Spirit of Love

by Duncan, Alice

  Maybelle and Devlin had never married, but Ash didn’t fault them for that. Hell, the West was wide open and free. They weren’t the first couple to set up housekeeping without the blessing of a preacher or the law, and he was sure they wouldn’t be the last. At least they hadn’t been hypocritical about it. And the love between them had been as plain as the nose on Frank Dunwiddy’s face.

  Since Dev’s death, Maybelle had slipped a cog, though, and it made Ash sad. She’d been a real pistol, Maybelle. Poor Vernice had her hands full these days, tending to the crotchety old woman’s needs and catering, to her whims. Maybelle Murphy had never been an easy woman. She was sort of like her granddaughter in that respect.

  Ash waved at Vernice, who waved back. She looked as if she might bust with happiness. He hoped Miss Georgina Witherspoon wouldn’t be a terrible disappointment to her.

  “Oh, my, is that my aunt?”

  At least the newcomer sounded as if she were glad to meet her aunt. Although it went against the grain, Ash allowed her to score a point for it. “Yes. That’s your aunt, Miss Vernice Murphy.”

  “Oh, my!”

  Vernice couldn’t stand it any longer, and rushed across the porch, down the steps, and into the yard, where she made a beeline for her niece. For her part, Miss Witherspoon didn’t even wait for Ash to help her, but bounded down from the buggy as if on springs.

  Ash watched, perplexed. He wouldn’t have given her credit for so much energy and family feeling. He’d thought her to be as shallow as Phoebe.

  She probably was, underneath. He watched the two women meet in the middle of the yard and embrace, crying and laughing, and generally behaving like a couple of women. He grinned, tugged at his hat, scratched his head, and surveyed the Murphy place.

  Devlin and Maybelle had made a nice life for themselves out here, all right. It was a shame Dev had to go like that. He hadn’t been one to work real hard at any known profession, but he’d kept the house and grounds up nicely, giving the house and barn a fresh coat of whitewash every year or two, and keeping the fences mended.

  He and Maybelle had raised vegetables and cows, horses, and pigs, and kept a sheep or two. They’d never seemed to want for much, and Maybelle never seemed to mind that Dev took a drop or two every now and then.

  Dev had been about the most entertaining fellow Ash had ever met, too, He guessed it was true what folks said about Irishmen: They might not like to work very much, and they might be a little too fond of their drink, but they could sure spin a yarn. Ash used to come out and help around the farm sometimes just so he could listen to Dev talk.

  The two women finally quit hugging. Both were wiping their eyes. Ash had just finished unloading Miss Witherspoon’s bags when Vernice rushed toward him

  “Oh, Mr. Barrett, thank you so much for delivering our beautiful Georgina to us! We’re so very grateful—you must come inside—we have spice cake and dandelion wine—you know how mother loves to—and it was so nice—and you must be thirsty—before you go back to town.”

  Ash chuckled. Miss Vernice always got fluttered when she was excited. “Thanks, Miss Vernice. Don’t mind if I do. How’s Miss Maybelle today?”

  Vernice’s smile faded. Ash was sorry to see it go and felt guilty that it had been his inquiry, however kindly meant, that had vanquished it. Vernice began to wring her hands.

  “I suppose she’s as well as can be expected. She’s in such a temper, though. I really don’t see how I could have—it’s so difficult—I mean—well ...” Vernice’s confession petered out.

  Ash patted her hand. “It’ll be all right, Miss Vernice. Now that you’ve got some help around the place, it’ll probably be easier for you to handle things.” He didn’t believe a word of it. He guessed the lie was plain in his voice, because Miss Witherspoon frowned at him.

  “Indeed,” she said in a tone of ice. “I aim to be a huge help to my dear aunt and my grandmother.” She seemed to forget her anger with him as she glanced around. Her face took on an expression that even by Ash’s cynical standards could only be called radiant. “Oh, Aunt Vernice, I’m so happy to be here , I dreamed of corning and didn’t think my parents would let me.”

  “I didn’t think they would either, dear. I feared they wouldn’t, and l didn’t know what I was going to do. I mean—not that I didn’t—but now that you’re here....” She didn’t finish, but hugged Georgina again instead.

  Ash thought it was sweet, the way the two of them seemed to take to each other right off. He didn’t expect it to last. As soon as Miss Georgina Witherspoon discovered how rugged life was out here in the territory where there were no amenities to speak of, she’d give up and go back to New York. Then poor Vernice would be left with the whole burden of caring for Maybelle again, and it would probably be worse because her hopes would have been crushed by her good-for-nothing niece. He disliked Miss Georgina Witherspoon for breaking her aunt’s heart that way. He thought it was dead mean of her.

