Yankee Wife (28 page)

Millie went to the window, leaving a trail of rainwater on the sawdust-sprinkled floor, happily munching on her candy. “The mail boat's in,” she observed. “Maybe there'll be a letter from Uncle Devon.”

The mention of her husband's name snapped against Polly's spirit like the backlash of a tree branch. She glanced through the foggy, rain-speckled glass and sighed. Then she tried for a cheerful expression. “I wouldn't be at all surprised if he wrote to the two of you, or to your father,” she said. Every day she was stupid enough to hope Devon would get off that mail boat when it came in, and every day she was brutally disappointed.

“There're two men coming up the hill toward the store,” Millie reported, while Charlotte remained by the stove, trying to dry her skirts, the peppermint jutting out of one side of her mouth like a politician's cigar. “I suppose they'll want to hire on with Papa's lumber company.”

Charlotte sighed in a fashion so long-suffering that it bordered on martyrdom. “Why else would anyone come here?” she inquired, leaning closer to the fire now and combing her fingers through her wet hair.

Polly smiled sadly at Charlotte's wanderlust. She marveled that the girl couldn't see what she had, right there in Quade's Harbor—a family who loved her, a wonderful home, plenty of fine clothes, all she could want to eat. “Oh, I think this town has things to recommend it,” she said, dusting the counter even though she'd polished it earlier with beeswax.

“Like what?” Charlotte asked. She didn't put the question meanly, for though she was spirited, like her sister, she was neither unkind nor ill-mannered.

Millie answered before Polly could think of a response. “Ask Anna Holmetz when was the last time she had a new pair of shoes,” she challenged. “Ask her about the two weeks their whole family had to live on buttermilk because there wasn't any money for food. Ask her—”

Charlotte flushed, probably having at least glimpsed the error of her ways. “There is more to life than shoes and food, Millicent Quade,” she said haughtily after a moment of recovery. “You don't understand that because you haven't a poet's soul like I do.”

“Pooh,” said Millie, reminding Polly more of Brigham than ever. Though, of course, he probably wouldn't have used such mild language. “‘there was a young woman named Puck—'” she began.

“Stop!” Polly cried.

The little tin bell over the front door tinkled as a man came in, hat slouched low over his face, and set his kit down next to the flour barrel. He was obviously one of the new workers who'd gotten off the boat that day, come to buy tobacco or ask where to go to sign on with one of Brigham's timber crews, but there was something disturbingly familiar about him.

Then he removed his hat, and Polly saw his thick, maple-brown hair, his irreverent green eyes, that smile that cocked up at one side in such a deceptively charming way.

She felt the color slip from her cheeks.

“Hello, Polly,” he said.

Polly gripped the edges of the counter. It was Nat Malachi, the man who had so captivated her when she was an innocent, foolish girl. The man who had brought her to San Francisco and taught her to deceive good men like Devon. The man she'd never expected to see again, outside her nightmares.

Millie and Charlotte, perceptive children both, were staring at the new arrival. They'd obviously noticed that his appearance had startled their aunt, even though she was making a concerted effort to appear calm.

“You'd better run along home, girls,” she said in a voice higher and thinner than usual for her. “Looks like there's a lull in the rain, and who can guess how long it will last.”

“She's right,” Millie said, though she and her sister still looked intensely curious. “Lydia will skin us if we don't have our lessons ready for tomorrow.”

As for Nat, he was just smiling at them, with that crooked grin in place and his hat in his hand.

The children disappeared, and after they were gone, the warm, cozy store seemed to yawn around Polly, dangerous and cold like some cave far under the ground.

“What do you want?” she demanded, taking the rifle Brigham had given her from its place under the counter and cocking it resolutely.

Nat laughed. “Now what kind of greeting is that, after you and I have been apart for so long?” he drawled, starting to round the end of the counter.

Polly shoved the tip of the barrel into the hollow at the base of his throat. “Don't come near me, Nat, I'm warning you!” she hissed. “I'm married now, for real, and I mean to honor my vows.”

He drew back gracefully, holding up both hands about shoulder level, mouth curved into an indulgent grin. He looked around at the tidy displays of canned goods, work boots, bolts of practical fabric, and other items. “This is quite a nest you've found for yourself. I don't blame you for being a little bristly.”

The trembling in her arms and legs abated slightly, and Polly ran the tip of her tongue over dry lips. “The mail boat will stay about an hour,” she said. “When it sails for Seattle, I'd like you to be on board.”

“We don't always get what we want in this life, Pol,” he said, with mock ruefulness. “You sure ought to know that by now.”

