Extremely dirty and a little discouraged, Ben thanked the newspaperman and strode back to the livery in time to collect one buggy and horse and have a cup of coffee before the rest of the animals came in. Feeding, watering, and rubbing them down took up the rest of the day. By dark, he had finished his work. Weary, he wanted to fix his supper and rest. At the same time, he experienced a restlessness he knew stemmed from his pursuit of information about the stolen gold.
“Perhaps this is wrong, Lord?” He shrugged on his coat.
A brisk walk in the frosty air would do him good. But he didn’t know where to go until he heard a train whistle blast its mournful tune across the countryside.
According to the clock in the Scott’s Bank window, the train was late. He hoped nothing was wrong. Lily would know if something were.
He turned his feet toward the train station. If nothing else, he could escort her home. She shouldn’t be walking through the dark anyway. Of course, she might already be home, but no one could blame a body for trying.
He met Lily halfway between the railway station and town, recognizing her quick, light steps crunching on the frozen gravel.
“Lily?”
She gasped. “Oh, Ben, it’s you.”
“Who did you expect?” He fell into step beside her.
“No one, but since you got shot. . .I admit it. I am a bit nervous on this road now whenever Theo can’t walk me home after dark.”
“Then I’m glad I’m here to walk you home.” He hesitated. “I’m always glad to walk you home if I can get away on time.”
He held his breath, waiting for her response.
“Thank you.”
Since he expected a rejection of his offer, her simple thanks felt like a blessing.
“I noticed the train was late.” He took the first item of conversation that came to him.
“Nearly half an hour. Toby was late, too. Toby is almost always late. Some ice on the track slowed the train out of Davenport. The land is low there near the river, and ice is a problem.”
“Or for the engineer to have a cup of coffee?” he joked.
She smiled. “Something like that. Speaking of ice, it’s getting cold again.” She shivered. “I think we’re going to get more snow.”
“Do you smell it?”
“No.”
“Then I say we won’t. It’s March.”
“It’s also Iowa.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “We can get snow in April.”
“Thank you for the warning. I’ll keep supplies in as much as I can.”
“We always do.”
They covered a hundred yards or so without speaking.
Then Lily took an audible breath. “I saw you met all the people at church who didn’t come on Saturday.”
“Yes, they were all generous enough to introduce themselves and apologize for not attending.”
“That was good of them, but I still wish they had been able to come.”
“It was only a handful.”
“But I like lots of people around.” Lily sighed. “Twelve does not make a respectable number for a party. And it was just too bad that Becky had a cold in her head. And the others had other commitments. Young people, I mean,” she finished in a rush.
“Lily, I enjoyed every minute.” He wanted to touch her hand, reassure her that the gathering in his honor pleased him more than mere words could express. He would try, though. “I might have had parties when I was a child, but I don’t recall. So as far as I am concerned, Saturday was the first one meant for me I’ve ever had. And that makes it perfect.”
“Thank you.” In the faint light drifting from the houses, he caught her shy smile slanted in his direction.
His heart contracted. His breath caught in his throat. Great-Aunt Deborah’s words came to him, reminding him that Lily wasn’t for him. Yet no amount of words could stop a body from caring about another.
He needed to change the subject, make it less personal before he said something that would scare her off. He needed time to convince her to stay—if she was supposed to.
If she was meant for him.
Until he knew one way or the other, he saw nothing wrong with capturing her attention.
“I thought the discussion of the gold was interesting.”
“It was.” Lily looked thoughtful for a moment as they approached Great-Aunt Deborah’s house.
“Did I say something wrong?” he asked.
“Not wrong. . .” She stepped onto the bottom tread of the porch stairs. “It’s a never-ending source of fascination to all of us here in Browning City.”
“Except for Great-Aunt Deborah.”
“Except for Mrs. Twining.” Lily clasped her gloved hands together beneath her chin and gazed at him. “You see, she doesn’t like the talk because one of the legends surrounding the gold is that the last place anyone ever saw one of the robbers or his saddlebags was in the livery.”
“And her husband, my great-uncle, owned it then.”
Six
Lily knew of only one way to divert a man’s interest from her—make matters clear to him that her interests lay elsewhere. That was exactly what she must do where Ben was concerned. She knew he liked her more than she wanted him to. So she must show him that she would have a man like Matt Campbell or nobody at all in Browning City.
Matt wouldn’t stay in Browning City any longer than she would. His work with the railroad would carry him away as soon as a promotion came his way.
Typing in a message for the Davenport station regarding Matt, Lily thought a promotion was likely to come his way sooner than later. Good for her sake if she could engage his interest in her. She had not yet managed to get herself out of this back of beyond town through promotion. All the city jobs went to operators with more seniority. She would get out through marriage or money.
Money. Strange how Ben wanted to find the gold as much as anyone else did. Lily thought he was above that sort of hankering after wealth. Perhaps he possessed more ambition than she suspected. If only those ambitions didn’t still seem to turn toward this outpost of Iowa civilization, she would find his attentions pleasing. Disturbing.
