Even though, she had to admit, his last visit had been truly remarkable.
He wouldn’t be coming here again. She needed to work harder to banish the images that had ambushed her off and on during her two days at the cabin. Ronan lounging on the settee, sipping coffee; walking her to the pasture; crooning to her horses as he fed them apples; listening with interest and concern to her dreams of running the ranch.
Why must it be that the first person she’d met since Aidan’s death with whom she felt a sense of connection, who seemed to share her love of the land and the ranch, had to be a man with whom she could no longer associate? A man who fired her blood as no one had since Aidan.
A chill that had nothing to do with the rain dripping off her wide-brimmed hat and heavy cloak went through her as she recalled Lydia McCleary’s warning.
At least she wouldn’t have to rely on her undependable strength of will to avoid him, she thought as she directed the mare down the final slope and onto the main street through town. The ever-vigilant Mrs. Lowery had told her before she headed out to the ranch yesterday that Ronan Kelly had left Whiskey River. As usual, no one knew for sure when he’d return.
She should be happy he was gone, but his absence only made the day seem duller. The fact that her woman’s time had arrived doubtless contributed to her feeling so out of sorts, even though she was relieved to know for sure that there would be no horrific consequences from their secret interlude.
Still, for the first time in more than a year, she’d felt fully alive, aroused and satisfied by a virile and captivating man. Her monthly complaint’s arrival seemed to underline that the brief interval of pleasure was truly over.
Who knew when she might experience such joy again—if ever?
A few minutes later, she arrived back at the boarding house, handing the reins over to Mrs. Lowery’s son, who came running out to earn his penny by leading the horse back to the livery stable.
Shaking the rain off her cape and shawl, Marguerite went in. Before she could remove her outer garments, however, Mrs. Lowery bustled up to her.
“Before you take off your duds, you might want to read this.” She handed Marguerite a folded note. “Mr. Anderson called after church, and seemed awful concerned that you weren’t here. Said it was real important that he talk with you before school tomorrow. He probably wrote it in the note, but he told me to tell you that he’d appreciate it if you’d stop by his house today.”
A chill of foreboding stirred. John Anderson, the town druggist, was also the chairman of the school board. Quickly she opened the note and scanned its contents, which repeated what the landlady had just told her. “Did he give you any hint as to why he needed to see me?”
Mrs. Lowery shook her head. “Only repeated a couple times that he really wanted to talk with you today. Why don’t you go on over there now? Once you come back out of the wet for good, you can change into a dry gown and I’ll make some fresh coffee to warm you up. There’s stew and some biscuits left for your supper.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Lowery. That would be wonderful. I’ll go there now.”
Trying not to let anxiety send her stomach into cartwheels, Marguerite went back out into the drizzle and quickly walked the several blocks to the Anderson home. Taking a deep breath, she walked onto the porch and knocked at the front door.
A few moments later, the door was opened by the druggist’s wife. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Anderson. Your husband requested that I call on him about some matter of school business. Would it be convenient for him to see me now?”
The woman nodded—and was it her imagination that Mrs. Anderson seemed unusually distant? “You’d best come into the parlor. I’ll tell him you’re here.”
Her disquiet deepened when the druggist’s wife neither offered her refreshments nor made any attempt at polite conversation, turning on her heel instead and leaving Marguerite alone in the room. For the next several minutes, she was left to pace, trying to quell a rising sense of panic.
Fortunately, Mr. Anderson didn’t leave her in suspense for long. But when he did enter, he, too, seemed grim and forbidding, not offering his usual smile or hearty handshake. “Won’t you be seated, Mrs. McMasters?”
Marguerite sat. “What did you need to see me about that was so important you felt it necessary to interrupt your Sunday rest?”
“And yours,” he said with a fleeting smile. Shaking his head with a sigh, he said, “It’s a bad business, so best to get it over quickly. I’m very sorry, and I do thank you for all that you’ve done for our students, but the school board wished me to tell you that...that we no longer require your services.”
