“Then that is what I will call you,” she said, “and you shall call me Aunt Roberta.”
He smiled at her and said,
“That’s a nice name.”
“I am glad you like it.”
Roberta realised, however, that he was looking longingly at what she was cooking and she took a hot scone, which the Americans called a biscuit, from the oven and gave it to him.
He looked at it incredulously before he asked,
“Is this for me?”
“Yes,” she said, “you can eat it as it is or you can put some butter or jam on it.”
He made a sound of excitement, which she thought was very pathetic. Then, without waiting for butter or jam, he began to gobble the scone, which made her realise how hungry he was.
Without deliberately watching him, she noticed that when he had eaten three-quarters of it, he slipped the rest into the pocket of his trousers.
She did not say anything but went on cooking, feeling that there was little enough in the larder for two people, let alone three.
She, however, made an appetising dish of some pieces of meat and garnished it with potatoes.
She knew that that would not be enough, but managed with a great deal of ingenuity to make a vegetable soup to start the meal.
When she set it before the Minister, he asked,
“Is this all we are having for supper?”
“No, of course not,” Roberta replied. “There is a meat dish to follow the soup.”
“Two dishes!” he said critically. “I hope you are not being extravagant!”
“There is very little in the larder,” Roberta replied, “and I am sure, Minister, a big man like you needs proper feeding.”
She thought that her flattery made the Minister preen himself before he replied,
“I certainly need feeding with the right food, but I have to be careful. I have trouble with my heart.”
By the end of supper she was quite certain that if he had a heart there was no compassion in it for anybody except himself.
She was appalled at how little of the main dish he gave to Danny. In fact it was little more than a spoonful of the meat and two spoonfuls of potatoes.
She received the same and he ate everything that was left.
Because she felt that it was very scanty fare and Danny was hungry, she had contrived to prepare some toasted cheese to finish the supper.
Again the Minister seemed surprised, but he ate it up and she thought that he looked scornful because she had given Danny the same amount as she gave him.
He did not say anything until the meal was over. Then after an elaborate Grace he said in a menacing voice,
“Now remember, Daniel, if I find you stealing or lying again, I’ll not only beat you, but I’ll take steps to send you to the orphanage where you’ll be forced to behave yourself!”
Roberta saw Danny shiver as the Minister spoke and knew that the threat of the orphanage was a bogeyman that was held over his head continually. In fact she noticed that he went paler than he was already whenever it was mentioned.
When the Minister left the kitchen for his study, she started to clear away the dishes.
She had made some more toasted cheese for herself, but had eaten only half of it. This she threw into a bin by the sink.
She had turned her back to take the cloth from the table when something made her look over her shoulder.
She saw Danny retrieve what she had left of the toasted cheese from the dustbin and, putting it into his pocket, he ran from the kitchen out across the garden at the back of the house.
She had not had time to explore before supper, but now she saw that there was a considerable area of garden behind the house and beyond was a clump of trees.
They looked very lovely against the evening sky, which was full of colour.
On an impulse she left the dishes she was washing up and walked across the garden towards the trees where she knew that Danny had gone, but when she reached them there was no sign of the small boy.
She stood listening.
Then she heard his voice, very low, talking to somebody.
Moving silently in the thin slippers she had worn for supper, Roberta walked in the direction of the sound and peeped through some bushes.
Danny was sitting on the ground and beside him was a large dog, which he was feeding with the pieces of food he had saved from supper.
She did not speak or move, but the mere fact that she was there must somehow have attracted his attention.
He looked up, saw her and gave a little scream of terror.
“Hide, Columbus, hide!” he called frantically and the dog slipped away into the bushes so quickly that it was almost as if he had never been there.
Only as Danny stood staring at Roberta with frightened eyes and she saw that he was trembling, did she move through the bushes towards him.
“Is that your dog?” she asked as she reached him. “I love dogs, so don’t send him away.”
“You love – dogs?”
He repeated the words in a voice that trembled and she told him,
“I used to have a dog of my own when I lived in the country in England and I loved him very much.”
There was silence.
Then Danny said,
“If Mr. Minister sees Columbus, he says he’ll shoot him!”
Roberta sat down on the ground at Danny’s side.
“I am sure he was only frightening you.”
“He really will!” Danny declared. “That’s why I have to hide Columbus here.”
He looked at her in sudden terror as he asked,
“You won’t tell – Mr. Minister?”
“No, of course, I will not tell him,” Roberta said. “It shall be our secret. Call your dog back and let me meet him.”
Danny hesitated a moment as if he feared that she was tricking him. Then he gave a low whistle and Columbus came creeping out from beneath the bushes.
He had a spaniel’s head, but was obviously a mongrel. His coat was very long besides being ragged and untidy from the rough way he was living and he also had a big curly tail.
He had the liquid loving eyes of an English spaniel and he nuzzled his nose against Danny in a way that told Roberta without words how much they meant to each other.
“This is Columbus,” Danny said proudly.