His touch on her cheek the other night had blurred her mind. Such a reaction seemed wrong to her, and she considered discussing it with Mary Reeves. Surely she should not find Ben attractive while setting her sights on another man.
And that other man was on his way home to Browning City. His train would come in too late for Lily to still be at work, but now Becky could include him in the planning committee for the Easter egg hunt. Since his parents’ house, where he stayed when in town, lay only a block from Mrs. Twining’s, he could walk her over to Becky’s house. Lily knew she could get Becky to manage that for her.
So she dressed with care the night of the committee meeting. Nothing too fancy. She didn’t have an extensive wardrobe. But she pinned a crocheted collar to her blue wool dress and another fall of lace around the knot of her hair. Pleased that she looked as good as she could, she listened for approaching footfalls and a knock on the door.
She heard whistling first. Tuneless whistling. Odd. Matt never whistled to her knowledge.
At the first crunch of a step on the front walk, Lily began to suspect the worst. When the knock sounded, she knew she was right.
With a sinking heart, she opened the door. “Good evening, Ben. You came out of your way to fetch me.”
“Only two blocks.” He removed his hat and stepped into the entryway. “Good evening, Great-Aunt Deborah. What are you reading?”
“Judges, lad.” Mrs. Twining held up her Bible, a finger marking her place between the pages. “What scripture have you read lately, Ben?”
“The Gospel of Matthew.” He looked at Lily.
She knew they wanted her to share what she, too, was reading. Except she hadn’t read her Bible recently. She had been too busy making lace and working either at the telegraph office or for Mrs. Twining. She was too tired at night and too rushed in the morning.
“I’ve been neglectful.” At least she knew enough to confess her sin to other Christians.
“You can’t know God’s will for your life without reading His Word.” Mrs. Twining appeared sad rather than reproving.
Lily nodded and turned to pluck her coat from a hook by the door. “I always intend to read it. . . . I know that’s not good enough. I’ll start tomorrow.”
“I’ll look in on you.” Ben’s smile took the sting out of his words, but Lily still felt chastised.
“We should go.” She opened the front door. “We can walk over with Matt Campbell. He should be on his way here any minute.”
“He’s already gone to Becky’s house,” Ben said. “He carried some things home from the mercantile for her.”
“I see.”
Lily did see and didn’t like the picture. Becky and Matt? No, that wouldn’t do at all.
He was probably just being kind.
While neglecting me.
Ben closed the front door behind them. “He asked me to come fetch you.”
So he hadn’t neglected her. That helped a bit.
But not enough.
“Were you all in the mercantile?” Lily set off at a brisk pace. “Or did he go to the livery to ask you?”
“We were all at the mercantile.” Ben’s voice held a note of amusement. “He did have to run back to ask me to come by for you, if that helps.”
“Helps with what?”
“Your feeling like he forgot about you in favor of Becky.”
“I—” Lily’s cheeks stung with the flush of embarrassment.
“I expect that’s interesting work as a railroad engineer.” Ben slipped his hand beneath her elbow. “Takes him all sorts of places.”
Lily tensed herself against liking Ben’s fingers cupping her arm. “It is. He’s interesting. When a body can get him to talk, he’ll tell you about all those mountains and cities and lonely plains. . . .” Her voice choked up on her. The lights from the houses blurred before her eyes. Her longing for what seemed impossible to get became a physical ache.
“It’s not all good, Lily.” Ben’s tone was gentle. “It’s lonely and cold and wearying to the soul to always be moving.”
“Matt doesn’t think so.”
“Of course he does.”
“How do you know? Do you know him as well as I do?”
“Maybe—ah, there are Eva Gilchrist and Tom Bailyn. Now that’s an interesting pair, with her daddy owning one mercantile and Tom owning the other.”
“I haven’t talked to her since she got home.” Lily wanted to run up to Eva and bombard her with questions about Philadelphia, but she held back. “She’s been visiting her mother’s folks.”
Eva and Tom waited for Lily and Ben. When a wagon rumbled past, Lily managed to fall into step beside Eva, forcing the men behind them.
“I can’t wait to see what you’re wearing. Is it very smart and new?”
“Of course.” Eva let out her low chuckle of a laugh. “And yes, I will be happy to let you copy the pattern. But it does feel good to be home. I am fatigued to death with all the social calls they arranged for me while trying to find me a husband.”
“Did they succeed?” Lily tried to think how to extract every detail of Eva’s journey from her. “Are you engaged?”
“No. None of them had any intention of coming west to take over Daddy’s business or the farm with me.”
“With—” Lily stopped so abruptly, Ben stepped on the back of her heel.
“I beg your pardon,” he apologized.
“My fault.” Lily wriggled her heel back into her shoe. “I was just so surprised I forgot to keep walking. Eva, you didn’t really want to come back here, did you?”
“I did.” Eva linked her arm with Lily’s and got the party moving again. “I love Iowa in the spring. And I missed church. My relatives hardly ever go.”
The instant they reached the bottom of the front walk to Becky’s house, four children burst from the front door and raced out to surround them with excited chatter regarding their likes and dislikes for the Easter egg hunt.
