by Linda Hilton
Julie felt her heart sink to her toes. The blue batiste. No doubt Mama felt it was impractical and extravagant. No doubt Mama would tell her to return it. Worse, perhaps Katharine would appropriate it for herself.
But before Julie had a chance to say a single word in her defense, Katharine went on, “I like this blue very much, and it will make up beautifully, but the others are so plain. Did Mrs. McCrory have nothing else?”
“I…I bought what I thought I would need for working, Mama,” Julie stammered, confused and somehow embarrassed. The batiste, which she had thought would meet with disapproval, was the only thing Katharine did like. Just another source of confusion and curiosity.
“Well, while you were shopping, I sent Willy over to Donnie Kincheloe’s so he’d be out of our hair. I suggest we use this opportunity to get as much done as possible. Shall we start with the blue batiste?”
*
Morgan stepped into McCrory’s and waited patiently while Simon assisted a customer. Seeing that it was Julie and that she was buying several pieces of dress goods, he almost came out of his concealing shadow, but something held him back. He did not want to embarrass her if the fabric were not for the dress he owed her, nor could he even mention the gift itself.
And when he heard her tell Simon to put the materials on her father’s account, he shrank back further into that gloom that was mental as much as physical. Only after she had left did he walk out from behind the lantern-festooned post and approach the counter.
“Sorry to keep you waitin’, Del,” Simon apologized while he took the requested cheroots from the humidor. “Miss Hollstrom must be gettin’ her trousseau ready.”
Black brows arched over the murky green eyes.
“Her trousseau?”
“Well, I can’t imagine her buyin’ fancy French material for anything else. Not quite the stuff to wear workin’ for you, anyway.”
“Yeah, you’re right, I guess,” Morgan mumbled in return, reluctant to say anything more. He nodded to Simon and walked on out into the rain.
Chapter Twenty-three
Mother and daughter worked until noon, when Julie took lunch to her father. The rain had stopped and a brilliant, clean-washed sun shimmered in the steam. Wilhelm grunted something about the meal being better than what he usually had, but he did not make it a compliment. Rather, his words hinted at adding to Julie’s guilt for abandoning her family’s welfare again. Julie was too confused and too preoccupied with new problems to worry about old ones.
She stopped for a few moments at McCrory’s on the way home to buy a card of jet buttons. There were plenty of plain white pearl buttons in the sewing basket, but Katharine had insisted black would set off the blue batiste much more strikingly. Julie had not been able to argue with that enthusiasm.
Katharine proved to be of much more help than Julie ever expected. Almost as though one arm weren’t held captive, Katharine pinned and cut and measured with no sign of disability. Julie had to do all the sewing, but with Katharine to do the rest, she was able to spend almost all her time at the little sewing machine, until the constant treadling cramped her calf muscles.
The effort was, however, worth it. Long before Wilhelm was expected home, Julie and her mother had finished the blue batiste blouse and the black broadcloth skirt.
Julie put them on and was delightedly parading in front of the little mirror above Katharine’s dresser when the front door banged open and then slammed shut.
“Juliet Rosalind!”
Wilhelm’s voice thundered louder than the morning’s storm.
Katharine glanced at the clock on the dresser and then whispered, “What is he doing here? He shouldn’t be home for another hour!”
The abject terror in her mother’s voice frightened Julie more than her father’s unmistakable wrath.
She walked from the bedroom to the landing at the top of the stairs and called down, “We are here, Papa.” She couldn’t be sure if her voice trembled or not, but her knees threatened to collapse.
Wilhelm, standing at the foot of the stairs, spun around, his hands bent into fists at his waist. In one of them, Julie noticed, he held a small slip of white paper. For a moment, father and daughter stared at each other, unmoving, until Wilhelm brandished the paper and his fist at her.
“I have just been to the general store,” he announced, almost stammering in his fury. His fleshy face had turned bright red, and his shouts vibrated the timbers of the house. “Mr. Simon McCrory gave this to me. He said you had forgotten it.”
