Snow had drifted into the covered area outside the shed, but not so much that Daphne couldn’t open the door wide and allow Edna entrance.
“Gretchen. Here, kitty, kitty.”
There was a moment of silence, followed by a distinctly unhappy meow. Edna pressed her free hand to her chest. “Something is wrong with her.” The look she turned on Daphne was accusatory, as if Daphne had done something to harm the cat.
They found Gretchen underneath the workbench, nesting in a pile of rags, along with three newborn kittens.
“Merciful heavens!” Edna’s eyes went wide with surprise. “I’ve been scolding Mr. Updike for feeding her too much.”
Daphne couldn’t help it. She laughed.
“I thought she was just getting old and fat.”
“Not too old to become a mama.” Daphne reached down and picked up one of the kittens, bringing it close to her face. “Aren’t you precious?” she whispered. The kitten was white and black, teeny ears sticking out from the sides of a head that seemed too large for its rather scrawny body. It began complaining in a high-pitched yowl, so Daphne returned it at once to its nervous mother. “I’ll get a basket for you to take them home in.”
Edna held the lantern closer to Gretchen and her babies. “However did this happen?” she muttered.
Daphne swallowed another laugh. Wouldn’t her neighbor be horrified if Daphne decided to explain how such a thing could happen. She supposed she should be ashamed for entertaining the thought, no matter how momentary.
She stepped onto a stool and pulled a wicker basket from a shelf. It was covered in a thick layer of dust, but otherwise perfect for the task at hand. “This should be large enough for the four of them.”
“I’ll have to find homes for them quickly. Mr. Updike tolerates Gretchen, but he won’t allow me to keep those kittens once they’re weaned.” She gave Daphne a hopeful smile. “Perhaps you’ll want one?”
“Oh, Mrs. Updike, I don’t know. I’ve never had a pet. I’m not sure—”
“A cat is a wonderful companion for a spin—” Edna stopped suddenly, a look of consternation widening her eyes, the unfinished word hanging awkwardly between them. After a few heartbeats, she finished, “For an unmarried woman such as yourself.”
A spinster? My, it was tempting to tell Edna Updike to take her cat and kittens and get out. Get out and never speak to her again. Instead Daphne forced a pleasant expression onto her face—not quite a smile but as close as she could manage—and said, “Let me help you get them into the basket.” She knelt on the dirt floor.
“Thank you.”
A spinster. At one time, the word had meant nothing more than that a woman was unmarried. Two centuries earlier, it had been an official legal term: Daphne McKinley of Bethlehem Springs, Spinster. No judgment. Simply fact. But somewhere along the way, it had taken on a derogatory meaning. A woman incapable of making a match. An unwanted woman. That’s how her neighbor meant it, to be sure.
“Have you ever had pork chops at the Washington?” Edna asked, her desire to change the subject apparent. “They’re quite delicious. Oh, you’ll never guess who we saw there. Mr. Crawford, the new editor of the Herald, with his fiancée. The Humphreys were introduced to the young woman and her cousin before we sat down to eat. Helen Humphrey thought Miss Donahue quite charming. Personally, I believe her parents showed an error in judgment, allowing two young women to travel this far alone. The cousin is hardly an appropriate chaperone, even if she is a widow.”
The air in the shed became thick and heavy, and the walls seemed to press in. Somehow Daphne managed to keep moving, to put the last of the kittens into the basket, the bottom of it now lined with the rags that had made up Gretchen’s birthing bed. She stood and handed the basket to Edna. “There you go.” The words came out a whisper.
“Oh, my. Please say you’ll take one of these kittens when they’re weaned. If I can’t find a home for them, I’m quite sure Mr. Updike will drown them.”
Daphne motioned toward the door. “Maybe. I’ll think about it. Maybe the black-and-white one.”
Anything to be rid of the woman before her heart finished breaking in two.
January 1, 1873
Another new year. They seem to pass more quickly all the time.