“Did you say you want a real chicken instead of an egg?” Lily scooped up the youngest child and carried her to the house. “That could be kind of hard to catch.”
“I’d do it.” Molly, a four-year-old cherub in looks and imp in behavior, hooked her arm around Lily’s neck. “ ’Cause then we would always have eggs to bake cakes.”
“Ah, is that why?” Smiling, Lily entered the warmth of the Bateses’ house.
Several minutes of confusion reigned while Mrs. Bates hustled the children off to bed, Mr. Bates collected coats and hats, and Becky asked people’s preference for coffee or tea.
Lily loved every minute of the hubbub. She wished it would continue or that she lived in a household like Becky’s—one that rarely knew peace and quiet. She knew she would be alone in the city if she didn’t have a husband with whom she could move there, but she believed she would never feel alone with hundreds of people within shouting distance.
At last, the six of them sat around the Bateses’ kitchen table, and Matt lifted a sheet of foolscap off the top of a block of writing paper. “Becky and I already made a list of things we need to accomplish.” He flashed his wide grin at her. “She was just full of ideas. Good ones.”
Becky blushed and grinned back.
Lily stared. Coffee burned in her stomach.
She must be mistaken. Surely Matt and Becky weren’t courting. Surely he would find her dull.
But how could anyone find Becky dull? She was lively and pretty and smart. Lily adored her. That Matt adored her, too, seemed inevitable.
But I wanted Ben to fall for her.
Ben scarcely noted Becky’s presence. He danced attendance on Eva and Lily, leaving Matt to fetch and carry anything Becky needed and Tom to crack jokes about having nothing to do and putting his feet up.
Lily admitted—grudgingly—that Becky and Matt looked good together. They both had fine, dark eyes and curly dark hair. They both shared brilliant, white smiles.
But they didn’t share anything else. Lily knew it. Becky wanted to stay put. Matt traveled. Becky would never like that.
Lord, can’t they see that this will be disastrous for them?
Lily was so engrossed in her concerns that she didn’t notice the conversation turning away from the Easter egg hunt party to a charitable event to start a library in Browning City—due to Eva’s sojourn to the East.
“I did enjoy going,” she said. “I enjoy coming home even more.”
“I feel the same way.” Matt nodded. “When I see the Browning City depot coming into view, I want to pile on steam and get here faster.”
“You don’t want to shoot out of here faster?” Lily asked before she could stop herself.
“Not any faster than necessary.” Matt picked up his coffee cup and held it between his hands. A dreamy expression came over his face. “I pass farm after farm with each trip, and I can’t help but wonder what it would be like to stay put year after year.”
“Tedious,” Lily murmured.
“Traveling is tedious.” Ben looked straight at her, though he addressed the group. “I did it for nearly twenty years. When I gave my heart to the Lord, the first thing He had to work on with me was not envying all those folks I passed who had real houses to live in.”
“A real house is good.” Lily agreed with him on that. “We had a snug one on our family farm. But it went the same way as the land—to the bank. So a body may as well not have one.”
“Unless you can pay for it outright,” Tom put in. “I waited to buy the mercantile from Evan Cooper until I could own it outright and have living quarters above.”
“I intend to do the same thing,” Ben said. “I may be old and gray before I can afford a farm, but I’ll own it.”
“I just worked out today that I can buy the farm I want.” Matt made the announcement in a quiet voice that rang with joy.
And he gaz
ed at Becky when he said it.
Lily stared at him. “You are giving up the railroad? Travel? All those places you talk about?”
“Yes, ma’am, I am.” Matt looked like he would burst with joy. “I turned in my notice today.”
“But just the other day. . .” Lily stopped.
She couldn’t say what the telegram about him contained, the praise for his skill and recommendation for promotion to more regular routes. But if he knew, surely he would change his mind.
“I was offered a better position.” Matt spoke as though reading her mind. “You probably knew that, Lily.”
She nodded.
“I’d have been traveling between Des Moines and Chicago and home regularly. More pay, too. But I turned it down. I’m thirty-two. It’s time I settled down.”
Lily felt as though someone had yanked a chair out from beneath her. If she were able to find work elsewhere, especially work with more pay, she wouldn’t turn it down. For months, she had pinned her hopes of getting out of Browning City on her savings growing and on Matt Campbell taking a serious interest in combining their futures at the altar. Now all she could count on were her savings, and they looked too pitiful for any kind of life in the city. Yet she counted herself fortunate that he had fallen for Becky instead of her.
“Lily?” Ben laid his hand on the back of her chair. “You look a bit peaked. Do you want to go home?”
She did feel unwell.
“Yes, please.” She gave everyone a bright smile. “Good night, everyone. May I call on you Sunday afternoon to look at your Eastern clothes, Eva?”
“Right after church. Come to dinner.” Eva kissed Lily’s cheek. “It’ll be fun because I am going to get a lace collar out of you yet.”
Lily said her good-byes to the others and allowed Ben to usher her from the house.
Better Than Gold Page 6