Mercy balanced one last bowl on her tray. “That’s a question we’ve all speculated about, and perhaps Christine should be the one to answer it. Bring out our plates, dear,” she said in a louder, more purposeful voice, “so you and Aunt Agatha can get better acquainted.”
Christine closed her eyes against a prickly chill that ran up her backbone. Why did this little spinster intimidate her so? Why couldn’t she save such a conversation for the long ride to St. Louis?
She was ready to excuse herself to the privy, when Billy burst through the back door to get a good look at their visitor. Christine shoved the stack of clean plates into his arms and steered him into the front room ahead of her.
“Miss Vanderbilt, I’d like to introduce my little brother, Billy,” she said, smiling sweetly. “Billy, this is my new headmistress, Miss Agatha Vanderbilt.”
The moment he opened his mouth, Christine regretted her decision to let him do the talking.
“It’s right nice to meetcha!” he said. He set the stack of plates on the table to give her a courtly little bow—which looked utterly ridiculous, with his bare feet sticking out below his patched overalls and a rusty-red cowlick bobbing at his crown like a rooster’s tail. “Me an’ Sis had us a tutor back home in Missouri ’fore the war—”
“Did you, now?” the white-haired woman asked wryly.
“—but now that Daddy’s dead, and my twin brother Wesley’s been took by the Border Ruffians, and Mama’s done run off with a fellow named Richard Wyndham,” he continued, barely pausing for breath, “why, it’s a blessin’ like you wouldn’t believe, livin’ here with Judd and Miss Mercy. The Monroes are true saints, seein’ that Christine gets the schoolin’—and enough starch in her drawers—to become an up-standin’ pillar of society.”
Billy, so help me, when I get ahold of you—
Miss Vanderbilt’s brows had knit in concern at his account of their postwar tribulations; she’d nodded her accord when he called the Monroes saints. But the reference to starch in unmentionables made the headmistress turn pink—and turn to Mercy as though some family secret had been revealed.
“Young man,” she finally said—although she seemed to be shaking with suppressed laughter—“I’ll consider it my highest mission—my gift to your war-torn family—to see that your sister receives the finest education my academy can provide.”
As Judd and the hands came to the table, Christine shot poisoned-arrow looks at the brother who ran off at the mouth, yet managed to charm everyone he met. Who else could talk about underthings at the table, within arm’s reach of the venerable Miss Vanderbilt, and not get whacked with her fan?
She found herself sitting so straight and stiff, she could hardly taste her food—except for that disgusting cabbage, which she only took to avoid getting quizzed. And of course, she’d be expected to clear the table without slopping anything out of the bowls. She might as well paste a smile on her face, because ladies were expected to perform household duties as though they were privileged to have a home.
It came as quite a surprise when Miss Vanderbilt thanked Mercy for the delightful meal and then removed her jacket and plumed hat. She rolled up the sleeves of her blindingly white blouse, and began washing the dishes with a vengeance that had Billy and Christine drying double-time to keep up with her, while Mercy put things away. When the kitchen was set to rights again, their guest—looking as dry and unsplattered as when she’d arrived—stepped out the back door to catch some air.
“The prairie just rolls on forever, doesn’t it?” she mused aloud. As she buttoned the cuffs of her blouse, she took in the corrals and the cornfields ready for harvest. “This is a vastly different life from what you’re accustomed to, isn’t it, Christine?”
“Yes, ma’am,” she replied, wondering how the little biddy even knew she was standing behind her. “Back home we had hills and woods, and a row of sugar maples lining the driveway to the house.”
“And a household staff?”
“Oh, yes! We had Beulah Mae to cook and clean for us, and Daddy kept hands to tend and train our stock, and we had a man for the lawn and gardens,” she replied wistfully. “We bred and raised registered horses, you see. We’d still be there if it hadn’t been for those blasted outlaws shooting everything up and killing Daddy.”
“Maybe. And maybe not.”
The headmistress stepped back into the shadow of the house, shading her face with her hand. “Even in places where battles weren’t fought and homes weren’t ransacked, there’s no going back, Miss Bristol. We have to rebuild our country and rethink our priorities now. And I’m guessing the plains of Kansas aren’t your choice for starting afresh.”