“Papa, I only—”
He would not let her speak.
“Three yards of this, four and a half yards of that, and all charged to my account. Do you not have money of your own?” He seemed to wait for an answer, but Julie knew she would only be interrupted again. Besides, she could find nothing to say. She had known, when she told the storekeeper to put the purchases on Wilhelm’s account, that her father would not allow it.
But her silence gave him the opportunity to study her, and his anger broke whatever insignificant bonds he had put on it.
“Whore!” he screamed, taking one step upwards toward her. “Do you think I am made out of money that you can squander on fancy materials to parade in front of that man?”
Why did she have to be wearing the damned blouse right now? It condemned her, just as she deserved to be condemned, for he was right. Nothing she could say, lies though any defense would be, would change Wilhelm’s mind. The evidence was there for all to see.
He mounted the stairs slowly, his angry fist preceding him with undisguised menace. Julie glanced furtively for her mother and saw Katharine slink in terror for her own room. Julie cursed loud enough to have been heard had not Wilhelm begun shouting again.
“Over twelve dollars this extravagance has cost me! How am I to clothe your brother when you spend so much on yourself?”
“Willy?” Julie gasped, feeling a now familiar swell of anger. “Willy has more clothes than he can possibly wear in a year, and then he’ll be too big for them.”
Her defiance halted Wilhelm midstride, but only for a moment, not more than a matter of seconds at most. He had reached the halfway point on the stairs and was close enough for her to see the reddened veins standing out on his forehead, the droplets of sweat sliding down his temples.
“How dare you talk back to me,” he growled, his voice low but more threatening than ever. “He is only a boy, a delicate child. You are a selfish hussy to deny him. All these years I have fed and clothed you, saved your reputation for you, and this is how you repay me?”
Somehow, Julie’s numbed legs carried her by infinitesimal steps backward in the direction of the door to her room, but she felt nothing. Nothing, that is, except pure rage and hatred. For once, for those few hours today, she had known the exquisite joy of living, of doing something for herself, and now he had turned it to guilt again. This time, however, she had the means to assuage it.
She backed through the open door and without taking her eyes from her father, Julie opened the small metal box on the top of her dresser. Inside it lay the heavy gold coin Morgan had forced on her. She had treasured it these past few days, dreaming of ways to spend it and yet knowing that she would never part with it, for it meant far more to her than just money.
She took it out and held it tightly, the sharp edges digging cruelly into her palm and clenched fingers. But it wasn’t the pain in her hand that brought the tears hot and stinging to her eyes and the sobs that strangled her words as she flung them, with the coin, at her father’s head.
“Take it!” she shrieked. “Take it as you’ve taken everything else from me! You leave me with nothing but what you give me: shame, guilt, unworthiness. You may as well have my money, too.”
After missing its intended target, the double eagle bounced harmlessly off Wilhelm’s shoulder and then clattered down the bare steps. When it came to rest by the front door, Julie had already shut herself in her room.
*
I
t was a tedious Saturday, made worse by the enervating heat and sticky humidity that followed the rain. Throughout the long afternoon, Morgan struggled against inertia until finally, at shortly after six, he had cleared the waiting room, seen his last patient, and prepared to go home. The office smelled of sweat and snot-nosed children and colicky babies and all the other odors of summer discomforts, with not a breath of breeze to dissipate them. He looked around at the mess he was leaving and walked out the door anyway.
He washed hurriedly in the kitchen, then changed his clothes for more comfortable denims and a wrinkled but clean cotton shirt before setting out for Daneggar’s. Liza Tucker had invited him for supper in return for bandaging her son’s sprained ankle, but he turned her down. She had been disappointed, and he wondered just how long the young widow had been looking in his direction that way.
