About the children—Tom and Emily. You gave Emily your consent to stay there, didn't you?"

 
Leaving the door discreetly open, Edwin wandered in and, while he spoke, touched things—incidental things—a picture on the wall, the back of a chair, the knob on a bureau. "It seemed ridiculous not to. She would have stayed in any case."

 
"She's very much in love with him, Edwin."

 
"Yes, I know. She says she'll marry him as soon as he can stand on two legs."

 
"And you gave her your consent for that, too?"

 
"She didn't ask for it. She's a grown woman. I guess it's time I treated her like one."

 
"Yes, of course you're right. And after what they've been through who in Sheridan would dare point a finger?"

 
Edwin gave up his distractions to study Fannie across the room, hoping the same thing was true regarding the two of them. In the lamplight her wet hair gleamed like liquid copper. Edwin thought he could smell it clear across the room, it and the lilac soap with which she'd bathed. The bodice of her dressing gown revealed a narrow wedge of bare throat, and as she dragged a fallen tress behind her ear her sleeve fell back, baring one fine white arm, lightly peppered with freckles. She was lovely and warm and all the things he had ever desired. But Edwin repressed the urge to cross to her, though he could not resist talking, staying—just a while longer.

 
"You were thinking about us, too, weren't you?"

 
"Yes."

 
"What about us?"

 
She considered momentarily, dropping her gaze as she placed the comb on the vanity behind her, then returning her uplifted eyes to him and tucking her hands between her knees. "About what I'd have done if I'd lost you."

 
"But you didn't. I'm still very much alive and unharmed."

 
"Yes," she replied in the most dulcet of tones, letting the word drift winsomely before adding, "I see."

 
She studied him unwaveringly, this man she loved: scrubbed, shiny, masculine, and decidedly less than decent in only a nightshirt and bare feet. If he had come here to test her he was succeeding with little effort. She could no more turn him away than she could have stopped tonight's fire. "Is that what you always sleep in?"

 
"No. Not always." The striped garment reached Edwin's mid-calf. "My underware got sooty and wet. I left it in the tub downstairs."

 
"I didn't think I remembered ever washing that before." She let her eyes trail down to his naked toes and back up. From across the room she thought she saw his cheeks take on color above the crisp, dark border of his beard.

 
When she spoke again, her tranquil voice held no coquetry, only an abiding certainty that what she was suggesting was right and deserved. "Why don't you close the door, Edwin?"

 
She saw him carefully bank his surprise. Their gazes locked and the universe seemed devoid of all creatures save them. Then he closed the door–without haste, without sound—and turned, lifting his gaze to her as he crossed the room. She followed with her eyes, lifting her face as he neared and paused before her. For moments he stood motionless, his eyes delving into hers. At length he reached out to stroke her damp hair back from her face, which he tipped to a sharp angle.

 
"It'll be tonight then?" he asked simply.

 
"Yes, darling, tonight."

 
Leaning low, he kissed her dear mouth, a tender, fleeting touch; likewise, her left eyelid, her right, and each cheek. His heart repeated a cadence it had known only years ago, when they were both young and raring but had banked their urges as all properly raised children were taught to do. So many years ago. So many mistakes ago. He drew back to question softly, "Because you almost lost me?"