Eternal Deception

by Jane Steen

  19

  Courtship

  “They’re beautiful, Reiner. Wherever did you find them? I’ve never seen such flowers growing anywhere near here.”

  Reiner’s smile lit up his pleasant face. “Dandy, aren’t they?” He touched the peach-colored roses with a fingertip. “Had them sent from Saint Louis, packed in ice.”

  “That’s outrageously extravagant. Oh, they smell wonderful.” I buried my nose in the cool, silken softness of the huge blooms. “But Reiner—“

  “But me no buts.” Reiner folded his arms across his broad chest. “Nothing is too good for the woman I—for the best girl in the world, particularly on the occasion of her twenty-first birthday. I’m just sorry they weren’t here this morning, so I had to wait a whole day to see you smile like that.”

  I began to rise. “I’d better go find a vase. They’ll make our room smell like an entire rose garden.”

  “No, you stay put.” Reiner rose to his feet in a swift, easy movement and took the box from my hands. “I’ll go to the kitchen and wheedle one of the good vases out of Netta. She has the key to the pantry, and it’s in the little room off the pantry that Mrs. Drummond keeps her good crystal. I’ll leave them by your door, and Mrs. D. won’t know a thing about it. No plain jar for my lady.”

  I opened my mouth to protest that Mrs. Drummond surely would find out, and that I’d be the one to get the blame. My words were forestalled by the entrance of Professor Wale into the library, otherwise deserted on this fine Friday evening.

  “A-wooing, Mr. Lehmann?”

  Reiner’s usually smiling mouth clamped into a tight line. “With all due respect, Professor Wale, it’s none of your business. Many things aren’t your business, and you’d do well to keep your nose out of them.”

  And to my astonishment, he stalked out, the box containing the roses clutched so tight that his knuckles showed white.

  “What—Professor, what on earth have you done to him? He looks as if he’d like to cut your throat.”

  A small smile stole across Professor Wale’s face.

  “I? I have done nothing to the boy. I merely suggested, in a letter to a Saint Louis editor, that his father might do well to let some moral considerations enter into his business dealings. I would say the same about any of the railroad magnates who’ve been so ruinously speculating with other people’s money. Although they haven’t all been as quick to try to wriggle out of their responsibilities as Gerhardt Lehmann.”

  “A son is not necessarily like his father.”

  “The lad is weak.” The professor sighed as he sat down in the nearest chair and motioned for me to sit near him. “He’s indecisive about his future, and his father’s shenanigans are not helping him. I would have almost respected him more if he had gone off to rob the investors alongside his father. At least that would have shown some ambition.”

  “I thought you didn’t approve of ambition?” I could hear the acid in my voice. Professor Wale, I had decided, was a meddler. Perhaps his motives were good, but to write to the newspapers about Reiner’s father when he must have known Reiner would find out—what was the point of it?

  “There are different degrees of ambition.” The professor rubbed a yellow-stained forefinger against the side of his nose, regarding me intently with his bright, dark eyes. “It is proper to be ambitious for a good cause, for example. It is not proper to aim at putting yourself at the top of the heap when such an ambition involves crushing everyone else on the way up.”

  Only the good manners instilled in me from childhood prevented me from rolling my eyes. By this last remark, he meant Judah. Clearly, neither of my suitors met Professor Wale’s standards.

  “You may very well stare at me in that manner, Mrs. Lillington. But believe me, I have your best interests at heart. I’m not sure, exactly, why Judah Poulton is showing interest in a seamstress—if you may forgive me for mentioning your station in life—but the fact that he is showing interest worries me. Especially considering this.”

  He withdrew a bundle of paper from the capacious pocket of his sack coat. The thin sheets crackled as he fingered them, and I could see that they were closely written over.

  “What is that?” My curiosity overcame my better nature, and I leaned forward.