Christine let out a little snort before she could catch herself. “I don’t know how Mercy stands it,” she replied in a more apologetic tone. “And she says she’s from a privileged family in Philadelphia—”
“Where her parents’ home covers half a city block, and her mother manages a staff of two maids, a cook, a butler, and a groundskeeper,” the little woman affirmed. “But Mercedes wanted more than a life spent changing gowns several times a day to sip tea in drawing rooms while her friends twittered about the latest neighborhood scandal. And now that I’m here, I understand why.”
Swallowing a retort, Christine waited for her new headmistress to continue. She could not imagine Miss Agatha Vanderbilt living in this log house! If the smell of the manure didn’t offend her, the hot, dusty wind would send her running for cover to protect her precious complexion.
The woman turned to assess her, and Christine was amazed at how smooth and unfurrowed her face looked. Why, the headmistress glowed with the vigor of a woman half her age! She radiated an excitement Mama had never displayed—at least not until Richard Wyndham waltzed into her life.
“Most everything can be looked at like the proverbial glass that’s either half full or half empty,” Miss Vander-bilt remarked. “Homesteading on the prairie can represent either isolation and hardship, or freedom and opportunity that are unavailable to women back East.
“And while I understand your youthful view of their situation,” she continued in that crisp chirp of a voice, “I can’t tell you how proud I am that my niece married a working man like Judd Monroe. They grabbed this opportunity by the horns to make the most of all the Lord has provided them! It shows backbone, and a sense of purpose. That’s what I try to instill in all my girls, and Mercedes exemplifies my highest ideals.”
“Even though I could never set a formal table to suit her and I often got sent to my room for improper conversation at dinner,” came a voice from behind them.
A hand rested on Christine’s shoulder, and for once it didn’t feel as if Mrs. Monroe was trying to keep her from running off.
“But thank you, Aunt Agatha. This isn’t the life I was born to, but I couldn’t have survived out here without your encouragement—no, your prodding—to find my true purpose. I’m hoping Christine will find hers, too.”
It was higher-minded talk than Christine was used to, yet as evening fell and they lit the lamps, she gleaned a lot from listening to the two women catch up on family from back East. Were Miss Vanderbilt’s hands never still? As she conversed, her tatting shuttle flew between her fingers, and the ivory thread produced a delicate floral pattern of lace—and she wasn’t even reading a pattern! Mercy sat at the table with a basket of colorful fabric scraps, tracing around a template.
“Those are the leftover pieces from Mama’s dresses. And yours.” Christine went over to observe, and sure enough, the rich silks and shiny satins were being cut to use every scrap to best advantage, probably for a quilt.
Billy came up beside her, running a fingertip along a piece of sage-green taffeta he recognized from happier days. “Sure ain’t for my bed—”
“Isn’t,” his sister corrected.
“—’cause I’d get it dirty just lookin’ at it. Don’t reckon I’ve ever seen a quilt pieced from such fancy, purty fabric.”
Mercy smile
d as though she were keeping a secret. “Maybe it won’t be for a bed. I haven’t decided yet. With winter coming soon, I thought it’d be nice to work with these bright colors—to remind us of those beautiful gowns Christine will be wearing while she’s away.
“You’ll be impressed, Aunt Agatha,” she remarked to the woman sharing her lamplight. “Christine has a true talent for redesigning clothes.”
“I can’t wait to see them in full daylight. But meanwhile . . .”
The snowy-haired woman clipped her thread and pressed her lace flat to the tabletop, letting the heat from her hands smooth it into a symmetrical crescent arrangement of flowers and leaves. “Here’s a pretty collar to pin on your calico dresses, Mercedes. A little touch of elegance goes a long way toward refining rough days and ways, don’t you think?”
The look on Mercy’s face stopped Christine’s heart. Such a simple gift, yet it seemed as though Miss Vanderbilt had handed her niece the keys to the kingdom. In fact, the breathless way she said her thank-you—the intensity of her gratitude—touched Christine so deeply she had to back away from the table.
