by Kit Morgan
And they were alone. Maybe that’s what bothered her – New York was a big place with more people than he could count. How would he feel if he’d been sent away from a life of luxury and tossed into a distant farm with a stranger? Yes, tomorrow he’d definitely have to talk to John about Alice coming over – for Effie’s companionship as well as her education.
Forrest considered himself a good man – honest, forthright, trustworthy and fairly well-off by the standards of Oregon. A hundred and sixty acres was nothing to scoff at, even if he’d gotten it by way of the Homestead Act instead of cash on the barrelhead. And when it came right down to it, he just wanted someone to love.
The question remained: would he be able to love the woman he’d married that day?
Effie awoke with a start. She hadn’t realized she’d fallen asleep, and panicked at the sunlight streaming in through the bedroom window. “It’s morning?” she gasped.
She looked at the bed and noticed she was the only one in it. Where was Forrest? Had he even slept there? From the looks of it, no, he hadn’t. She fell back onto the pillows. “The nerve,” she whispered to herself. Or was it? What if he didn’t want to share a bed with her – was that such a bad thing? She’d been apprehensive after he left her laying there, wondering when he’d be back and what he’d do to her when he did.
But no, Forrest Lang had been a gentleman and let her be. Hmm.
Still, she felt put out, as if … perish the thought, as if she wanted him to like her. Ha! Since when did she need anyone to like her? Everyone had always adored her – it was just how things were. Or had been, at any rate. Yet here in the middle of nowhere, there was someone she had to convince … her husband. And, thinking of her behavior the night before, that might be pretty difficult indeed.
“Good morning in there. You up?”
She sat up. “Yes,” she said to the closed door.
“You decent?”
She looked at the rumpled clothes she’d fallen asleep in. “Apparently.”
The door opened, and Effie had to stifle a gasp. Forrest had shaved, combed his hair and put on clean clothes. “Get yourself ready. We’re going to pay our neighbors a visit.”
“Neighbors?” she said in delight. “We have neighbors?”
“Yeah, but they’re over an hour’s ride from here. I made you breakfast on account it’s still your first day, more or less. It’s on the table.” He looked her over. “You sleep in your clothes?”
Effie unconsciously smoothed her dress. “Not normally …”
“Don’t fret about it – you were beat, I know,” he said with a smile. “But you prob’ly wanna change. Not into nothing too fancy – I don’t want Alice to feel bad.”
“Alice?” She sprang off the bed. “There’s another woman close by?”
“If you call five miles close by, yeah. And they ain’t got much, so don’t rub it in their faces, you hear?”
Effie’s face fell. She’d certainly made an impression yesterday – a bad one. “I’ll see that I don’t. Give me a moment to get ready.”
“I’ll be in the barn.” He closed the door.
Effie stared at it a moment in embarrassment. Just how awful had she been last night? She been tired, her finger had hurt terribly, and she’d made no effort to hide her disappointment in her situation. But that was no excuse for unladylike behavior. She was married now and there was no turning back. Her old life was over, gone. She had no choice but to grow up and deal with it – preferably without shaming herself by making it harder for everyone around her.
She got up, went to her trunk and proceeded to find something suitable to wear. No mean feat – she’d smuggled most of her favorite dresses west, knowing that Fanny had planned to sell them if she could. But there was nothing that would pass for a work dress, and very little that even remotely said “Oregon farm wife.”
Finally she chose a pretty but simple yellow-and-white day dress, hoping this Alice didn’t think it was too much. She had to remember where she was (basically nowhere) and what she was (a hog farmer’s unprepared new bride). Sic transit gloria mundi, she thought as she put it on.
She was sure Alice knew the difference between pigs and hogs – plus a lot of other things Effie didn’t. She might have some nice clothes, but she suspected that for her current station in life, compared to Alice she would appear poor indeed.
