by Jane Steen
“Good-bye, Martin.” I didn’t dare say any more. I leaned over the table and kissed his cheek, newly shaven and smelling of soap. Picking up the mugs, I moved around the table, heading for the scullery.
Martin stood up, clearly resolving to leave—but as I passed him, he reached out a long arm and pulled me in close.
He kissed me thoroughly and at length, and despite my reservations about being kissed in a kitchen where the pastor might walk in at any moment—and a slight awkwardness occasioned by the mugs in my hand—I reveled in the feel of him. We seemed to fit together as if we were two halves of a whole person. His mouth moving on mine awoke my entire body, making it crackle with a delicious, yearning energy.
“Chicago,” he said a little hoarsely, releasing me and reaching for the hat that lay on the table. “Promise me, Nell.”
“Chicago,” I said. “Be—be careful, Martin.”
I wouldn’t tell him I loved him. He knew it anyway, and to voice the words would make our parting worse—or impossible.
I waited several minutes before making my way to the front of the house, doing my best to compose my face into its everyday shape.
“Secrets and lies,” I told my reflection in the tiny mirror that hung near the kitchen door. “They don’t suit you, do they, Nell?”
The face that looked back at me had dark smudges under the eyes, the result of a night spent thinking about the moment now before me—yet another separation from Martin—and about the coffin that would be one of his traveling companions. The straight auburn brows looked a little more disordered than usual. The white skin of my face still bore traces of the cold wind that had scoured it for hours on end, and my bruises were fading to a dull purple ringed in green. My eyes—were they really windows to the soul? Could the fear and longing and the tiny core of hope and joy that Martin’s love kept awakening be read there?
“No, they don’t suit me. But they’re what I’ve got.” I turned resolutely on my heel and held my head high as my boots clacked along the bare wood of the hallway.
And there was Martin seated already on the bench, examining the reins and waiting for the pastor, who was kissing his wife good-bye.
Catherine joined me on the porch as the pastor hauled himself up into the cart, seating himself next to Martin and greeting me with a cheerful wave. “A fine day for traveling! We’ll have sun later.”
I looked at the mist and up at the struggling, pale sun and tried not to shrug. “Your husband is an optimist,” I said to Catherine.
“Always.” There was a note of amusement in her voice that was not quite wholehearted. “He loves the beginning of a journey.”
Martin clicked to the mules, and the cart wheeled slowly around, its wheels churning the mud. From our vantage point, I could see the coffin.
“Good-bye, Martin. Good-bye, Judah.”
And when Catherine noticed the tears on my face, I was at a loss to explain exactly why I was crying.
Part V
1876
49
Change
February 28, 1876
Dear Martin,
You asked me to let you know as soon as we’d fixed our date of departure, and I finally have a date—March the twentieth. As I received no answer to the last letter I sent you, I presume you’re traveling as you said you might once the coldest weather had passed.
I won’t hold it against you if you’re not in Chicago when we arrive given the uncertainties of travel at this time of year. Our wait for winter to end has been made all the worse by having little to do except fret. Jane Holdcroft is firmly in charge as seamstress now, and I don’t suppose you’ll be surprised to hear I miss my former role.
With the Calderwoods gone—no Judah—Eliza Drummond dead—and the seminary returned to its former modest sobriety under Dr. Spedding, I finally have the peaceful existence I craved when I first arrived here with a baby in my arms. I don’t want it.
I want Chicago and a new challenge and—well, other things I can’t have. I know what the pitfalls are of moving to a new place and am determined to do better this time, even if that means I have to be more deceitful than is natural to me. For Sarah’s sake, I’ll do it.
Only three weeks until I stand on the doorstep of the Eternal Life Seminary for the last time, Martin. It can’t come soon enough.
Yours,
Nell
The breath of the prairie enveloped me as I pushed open the heavy doors and stepped out under the recessed arch that sheltered them. After a week of mixed rain and sunshine, the breeze carried a sharp edge of cold, a memory of winter’s frost to remind us that the season was yet early.
The horizon I could see from the seminary’s front door was gray, tinged with the faintest pink. As I watched, a spark of golden light appeared at the point where sky and soil came together, highlighting a few shreds of cloud that drifted, wraithlike, across the dawn sky.
The golden fire grew, bringing the yellow stone of the seminary’s facade to life. The light, I knew, would reflect off its rows of windows and make tiny specks embedded in the stone scintillate with minute rainbow-hued sparks.