“I—I think I’ll go on up to bed now,” she said awkwardly. “Probably do some more packing. Good night, everyone.”
Billy’s scowl challenged her early retreat, but she kept walking toward the staircase. He was just a kid—a boy, as well—so he would never understand why the exchange between those two women had upset her so.
What she didn’t need was another reminder that Mama would probably never embroider any more handkerchiefs or knit any more shawls for her. Just as she would never be able to say how much those mementos meant to her now. She’d stuffed most of them into the drawer with hair ornaments and stockings she seldom wore, thinking them silly—either not to her liking or not suiting her mood. They were still there, in that abandoned house in Missouri.
Another part of the life she’d left behind.
Christine sighed, realizing what a waste it was, to be going to the esteemed Academy for Young Ladies, when she already knew her life’s purpose was to catch up to Mama and bring her back. So they could all go home.
And Miss Vanderbilt, the eternal optimist, would never convince her otherwise.
Chapter Thirteen
“No, Billy, I am not leaving Mama’s diary here for you.”
Christine tucked the little book, bound in cherry-red velvet, beneath those pretty remade dresses she’d folded into their mother’s trunk.
“But surely I could have somethin’ of Mama’s.” He sat cross-legged on the floor of her room, amongst the treasures she was taking away tomorrow. If only he could shrink down enough to hide in her luggage! “You know dang well she ain’t comin’ through here—”
“Isn’t coming, Billy!” she snapped. “How many times do I have to—”
“—so why do you get to keep all her secrets?” he protested. “What else is there to know, ’cept that she met up with that Wyndham fella? Why can’t you leave me that likeness of her? If that Tucker fella in Atchison is so sweet on you, why, he’d surely send you another print.”
“Sweet on me?” She fixed her fists on her hips to glare at him. “What would you know about such things, Billy? If you’re going to be such a bother—”
“Maybe you’ll miss your brother, there in a strange city surrounded by girls you don’t know yet,” a voice suggested from the doorway. “Maybe you’ll wish—as we all do at some time—that you’d spared him a little memento of your mother. He might repay the favor someday.”
Miss Vanderbilt’s crow’s-feet crinkled when she smiled, and her brown eyes sparkled a lot like Mercy’s.
It took all of Christine’s effort not to toss her head like a mare with a dead mouse in her grain. But danged if she didn’t look around—just to sweeten up her new teacher, of course—and pluck something from a hat she hadn’t packed yet.
“Here! Satisfied?”
Billy snatched it before she changed her mind. And when the light from the window caught its swirls of blue, purple, and green, he knew he’d find a special place for Mama’s peacock feather. Recalling how grand she’d looked in that green hat made his toes wiggle.
“Thanks, Sis!” He hopped up to hug her, and then dashed to the door. “I’ll put it where I’ll see it every—”
Billy stopped short in the doorway to his room, where Miss Vanderbilt was staying. The white-haired woman smiled, waving him in. “Put it wherever you like, dear. It’ll remind you to keep your sister—and your mother—in your prayers until you see them both again. Because I truly believe you will.”
What made her so sure? Why couldn’t he have this same faith in the mother who’d loved him—a woman Miss Vanderbilt had never even met?
Billy smiled at her; decided he had nothing to lose by believing what she said. He stuck the peacock feather in a crack near the window, where it would shimmer in the light like it had when Mama wore it to church.
Then he returned to his sister’s door, chuckling at the sight of her backside pointed toward the ceiling. Once upon a time he’d have given her a shove and then closed the trunk on her.
Wesley still would. The thought came out of nowhere, along with the memory of his brother’s ornery grin, and it saddened him.
“I’ll miss ya, Sis,” he murmured. “If I see Wesley, I’ll say ‘hey’ for ya, if you’ll do the same with Mama. Double-dog deal?”
The old phrase from their childhood made his sister turn to gaze at him sadly. “Double-dog deal, Billy.”
The next day, Billy felt itchy, as if he’d picked blackberries without a shirt. He knew it was best for Christine to go away to school, but he dreaded being left behind. Again.