  The place still looked good. Dev hadn’t been dead long enough for it to go to rack and ruin. Ash hoped it wouldn’t. He tried to help the two ladies as much as he could, and he knew other fellows in Picacho Wells did, too, but the farm really needed a permanent caretaker. There was nothing he could do about that, he supposed. He hefted the two bags and followed Vernice and Miss Witherspoon up the porch steps.

  Maybelle’s huge orange tabby cat, Oscar, tromped out onto the porch and eyed the visitors malevolently. That damned cat caused more problems for Ash than all the bank robbers in the territory. Maybelle worshipped the thing, but the Murphys’ closest neighbor, Penelope Jones, was always complaining about it. Mrs. Jones kept telling Ash that there must be something criminal in its behavior. Ash had not yet convinced her that cats couldn’t break laws and, therefore, couldn’t be arrested. He had to admit, however, that Oscar did seem to go out of his way to trample Mrs. Jones’s plants, kill her chickens, scratch up her seedlings, and chase her dog.

  He skirted Oscar, holding one of Georgina’s bags between the cat and his legs as he went past. Georgina, who hadn’t been warned about the cat, said, “Oh, what a sweet kitty,” and held out her hand—to pet it, Ash presumed. She got a slash on her wrist for her effort, and Oscar arched his back and snarled at her.

  Ash expected her to shriek. Instead, she drew herself up straight, blinked in astonishment at the cat, lifted her wounded wrist to her mouth and laughed.

  “I guess I’ll know better than to take you for granted from now on, won’t I?”

  Ash goggled at her.

  Oscar hissed again. Georgina laughed once more and shook her head. “What a tough old cat you are, to be sure. You fit right in here.”

  Ash could hardly believe his eyes and ears.

  Vernice said, “Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry. I should have cautioned you—that is, someone should, have—it’s a shame that cat—I mean .. .” Vernice gulped air. “That’s your grandmother’s favorite pet, and she won’t hear a word against him. But he’s an awful, vicious thing. I keep wishing a coyote would eat him, but so far none has.”

  Oscar hissed at Vernice this time.

  “A coyote?” Georgina breathed the word reverently, as if she considered coyotes akin to angels.

  Ash, figuring such a reaction typical of a city girl, snorted. “No coyote’d dare get within ten yards of that animal, Miss Vernice. You know that.”

  Vernice giggled and blushed. Ash grinned. He always had this effect on poor old Vernice. She was a sweetheart, but way past any hope of matrimony. Ash felt sorry for her on that account.

  Ash pressed the latch of the front door and pushed it open, then stood aside to allow the two ladies to enter ahead of him. Dammit, he had manners, even if he wasn’t from New York City.

  He noticed that Miss Witherspoon grabbed Vernice’s hand and held it tight. Vernice looked as if she might flutter up to the ceiling, she was so full of joy and trepidation.

  “Mother,” Vernice said, her voice quivering with emotion. “Mother, look who’s come
to visit us all the way from New York City.”

  Miss Witherspoon grabbed a hankie out of her pocket, quickly wiped her eyes, and said in a voice every hit as emotional as Vernice’s, “Grandmother? Grandmother Murphy? It’s so good to be able to meet you at last.”

  Ash stepped into the house and closed the door behind him, depositing the two bags next to the door. Then he stood back to watch the touching scene.

  Sunlight poured into the parlor of the Murphy place, making it look fresh and clean and pretty. Someone—Ash presumed it was Vernice—had set bowls of flowers around. There were lavender and white cosmos on a table next to the chair Dev used to sit in, and roses on the parlor table. Maybelle Murphy sat in a wheelchair—she’d broken her ankle at Dev’s funeral and had been laid up since—a scowl on her face.

  “So you’re Evelyn’s child, are you?” Her voice grated like a metal file, and she didn’t sound at all pleased to see her only granddaughter for the first time.

  Miss Witherspoon opened her mouth, then shut it again, not having anticipated this kind of greeting. “Er, yes. Yes, I’m Georgina.”

  “Georgina!” Maybelle Murphy spat the name out as she might spit out a bug she’d found in her oatmeal. “Stupid name for a girl, if you ask me. It’s your father’s conceit, that’s what it is.” She eyed Georgina up and down. “And look at you. Why, you look like a fashion plate out of one of those miserable, stupid female magazines.”