Marguerite stared at him, the words not making sense. “No longer require my services?” she echoed. “You mean...I’ve been fired?”
He cringed a little at the harshness of her tone. “We, ah, felt it was appropriate to terminate your employment, yes.”
Though she was sure she knew only too well the answer, she felt compelled to ask, “May I know the reason I’m being let go with no warning?”
“There were some...troubling issues raised by another school board member about certain...moral aspects of your conduct. Seeing that you have charge of impressionable young children, it was felt advisable that they be removed from your influence.”
“Just what ‘moral issues’ were raised, and by whom?”
“Please, Mrs. McMasters. It could only be painful for us both to discuss this any further. I am very sorry, but the decision of the school board is final.”
“Without my being able to say anything in my defense? Without even being made fully aware of the charges against me and the identity of my accuser? Do I not have the right to be heard?”
Anderson looked even more distressed. “Policy does allow a terminated employee to have a hearing before the full board. But I would not advise it. The chances of the decision being reversed are very remote, and I would think for a lady of tender sensibilities to have to stand accused in a public meeting would be distressing in the extreme.”
As furious now as she was alarmed, Marguerite snapped, “It is a great deal more distressing to have my sole support removed without even receiving a full explanation. This teaching job is my livelihood, Mr. Anderson! If I lose this job—well, I’m not sure what will become of me. Regardless of the sensibilities involved, I would like to have the hearing to which you tell me I’m entitled.”
“You are sure I cannot dissuade you?”
“I am.”
He went silent a moment, absently removing his glasses and polishing them with his handkerchief. “Very well. If you insist, Mrs. McMasters, I’ll arrange for the board to convene within a week. You may hear the full report, and make what answer you deem appropriate, at that time. Although, I do ask you one last time to reconsider. The...accusing member is highly placed, and it is very unlikely that the board’s decision would be reversed. I would save you the...public humiliation.”
If she weren’t so flabbergasted, furious and desperate, she might have appreciated the man’s attempt to spare her feelings. “It can’t be more humiliating than starving.”
“Oh, surely it won’t come to that! I’m sure the board will approve a severance amount that will allow you to return to your family. In San Antonio, are they not?”
Return to San Antonio—to beg her father’s forgiveness—by no means a sure thing. And if forgiveness were granted, to live as a discarded widow, shut behind the doors of the family compound, eking out her days tending various ill or elderly relations? Never again to live in the wild beauty of the countryside overlooking river and meadow? Never to realize her dream of breeding Desiree and Yolanda into a superior line of quarter horses?
She’d just as soon starve.
“You will let me know when the board meeting is to convene?”
Sighing again, Anderson put the handkerchief away and replaced his glasses. “If you insist, Mrs. McMasters.”
“I do. If that’s decided, I will not take up any mor
e of your time.” Rising, she said, “Good day, Mr. Anderson. I can show myself out.”
“Good day, Mrs. McMasters,” he said, rising as well. “Once again—I am sorry.”
But not sorry enough to face down Lydia McCleary, Marguerite thought furiously as she stormed out of the house.
Why it had taken nearly a week to gather together a group of ten, eight of whom lived within a few blocks of each other, Marguerite had no idea. But it was, in fact, the following Monday by the time a note arrived from Mr. Anderson informing her the school board meeting would take place that evening at the schoolhouse.
Barred from the classroom, and not wishing to go out to the ranch in case the meeting was called, Marguerite had spent the week at the boarding house, going over her finances with extra care and trying to envision any possibility for earning a living without a teaching job. Her tiny nest egg would see her through for a month or two, but the inevitable conclusion was she’d not be able to hold on to the ranch indefinitely without some sort of cash income.
She’d already begun armoring herself for the next step, if it came to that.
Which it probably would. The hearing was only a formality. She didn’t have much hope that the citizens in town, doubtless all of them holding loans of some sort from the McCleary bank, would band together against Lydia McCleary. But she intended to force the woman to detail exactly what charges she’d made against her—the most damning of which was probably seeing Ronan Kelly kissing Marguerite in front of Mrs. Lowery’s boarding house. There was always a chance that, after hearing the preposterously thin evidence, the board might be shamed into reversing her termination.