Never would he forget the sight of that surrey hurrying away from the station in Leavenworth, when Mama never once looked back. He’d survived those weeks his sister was off on her wild-goose chase all right, but he didn’t like the idea of being the only Bristol on this homestead. Judd and Mercy couldn’t possibly treat him any better, but he was only here because he wasn’t brave enough—or brazen enough—to leave, the way Mama and his sister had.
The stagecoach rolled to a dusty, dramatic halt in the yard just before noon. When Vance VanBuren hollered for the passengers to eat and be quick about it, Billy focused on the bowl of golden corn on the cob he carried to the table, inhaling its sweet, buttery aroma. Christine looked fine indeed, in a traveling suit she’d made from one of Mercy’s plainer gowns. It was the color of the dust they would wear all the way to the station in Topeka, with a watermark pattern that shimmered as she carried in the basket of biscuits she’d made that morning.
None of them had slept much, so the meal and the front room were ready early. Mercy carried a pitcher of lemonade in each hand, followed by her aunt, who bore a large platter of salt pork in red-eye gravy. How did that little woman work in the kitchen without splattering a drop on her crisp gray dress? Billy was already anticipating her next visit, because Mercy enjoyed her company so much.
“We’ll see ya again at Christmastime, then?” he asked, wishing his voice didn’t sound so high-pitched and childish when he was upset.
“I’m looking forward to it!” Miss Vanderbilt gave him a nod as crisp as her starched collar.
Her upswept hair was arranged in rows of tight white curls at her forehead; if she were fatter and wore a red hat, she’d look like Santa’s wife! Billy grinned at the thought. It seemed reason enough to keep believing in Saint Nick, when everyone else was leaving him.
But then his sister pointed an ominous finger at him. “Whatever you’re thinking about,” she warned, “don’t! There’s no time to change my clothes before the—”
Mercy nudged her toward the door to take money, while he filled the passengers’ water glasses. Moments later, they all bowed their heads and Judd’s low voice filled the room.
“For all You’ve given us, dear Lord, make us ever mindful and truly thankful,” he began. “We pray for Your hand to guide this coach safely to its destination, and
ask Your special blessing on our Christine as she begins her studies at Miss Agatha’s academy. May this food nourish our bodies as Your abiding love strengthens our hearts and souls. In Jesus’ dear name we pray, amen.”
“Amen,” came the echo. From there, the meal proceeded at its usual harried pace.
Billy was fetching more water while his sister and Miss Vanderbilt ate, but all too soon VanBuren rose from the bench: it was time for them to leave. And danged if Christine didn’t slip out ahead of the others while he was in the kitchen! And danged if he didn’t get knocked aside by two big men hurrying to climb to the coach’s roof.
His heartbeat sounded so loud it was as if those Morgans were already a galloping off. He suddenly needed just one more look at his sister—even if she made one of those girl faces that told him he was lower than dirt.
“Christine! Hey, don’t fergit to write me when—”
“I’ll see to it, Billy,” Miss Vanderbilt assured him. And then she winked at him. “And we’ll see you at Christmas.”
Color rushed into his cheeks, and in his best attempt at courtliness, he handed the headmistress up into the crowded coach. He was straining for a glimpse of his sister when it occurred to him—
“Her trunks! We didn’t get them two—”
“Mr. Judd and Nathaniel saw to it,” Asa assured him. As the kindly hired man pulled him back from the coach door, Billy realized that Mercy and Judd had come out, as well.
How much had gotten by him in these past frantic moments? His chest tightened with a familiar dread—that same awful ache that clenched every muscle of his body when he awoke in the night and realized, all over again, that his daddy, his twin, and his mama were gone.
Only Judd’s large, warm hand on his shoulder kept him from springing up into the driver’s seat beside Vance. Even that rough-cut fellow would understand why he had to go along—wouldn’t he? Surely in a houseful of girls there was work for a willing boy—
“Giddap!” VanBuren hollered. And with a showy snap of his nine-foot whip above the horses’ backs, the overland coach sped off in a cloud of dust.
A Patchwork Family Page 13