Angelica Ruth is nearly four months old. She recognizes her mother and me and smiles and coos accordingly. She also rolls from her back to her tummy and over again. Annie and I take inordinate pleasure in these accomplishments. I cannot imagine what we shall be like when she takes her first steps.
God has poured out so many blessings on me since the day I was born again. How could I not choose to serve Him in every way that I can?
When I left off writing my story, I had arrived at the summer of 1867. Just five-and-a-half years ago. About a tenth of my life. The most important tenth, to be sure. At least that is true in light of eternity. But I am getting ahead of myself.
As detailed earlier, becoming a judge didn’t change me for the better. It was business as usual. But in the fall of 1869, I hired a fellow to manage the opera house. He came highly recommended by an acquaintance of mine. His name was Samuel Kristofferson, a Southerner whose family lost everything in the War between the States. His business acumen impressed me from the start, and his long associations with people in the theatrical world were just what I needed to make my latest enterprise thrive. I wanted to bring in the very best performers. Just because Bethlehem Springs wasn’t the largest city in the Northwest didn’t mean I wanted to settle for less.
Samuel was about five or so years younger than me and single. A good looking sort, too, so I asked him one day why he’d never married. I assumed it was because he didn’t think he had enough money or perhaps because he had moved around a lot in his work or because of the hardships that followed the war. But it wasn’t any of those reasons, according to Samuel. He said he was waiting on God’s timing. I almost regretted hiring him because of it. In the days that followed, I wondered why I didn’t fire him whenever he started what I called his “God talk.”
But the truth was I was the one who started those conversations about God, not Samuel. Not that I came right out and said so in plain English. I disguised my questions and challenges in rhetoric and legal mumbo jumbo. But Samuel wasn’t fooled. He saw me as no one had seen me since my mother died. It wasn’t a comforting feeling at first. To have someone see the real me and not run the other direction wasn’t the way things usually happened. But then, Samuel wasn’t an ordinary man either. Least not as far as I could tell.
Bethlehem Springs had two protestant churches back then. As far as I knew, most of the men who went to services were the ones who had wives—and there weren’t a lot of those yet. The town was still young and rough. It wasn’t the kind of place for families. Still, there were some married men who came with wives and children in tow. Most of the family men weren’t miners. They came to open the mercantile and the bakery and other businesses that catered to the needs of the men working claims throughout the mountains.
What I noticed most about Samuel was that he didn’t just go to church on Sundays and live like everybody else the rest of the week. And he wasn’t the pious sort either. No matter who he was talking to, he always gave them the same warm handshake and level gaze. Even the scantily clad girls who worked in my saloon didn’t change him. He treated them like ladies of quality, all the time keeping his eyes on their faces, never letting himself look upon the exposed flesh above their bodices. Only man I ever knew who managed to do that. Guess that’s why the girls liked him so much.
Isaiah 42:16 says: “And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.”
I was certainly blind when it came to the things of God. My parents didn’t live long enough to show me the right path to walk on. I’m sure the good Lord tried to get my attention
through the years, but I couldn’t see it. Not when I was a boy. Not when I came west on the wagon train. Not when I was in California making my fortune.
I can look back now and say with the certainty of my faith that God sent Samuel Kristofferson to Bethlehem Springs to reach through to me when nothing and no one else could.
As it is written in John 9, “One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.” Hallelujah!
TWENTY-THREE
Joshua awoke on Monday morning with a weight on his chest. He didn’t have to analyze the feeling. He knew it was because of Mary Theresa. Try as he might, he hadn’t found the words or the opportunity to say what needed to be said before the two of them parted yesterday, and his failure to speak up had haunted him throughout the night.
He sat on the side of the bed and paused to rub the back of his neck where the muscles had become as hard as bricks.
Mary Theresa, I can’t marry you…I don’t love you…I love another woman…You need to go home to St. Louis and find someone else to marry…Someone who loves you and deserves you.