“Why do you call him that?”
“My Mama said Christopher Columbus discovered America, and Columbus discovered me!”
“Then I think it’s a very good name you have given him.”
“Mama let me keep him in the house and he used to sleep on my bed,” Danny said, “but Mr. Minister hates dogs and told Columbus to go away and not come back.”
Roberta pressed her lips together to stop herself from saying how cruel she thought that was.
Now, as she looked at Columbus, she could see that the dog was very thin and knew that, just as Danny was suffering from what was almost starvation, Columbus was suffering in the same way.
“I tell you what we will do, Danny,” she said, “I will make a proper meal for Columbus every day and you can bring it out here to him, but we will have to be careful that ‘Mr. Minister,’ as you call him, does not find out.”
“If he does find out,” Danny said, “he won’t allow you to feed Columbus and then he’ll die.”
Roberta realised that this was a very real fear and she said,
“I am sure he does not mean to do anything so wrong, but your father will be coming back soon.”
“He said he would come back,” Danny said in a very small voice, “but perhaps he has walked for miles and miles and forgotten about me.”
“I am sure he will not do that,” Roberta said. “In the meantime, I will see that you have more food to eat and that Columbus has a proper meal at least once a day.”
She thought as she spoke she was quite certain if this was to happen she would have to pay for it and she was glad to think that she had plenty of money left even
after her long journey.
What was more, once she was settled, she could write to her father’s Bank in England and ask them to send her more money in America.
But first she must be quite certain that she would still be there when the money arrived.
“If you come back to the house now,” she said. “I will find something for Columbus to eat and tomorrow we will give him a big meal which he will really enjoy.”
She knew as Danny put his arms around Columbus and hugged him how much this meant to him.
When she walked back hand-in-hand with the small boy, she persuaded him to talk to her about her aunt whom he called his mother and Clint Dulaine whom he called his father.
It was obvious he did not remember his real mother and father and she did not like to ask too many questions about them.
After they had taken Columbus all the scraps there were in the kitchen and there were pitifully few of them, Roberta sent Danny up to bed and took him a hot drink she had made from some chocolate she had bought at one of the stations where she had stopped during her train journey.
He drank every drop and, when he had finished, he said,
“Now the pain in my tummy’s gone.”
“Is that what you have been having every night?” Roberta asked.
“And in the day. It’s a nasty pain.”
“That is something we must stop you from having again,” Roberta sighed.
She bent down to kiss him and he put his arms around her neck.
He had grown sleepy, but he asked,
“Did Mama send you from God?”
“I think she must have done,” Roberta replied and she felt the tears prick her eyes.
*
She was to learn more about her aunt the next morning soon after the Minister had left.
Danny was waiting for her and she was just going to ask him where she could go to buy some food for luncheon when, without knocking, a woman walked in through the back door.
She was a middle-aged woman, rather gaunt-looking, and Roberta realised that she was staring at her in an extremely hostile manner.
The woman did not speak, but merely glanced around the kitchen, then stood with her hands on her hips, staring at her.
“Good morning!” Roberta said after a moment.
“It may be a good mornin’ to you,” the woman replied, “but I’ve just come to see who’s done me out of me job!”
“Done you out of your job!” Roberta exclaimed.
“You know what I’m talking about!” the woman replied aggressively. “I’ve just met the Minister in the street and he tells me he’s got a new housekeeper and don’t require my services no longer.”
The woman spoke the last words in an affected tone as if she were copying the Minister’s accent.
“I am sorry,” Roberta said. “I had no idea anybody worked here.”
“For three years,” the woman said. “Three years and never missed a day, except to have my last child. Now in you’ve come and out I go!”
“Perhaps you will tell me your name,” Roberta said. “Mine is Roberta Worth and Mrs. Dulaine was my aunt.”
“So that’s who you are! Everybody in the village was wonderin’ who you might be when you got off the train,” the woman said. “Well, all I can say is that Mrs. Dulaine would never have treated me in the way I’ve been treated now.”
“I can quite believe that!” Roberta said. “And there is a great deal I want to hear about my aunt who I did not know had died before I arrived here. So, please, will you sit down and I think there is a little coffee left, but nothing else.”
For the moment she thought that the woman was going to refuse, then, as if she was too curious to go away she pulled out a chair and sat down at the table.
Roberta fetched the coffee that was left over from breakfast and poured her out a cup, realising as she did so that there was none left for herself.
She looked at the empty coffee pot a little ruefully and the woman said,
“He wouldn’t have left that if he could have helped it. He’s that mean!”
“Are you speaking about the Minister?”
“I am! And I’m not afraid to say so. Things were very different when your aunt was alive, I can tell you that.”
“That is what I want to hear about,” Roberta said, “but first will you tell me your name?”
“Mrs. Srubotski,” the woman replied, but most people can’t pronounce it, so they calls me ‘Mrs. Ski’.”
Roberta laughed.
“It is a rather difficult name.”
