Wanton Angel
Page 20
Her former husband was not appeased. Indeed, stiff annoyance showed in every magnificent line of him. “That’s generous of you,” he said tightly. After a short, sour pause, he went on. “But I’m not here to talk about Hutcheson—I came in to tell you that I’m moving out of the hotel. For the time being, I’ll be living at Earline’s.”
Earline’s? Bonnie was possessed of a sudden and incomprehensible need to scream, stomp her feet and throw things, but she hid all those feelings and spoke moderately. “I’m sure that where you choose to live is none of my affair.”
“I would have to agree, dear,” Eli said, with a look of barely suppressed delight. “But alas, you are raising my child and if Rose needs me for any reason, I want you to know where to look.” He tipped his fashionable round-brimmed hat, which he had never bothered to remove, and after a word with Rose, he left.
Bonnie was full of outraged frustration and, worse, she had no way of venting those feelings. She did note that while Eli’s plan to live in Earline Kalb’s rooming house made her half frantic with jealousy, Webb’s residing there had never bothered her. Even learning that Earline was Webb’s mistress had not ruffled her, but if Eli were to take up with that woman …
Bonnie gave the pickle barrel a hard kick and uttered a little cry that had more to do with bruised emotions than bruised toes. Rose looked up at her with startled McKutchen-gold eyes.
“Don’t ever fall in love,” Bonnie warned her daughter, with a shaking of her finger.
Rose responded with a crooked grin so reminiscent of her father that Bonnie was forced to smile. She called to Katie that it was all right to come back downstairs and returned to the task of preparing the storeroom.
Webb appeared just as she would have closed the store for the day, wearing a contrite expression and carrying a spray of soggy violets in one hand. It was raining very hard outside, and his suitcoat and hair were both dripping wet.
Shaking her head, unable to hate a man who had, for the most part, been a loyal friend, Bonnie ushered Webb over to the stove to warm up and dry off. She took the flowers, picked, no doubt, along the banks of the Columbia, and asked Katie to put them in water. As if the poor things weren’t already half drowned.
“I’m sorry, Bonnie. About last night.” Webb shrugged out of his sodden suitcoat, shivering a little. “Will you forgive me?”
“I shouldn’t,” Bonnie said. But then an angel at her shoulder reminded her that she had deliberately goaded Webb, that she hadn’t been and still wasn’t forthright where her feelings for Eli were concerned. “But I will forgive you, if you’ll pardon me for what I did.”
Poor Webb looked so relieved that Bonnie wanted to cry. It would have been so much easier if he’d stayed angry and even declared that he’d have nothing more to do with such a hellion, but easy things were rare in Bonnie’s life. So rare that she didn’t even bother to hope for them anymore.
There was coffee heating atop the potbellied stove, and Bonnie poured a cupful for Webb, extending it as a sort of olive branch. How she dreaded hurting him, even after the debacle beside her kitchen table. “Do you think this rain will ever stop?” she asked, just to make conversation.
Webb’s shoulders, visible through his damp shirt, moved in a shrug. “I’ve been considering moving my presses to higher ground,” he said.
Bonnie thought of the vulnerability of Patch Town and shuddered, but it was warm and cozy inside her mercantile and she quickly recovered from that moment of curious dread. “You’re welcome to bring them here, Webb. There’s plenty of room in the store.”
“I’ll think about it,” Webb sniffled. The poor man had already caught cold; he was trembling and his teeth were chattering. “If anything happened to that equipment, I’d be ruined.”
Bonnie thought of the toughs who had ridden into Northridge aboard yesterday’s train. It was a touchy subject, but she brought it up anyway. “Have you had any more trouble, Webb? About your articles opposing the union, I mean?”
“Things have been quiet,” he said, and Bonnie noticed then that he was avoiding her eyes.
“The strike hasn’t ended, then.”
Webb edged closer to the little stove and hugged himself against the cold. “Half the men are still out. The union leaders have been telling them that the new cabins and the shorter hours McKutchen has offered are some kind of trick. They say that Eli’s just trying to keep the men from organizing, that he’ll backtrack to the old way of doing things once he’s gotten rid of the union.”