Chapter 7
Alice Capshaw was a short, plump woman with dark hair and hazel eyes underneath a veritable thicket of eyebrows, and stared at Effie, her dress, her hair, her everything with undiluted envy. She’d served them coffee and leftover biscuits upon their arrival, and now the men were headed to the barn to discuss whatever a hog farmer and a horse rancher talked about. This left the two women alone.
Effie nibbled nervously at a biscuit, not sure where to start.
“I’m sorry we ain’t got no proper thangs to give.”
Effie blinked. “Proper? I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“Them biscuits is from two days ago. I know they’s stale, but …”
“No, they’re quite all right,” Effie assured her. They weren’t really, but she chewed and swallowed, helped by a sip of sour coffee.
“They’s all we got,” Alice continued.
Effie stared at her in shock. “What do you mean?”
“John ain’t got to town yet on account he’s waitin’ on Bathsheba. She’s one o’ the mares, ‘n she’s ‘bout to foal. Won’t leave her, the stubborn man. But horse breedin’s his business, so I figger he knows what he’s doin’.”
Effie smiled and took another bite. After the trip, the previous day’s surprises and her own self-chastisement, she’d have eaten anything Alice had put in front of her. Stale biscuits? Fine – when in Rome … “I’m sure he does.” She took another sip and glanced around the small parlor and its sparse furnishings. It was a bigger house than hers, she could say that for it, and smelled better besides – clearly the result of a woman’s touch. “What a lovely home you have. Did you decorate it yourself?”
Alice beamed. “Sure did. I pick flowers every other day in the summer and put ‘em around the house. I like flowers, don’t you?”
Effie nodded absently, thinking of the huge flower arrangements she’d been sent from suitors over the last two seasons. If only her father hadn’t lost everything …
“You should come pickin’ with me.”
Effie straightened. “What?”
“Come on – let’s see what we can find.” Alice stood. “The menfolk won’t be done for awhile yet.”
Effie brushed crumbs from her lap. “All right, then.”
Alice fetched a bonnet off a peg near the door, put it on, then wrapped a thin shawl around her shoulders. “Ain’t ya got no shawl?”
“No, but it’s okay,” Effie insisted. “It’s warmer here than back home. We had a very long winter.” She swore she was still thawing out from it.
“That’s a right purty hat,” Alice said. “I … like yer dress too. Course, I’d never be able to wear somethin’ so fine.”
Effie’s chest tightened. “Of course you could.”
Alice shook her head. “Ain’t no one ‘round here can make a dress like that. Besides, wouldn’t look as good on me as it does on you.”
“Nonsense,” Effie said. “You’d look pretty as a picture.”
Alice laughed. “A big picture.”
Effie stared at her a moment, then realized she was talking about her weight and made sure not to smile. “Doesn’t Baker City have a dressmaker?”
“Sure, but I cain’t afford one.” She waved a hand at herself. “Takes more fabric to dress someone like me.”
Effie’s eyes skimmed over her pretty yellow dress, then Alice’s drab grey wool. In her world, it was a crime for anyone to have to wear something so awful. “What’s the dressmaker’s name?”
“Don’t know. Never seen her.”
Effie took a deep breath as she smiled. “What is your husband planning to do
with his new foal? If he sells it, maybe you could use some of the money to buy a Sunday dress …”
Alice’s eyes went wide, and she laughed. “We put that money back into them horses. That’s what feeds us. A dress cain’t do that. Wouldn’t that be somethin’?”
Effie forced her next smile. “Yes, wouldn’t it?” She followed Alice outside.
Alice plucked a basket off the porch and headed for a pasture. There were more trees here and less sagebrush, and patches of spring grass grew here and there, mixed with tiny yellow flowers. “How pretty,” Effie commented. “What are they?”
“Them’s iris blossoms.” Alice picked a few and put them in her basket. Effie followed her to the next batch and the next, inquiring after each – lily blossoms, rabbit leaf, clarkia and a pretty purple flower called Lemmon’s onion, of all things. Alice certainly knew her flowers, none of which Effie had ever seen before.