  Professor Wale gave his little half smile again, leaning back into his chair and curling his hand around the papers. “It’s a letter from England, Mrs. Lillington. About Poulton. And it doesn’t make edifying reading.”

  A strange chill threaded its way through my veins. “Do you intend to show it to me?”

  “For the moment, I simply intend to warn you. I’ve seen you in his thrall, like a rabbit kitten charmed by a snake. Perhaps my assurance that there are grounds for a warning will be enough, and I won’t have to burden a woman’s mind with the revelations contained therein. Not all subjects are suitable for someone so young and tender.”

  I felt my anger spark.

  “Really, Professor? And you the great proponent of thorough inquiry and discussion? Are these discussions to exclude women?”

  He opened his eyes wide. “Women are to be protected and sheltered, naturally. I’m surprised you should even consider the alternative.” He shrugged. “Although I suppose that if I show this to Cameron Calderwood, his fair beloved must see it too. But she is a matron of mature years, and I imagine that after a decade or more of running a school of young men, these matters will not surprise her. Poulton will be out on his ear the day after I put these pages before her eyes.”

  My anger flared and crackled like a log catching aflame, and I rose to my feet.

  “I think you should live up to your own principles, Professor. You’ve said that it's important to discuss matters openly, above all things—well, shouldn’t you at least face Judah with whatever it is you have against him before you sneak behind his back to the Calderwoods?” My breath was coming fast. “So he did things in the past of which he may not be proud. Have not many of us done such things? Are they to follow us forever? Can we not begin life again?”

  The professor’s jaw went slack, the skin of his cheeks seeming to sag on his bones. He too stood up. “But—hang it all, Mrs. Lillington, you must trust me in this. There are things in this document—“

  “Why should I trust you?” I was close to tears now, my own transgression in the forefront of my mind, and my voice sounded shrill to my ears. “People change—they do—and why should other people presume they’ll repeat their former mistakes? Why is the past always to be shoved in their faces?”

  I strode toward the long French windows and stared out over the prairie. The windows faced west into one of the glorious Kansas sunsets that were this lonesome country’s most beautiful feature, but I derived no joy from it. I clenched my jaw hard, willing myself to get my emotions under control.

  “I’m sorry.” I felt the professor’s hand on my elbow, turning me to face him. “I too have acts in my past of which I’m not proud. More, perhaps, than you can possibly imagine.” He looked down at the letter. “Maybe you’re right.”

  Up close, he cut a pathetic figure, his gaudy waistcoat a strange contrast to the drabness of his skin and the dust that seemed to cling around his hair and clothing. The red-gold sky cast the oddest shadows too, making him seem corpse-like, or perhaps a waxwork figure devoid of animation.

  “Please talk with Mr. Poulton first.” I made a huge effort to sound calm and reasonable. “Or at least accuse him to his face if you must go to the Calderwoods. Let him defend himself. Or in any event—to be honest, I’m not sure what the best course of action would be. But going hugger-mugger to the Calderwoods behind Judah’s back isn’t the right thing to do.”

  “Perhaps not.” Professor Wale heaved a deep sigh, and to my surprise, held out his hand as if expecting me to shake it. I followed suit, and he grasped my fingers in a firm grip, shaking my hand as vigorously as if I’d been a man.

  “You have my word, Mrs. Lillington, that I will take no further step without con
sulting you. In fact, I will give the matter considerable thought before I act—and when I do act, I will try to do so as a rational human being and as a Christian who has known forgiveness.”

  I let out a sigh. “You’ll talk with him?”

  “Y-e-e-e-s.”

  There was doubt in the professor’s voice, and he stroked one yellowed finger over the sheets of paper he held in his hand. “But—would you understand if I prepared a little insurance for myself first?” He looked at me rather strangely. “No, I’m not sure if you would. You don’t see what I see in Judah Poulton. And yet should anything—unfortunate happen to me, I would be misjudging if I didn’t see you as the person most in need of protection. So I’ll show you what I’m going to do.”