“How can they believe that?” Bonnie asked, with rather too much spirit. “Eli does mean to build those cabins, Webb. I know because I took the orders for paint and nails and pipes and such.”
Webb was still shivering so that Bonnie frowned and sent Katie upstairs to fetch a warm blanket. “Some of the men don’t believe there are going to be any cabins, Bonnie. And they expect Eli to show them the road for rebelling, rather than giving them back their jobs and cutting back their hours.”
When Katie returned with the blanket, Webb wrapped it around himself and gratefully sank into the chair Bonnie found for him. He sat close to the stove, with his feet on its cast-iron base.
“Those men on the train looked mean,” Bonnie reflected, feeling a little cold herself. She folded her arms and drew nearer to the stove, though she kept it as a barrier between herself and Webb.
“I’m surprised none of them have been in here,” Webb replied. “They’re all staying next door at the hotel.”
Bonnie was reminded of Eli’s move to Earline’s rooming house and she wondered if the overcrowding of the hotel had been the reason for it. She was, however, too proud to ask Webb if his accommodating landlady had taken in a new boarder. She could imagine how Earline would fuss over Webb’s cold, and though she would have welcomed a pang of envy, she felt nothing even vaguely like it. “I’m not sure I want the trade of those odious men,” she said belatedly.
Just then a small cloaked figure dashed into the store, setting the little bell ajingle. Lizbeth Simmons pushed back her rain-drenched hood and smiled broadly at Bonnie.
“I do hope you’ve a pot of tea brewing!” the visitor sang merrily.
Bonnie smiled. Webb had taken definite notice of Miss Simmons; he rose slowly to his feet in acknowledgment of her presence.
After introductions had been made, Bonnie apologized for not having tea prepared and offered coffee instead. Lizbeth accepted a cup with delight, lacing it generously with both cream and sugar before sitting down in the chair her hostess provided.
“I have a list,” Lizbeth told Bonnie. “Please don’t let me rush off without making my purchases.”
So, Bonnie thought wryly, Miss Simmons has not yet been approached by a delegation from the Friday Afternoon Community Improvement Club. “Are you staying at Genoa’s?”
Lizbeth was enjoying the warmth of the stove, the coffee and Webb Hutcheson’s gaze. “I am. It’s most enjoyable, too. So many books, and I have use of the reed organ, as well.”
“How are Susan Farley and her baby?” Bonnie asked with real interest. A part of her had been holding its breath ever since that poor little infant’s birth.
“Miss Genoa says that baby gets bigger every day,” Lizbeth replied happily. “He doesn’t need to be kept in the oven anymore.”
Webb’s eyes went round. “The oven?” he echoed.
Bonnie smiled and laid both her hands on his shoulders in a reassuring gesture. “A very small baby needs help to stay warm,” she said.
Lizbeth’s laugh was chimelike. “Genoa told me that her brother set up an awful fuss over that baby one day, thinking that she was about to roast the little darling!”
The reminder of Eli, however amusing, dampened Bonnie’s spirits. She dared not allow herself to remember their lovemaking in that elegant big-city hotel, so she tried to imagine what Eli would think of Lizbeth when—inevitably —he was introduced to her. Miss Simmons was very attractive, and she was unattached. And so was Eli.
When Lizbeth had finished her coffee, she brought her shopping list out of her handbag and extended it to Bonnie.
Bonnie hesitated. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard from any of the—the ladies of the town?”
Lizbeth’s smile was almost blinding. “Oh, yes—indirectly. I’ve had several written invitations to tea.” The smile faded to a look of sympathy. “Genoa told me how they treat you, Bonnie, and I don’t think I want to know them. Imagine going to the bother of having one’s groceries shipped in from Colville just to avoid shopping in your store!”
Bonnie was surprised and, for a moment, hopeful. But there had been other newcomers before Lizbeth, some of them initially quite friendly, but they had soon given in to the persistent remonstrations of the Club. “You know, don’t you, that I was a hurdy-gurdy dancer at the Brass Eagle?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Bonnie saw Webb stiffen, the back of his neck going ruddy.