“It’s Polish,” Mrs. Ski explained briefly. “My father and mother came here in the Gold Rush. But I don’t remember much about it.”
“Tell me about my aunt,” Roberta begged, feeling that if they once moved onto the subject of the Gold Rush it would be impossible to discover the information she really wanted.
Sipping the coffee as if she enjoyed it Mrs. Ski was very voluble about how everybody had loved Mr. and Mrs. Dulaine, and how, finding that there was no proper place of worship, he had built the Church.
“It was just like her,” Mrs. Ski went on, “to adopt young Daniel. Fifteen people were killed when the train came off the rails and his real father and mother were among them!”
“How old was he then?” Roberta asked.
“I thinks he was about two,” Mrs. Ski replied.
“And how old is he now?”
“Seven. The Minister’s got his birth certificate somewhere in his desk if you ask to see it.”
They talked for some time about her aunt and then Roberta said,
“Mrs. Ski, I have an idea! I agreed to be housekeeper here, not knowing that the Minister had anybody else, because, after I learnt that my aunt was dead, I could not think quickly where I could go or what I could do.”
Mrs. Ski nodded as if she understood.
“What I am going to suggest,” Roberta went on, “is that you will come and clean the house as you always have and I will pay you, but there is no need to let the Minister know about it.”
Mrs. Ski stared at her in astonishment.
“You mean you can afford to do that?”
“I can afford it for the time being,” Roberta replied, “and quite frankly, I would be very grateful for your help as I don’t like housework, although I rather enjoy cooking.”
“I don’t mind cooking when there’s somethin’ to cook!” Mrs. Ski said. “But that old meanie won’t buy enough to keep a mouse alive!”
“Danny is definitely undernourished,” Roberta said and looked out through the kitchen door to where Danny was playing in the garden.
“That’s true,” Mrs. Ski replied. “He’s real cruel to that boy! Always beatin’ and a-cursin’ him, and tellin’ him he’ll send him to an orphanage. It’s not right and, if she knew about it, your aunt would turn in her grave!”
“I am sure she would,” Roberta said quietly. “So I must stay here at any rate for a little while, for Danny’s sake and – ”
She almost added, ‘ – and his dog,’ but thought perhaps it would be a mistake to say too much to Mrs. Ski in case she talked.
In a more practical tone she asked,
“The first thing you must tell me is where I can buy some food and how much I may spend.”
“If the Minister’s payin’, so little you could put it in your eye and not notice it,” Mrs. Ski replied caustically.
“As I don’t know the shops or the way there,” Roberta said, “I should be very grateful if you would buy what we need for today and later I will try to come to some agreement with the Minister.”
Mrs. Ski looked doubtful, but Roberta had the idea that she was longing to be the first to tell them in the village that she was Mrs. Dulaine’s niece.
Roberta wrote out a list of her requirements and when she added, “meat bones and any scraps that the butcher will dispose of cheaply”, Mrs. Ski looked at her sharply and asked,
“You’re not intendin’ to feed that dog of y
oung Daniel’s?”
“You know about Columbus?”
“Of course I knows! But the Minister says he’ll shoot him if he finds him in the house!”
“Surely he does not really intend to do anything so outrageous?”
“He will and all!” Mrs. Ski replied. “He hates that boy and he loathes dogs!”
“Then we must certainly feed him without the Minister being aware of it,” Roberta said resolutely.
She went to her bedroom and, taking some money from where she had hidden it, came back and gave it to Mrs. Ski.
“You’re not spendin’ all this at once?” Mrs. Ski asked.
“What I am going to suggest,” Roberta said, “is that you buy enough for today, which is Saturday and tomorrow, as I presume on Sunday the shops will be closed. Then on Monday we can see how much is wanted for the rest of the week.”
Mrs. Ski stared at her.
“You’re trustin’ me to do that?”
Roberta smiled.
“But of course! You looked after my aunt and I hope you will look after me too.”
Mrs. Ski did not speak for a moment.
Then she said,
“That man wouldn’t trust me with a dime in case I took it off him!”
They both knew who she was speaking about and Roberta realised that the Minister had hurt the woman her aunt had trusted.
Impulsively she put her hand on Mrs. Ski’s and said,
“We both have to think of what my aunt would have wanted. Because she loved Danny, we have to make up for the love he has lost.”
Mrs. Ski looked at her and Roberta thought that there was a suspicion of tears in her eyes as she said,
“Your aunt was a lady and you’re a lady too!”
“Thank you.”
As Roberta spoke, she realised that she had never in her life received a more sincere compliment.
When Mrs. Ski had fetched the food and cleaned the house, Roberta knew she was worth every cent of the very small amount of money she asked for.
It was certainly a joy to be able to concentrate on the cooking and nothing else and it gave her a feeling of pleasure she had not known since her father died when she saw Danny finish up a large plate of meat at luncheon.
She knew that he was happy because before they ate she had prepared a huge meal for Columbus.
71 Love Comes West Page 5