Polly stared at the man she'd thought she loved, the man who had used her so shamelessly in San Francisco. “There's nothing for you here,” she said, her palms sweating where she gripped the rifle. “This place is too slow and too decent to appeal to the likes of you!”

He laughed again as a fresh spate of rain clattered against the windowpanes. A few drops dripped down the chimney and sizzled on the hot fire in the stove. “Where is he?” he demanded, folding his arms. “Where's this fine, upstanding husband of yours?”

She swallowed. “Never you mind where Devon is. If he catches you around here—and you can be sure I'll tell him just who you are—he'll hang you up for the birds like a chunk of suet.”

“You're a liar,” he replied charitably. Even sweetly. “I heard the whole story in Seattle—you told him he wasn't the first, and he left in a fit of righteous wrath. Isn't that true, darlin'?”

It took all Polly's restraint to keep from flying at him, claws bared, hissing like a wild animal defending its den. “He'll be back,” she said, wondering at the certainty evident in her voice. She'd never been less sure of anything in her life.

“And when he comes through that door, you'll be here waiting for him.” He gave the words a maudlin, cloying sweetness. “Forget that, because it's nothing but an empty fancy. You belong with me, and I'm about to take you upstairs to the bed your fine husband deserted and show you the truth of it.”

Polly could not have surrendered to the caresses of any man other than Devon, but the idea of lying down with this one upended her stomach. “Just take another step toward me,” she breathed, “and I swear by every angel in heaven that I'll kill you.”

For the first time, he looked exasperated. Then he tossed his hat down on the floor in a fit of pique. “Now you're being just plain silly, Polly!” he yelled. “Have you forgotten that I'm the man who took you away from that crazy father of yours? That it was me who taught you to feel real good?”

Color surged back into Polly's cheeks, and she braced the rifle on the countertop, so that the barrel was pointed straight at Nat's chest. “Get out,” she said.

He arched an eyebrow and bent down to pick up his hat. Just as he was straightening, the bell jingled again and Dr. Joe came in. Polly hoped she'd gotten the rifle out of sight before he noticed it.

“Thanks for telling me where to find the boss man,” Nat said, with buoyant good cheer, scooping up his canvas pack and pushing past the doctor to step out into the rain.

Dr. McCauley removed his round black hat and shook the rainwater from its brim, but there was a thoughtful expression in his eyes.

“Something you needed?” Polly asked, her friendly smile a bit brittle.

The physician smiled wearily. “About three weeks of uninterrupted sleep,” he answered, approaching the counter. “Mrs. Quade, is everything all right?”

“Everything is fine,” Polly lied. “What can I get for you? Did Frodine send you for something?”

He selected a tin of peaches from one of the shelves, then a sack of tobacco and a piece of rock candy. “She's calling herself Etta now,” he replied, “and for her sake, I hope it sticks.”

“Oh,” Polly answered. She liked Dr. McCauley's pretty ward, though she wondered how long a single man could get away with having a young woman live in his house, even in that rough-and-tumble town.

“I believe she favors licorice,” he said, laying his few purchases on the counter and reaching into the pocket of his trousers. “I'll have a stick of that, too, I guess.”

Polly took the candy from its jar and wrapped it carefully in brown paper salvaged from the packages and parcels of goods she'd been receiving to stock the store. “I suppose Mr. Harrington met the boat and fetched the mail, like every other day?”

Doc smiled at her, gathered up his tobacco and peaches and the packet of licorice, and put his hat on again. “I suppose,” he agreed gently. “There's been no word from Devon yet, then?”

Miserably, Polly shook her head. She supposed she should be glad Devon was away, now that Nat Malachi was around, Malachi could be mean and vindictive, despite his affable manner, and he just might figure he was entitled to some revenge against Devon.

Joe reached across the counter and patted her hand. “He won't stay away forever,” he assured her, and then took the things he'd bought and went out.

Polly rushed across the room to the door, which she would have bolted if she hadn't seen Mr. Harrington mounting the steps with a large parcel in his arms. More supplies had arrived to grace the shelves of the mercantile, but Polly was too distraught to feel the usual excitement.

Nat had found her, and for better or worse, she would have to deal with him. She'd promised herself, and the baby growing within her, that there would be no more running away.

 

“He took himself over to the Satin Hammer for a drink,” Jake Feeny told Lydia that evening, when she came to the back door of the Quade household inquiring for Brigham. The rain had stopped, but the wind was still ferocious, and it made her nervous the way the ancient trees behind the house swayed back and forth.