Lizbeth was undaunted by this bit of scandal. “Oh, yes, Genoa told me that, too. Here, let me see that list again—did I forget to write down hairpins and ink?”
Bonnie surrendered the list and began gathering the items she could remember from it. Lizbeth helped, seeking out other necessities herself. “You ought to give those biddies a little of their own medicine,” she said cheerfully, when Bonnie was ringing up the charges at the cash register.
Knowing that Lizbeth was referring to the members of the Club, Bonnie frowned. “How could I do that?”
Lizbeth’s pansy-black eyes danced. “Have you a big piece of paper, by any chance, and some colored chalk?” she countered.
Bonnie tore off a long strip of butcher paper from the roll at the end of the counter and produced a nubbin of blue chalk. For a time, she’d used a blackboard to post special prices.
Spreading the large piece of paper out on the countertop, Lizbeth bent over it, forming big letters and coloring them in with the smidgen of blue chalk, which stained her fingers.
Curious beyond all bearing, Bonnie nonetheless went back to the stove. Webb greeted her with a mournful look and a rousing sneeze.
When Lizbeth had finally finished her task, she turned around, beaming, holding the paper up for Bonnie to read. NO MEMBERS OF THE FRIDAY AFTERNOON COMMUNITY IMPROVEMENT CLUB MAY TRADE IN THIS ESTABLISHMENT, the decree proclaimed.
A slow smile spread across Webb’s face, but Bonnie was baffled. She simply stared at the paper, wondering what use it would be to warn away shoppers who were already sworn never to set foot inside her store.
The irrepressible Lizbeth carried the paper to the front window and spread it out in full view, completely covering a display of canned goods. She even went outside, without her cloak, to read the sign through the rain-dappled glass and gauge its effect. She was smiling, if wet, when she came back inside.
“I daresay that will put a bee in their bonnets!” she said buoyantly. “Stuffy old things!”
Bonnie was still puzzled. “I don’t see how—”
Lizbeth raised the hood of her bright red plaid cloak and gathered up her carefully bundled purchases, ready to leave. “Just wait, Bonnie. Just wait.” With that, the teacher made her departure, disappearing into the gray drizzle of the day.
It was closing time, and Bonnie pulled the shades and locked the doors. Katie was upstairs, preparing supper, and Rose had fallen asleep on her blanket on the floor, holding her doll close.
“Won’t you stay and eat with us, Webb?” Bonnie asked, putting Lizbeth and that silly sign out of her mind. “Katie is a very good cook, you know, and she’s made chicken and dumplings for dinner.”
Webb looked reluctant and, at the same time, patently miserable. His finely shaped nose was red and so were his eyes, and he continued to shiver inside his blanket. “I wouldn’t want to be any bother—”
Bonnie bent and lifted Rose, blanket, doll and all, into her arms. The little girl’s head fell against her shoulder in sleepy abandon. “Bother? I thought we were friends, you and I. Besides, you’re coming down with something and I can’t send you back out into that rain without some warm food in your stomach.”
Somewhat sheepishly Webb stood up. He was as tall as a mountain and yet, in that moment, huddled inside his blanket, he resembled a little boy more than a man. “Earline will have something ready—” he began, but when he saw the reaction Bonnie tried to hide, his words fell off in midsentence.
“By all means, Webb, risk your death of pneumonia,” Bonnie said coolly, “but don’t disappoint Earline.”
Webb looked delighted. “Are you jealous?”
Bonnie turned away quickly, not wanting him to guess that she was indeed jealous, but not of his relationship with Earline. It was Eli she was worried about. “Either accept my invitation or turn it down, Webb Hutcheson,” she called over one shoulder, as she carried Rose Marie up the stairs. “One way or the other, it doesn’t matter to me.”
Webb stayed.
The stewed chicken, topped with light dumplings, was delicious. Everyone enjoyed it except Rose Marie, who kept nodding off to sleep in her highchair. Finally Bonnie excused herself to put her daughter to bed.