Effie admired the basket, now full of blossoms. “These will look wonderful in your parlor. Do you have something to put them in?”
“Sure do. Once I set ‘em out, they’ll make the room smell real purty.”
Effie thought of Forrest’s dirty laundry and wondered if she could find some flowers around his place. One could hope.
They returned to the house, where Alice proudly showed Effie the jars she used as vases. After she put the flowers in the jars, she set one on the fireplace mantle, another on a sideboard, and a third on the kitchen table. The house had no formal dining room, just a parlor and kitchen on the first floor and two bedrooms on the second. Still, it was a mansion compared to Forrest’s home – make that her home. Amazing the difference two extra rooms could make.
“There now, don’t they look pretty?” Alice asked as she fussed with the blossoms on the mantle. She stepped back and admired her work with a sigh of satisfaction.
Effie looked at the makeshift arrangement, then the huge smile on Alice’s face. “Yes, they do.” She glanced around the parlor again and saw it was spotless. Alice took pride in her home and what little she had. Effie hadn’t given such things a second thought … but then, even when she’d had them, they hadn’t been hers. Everything had belonged to her father and stepmother. Now all she had was what she’d brought with her and what she shared with Forrest.
For the first time in her life, Effie realized what her aunt had meant. Aunt Jane had told her once that humility was an acquired taste, but that one could not live without it in some measure. Not even the elite. Alice Capshaw feasted on it every day and looked to be quite happy with her lot in life – she had almost nothing, but appeared content. How could that be?
Now Effie was the envious one.
“I’ll take three,” John told Forrest. “And Sam Jepson mentioned last time I saw him he’d like a couple of piglets too.”
Forrest rested his arms on the wooden railing of John’s corral and watched a horse trot back and forth in front of them. “He ain’t said nothing to me yet.”
“Probably because he ain’t had time to get out to yer place. Besides, he figgered ya’d want some privacy.”
“Privacy?”
“Ya are married now,” John pointed out with a grin. “She sure is a pretty thing.”
“News must travel fast. I just brought her home yesterday.”
John laughed. “To tell the truth, last time I saw Sam was this mornin’. He came by asking if I’d help him break a colt of his. He’d heard the news from Preacher Bolen’s wife. Said he ran into her in the general store yesterday.”
“I reckon all of Baker City knows now. Not that the preacher’s wife would spread the news, but if it got spoken in the general store, well …” It was a well-known fact that storekeeps kept up on all the latest gossip and make sure everyone in town knew.
John laughed again. “I’d say yer right. So how d’ya like bein’ hitched? Is it everythin’ ya thought it’d be?”
“I couldn’t say. I ain’t been married long enough to tell.”
“I love my wife, Forrest, I really do, and I wouldn’t trade her for a thousand. But ya got yerself one pretty filly.”
“Yeah, she’s a beauty. But a beautiful horse ain’t a good horse until it’s broke, and trust me, this one ain’t nowhere near.”
“Oh? Dare I ask?”
“Shoot, go ahead. I ain’t had much chance to talk with her yet, but she comes from New York City, if that tells ya anything.”
“New York?” John said in surprise. “What’s a gal from New York City doin’ way out here?”
Forrest shrugged. “That’s what I aim to find out. Doesn’t seem right. She had money, lots of it from the way she dresses and talks and all.” He kicked at the dusty ground. “Don’t make sense she’s here. Which makes me wonder if she ain’t in some kind of trouble.”
“Trouble? What kinda trouble?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“And what if ya don’t like what ya find? What if she’s running from the law, or in the family way? Jumpin’ Jehosaphat, Forrest, yer already married to her.”
Forrest’s eyes drifted to the ground. “I still got an out. Ain’t done the deed yet.”
John stared at him a moment, then slowly nodded. “And I reckon ya ain’t plannin’ to?”
“Not ‘til I find out what’s what.”
“That’s smart.” John shook his head. “Gonna be tough stayin’ away from somethin’ as sweet-looking as that one, though.”