It was a moment before Lydia registered Jake's words. When she did, she felt a hot, helpless rage surge through her like venom. “I see,” she said stiffly, turning to go.

Jake caught hold of her cloak. “Won't you stay, Mrs. Quade, and have some supper? I mixed up a nice batch of biscuits, and we've got chicken dipped in cornmeal and fried up crisp in bacon grease.”

The last thing Lydia cared about at that moment was food, even though she hadn't eaten all day. All she could think about was Brigham, breaking his word already, when only the night before he'd claimed he would be faithful.

“No,” she said, her voice small and almost too soft to hear over the cries of the wind. “Thank you, but I'm not—I'm not hungry.” Again she started to walk away.

“What about that little kitten?” Jake persisted. “Don't it need some nice cream?”

Lydia couldn't bring herself to turn down Ophelia's favorite repast; it wouldn't be fair. “Yes, that would be lovely, thank you.”

Jake drew her back into the kitchen while he took a jar of cream from the fancy oak icebox. The warmth of the fire was inviting, and the food smelled heavenly-there was even a thick gravy to pour over the biscuits-but Lydia couldn't linger.

She'd come to reassure Brigham, she thought, in furious amazement, as she hurried through the drizzly twilight a few minutes later, holding the jar of cream close so she wouldn't drop it. She'd seen the horror in his eyes when he looked upon the bloody birth of Magna Holmetz's little daughter, and she'd been certain he feared that she might face a similar ordeal when it was time for their own child to be born. Because she loved Brigham, whatever their political and moral differences, she'd wanted to remind him that she was healthy and strong, assure him there was no reason to be afraid.

She'd come out in the rain, without her supper, just to make Brigham feel better, and how had he repaid her? By taking himself off to the Satin Hammer to revel with liquor and bad women in general, and Clover O'Keefe in particular.

Well, Lydia vowed to herself as she stormed along the street, she'd just confront him in that den of iniquity and find out what he had to say for himself.

She stopped at her cottage long enough to give a mewing Ophelia a saucer of cream, then lit a lantern and set out for the Satin Hammer. Her mood, she guessed, was much like General Sherman's must have been when he crossed the border into Georgia.

L
YDIA WAS NO STRANGER TO PLACES LIKE THE
S
ATIN
Hammer, unfortunately. As a child she'd often ventured into saloons and brothels to find her father and bring him home, and in San Francisco, of course, she'd earned survival wages by playing piano for the patrons.

Still, as she stood outside the slapdash wooden building, just beyond the reach of the lantern light, with the tinkling, brassy music swirling around her like smoke, she felt her momentum seeping away into the sawdust at her feet.

There had always been a next time, no matter how faithfully Papa had sworn to leave the bottle alone, and yet she had gone back to rescue him again and again, causing herself tremendous humiliation and pain in the process.

She lifted her chin, and the moist night wind played with her hair. If Brigham wanted to drink and go whoremongering, he would, and her presence, her words, no matter how sensible and compelling, would serve no purpose. Except, of course, to make herself totally miserable.

She turned slowly and began walking back toward home. Joe McCauley must have seen her passing from his front window, because he came sprinting down the path to fall in step beside her.

“Nice night for a walk,” he called, with wry good humor, over the howl of the rising wind.

“Go away,” Lydia called back, but she was glad when her friend ignored the injunction, because just then she felt her singular aloneness more keenly than she had in a very long time.

Joe escorted her up the steps to her porch, then followed her through the front door. He waited politely while she lighted a lantern and scooped up Ophelia, who came mewing to greet her.

“Brigham,” Joe said, summing up all her troubles in that one name.

Lydia took off her cloak and hung it on the peg without shaking the rainwater off first. She reached up to smooth the back of her hair, just beneath the loose chignon. “Yes,” she confirmed disconsolately, without looking at him. “Brigham.”

Joe went into the small kitchen, and Lydia heard clanking sounds as he built up the fire and set the teakettle on to heat. She stayed in the front room, struggling to assimilate the disturbing discoveries she'd just made—not about her husband, but about herself.

The doctor came back. “Sit,” he said, with brotherly impatience, pressing Lydia into her rocking chair. Then he crouched before her. “You went to the Satin Hammer,” he finished.

Lydia scowled at him. “Have you taken to following me about?”

Joe only grinned, apparently undaunted by her hostility. “I gave that up when I realized how much you love that big lumberjack of yours. What's happened, Lydia? Was he there, at the saloon, I mean?”

She shrugged. “I suppose so. In the end, I couldn't bring myself to go in and find out.”