The words sounded cold and harsh in his head. Maybe he shouldn’t mention loving another woman. Maybe he should simply tell Mary Theresa they were wrong for each other. That might be a kinder and gentler rejection.
As he rose and went through his morning routine—washing, brushing his teeth, getting dressed—he thought about his and Mary Theresa’s grandfathers, about their hopes that the two families would be united in marriage. Would Joshua’s grandfather still have wished for it if he were alive today? Perhaps not. The man Joshua remembered had loved his wife intensely. Even as a boy, Joshua had understood that. Surely he wouldn’t have wanted his grandson to marry for any reason other than love. Not even to please him.
But Mary Theresa would be hurt, and Joshua had no one to blame but himself for it. He was an adult. He should have realized long before this that he’d put off marriage because he didn’t love her. Not as a man should love his wife. What did it say about him that he’d allowed her and both of their families to believe he intended to marry her all this time? At the very least it showed a lack of judgment—and, even worse, it revealed a serious flaw in his character.
He checked his watch. Mary Theresa and Blanche should be eating breakfast in the hotel dining room right about now. Mary Theresa had invited him to join them, but he’d made no promise to do so. Better to wait until they could meet privately. Besides, he had little appetite this morning.
He slipped on his suit coat and went downstairs to the newspaper office. The first to arrive, he set about turning on the electrical lights before stoking the fire in the woodstove. Next he prepared the coffeepot and put it on the stove. By the time the water began to boil, Christina Patterson had come in the back door.
“Good morning, Joshua,” she greeted him. “I hear congratulations are in order.”
He winced as he swiveled his chair to face her. He shouldn’t be surprised that his employer had heard the news already, yet he was.
“Why didn’t you tell us you were getting married next spring?” She hung her coat on the rack, followed by her hat.
Because I didn’t know myself. He wondered who else had heard the news. Daphne? Yes, very likely she had. His stomach plummeted.
“Helen Humphrey says your young lady is very pretty.”
“Yes, she is.” He swallowed the urge to say that Mary Theresa wasn’t his young lady. He hadn’t the right to deny the engagement until he’d spoken to her. Like it or not, by his silence yesterday he had turned the engagement from supposition into fact.
Christina came to stand near the stove. “Tell me about her. How did the two of you meet?”
“Our grandfathers were the best of friends. I’ve known Mary Theresa since she was born.”
“Childhood sweethearts. How romantic.”
Joshua felt like a fraud. A cad. A teller of lies.
“Nathan and I met when we were children too.” Christina lowered her gaze to the door of the stove where firelight danced behind the glass. “I believe being friends first gave us a strong foundation for our marriage. We almost never quarreled. Not in all the years we were married.”
“How long was that?” he asked, glad to turn the conversation away from himself
“It would have been eighteen years in February.”
“You must have been very young when you married.”
“I turned eighteen on our wedding day. Nathan was twenty.” She glanced toward him, and he could see tears glittering in her eyes. “I regret every day that we weren’t together when we could have been. But then I never expected he would die so young.” She forced a quavery smile. “Don’t waste a moment with your young woman, Joshua. Love is too important, and none of us know how much time we have on this earth.”
Christina meant Mary Theresa, but it was Daphne who came to his mind as she spoke. No, he didn’t want to waste time. He wanted to be with her. Somehow, some way, he had to straighten out this mess.
The promise of dawn had begun to lighten Daphne’s bedroom by the time she opened her eyes after a long night filled with feelings of anger, betrayal, and heartbreak. She’d told herself a thousand times that she needn’t feel any of those things. Yes, he’d kissed her. But he shouldn’t have kissed her, and he’d apologized for doing so. She’d wondered why at the time. She didn’t have to wonder any longer. She knew.
Joshua was engaged.
Pain cut into her chest again.
It was foolish to think she’d loved him, even for a day. She hardly knew him. How could she love him?