It was a gamble. But her only morally questionable behavior had been the tryst with Ronan at the ranch. She couldn’t imagine how Lydia could have learned of that unless Kelly told her, which was very unlikely.
Even if the board didn’t relent, she meant to show Lydia McCleary that a DeRivieras did not slink away quietly. If she were defeated, she’d go down fighting.
Having brushed her black bombazine dress and carefully pinned up her braided hair, Marguerite set out for the schoolhouse. Pausing before the entrance, she took a deep breath.
She wouldn’t walk in with downcast eyes, her brow creased in distress, like a pitiful victim or a guilt-ridden transgressor. Instead, she entered with her head held high, a serene expression on her face as she nodded to the assembled board members.
Lydia McCleary was the last to arrive, dressed in a fashionable gown that must have come straight from Paris and looked far too ornate for a room full of school benches and stacks of primers. Trying to remind the other board members of her wealth and status? Marguerite wondered.
After calling the meeting to order, Mr. Anderson said, “As you know, Mrs. McMasters requested that her termination be reviewed in open committee, so she might have a chance to hear the charges against her and be able to speak on her own behalf. Mrs. McCleary, if you would relate the circumstances you previously described to the board?”
Lydia took her time walking to the front of the room, as if she relished being the focus of all eyes. Marguerite wondered briefly if the beauty’s need for attention wasn’t partly responsible for this vendetta against her.
“Gentlemen and ladies, it pains me to have to repeat the specifics of this sad affair. As you know, we require the highest standards of behavior in those we employ to instruct our impressionable children. Indeed, my own Charles has often come home all agog, telling me ‘Teacher told us this’ or ‘Teacher showed us that.’”
After that inadvertent testimony to Marguerite’s popularity with her students, Lydia continued, “After some observation, I was forced to conclude that Mrs. McMasters does not possess the necessary moral uprightness.”
“What specifically did you observe?” Mr. Anderson asked.
“As you all know, I was opposed to hiring Mrs. McMasters from the beginning. A person who comes from people of a different language and tradition isn’t a proper instructress for Texian children. If she wants to teach, she should do so among her own kind. To be charitable, I attribute her unfortunate lapses to an imperfect understanding of our moral expectations, rather than a deficiency of character. But although I warned her several times that her behavior skirted the unacceptable, she either did not understand, or chose not to listen. One lapse might have been forgiven. Repeated infractions make a pattern, and show a wanton disregard of our standards. In any event—”
“The specific instances you observed, Mrs. McCleary?” Anderson interrupted. Clearly, the banker’s wife wasn’t interested in coming to the point quickly—or having to yield the floor, Marguerite thought, tensing herself to finally hear the actual accusations.
Still the woman dawdled, clearing her throat and fussing with her skirts. If the circumstances weren’t so dire, Marguerite would have been tempted to laugh. Mrs. McCleary, with her dramatic pauses and highfaluting language, would have been more at home in the theatre, treading the boards.
Or perhaps that was how she saw her life. She, the grandest player upon the stage, and woe to any who did not accord her the starring role.
“I first observed Mrs. McMasters flirting with Ronan Kelly at the mercantile several weeks ago.”
“Flirting?” Anderson said.
“Yes. Talking to him in an enticing manner, giving him things so she might have an excuse to touch him, glancing up at him and inviting his admiration.”
“I’m sure everyone in this room knows how charming and attentive Mr. Kelly is to his customers. I don’t see that a bit of casual chat is much of a lapse in behavior,” Anderson said.
Lydia looked as astounded as Marguerite felt. Did the board chairman have an attack of conscience and decide he couldn’t go along with her being railroaded out of a job because Lydia McCleary wanted it?