He arched an eyebrow. “You're even more courageous than I first thought, Mrs. Quade. I'm not sure I've ever made the acquaintance of another woman—above a certain social standing, of course—who would even consider venturing into such an establishment.”

Lydia sighed, meeting Joe's eyes directly for the first time. “I've been inside every sort of saloon at one time or another, either singing for my supper or searching for my weak but well-meaning father.”

“I'll ask about singing for your supper later,” Joe told her, rising as he heard the heat begin to surge through the kettle on the stove. “Right now, I'd like to hear about your errant sire.”

Resigned, Lydia talked about her father's drinking while Joe brewed tea for them both and brought it back in enamel mugs. He sat on an upended crate, listening, not once interrupting the flow of misery Lydia had never really shared with another living soul.

“I guess I should have left Papa in those bars,” she said, when the long description of degrading experiences was over. “Instead I made it easier for him to go back the next time because he always woke up in his own bed, thanks to me. The messes had been cleaned up, so he didn't have to face the realities of the things he'd done. I enabled him to live the lie that things were normal at our house.”

Joe took a thoughtful sip of his tea. “Did he abuse you in any way?”

Lydia wiped a tear from her cheek. “Not like you mean,” she said hoarsely. “He didn't beat me, and he certainly didn't ever touch me in an improper manner. On the other hand, there was never enough food or enough coal for the fire, and I wore my clothes long after I'd outgrown them. Mine was no worse than a lot of children's lives, and much better than many others'.”

“You always took care of your father,” Joe stated.

Again Lydia had to agree. “I didn't just fetch him home from the saloons. I lied to his patients, and to the grocer and the coal man and anyone else who would have made trouble.”

He took her hand. “You did the best you could, Lydia, with who you were and what you knew at the time, and you acted out of love. Don't berate yourself for that.”

She pushed with her heels, so that the chair began to rock beneath her, but she found no comfort in the rhythm. “Brigham isn't like Papa. I know he isn't.”

Joe sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Amen to that, Mrs. Quade. Brigham appears to be a healthy man, with no need of anyone to take care of him, and I think that's part of the trouble, where you're concerned at least.”

Lydia stared at her friend with wide eyes, feeling a faint rush of anger sweep through her blood. “What are you saying?”

He didn't falter or hedge. “You're a strong woman, Lydia. You've always had to make your own way, and the concept of leaning on another person, even briefly, is alien to you. I think you'd be more comfortable if Brigham were a weaker man, so that you could look after him the way you did your father.”

“That's not true,” Lydia immediately insisted.

“Isn't it? Brigham is an equal, every bit as strong as you are. That's what scares you, I'll wager. You were in control, dealing with frightened young soldiers, boys in pain or dying, or both, God rest their souls. You know how to deal with small children, and with women in childbirth. But Brigham needs a partner as well as a wife, and you haven't the faintest idea how to respond.”

Lydia shot to her feet and just as quickly sat down again. “He doesn't want a partner,” she protested, although she was no longer so certain of her opinions. “Brigham wants a wife he can dominate.”

Joe's grin was damnably patient. “Does he? We've had a few conversations over brandy, he and I, and Brigham intimated, even if he didn't say it straight out, that he wasn't happy with his first wife. She was the delicate sort, you know, always fainting and afraid of shadows.”

“Shadows?” Lydia wanted to defend Isabel Quade staunchly, perhaps because, without her, there would have been no Millie and no Charlotte. “The woman had to face incredible hardships—Indian attacks, sickness, being a world away from practically everything she knew and loved.”

Joe nodded in agreement. “She responded by hiding from her fears, by weeping and wringing her hands and begging Brigham to take her home to Maine. I can't imagine you behaving that way. You see life as a challenge, and an adventure, not an unending threat.”

“I've done my share of weeping and wringing my hands, Joseph.”

“Yes. I'll wager it was in the privacy of an army tent, late at night, when you'd been relieved of hospital duty and there was no other course of action left to you. Think, Lydia. You yourself are really very much like Brigham, adamant in your opinions, immovable in your determination. You understand how to lead, but you don't know a whit about following.”

Lydia flushed, but something stopped her from making a heated denial. “I wish you would just go home,” she said petulantly, after a brief silence full of struggle.

Joe smiled, picked up her tea mug and his own, and meandered back into the kitchen. He poured another cup for Lydia and brought it to her in passing, on the way to the front door. “The truth can be a fierce adversary, Mrs. Quade,” he said, touching an imaginary hat brim in a gentlemanly gesture of farewell. “I would advise you not to waste valuable energy trying to divert it from its natural path.”

