A Patchwork Family

by Charlotte Hubbard

  “I wanna see that purty turquoise one,” Billy piped up. “The one Mercy said belonged to a princess.”

  Christine rolled her eyes. “It’s a princess gown because that’s what Mr. Worth, the designer, called it,” she corrected. “And because that was one of my favorite ones to work with, I—I hope you won’t mind that I took a few more liberties with it.”

  Mercy’s smile flickered with interest, and she sat back down on the bench to await the showing.

  Christine bustled up the stairs, unfastening green button loops as she went. She could tell no one that when she’d spied the dark aqua gown, her thoughts had gone immediately to Tucker Trudeau—imagining how he would gaze at the silk, which made her skin glow with its richness. The unusual color would set her apart from a roomful of young ladies by calling attention to her auburn hair. Never mind that it also reminded her of his unusual, sparkling eyes!

  And when she slipped it on, she felt privileged—no, she felt beautiful, in ways she’d never known before. She’d spent untold hours folding and hand-sewing the row of aqua roses along the line of Chantilly lace from one of Mama’s chemises—lace that made the daring dip of her new neckline a bit more modest. If Judd or Mercy said anything about the gown being too revealing—

  Well, what could they say? She’d sewn it to suit herself, and no one else could wear it now!

  Christine patted her hair into place again. She descended the stairs slowly—to let them anticipate her entry, and so she wouldn’t gasp unbecomingly when she reached the front room. How had Mama and Mercy endured such tight corsets anyway?

  Their expressions made her pulse gallop. Mercy’s hand went to her throat. Billy sucked air. Asa and Nathaniel stood up as though the Queen of England had entered the little log room.

  Judd looked her up and down, a remark ready to spring from his lips. She hoped it was more praise from the stalwart head of the Monroe family . . . so different from her own rather henpecked daddy.

  “You’re too young to be showing so much—”

  “And aren’t you the belle of the ball already?” Mercy exclaimed over her husband’s criticism. She stood again, taking in the new seams at the waist and the lace-trimmed silk roses that camouflaged them. “My goodness, with your hair swept up in a—”

  “Somebody comin’,” Nathaniel grunted as he rose to peer out the front window. The slanting rays of the sunset made enough glare that he opened the door and stepped outside. “Looks like Mr. Mike. ’Cept he’s on horseback.”

  The distant hoofbeats grew gradually louder, and moments later halted near the door. Judd, Billy, and Asa went outside, looking concerned as the horse whickered and snorted with its exertion.

  Mercy remained beside Christine, smoothing the folds of silk that draped gracefully from the gown’s fitted bodice.

  “We’ll let the men tend to their business,” she said as their low voices drifted inside. “I can’t tell you how proud I am, Christine. You’ve given these gowns a whole new life. Let’s light the lamps, so we can see them better when everyone’s here again.”

  Christine grinned. The glow of Mercy’s match made the glass lamp globes shine the way she was doing. And when Mike Malloy stepped through the doorway, staring as though he were witnessing a miracle, she knew she was indeed a social success. Or at least looked the part.

  “My goodness, Miss Bristol, you can’t be the same ornery, pouting little spitfire I hauled back from Atchison,” he said, rolling the brim of his hat in his hand.

  “Yep, she is!” Billy spouted cheerfully. “Just changin’ into a silk purse from a sow’s ear, is all!”

  Her tongue shot out at her brother before she thought about it, but she regained her ladylike composure when she saw the two envelopes in Mike’s hand. “Thank you, Mr. Malloy. It’s good to see you again. I hope that’s not bad news you’ve brought us tonight.”

  His mustache lifted with his grin as he handed Mercy the smaller envelope. “Found this on the floor of the coach. Probably fell out of the mail bag a while back,” he said. “When I saw it was from—”

  “Aunt—Miss Vanderbilt’s academy!” Mercy popped the wax seal quickly, as though her own future depended upon the letter’s contents.

  “And this one caught my eye when I was helping sort the week’s letters today,” he continued, handing the letter to Christine. “Thought it might be news about your mama, so I brought it right out.”

  “Thank you! Thank you so much!”