She wiped tears from her eyes with the backs of her hands.
She didn’t love him, hadn’t loved him, wouldn’t love him. Whatever she’d felt for Joshua Crawford—which was friendship at most and perhaps some gratitude for the care he’d shown her when she was ill—was over now. Gone. Finished. Done with.
She drew in a long breath and let it out. It was time she pushed all thoughts of Joshua out of her mind. She would honor her commitment to writing her column, a job given to her by Christina Patterson, but that would be the only reason she would need to see or talk to him.
She reached for her dressing gown as she sat up and lowered her legs over the side of the bed. “I’ll work on my book today,” she whispered. Perhaps she would kill Rawhide Rick after all. Or better yet, she could torture one of his relatives. A younger relative with pale blue eyes.
When she walked into the kitchen a short while later, she heard the wind whistling under the eaves of the house. Would they see more snow today? It seemed as if they’d already had more than usual for this early in the season. Christmas was still more than three weeks away.
Listening to the wail of the wind caused a sadness to well up in her chest. Lonely. She was lonely. Not a familiar feeling. Daphne appreciated her solitude. She’d spent a great deal of time alone without feeling lonely. But something told her that this morning she could be in a huge crowd and she would still feel lonely.
Because of Joshua.
More tears threatened, but she fought them back. She refused to give into a crying jag. She refused to feel sorry for herself. Good heavens! She had an abundance of things to be thankful for. And besides, she had survived quite nicely without a man in her life for twenty-seven years. She would continue to do so hereafter.
She swept aside the curtains at the window over the sink. It was light enough to show that it wasn’t snowing. At least not yet. Unless her eyes deceived her, the sky was a ceiling of dark clouds from horizon to horizon. She let the curtains fall closed.
A snowy day was the perfect inducement to stay indoors and write.
Joshua called Mary Theresa at the Washington Hotel a little before eleven that morning, but Blanche answered instead.
“She’s on her way to the newspaper right now. She wanted to see where you live and work. I told her it was too cold to go out, but she wouldn’t listen to me.”
Joshua thanked Blanche and said good-bye before hangin
g up the telephone. Perhaps he should take Mary Theresa upstairs to his apartment as soon as she arrived. That would give them the necessary privacy for the discussion that needed to take place, the sooner the better.
He heard the door open and turned, expecting to see Mary Theresa.
He saw Daphne instead.
She looked stunning in an orchid-colored coat with a silver fur collar. Her dark hair was hidden beneath a matching fur hat. When their gazes met, she stopped and stared back at him. Whatever she was thinking, it wasn’t good.
“Is Mrs. Patterson here?” she asked at last.
“Not at the moment.” He walked toward the front counter. “She should return soon. Would you like to wait?”
Her face was like stone. Her expression didn’t change an iota. “No, I’ll come back later.” She turned.
“Daphne, wait.”
She flinched as if he’d struck her.
“There’s something I need to—”
The front door opened again. Joshua hoped it was Christina returning. It wasn’t.
Mary Theresa entered the office. When Daphne glanced her way, Mary Theresa smiled and said, “Hello.” Then she looked at him. “Good morning, Joshua.” Her smile broadened even more as she walked to the counter.
His gaze flicked from Mary Theresa to Daphne and back again. Part of him wished that Daphne would leave before he had to make the introductions. Part of him was glad when she didn’t.
“Is it all right that I dropped in like this?” Mary Theresa set her purse on the counter. “I hoped we could have lunch together. I declare, there is little else to do in this town but eat. What beastly weather. I know you said in your very first letter that you missed the bustle of St. Louis, but I had no idea it would be so quiet here. However have you stood it?”
Again his gaze slipped to Daphne, lingering a moment longer this time.
Mary Theresa must have noticed the direction of his eyes for she turned around to face Daphne. “Joshua, aren’t you going to introduce me?”
The Sisters of Bethlehem Springs Collection Page 61