He didn’t want to be with a woman now, unless that woman was Julie Hollstrom. He had quite made up his mind to speak his piece this morning when he saw her go into McCrory’s, but then had chickened out. Lack of privacy was a good excuse at the time, he thought. And when Simon told him about her purchases, Morgan was doubly glad he’d held back. He’d only have made a fool of himself, stumbling over a proposal he had rehearsed and rehearsed only to have her politely refuse him and remind him she already had a fiancé.
Daneggar’s was crowded and noisy and smelled little better than the clinic. Leif’s eldest daughter, Lorraine, made a buxom show of leading Morgan to a corner table and announcing that the evening’s special was pork chops, mashed potatoes and gravy, and peas and carrots. He ordered the special, declined a cold beer, and slumped back into his corner.
He watched Lorraine weave between the tables toward the kitchen. Her hips swayed under a black skirt, enticing any and all who watched. He knew when she took his order that she had used the noise of the supper patrons as an excuse to lean over the table and give him a more than generous glimpse of the full mounds of her breasts beneath a low-cut white blouse. He hadn’t turned away from the display, but neither had he felt any reaction.
She tossed her red hair back from her shoulders when she brought his meal. Her blue eyes fixed on him with undisguised seduction, and Morgan felt himself wanting to respond. He wanted to want her, he tried to want her, but there was nothing, so he politely thanked her and reached for the salt and pepper.
Lorraine bounced off.
The chops were dry and over-done, the gravy greasy, and the peas mushy, but he ate anyway. Leif’s cooking left a great deal to be desired, but his wife made damned good apple pie, so Morgan had two pieces for dessert. He left a quarter on the table for Lorraine, and then headed for home again.
Eight o’clock and hot as hell. He was drenched in sweat before he walked into the parlor, all dark and cool from being shuttered all day. Maybe, just maybe, he’d have a quiet evening all to himself. He had seen, on the way back from the restaurant, that the Castle was almost deserted. A storm like that generally kept people home, and the ranch hands and farmers were sometimes prevented from coming to town by swollen creeks and washes. Of course, muggy, electric weather like this often brought out the worst in those who did get their hands on a bottle, so he wouldn’t count on a lack of trouble.
Tired, his hunger satisfied, too lethargic with the heat even to get up and go to bed, Morgan dozed on the sofa, his feet propped on a table, his head lolled back uncomfortably. He fell just barely deep enough asleep to dream, yet not so far that he lost touch with reality. It was as though he watched himself dream from across the room.
He dreamt of Julie, of being with her day after day, of working with her, laughing with her, talking quietly with her, making love with her. And he watched it all with silent detachment, knowing it was none of it real. When he wakened, stiff in the neck and with one leg gone to sleep, he felt no rush of confused reality, only a sense of impatient misery. If she was going to leave him, he wished she would do it quickly and get it the hell over with.
As uncomfortable as his sleeping position had been, the few hours rest left him wider awake than he wanted to be. And he was thirsty after those dry, salty pork chops, so he strolled through the kitchen and out the back door to the pump and a drink of cold water. The splash on his bare feet further revived him, and it felt good indeed in the muggy dark of the evening. Though some light lingered in the west, the sky above the creek and back yard was inky blue, with stars already brightening and blinking.
Stars. Brilliant and tantalizing and always out of reach. They taunted him tonight. Numbly, ignoring the prickles of returning circulation in his foot, he pulled on his boots and headed back through the house and out the front door.
The mud sucked at his feet, but he almost ran, taking long, hurried strides with enormous determination. The cemetery gate swung open with an agonized scream, then continued to squeak as it swayed back and forth. Morgan didn’t close it behind him.
He stepped in puddles without feeling them, and when he came to the granite stone where the roses bloomed, he knelt on the raised grassy mound without heeding the wetness that soaked his jeans.
“God help me, Amy, but I love her,” he whispered.