I faced east, and the frontier was behind me. I was retreating back whence I had come, sobered by the experiences of the last four years, but a little—perhaps a lot—more prepared for what the great world had in store for me. I had the means to survive on my own now—if I could not have Martin.
Wanting Martin was the greatest change of all and held untold implications for me, my child, and my dearest friend.
A light step sounded behind me, and a small hand curled itself into mine.
“Momma, the cart is all loaded up in the yard. We can go now, can’t we?”
I picked Sarah up, marveling at the weight of her in my arms. She was still slim and dainty, not particularly tall for her age, but there was a strength of muscle and bone in her that spoke of health and vitality. I remembered the plump baby I had brought to the seminary and hugged her tighter for just one moment.
“Are you sorry to be leaving Kansas?” I asked.
Sarah squinted against the growing light, looking out over the plains. The sunlight turned her irises into deep wells of jade green, in which swam small flecks of black, like fish frozen forever in a tiny pond.
“Not really,” she said. “It’s so big and pretty, but there isn’t much to do, is there, Momma? We can have a lot more adventures in Chicago. And as long as you and Tess are there, I’ll always have home with me, so it doesn’t matter where we go.”
I kissed her soft cheek. “How did you get so wise?”
“Well I am five now, Momma. And Tess says reading books makes you smarter, and you know I like to read.”
“Tess is right.” I couldn’t help grinning as I smoothed back her copper curls, crisp and springy under my fingers.
“Are we going to go now, or do you want to stare at the prairie some more? I can tell Tess to wait a bit longer.”
“You don’t have to.” I kissed Sarah again, put her down, and took her hand. “I’m ready.”
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<<<<>>>>
Nell’s story continues with
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The Shadow Palace
There was no prospect of reconciling my conflicting desires, which all seemed to center on Chicago.
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Available as an ebook, in paperback, and as an audiobook at all major outlets
The Scott-De Quincy Mysteries
A Victorian mystery series from Jane Steen
begins with
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Lady Helena Investigates
Sussex, 1881. A reluctant lady sleuth finds she’s investigating her own family.
“I recommend Lady Helena Investigates highly for anyone who loves historical mysteries, Victorian manor house settings, and a smart, well written period piece novel.”—View from the Birdhouse book blog
From the author
Dear Reader,
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I hope you enjoyed read
ing Eternal Deception as much as I enjoyed writing it. I’m an indie author paying bills by doing what I love the most—creating entertainment for other people. So my most important assets are YOU, the readers, without whom I’d just be talking to myself. Again.
My promise to you is that I’ll do my best. I’ll research to make the historical background to my stories as accurate as I can. I’ll edit and polish until the book’s up to my (high) standards. I’ll give you a great-looking cover to look at, and I’ll make sure my books are available in as many formats and in as many places as possible. I’ll keep my prices as low as is compatible with keeping my publishing business going.
What can you do for me? If you’ve loved this book, there are several ways you can help me out.
Let me know what you think. If you go to www.janesteen.com, you’ll see a little envelope icon near the bottom of the page. That’s how you contact me by email. I’d love to hear what you thought of the book. Or find me on Facebook, Twitter, or Goodreads.
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And thanks again for reading.
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Jane xx
Author’s note
My inspiration for the setting of Eternal Deception was an old photograph of the Virginia Theological Seminary, a wedding cake of a building surrounded by small trees—it is reproduced on the cover, in much better shape than the original photograph thanks to my designer. I had sent Nell off to Kansas, not Virginia—yet this is not a novel about Kansas in any way, shape or form, and is certainly not a novel about Virginia. The point was to give Nell the isolation she thinks she needs in order to bring up Sarah far from gossip, and for her to discover that her Garden of Eden has a few snakes in it. The seminary setting was ready to hand because as the frontier pushed out into the vast central plains of the United States, so did the religious communities. People whose primary resource was determination erected huge buildings in the middle of nowhere on the assumption that a town would eventually grow up around them, and many of those buildings still exist at the heart of colleges dotted around the United States.
I wanted to remind the reader that the westward expansion wasn’t just about the homesteaders, cowboys and indians, and saloons filled with gun-toting prospectors that we see in film and TV. During the latter part of the 1800s America was under the influence of a strong temperance movement that sought to restrict the use of alcohol (and eventually succeeded.) The Third Great Awakening swept parts of the country with evangelical fervor, and the sabbatarian movements fought to enforce a regimented Sunday rest. At the same time the churches were being challenged by scientific discovery and secularism, not to mention a large number of new religious movements and experiments in communal living. And the frontier received news (and goods) faster than you’d think, thanks to the burgeoning railroads, enterprising merchants like Montgomery Ward and Marshall Field who sent their salesmen out into the wilderness, and communications companies such as the Western Union telegraph and the Wells Fargo mail and banking services.