  I must have looked completely nonplussed. The professor laughed as he crossed to the bookshelves that held the Greek and Hebrew texts, row upon row of leather-bound tomes I couldn’t read. He removed a row of books from the second shelf and placed them on a table.

  “Now watch. You must press exactly here.”

  As he pushed against the paneling at the back of the shelf, a section of the wood came loose. He showed me how, by turning it sideways, the panel could be pulled out, revealing a small recess in the corner behind and to one side of it. Then he replaced the panel.

  “Now you try.”

  It took me three attempts to make the panel move. It seemed quite solid until you pressed on exactly the right spot, and then a certain amount of dexterity was needed to extract the panel without damaging it. But in a few moments, I was triumphant.

  “I discovered this little niche years ago,” the professor said, fitting the wood back into its place. “There now.” He replaced the books, ensuring they were lined up exactly with the place where fugitive beams of sunlight had taken a little color out of the wood.

  “If I should tell Poulton about what’s in this letter, I somehow don’t wish to leave it in my room. I’ll copy the most pertinent points onto a sheet of paper as an aide-mémoire, but I will, at some point in the very near future, conceal the letter itself in this hiding-hole. You have my permission to read, at any time, what is contained therein. If I’m no longer around to claim the letter, you may do what you wish with it. Throw it in the fire unread if you truly believe Judah Poulton is what he claims to be.”

  I looked at him doubtfully. “What, exactly, do you think might happen to you?”

  He shrugged. “Poulton could cause the Calderwoods to send me away—particularly since I’ve now incurred Mr. Lehmann’s enmity, and he is a favorite of the Mouse’s.” A rueful smile played across his lips. “I’m becoming a thorn in the flesh as far as the Calderwoods are concerned. I can’t stop myself from speaking out—I can’t sacrifice principle to self-interest or even tact. Perhaps I am a little mad.” He tapped the side of his head.

  “Where would you go if they made you leave?”

  Suddenly, I hated myself for what I was doing, forcing the little man into an uneven fight. I didn’t trust the Calderwoods to be impartial, whatever the professor had to reveal about Judah.

  “Do you know, I don’t really think it matters.” A spark of amusement crept into the professor’s eyes as he straightened his gown. The black fabric of his clothing absorbed the red light of the sunset, but his face and hands were lit as if with flame, and his gaudy waistcoat sparkled like the jeweled body of an insect. “I don’t shy away from a fight because I fear the consequences, as I suspect you know. If Poulton attacks me, perhaps he’ll end up digging his own grave instead.”

  20

  Trouble

  For weeks after my talk with the professor, I felt as if I were walking on the prairie under heavy black clouds, waiting for the storm to break. And yet it didn’t, and as the heat of summer gradually gave way to the cooler air of fall, I felt myself relax again. I was too busy to be anxious, in any case. Tess and I had all the work for the seminary to do and, as Springwood grew, many new commissions from the ladies in the town.

  And I was in the peculiar position of being openly courted by two men, yet that didn’t touch off any fights either. Reiner and Judah were careful to wait until the other was not in the vicinity before suggesting a walk or a spell sitting outside or an hour spent reading a novel or journal in the library—respectable ways of getting to know each other better without offending the proprieties. Perhaps I should have felt relief that there were no stolen kisses either—well, in Reiner’s case I did. I liked Reiner a great deal, but somehow I just didn’t see—I couldn’t imagine—

  Judah was a different matter. Professor Wale had described me as a rabbit kitten in thrall to a snake—ridiculous, of course, but I had to admit Judah drew me like a magnet. Over the summer, he’d had his hair cut shorter, and with the advent of the cooler weather, he grew a small, neat beard and mustache. They gave him a mature and serious air, more in harmony with his new responsibilities as the head of the faculty. His authority within the seminary grew, and should we happen to be in Springwood together, our joint presence drew nods of approval and pleased smiles from the respectable townsfolk.