*
Julie had not left her room, nor had anyone sought admittance. For hours she lay on her bed and sobbed and wished she had the courage to get up and leave. Years of practicality, however, had left her too sensible of life’s harsh realities. She had no money, not since throwing away her hard-earned twenty dollars, and she had no place to go. If she had thought—and she examined the issue carefully for any hint of hope—that Morgan cared for her in any particular way, she would have gone to him. But she had already shown him how foolish she could be where men were concerned, and she could not humiliate herself needlessly again. He respected her now, and that was worth a great deal more than a batiste blouse and a gold coin.
He loved his wife, and there was no changing that. Julie recalled, in perfect detail, every moment she had spent alone with him, and she knew she was right in her assessment of his feelings. He did not want her the way she wanted him.
If only she hadn’t been so impulsive about the money! She pounded her pillow angrily again. It must have been the years and years of Wilhelm’s miserliness that gave her so little feeling for riches, even the meager ones she had accumulated since working for Morgan. And yet now she knew the true value. She had thrown away her freedom when she threw the coin. Now her only choices were to stay with her family and be miserable but at least be with Morgan a few hours out of the day, or to marry Hans and be away from it all. No, there was no happiness in that choice either, but perhaps someday she would have a child and that would be something.
She shuddered convulsively. The idea of lying with Hans, of letting him touch her and make love to her—but it wouldn’t really be making love. It would be mating, the way he bred his cows. It would be nothing like what Del had described between him and Amy.
She heard the sounds of Katharine preparing supper, but no one came upstairs, either to ask for help in the kitchen or to call Julie to the meal. So she went hungry. She had become more and more accustomed to regular meals, and now she felt the loss of this one more keenly than before. Her stomach rumbled loudly when the smell of fried beefsteak wafted through the house, but even hunger wasn’t a strong enough incentive to brave her father’s fury.
She changed her clothes, removing the precious blue blouse and new skirt and slipping on an old soft nightgown, then lay down on the bed. The time passed slowly until she heard Willy grumble his way to bed shortly before dark. He complained that he wasn’t tired and that it was too early, but something in Wilhelm’s muttered, undecipherable words kept the boy in line. His bed creaked and then his door closed.
The argument started soon after. Wilhelm growled low and Katharine wailed softly, so that Julie could not understand what they said, but she knew that they fought. For well over an hour, from the time the sun was a glowering red disk outside Julie’s window until the last light faded over the
mountains, her parents quarreled in the parlor.
Then, quite suddenly, there was a change. Katharine’s voice raised to a shrill scream, broken by a loud slap and a heavy thud. Frightened, Julie sprang from her bed and staggered across the room. While she fumbled in the dense dark for the door knob, she heard her mother, sobbing, run up the stairs, across the landing, and into her room, where she slammed the door hard enough to shake the entire house.
“Don’t you dare, Wilhelm Hollstrom!” Katharine shouted above the sound of furniture being pushed against the door. “Don’t you dare!”
But a few seconds later, both she and her daughter knew that her threats went unheard, for the front door opened and then banged shut, and Wilhelm’s footsteps pounded down the porch stairs.
Julie waited, her heart thudding, her breath held burning in her lungs. She hadn’t been so terrified since…since the night Willy was born. And for some reason, she worried now about Morgan. Would her father try the same sort of thing with him? At the very idea, a wave of nausea slithered through her.
She had to tell him. She had to risk everything on the slim chance that he cared, even a little. She turned the knob and opened the door, then waited, counting to a hundred very slowly, to be sure Wilhelm was not going to return.
The landing was dim, lit only from the lights below, but it was not empty. His face nearly as white as his nightshirt, Willy stood in the doorway to his room.
“It’s all right, Willy,” Julie told him, settling her own shaky voice. “Go on back to bed.”
“But I’m scared,” he whined. “What’s wrong, Julie? Are you in trouble again?”
“Yes,” she answered truthfully. “And it’s none of your business. You don’t have to worry about it anyway, so get back to sleep. I have to go see Mama.”
But Willy refused to be placated, and after several failed attempts to get him into his bed again, Julie gave up and let him tag along as she went to see her mother.