  A little squeal almost escaped her. That was Tucker Trudeau’s handwriting! He hadn’t forgotten her! Her first inclination was to rush to her room to read his letter.

  But Mercy’s surprised “Oh, my!” kept her pinned in place.

  “Listen to this!” she went on, smoothing the folds of a page displaying neat, regular script. “ ‘It will be my pleasure to welcome Miss Bristol to the Academy. I have often thought of traveling west to see our country’s newly expanded borders—and to visit your homestead, Mercedes—’ ” she read with a lilt in her voice, “ ‘so I’ll be taking the train and then the stagecoach to Abilene for a brief visit, before escorting Christine back to St. Louis for the fall term. If the itineraries are correct, I should arrive on or about September twenty-second.’ ”

  The front room rang with an excited silence.

  “Why, that’s tomorrow!” Asa chirped.

  “C’mon, Christine. What’d he say?”

  She lay as still as death in her bed, pretending to be asleep. That letter from Tucker Trudeau was hers, and the words she’d lingered over three times before she snuffed her candle rolled through her mind with the lilt of his French accent. Such a pleasure it was, to meet a young lady whose concern for her mother—

  “I know you’re awake, dang it!” Billy’s whisper sliced through the darkness again. “If he said somethin’ about Mama, I’ve got a right to know!”

  Squeezing her eyes tighter against his intrusion, Christine weighed her options. Maybe if she told him just that little tidbit, he’d leave her alone. If Miss Vanderbilt was to arrive on the stagecoach tomorrow, she didn’t want dark circles under her eyes. Didn’t want to be peevish from lack of sleep.

  Still, she’d never gotten a letter from a man before. Was it so wrong to keep those sweet words all to herself?

  “I ain’t leavin’ you alone ’til you answer me, Sis. I betcha that letter’s stuffed under the mattress, right there where you’re layin’—”

  “All right, you little pest—yes!” she hissed. “He saw Mama when she came back to his shop to fetch that picture.”

  Her brother’s gasp sounded so satisfying. But that wasn’t enough, was it? Here he came, tiptoeing across her floor.

  “If you step on the things I’ve laid out to pack, I won’t say one more word!” she warned in an ominous whisper. “Now stop right there! You’ll step on my packets of pins and needles!”

  He let out a mewling whimper.

  She raised herself up in bed to peer at him in the dimness, chuckling at the way he stood with one foot on top of the other, as though her underthings were snakes that might slither up his leg.

  “Was she all right?” he wheezed. “Was Mr. Wyndham with her?”

  His worried voice tempered her irritation—but she refused to tell him any more than she had to. “Yes, they both looked fine, he said. And they seemed quite surprised that I had been there hunting for Mama,” she added smugly. “He told them to come back the next day and he’d have another print of the picture ready for them. Now scoot! That’s absolutely all, Billy!”

  For a few moments more he stood like a stork, his earnest eyes focused on her in the darkness. Christine plopped down on the feather mattress and turned her back toward him. Only after he padded back across the hallway did she relax again, but sleep eluded her.

  The lines of Tucker’s handwriting kept running through her mind, and when she finally slipped into a fitful sleep, she was back in Atchison, strolling down Commercial Street by his side. . . .

  Ch
apter Twelve

  “Stagecoach a-comin’! Stagecoach a-comin’!” Asa sang out with his usual excitement.

  Today the little man’s voice had a more urgent ring to it as Christine scurried to the table with a steaming bowl of cabbage wedges cooked with sausages, and a pan of sweet-smelling baked beans. Billy followed close behind with a platter of sliced ham, and when Mercy set down biscuits, a little pitcher of sorghum, and then a large pan of apple-raisin crisp, their day’s offering was complete.

  The thunder of approaching hoofbeats made her smooth back her hair, wishing it weren’t so wavy and unruly today; wishing she weren’t so hot and sticky from working in the kitchen. Mercy brushed her apron with nervous excitement, and went to stand in the doorway. Then she turned around.

  “If Miss Vanderbilt’s on this stagecoach, just be yourself, Christine,” she said with a kind smile. “She has a reputation as an exacting headmistress who demands the best from all her girls, but there’s no finer woman on the face of this earth. I owe her a great deal for all she taught me.”