Lydia remained in the rocking chair when he'd gone, petting the kitten, which had settled in her lap, and sipping her second cup of tea. Even if she hadn't slept the sleep of the dead most of the day, she wouldn't have been able to rest.

 

As he walked back toward his own house, shoulders hunched against the wind, Joe McCauley wondered exactly why he'd made such a good case for Brigham, back there in Lydia's parlor. He might have argued for his own interests, persuaded her to petition a judge for release from her hasty marriage, then taken her to wife.

A lamp was glowing in the front window when he reached his gate, and he paused, even though the wind was piercing his shirt and pummeling his ears. He of the girl he'd found in the outhouse and smiled.

She was a beauty, he allowed to himself as he made his way toward the porch. She was full of sauce and spirit, like Lydia, and it was certainly plain that she'd suffered during her short time on earth. For all of that, Frodine-now-Etta wasn't carrying an entire war around with her.

The door opened and she filled the doorway, wisps of pale hair dancing around her face. “I reckoned you'd spend the night at her place,” she said. Pain lurked in her words, along with a reluctant acceptance that such was the way of the world.

Joe crossed the porch and moved Etta gently out of his way to enter the house. With one foot he pushed the door shut against the wind. “Mrs. Quade is a married woman,” he said, with a sigh of resignation. Maybe, he reflected, he was just now coming to terms with that fact, though he'd thought he'd already dealt with it.

Etta's dark eyes were wide, and her throat worked as she swallowed. “Brig ain't nobody to mess with anyhow,” she said, with nettling reverence. “He catches any man pickin' petals in Mrs. Quade's petunia patch, he'll probably horsewhip the stupid son of a bitch in the street.”

Suppressing a smile, Joe moved to the lamp and turned it down until the room was in shadow. “Is that what you've learned at school?” he challenged benignly, turning to look at her. “To talk like a bull whacker on a bad day?”

Even in the dim light, he saw her blush prettily. She smoothed her borrowed skirts and then squared her shoulders. “You—You want me to be a lady?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

He looked at her for a long moment, and all the loneliness of the difficult years just past threatened to crush him. He did not love Etta, but he liked her, and many a successful marriage had been built on lesser foundations. “Yes,” he said. “I want you to be a lady.”

She shifted her gaze to the floor, just briefly, then met his eyes with an expression of proud desolation. “Why?”

“Because I need one so badly,” he admitted, with more frankness than he'd thought himself capable of displaying. He sighed again, rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “I'm just realizing that I've been marking time since the day I came home from the war and found my family gone. I've been waiting to die, more or less.”

Etta's question was barely audible. “And now?”

“Now I want my life back. I want a woman in my bed and a flock of children who might just make the world a better place when they grow up. Will you stay with me, Etta? Will you let me ask your father for your hand in marriage?”

She swayed slightly in the darkness, took a cautious step toward him. “You want—
me
?”

Joe considered the query carefully, not wanting to base the new start he yearned for on a lie. “Oh, yes,” he said gruffly.

“But you love Mrs. Quade—I know you do!”

“I can't deny that,” he answered in a quiet voice, “and I won't. Yes, God help me, I love Lydia, and maybe, with some part of me, I always will. But it's plain to me that I'll never have her, and I'm not willing to sacrifice the rest of my days to a few memories. I could learn to love you, Etta, and I'd like the chance to try.”

Etta took another faltering step toward him, her hands caught together in front of her in a tangle of nervous fingers. “There's one thing you gotta know first,” she blurted in a small, strangled voice ringing with hope and fear. “I ain't—pure. There was a man once—”

Finally, Joe advanced, laid his hands on either side of her narrow waist, pulled her close. She felt lean and wiry against him, but curvy, too, and warm. “Hush,” he said. “That's over and done with.”

Her eyes, as dusky-soft as the center of a spring pansy, filled with tears. “This is just like one of them stories Miss Charlotte's always spoutin', about princes and pirates and ladies in distress. It can't be real.”

Joe bent his head, silently enjoining heaven to damn him for all time if he was using this woman, and touched his lips to hers. “Shhh,” he said, and kissed her.

She was an innocent, despite her assertion that she wasn't “pure.” Maybe some man had taken solace from her body, but it was as plain as sunlight through crystal that no one had ever made love to her.

Her lips faltered under Joe's, then opened, and he felt a shudder of surprise go through her when his tongue moved against hers. To his own utter and complete amazement, he felt something himself when the intimate contact was made, a sensation of some inner door being opened. Gripping her upper arms, so breathless that he could barely speak, he thrust her away from him.