When she returned to the kitchen, Katie was heating water for dishwashing and Webb was clearing the table. Bonnie paused in the doorway, strangely touched by the sight. Despite the incident that had taken place in that very room, only the night before, she knew there was no better, gentler man in all the world. What perfect good sense it would have made to marry him, tend his house and his garden, prepare his meals—but when it came to love, Bonnie had no sense.
She took a dish towel from the peg and dried bowls and spoons and cups as Katie washed them. Webb lingered at the table, drinking the coffee Bonnie had poured for him in silence.
When the dishes were all washed and put away, Katie gave Bonnie an eloquent look that clearly asked whether she should stay or go. Knowing that the girl longed to bury herself in yet another book, Bonnie nodded that she could go.
Katie cast one worried glance at Webb and left the kitchen to read in her room.
Bonnie poured coffee for herself and sat down at the table, across from Webb. One kerosene lamp flickered between them, giving the room a coziness so sweet that it tugged at Bonnie’s heart.
Webb sighed, turning his coffee cup between his hands. “What I did last night—it changed things between us, didn’t it, Bonnie?”
It would have been so easy to blame breaking the sham engagement on that. There would even have been a degree of justification in it, Bonnie’s part in the matter aside. But she cared too much for Webb to pretend. “I’m not sure things have ever been truly right between us, Webb,” she said.
“You’re going to say you can’t marry me, aren’t you?” Webb asked gruffly, and then, poor dear, he sneezed again, with such violence that Bonnie started.
“Dear me,” she hedged, as he brought out his handkerchief. “You are catching a terrible cold!”
“I don’t want to talk about my cold!” Webb barked through his handkerchief. “Are you going to marry me?”
“I’m surprised you still want me, after all the talk about my trip to Spokane.” Bonnie searched within herself for the courage to be honest with Webb, to hurt him this once so that he would be free to find real love with some other woman, love to last him a lifetime.
Webb wadded his handkerchief and stuffed it into his trouser pocket. “Don’t be surprised,” he answered, his gaze direct. So painfully direct. “I’d want you even if I caught you with McKutchen myself.”
Bonnie ached. Tell him, demanded the still, small voice within her. Tell him now.
But she couldn’t. “Webb, that’s dreadful! You’re the kind of man any woman would be proud to have as a husband, and you should have more pride!”
His eyes still held hers. “I have no pride where you’re concerned, Bonnie. I’d crawl, if I had to.”
Bonnie’s hands w
ere knotted together in her lap and her heart pounded in the base of her throat, all but choking her. “Don’t say that!” she whispered brokenly. “I’m not worthy of that—nobody is!”
Webb was rising out of his chair, putting on his damp suitcoat. His hair was curly from the rain and the sight and scent of it gave Bonnie a pang. “I love you,” he said, in that quiet way of his, and then he kissed the top of Bonnie’s head and left by the kitchen door.
Bonnie laid her head in her arms and did her very best not to cry. How terribly ironic it was that she so wished she could love Webb Hutcheson and, at the same time, hoped and prayed that he would find someone else to care for.
“Things are in a fierce muddle, aren’t they, ma’am?” Katie asked gently, from nearby.
Bonnie lifted her head, saw that the girl was measuring tea leaves into the yellow crockery pot. “Yes, Katie. They are.”
“There was lots of talk while you were gone,” Katie confided, without looking around. Her small back was stiff with indignation. “Those old hens. As if they’d ever made an effort to improve the community! Everything good’s been done despite them, by Miss Genoa or Mr. McKutchen or you!”
“I haven’t done anything,” Bonnie sighed, wishing that she had. The misery in Patch Town might have ended long ago if she hadn’t been so selfish, so caught up in the Cinderella aspects of her marriage to Eli McKutchen. How thoughtless of others she’d been then, wearing beautiful clothes, eating fabulous food, spending money as though it was her due. Why hadn’t she demanded that Eli do something about Patch Town then? Had God taken Kiley away to heaven to punish her for caring so little about the people of her own class?
“You have,” Katie argued forcefully. “You never deny anybody medicine or food, even though most of them can’t pay.”
“It’s the least I can do, Katie,” Bonnie sighed. Her shoulders drooped and she felt so tired, so old. “I forgot about those people when I married Eli. I abandoned them.”
“What could you have done?”