The Eternal Life Seminary and its satellite town of Springwood exist only in my imagination, and the denomination that supports it is left deliberately vague. I feel I should make it clear that I had no intention of criticizing any particular denomination or even Protestant Christianity in general—I was simply interested in the idea that an isolated location could easily come under the control of people whose underlying motives had nothing to do with religion. The narrow-minded, venal, grasping Calderwoods were great fun to imagine, and were based on no historical model. Judah has an entire backstory that never made it into the final version of the novel, and if you’re frustrated that the contents of the letter were never explained, rest assured that the writer of that letter didn’t know the half of it, and accept my apologies for the decision not to slow the story down by explaining Judah. I do love my villains, and am hoping to write a Judah story one of these days. The fact that he bears a slight resemblance to Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes is a gift to my critique partner, Katharine Grubb. And while I’m on the subject of actors, I would like to apologize to Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal for Chapter Nine.
The dresses that Nell makes in the course of the four years covered by the novel are all inspired by real historical gowns, and I’m grateful to all of the museums, research institutes and nineteenth-century enthusiasts who make original photos and costumes available on the internet. Go to my Pinterest board at https://www.pinterest.com/janesteen/eternal-deception/ to see the originals. This is probably going to be the most dress-filled Nell novel because it’s where she really develops her skills, so thanks for indulging me.
Acknowledgments
This novel has been so long in the making that I’ll almost certainly forget someone who has been instrumental in helping it see the light of day. Particularly since the writing of Eternal Deception took place during a stage of my life where we (the adult generation) were adjusting to our children’s transition into adulthood and seeing our elders move into a quieter, less active stage of life. But I’ll never forget receiving the first draft back from my critique partner Katharine Grubb, covered in orange pen—a sight that led to the extremely fruitful decision to rewrite the whole thing from the beginning and keep rewriting until I got the story right. I’m grateful for her honest and rigorous assessments of my work and her creative insights about my characters.
Several other writers (and one reader!) had the patience to read through one or more versions of the manuscript and give their opinions about what was and was not working. Thanks in particular to Maureen Lang and Judy Knox for their detailed, knowledgeable assessment of the last version but one, and thanks in general to Sherri Gallagher, Myra Wells, Tonja Brice, Megan Krizman, Tracey Stewart and Mary Walter for being wonderful readers and critiquers who are all responsible for some vital change or the other.
Few writers are talented enough to produce a book as well as write it, so my thanks go out to my editor, Jenny Quinlan, for patiently correcting my wayward punctuation and pointing out quite a few instances where I used a too-modern term even though I thought I’d eliminated all of them. Thanks to my designer, Derek Moore, and my cover photographer, Steve Ledell, for transforming my half-baked ideas into beauty. And many thanks to Guido Henkel for writing the book that let me take charge of my ebook formatting at last—he could so easily have kept all that knowledge to himself and made us pay him.
And, of course, thanks to my family for putting up with being neglected while I tended to my fictional loved ones. Love and eternal thanks in particular to Bob, for supporting my writing, never putting any stumbling blocks in the way of my various ambitions, and generally being a wonderful husband.
About the Author
The most important fact you need to know about me is that I was (according to my mother, at least) named after Jane Eyre, which to this day remains one of my favorite books. I was clearly doomed to love all things Victorian, and ended up studying both English and French nineteenth-century writers in depth.
This was a pretty good grounding for launching myself into writing novels set in the nineteenth century. I was living in the Chicago suburbs when I began writing the House of Closed Doors series, inspired by a photograph of the long-vanished County Poor Farm in my area.
Now back in my native England, I have the good fortune to live in an idyllic ancient town close to the sea. This location has sparked a new series about an aristocratic family with more secrets than most: The Scott-De Quincy Mysteries.
&
nbsp; I write for readers who want a series you can’t put down. I love to blend saga, mystery, adventure, and a touch of romance, set against the background of the real-life issues facing women in the late nineteenth century.
I am a member of the Alliance of Independent Authors, the Historical Novel Society, Novelists, Inc., and the Society of Authors.
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To find out more about my books, join my insider list at www.janesteen.com/insider
Published by Aspidistra Press
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Copyright © 2015 by Jane Steen
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Dedicated to Bob, Laura, and Ally,