  Christine nodded, glancing anxiously toward the red Concord coach trimmed with gold as it pulled to a dramatic halt out front. This driver, Vance VanBuren, called out instructions to his passengers in a clipped, rather brusque voice that hinted at a hair-trigger temper. Billy ran out to help Nathaniel unhitch the snorting, wet team of Morgans while Judd directed the passengers toward the basins and privies, as he always did.

  A large man with shocks of black hair that swayed like snakes waddled out first, followed by a young couple who gripped each other’s hands, looking around the house and corrals with a delighted air of adventure. Three men in dusty suits clambered down from their perch on the coach’s roof, joking about how the rough ride was keeping them awake enough to watch for Indians.

  And then a lone woman paused at the stage door, sticking her head out so she could survey the yard and the plains beyond before looking toward the doorway. Her face creased with a grin, and she waived daintily before giving her hand to Vance.

  Christine’s heart sank. Miss Vanderbilt was older than Moses.

  And as the spry little woman’s dove-gray traveling suit and matching hat caught the hot wind, she even looked like Moses as he was portrayed in the tinted prints in Mama’s Bible: stern, with a commanding presence, despite her slight stature and slender frame. Her hair was pulled back tight and matched the white, lace-trimmed collar encircling her neck. And as Mercy hurried toward her, she stood primly in place, making the younger woman close the distance between them.

  Christine felt the sweat trickling down her back. This didn’t look promising at all.

  “Aunt Agatha! It’s been too long—”

  “Goodness, Mercedes, you’re as brown as a bean! Where’s your bonnet?”

  Forcing a smile, Christine took money from the other passengers as they entered the front room. That high-pitched voice could grate on a person’s nerves . . . and she was Mercy’s aunt? Why did it suddenly feel as if the Monroes had set her up for a prison sentence under the guise of giving her an education?

  Judd greeted the old lady with a quick hello, and then entered the house behind the bulky man with the swaying hair. He smiled at Christine, squeezing her shoulder. “Be ready for anything,” he teased in a low voice. “You never know what’ll come out of Agatha Vanderbilt’s mouth.”

  His remark was intended to help her relax, but as Mercy steered the headmistress toward the door, toward the inevitable introduction, Christine stiffened. Her things were all laid out upstairs. Some of them could be easily crammed into her carpetbag for a quick getaway in the night—

  “And this is Christine Bristol,” Mercy’s voice cut through her frantic thoughts. “She’s a very talented seamstress, and I’ll certainly miss her help with these dinners. Christine, may I present Miss Agatha Vander-bilt, your new teacher.”

  The woman’s bright, beady eyes looked right through her, assessing and astute.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Vanderbilt,” Christine rasped. “It—it’s truly an onerous—I mean, truly an honor to meet you at last.”

  “Time will tell which one proves correct,” the headmistress said with a wry smile. Then she stepped inside, to find the rest of the passengers glaring at her as Judd held them in abeyance to say grace.

  With the elegance of a swan, Miss Vanderbilt took the last vacant place at the end of a bench, inclining her head toward the rest of them.

  Like a queen bestowing her blessing upon peons, Christine thought. And now she thinks I’m a tonguetied fool.

  “Shall we return thanks?” Judd said from the end of the table. He bowed his head and began in a reverent, resonant voice. “Dear Lord, we thank You for this day and the opportunities it brings. We ask Your blessing upon all these folks as they travel to their destinations. We give our special thanks for the arrival of Miss Agatha—”

  “For cryin’ out loud, can we just eat already?!”

  Everyone in the room drew a startled breath as the man with the crazed hair stabbed a slice of ham with his fork. Perhaps because he took up the space of two normal people, he felt he had the right—the might—to do as he pleased. Christine saw a frightening shine in his piggy eyes.

  Like a lightning strike, Miss Vanderbilt rose to smack the back of his hand with her folded fan. “I’ve only had to tolerate your rudeness since I boarded in Topeka, Mr. Barco, but I’ve had quite enough of it!” she stated. “Your mother would be appalled! Our distance from civilization is no excuse for leaving it behind!”