“Yeah, I know.” He was already having a hard time. Just sitting next to her on the wagon seat while driving out to John’s had been maddening. He’d wanted to put his arm around her several times but didn’t dare. He’d been hankering for a wife for so long, but now that he had one he couldn’t let his heart do what it wanted. He had to make sure she was on the up-and-up, or regret it if she wasn’t.
Forrest and John spoke for another half-hour about livestock and crops before John came back around to talking about the love of a good woman. “Alice is the only one for me,” he beamed. “She’s seen me through thick and thin, and she’s always happy - hardly never complains. I’m takin’ her to the July Fourth picnic and dance. Gonna go to town for supplies soon and let her buy the fabric to make herself a new dress.”
“Alice is a good woman,” Forrest agreed.
“Ya plannin’ to go? Piglets ought to be here by then. And then the womenfolk can get to know each other better. Give your wife a chance.”
Forrest turned to him. “Chance? For what?”
“To make some friends. You know what life’s like out here, Forrest. Other’n me and Alice, who do ya talk to?”
Forrest laughed once. “Aphrodite.”
“Land sakes, pardner, ya can’t love on a hog. Talk to yer wife, find out what ya need to, then get on with it. Make her yer woman – or if she won’t suit, find one who will.”
Forrest shook his head. “I want her to. But what if she ain’t what she seems? Something ain’t right, I tell you.”
“Talk to her on the way home, get to know her. Heck, in time she’ll tell ya. Love has a way of revealin’ the truth.”
“Love? Who said anything about love?”
“I did, just now.” John slapped him on the back. “I know how lonely ya been these last couple years. I also know ya well enough to know yer already headin’ that way. So go ahead and tell her.”
Forrest took a deep breath and shook his head. “I cain’t.”
“Horse patties. Ya can. Ya better, ‘specially if ya think she’s done somethin’ horrible. Then you might as well find out so ya can send her on her way.”
Forrest kicked at the ground again. “Ya don’t make no sense, John.”
“All right, I’ll make it simple. Yer scared, Forrest - scared of what ya might find out, scared of what ya might say. But the truth ain’t a skunk – ya cain’t just hide from it and hope it goes away. Good or bad, ya need to find out. So hitch up yer britches and find out – sooner the better, ‘fore ya drive yerself loco with worryin’.”
Forrest nodded. It was what he needed to hear, like it or not.
“Choice is yers, Forrest. But once ya find out, if it ain’t a deal-breaker, don’t be afraid to let yerself fall in love.”
Forrest solemnly nodded. “I know. I know.” Like it or not.
Chapter 8
Effie felt strangely encouraged after leaving the Capshaws’ home, and seeing the pride Alice took in it. Effie had taken pride in her home in New York, at least as far as the teas, soirees and the occasional musicale she hosted. The house was owned by her father, and was Fanny’s to decorate and show off to her friends, but at the time it hadn’t mattered, as they’d planned to marry into families wealthier than theirs and have homes of their own to display.
She sighed heavily as the wagon rumbled along.
“What’s the matter?” Forrest asked.
“Just thinking about things,” she said softly.
“I’ve been thinking about things too.”
She wasn’t sure she wanted to know, but asked anyway. “What sorts of things?”
“All the things I’m gonna teach you,” he said with a smile.
She looked his way, and they locked gazes for a moment before she spoke. “Such as?”
“How to do the washing, for one. How to feed the hogs, hitch up the wagon.” He turned away. “Do you ride?”
“If you’re referring to a horse, yes, I do.” Finally, something she already knew!
“Good. Maybe later this week we’ll do some exploring.”
“Exploring?”
He swept a hand over the landscape. “This is beautiful country, Effie. You need to learn it to appreciate it. Besides, you don’t want to stare at the same four walls of a cabin all the time, do you?”
“I rather thought I’d be staring at the barn and the hogs as well.”
He surprised her by laughing. “Yes, you’ll get your fill of that.” He played with the lines in his hands. “Would you like to drive the wagon for a while?”