  “Although, you know, I think they’re laughing at me behind my back,” I told Tess one day as we sat sewing shirtsleeves into armholes. Sarah sat at her little table near the empty fireplace, laboriously copying letters from her alphabet primer onto her slate. She’d become obsessed with the notion of writing of late and would spend hours at a time doing “pretend writing” on her slate, row after row of squiggles and lines. I was sure I hadn’t shown such an interest in scholarship at three and a half.

  “Who are laughing, Nell? It’s mean to laugh.” Tess passed me another sleeve to baste—she couldn’t work out how to fit a sleeve properly, but once I basted it in for her, she was able to sew it in with sufficient care for a schoolboy’s shirt.

  “I don’t blame them,” I mused, matching seam to seam. “I turn up in town with Judah one day, Reiner the next. I’ve tried to make it clear I’m not stringing them along. In fact, I’ve gone out of my way to inform my clients that I have no intention of marrying, and yet they never seem to believe me.”

  “Well,” said Tess sagely, “if you really weren’t interested in ever marrying again, then you should tell both of them to go away and walk to Springwood with me. Or wait till we can get a ride on a cart.”

  Tess hated having to walk the nearly three-mile distance to Springwood, not to mention coming back again. Sarah was both too small to walk the distance without complaining and too heavy to carry, so she never accompanied me either. I did sometimes wait until one of the servants headed for the town, but they seemed a little shy of me. Yet walking by myself was even more frowned upon now that there’d been reports of both Indian hunting parties and rough men in the vicinity in recent weeks.

  “I don’t see any harm in just walking with either of them,” I said defensively. “They’re both well known to be respectable men, and nobody at the seminary seems to mind.”

  “That’s what you think,” said Tess. “Eliza’s very cross with you.”

  I counted to twenty in my head, reaching for Mama’s tiny gold scissors to snip off a length of thread before I replied. My question still came out in a clipped, strained tone of voice.

  “What, exactly, does Mrs. Drummond have against me now?” I thought we’d finished with all that nonsense. Eliza Drummond barely spoke to me, but she’d said nothing against me for months, to my knowledge.

  “She’s cross because you made Reiner and Mr. Poulton want to marry you.”

  “Made them?” I stamped one foot on the ground, my hands being busy. “Does she think I went about seducing them? No, don’t bother to answer that—I’m sure she does. And how does she even know?”

  I looked at my companion, who was sewing assiduously, her tongue thrust forward in concentration. “Tess, have you been gossiping?”

  “Of course not.” Tess raised her small nose in the air. “‘Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people.’ That’s what the Bible
says, and it means you shouldn’t gossip. If Eliza asks me a question about you, I think very hard before I answer in case it’s gossip. If you told me something in private and then I tell her about it, that would be gossip too, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes, it would.”

  “So I never do that.”

  I smiled at Tess, but my mind was busy. Eliza Drummond could probably wheedle information out of Tess by clever questioning. Even Tess’s loyalty was no match for a devious mind, and I was sure the housekeeper possessed one of those. Tess spent as much time as she could with Mrs. Drummond due to her passion for the details of housekeeping, particularly the careful compilation and adding-up of columns of figures. I had turned keeping our own daily accounts over to her—she did her sums slowly but with great care.

  “Well, someone’s been gossiping. Either that or Eliza Drummond’s been spying on me and drawing conclusions. That’s worse than gossiping.”

  “Oh, Mrs. Calderwood told her about Reiner and Mr. Poulton.”

  I jumped. “And how did she know?”

  “Momma, will you write my name on my drawing?” Sarah ran to me, holding up her slate, which was covered with what looked like a cucumber crossed with a stick insect and covered in sheep’s wool.

  Relinquishing my sewing, I moved to one of my work tables, and Sarah clambered up into the chair beside me. I felt her warm breath on my cheek and the tickle of the wiry curls that had escaped from her braids as I wrote SARAH, saying the letters as I inscribed each one.