  The man’s hair swayed with his agitation, and for a moment Christine wondered if the two of them would come to blows as they faced each other across the table. Her money was on Miss Vanderbilt.

  “She’s right, you know,” the young woman with the handsome husband chimed in. “You’ve done nothing but complain and make the rest of us miserable listening to it!”

  “Yeah! Sit down so we can finish our prayer and eat!” one of the men who’d ridden on the roof insisted. “We’ll have the driver set you out at the side of the road to wait for the next stage! You’re a hazard to our sanity!”

  By now Mr. Barco’s hair looked like an angry nest of snakes coiling to strike, and his fleshy face had turned as red as a radish. It was this man’s sanity that seemed in question, and as the seconds ticked by, they awaited his response.

  Miss Vanderbilt hadn’t backed down—not a lick. If anything, she was leaning farther over the table, her fan still on his hand. Christine could well imagine the evil eye she was focusing on her contrary opponent.

  He sat down with a heavy wheeze, pursing his pudgy lips. Everyone exchanged relieved looks, and Miss Vanderbilt retracted her fan.

  “Thank you, Mr. Barco,” she said crisply. “And thank you to our host, Judd Monroe, for invoking the presence of the Lord at this table. Lord knows we need it.”

  Judd smiled at her, waited for everyone to get settled, and continued his prayer. “And for the food we are about to receive, God our Father, we give You thanks. Bless the hands that prepared it, and bless us all to the carrying out of Your will here on earth. Amen.”

  “Amen!” came the unanimous echo, followed by the rapid reaching for plates.

  It still amazed Christine how quickly a morning’s work got gobbled up by people who had no time to linger over this meal. Even those dreadful wedges of cabbage disappeared like magic as the passengers bolted their food and gulped glasses of water as fast as she could refill them.

  Vance VanBuren hunched over his plate like a buzzard, his shaggy hair brushing his shoulders as he forked down his food. “Thanks, Missus Monroe,” he grunted as he rose to go outside. It was a reminder to his passengers not to dally; a chance to stretch his legs and check the fresh team Asa and Nathaniel had hitched to the stagecoach.

  Within minutes, the others were expressing their appreciation, too, and as they boarded the coach, Miss Vanderbilt went to the door to watch them. With a dramatic “Hyahhh, there!” and a smart crack of his long whip above
the Morgans’ backs, Vance barreled away at full speed, leaving a thick cloud of dust in his wake.

  The little woman let out a ladylike “Hmph!” and returned to the table. “Just like a man, to put on a show for the folks at home. Now that he’s out of our vision, he’s already slowed the team to a trot that barely stirs the breeze inside that coach.”

  “Saves the horses from wearing out too fast or hurting themselves,” Mercy remarked. “Take your time eating, Aunt Agatha. We’ll clear away these other plates and join you.”

  “It’s downright sinful, the way those poor souls had to bolt this meal you prepared, Mercedes. I hope they pay you well for it?”

  “Well enough. The money we receive for being way-station employees is insurance against a poor crop, and gets us through the winter with more supplies than we’d have otherwise.”

  She glanced at the older woman’s plate, noting how she drizzled a thin stream of sorghum over her split biscuit. “Christine made the biscuits this morning. She’s been a tremendous help since she’s been here.”

  From the kitchen, where she’d taken an armload of greasy plates, Christine watched the headmistress cut a small bite with her fork and raise it to her lips with a gentility she hadn’t seen since Mama’s last garden party. She told herself she didn’t care what that old lady thought of her cooking, yet she had to know . . . had to see exactly what she was getting into, before she spent several hours on the stage and train with this woman. Not to mention months at a time in a faraway city, where no one knew her family or would take her in if she ran away from the academy.

  Miss Vanderbilt closed her eyes to savor the tiny bite. “Passable. Perhaps in the oven a minute too long.”

  Passable? Christine fumed. This from a rich old relic who no doubt had a chef to prepare her private meals. She should challenge the headmistress to make better biscuits with this cranky old cookstove that burned buffalo chips for fuel!

  “And you say the girl and her brother were abandoned? What on earth possessed their parents to send them west into Indian territory alone?”