Frowning at him, the banker’s wife snapped, “There’s more. The other evening, as I was walking home, I observed Mrs. McMasters kissing Mr. Kelly in front of Mrs. Lowery’s boarding house! I could only be glad there were no impressionable children around to see it! I warned her then that such behavior wasn’t acceptable, and that if she were offering her favors in the hope of catching a new husband, she was making a grave mistake. As we’re all aware, Ronan Kelly isn’t a marrying man. Far from discouraging him, she actually invited him to drop by the school the very next day! My Charlie told me he’d been there, with Mrs. McMasters making eyes at him. Well, I marched back over and warned her a second time—and what did she do, but go visit him at his hotel! Mr. Autry, the bank examiner who’s in town to help Mr. McCleary with an audit, told me he’d seen her there, bold as brass, coming to the desk and asking for Mr. Kelly. But I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise, since I know for a fact that she had entertained him in private out at her ranch. I asked Antonio, the boy who tends the horses, and he said he’d seen Mr. Kelly riding in the direction of the ranch on several occasions after his mistress gave him leave to go into town. One can only imagine what went on there! I hope you can see why, to maintain the good name of our district and guard the innocence of our children, we can’t have this woman teaching school here any longer.”
Mrs. McCleary’s final statements set up a wave of murmuring among the occupants of the room, and even Mr. Anderson, her sometime champion, fell silent. With a triumphant glance at Marguerite, Lydia marched back and took a seat.
“Mrs. McMasters, do you have anything to say?” Anderson asked.
“You ought to ask if she can dispute any of these facts. For if she can’t, there is no need for her to be heard,” the banker’s wife inserted.
“Even so, she has a right to speak, if she wishes to. Do you?”
Aware that after having her actions painted in such a negative light, probably nothing she could say would change any minds, Marguerite nevertheless rose and walked to the front of the room. Masking her cold fury under a calm tone, she said, “I don’t dispute any of the ‘facts’ Mrs. McCleary stated, though I do dispute, and very much resent
, the conclusion she drew from her observations.”
“Very well. Go on,” Mr. Anderson said.
“I met Mr. Kelly only once at the mercantile and I did give him something—a card of velvet ribbon I’d been looking at and had concluded I could not afford. I was pleasant to him, as I am to all of you. If that is ‘flirting,’ then I suppose I am guilty of the behavior Mrs. McCleary observed. Mr. Kelly did, in fact, come by the ranch on several occasions when I was there. He is looking for land to start a cattle operation, and stopped by to ask if I might be thinking of selling mine. You may ask Mr. Blackburn if you wish to confirm that. He took my firm refusal to sell with the courtesy of the gentleman he is. He stopped to greet me on one other occasion, when he was riding along the river looking at other property, and saw me in the pasture with my horses.”
It had to be general knowledge that Ronan Kelly was thinking of buying a ranch. Several of the board members, who had been staring at her with thinly veiled hostility when she began speaking, started to look uncertain.
A low murmuring had begun by the time she continued, “As for the incident in front of the boarding house, as Mrs. McCleary herself suggested at the time, I believe Mr. Kelly was merely amusing himself by surprising me with a kiss, as I’m told he very much enjoys the ladies. I did not ‘invite’ him to school the next day. He came to check on the little boy he pulled from the river the week before. As for going to his hotel, after Mrs. McCleary gave me her second warning, I went to ask that he not stop by the school again or call on me, as some individuals felt it was not proper behavior for a schoolteacher to associate with one of the town’s founders. As the bank auditor, or the young couple also present in the parlor that night can attest, throughout the course of that short conversation, we remained in the parlor, after which I took my leave. And that is the truth of the matter—whatever others might think,” she said, with a hard glance at Lydia McCleary.
“Is that all, Mrs. McMasters?” Anderson asked.
“Just one more thing. By her own admission, Mrs. McCleary has been opposed to my teaching here from the first. You should weigh her conclusions about my behavior, and my suitability to teach Texians—” she couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice, “in light of that fact. As for what the board decides to do now, that is a matter for your consciences to determine.”
Scandal with the Rancher Page 8