  Maybelle Murphy had eyes like those of a bird of prey. They were small and dark, and they glittered with predatory sharpness. Ash had never realized how much she looked like a hawk until today. And poor little Georgina Witherspoon had obviously stirred Maybelle’s bird-of-prey instincts.

  “I—I beg your pardon?”

  Georgina’s voice had gone exceedingly small. She was blinking furiously. If Ash didn’t dislike her so much, he’d have felt sorry for her.

  “Namby-pamby! That’s what you are! That’s what Evelyn was, too. Damned namby-pamby, prissy, feeble-minded society female who’s no good for anything but breeding namby-pamby, prissy, feeble-minded society babies!”

  “Grandmother!” Georgina was shocked. Ash didn’t blame her.

  “Don’t you grandmother me, you ridiculous girl!” Maybelle Murphy reached into her lap, plucked up one of a pair of shoes lying there—Ash had no idea why—and heaved it at Georgina, who skipped to one side, thereby avoiding being hit. Agile little thing; Ash had to give her that.

  “Oh, Grandmother!” Georgina looked as if she might burst into tears.

  “Mother, stop it this instant. You know you don’t mean any of those awful things.” Vernice was beside herself and definitely didn’t know what to do with her unmanageable parent.

  In spite of himself and his dislike of Georgina Witherspoon, Ash said, “Stop cutting tricks, Miss Maybelle. You know you’re only trying, to create an impression.”

  “Don’t talk to me like that, you good-for-nothing galoot!”

  “Oh, my goodness.”

  Ash barely heard Georgina’s horrified whisper. He was a bit peeved with Maybelle himself. After all, even if he didn’t like Georgina Witherspoon, he didn’t think she deserved this kind of abuse—at least not yet.

  In an attempt to buck her up, he said, loud enough for Maybelle to hear, “Don’t pay any attention to her, Miss Witherspoon. She’s only being ornery to upset you. Besides, the whole town knows Maybelle Murphy is several bricks short of a load.”

  Georgina’s big, cornflower-blue eyes, bright with tears of astonishment and worry—a powerful combination—blinked at Ash this time. His heart executed a back flip.

  “You damned scoundrel! Don’t you be calling me crazy! You don’t know what the devil you’re talking about!” Maybelle Murphy heaved her other shoe at Ash, who sidestepped almost as nimbly as Georgina had.

  Ash laughed.

  Vernice uttered a little squeak of affliction.

  Georgina only pressed the palm of her scratched hand to her cheek and stared with horror at her grandmother. She looked about ready to sink through the floor.

  “It’s all right, dear. Mother behaved very badly to you, and it was monstrous of her to do so, but please try to understand. She’s been haunted by that awful man’s ghost ever since he died.”

  “Haunted by his ghost?” What exactly was that supposed to mean?

  “Yes.” Vernice sighed. “She claims his spirit has been hanging around the house since the day of his funeral. It aggravates her terribly.”

  Georgina stared at Vernice, not at all reassured by this explanation of her grandmother’s rude behavior. “Er, I beg your pardon?” Perhaps she’d misunderstood.

  They were in the middle of snapping green beans for supper. Georgina had never snapped a bean in her life before now. In. New York her parents had a whole house full of servants to perform these everyday tasks.

  She wasn’t distressed by the prospect of physical work. Rather, she was elated by it. After all, her goal was to fit in and become a useful member of the western contingent of her family. If that entailed snapping beans and cooking, so be it. Georgina wasn’t sure, but she suspected a true western woman’s chores probably included a good deal more than snapping beans. She looked forward to whatever this new life offered her.

  At the moment, however, she was still attempting to come to terms with her grandmother who, although she hated to admit it, did seem to be somewhat unbalanced. Actually—Georgina gulped and tried not to exhibit her uneasiness—Vernice, standing here talking to her about ghosts as if they were as much a part of life as dressing gowns and slippers, didn’t sound exactly rational, either. Georgina hoped to heaven the Murphy side of her family didn’t contain a tainted strain.

  “I know it sounds silly, but there it is,” Vernice said in answer to Georgina’s plea for clarification. “It’s that Mr. O’Rourke. He died in February, you know, and Mother hasn’t been the same since. It’s because he’s taken to haunting her, and she’s very crotchety about it.”

  “Oh.” Georgina tried to think of something intelligent to say and failed. She concentrated on snapping beans and hoped Vernice would not take her silence amiss. She also scanned the kitchen for possible weapons. She trusted the lunatic bloodline that seemed to run rampant in her family didn’t include violence with anything more deadly than shoes.

  Good. The knife was closer to her than to Vernice. If Vernice made a move to grab it, Georgina believed her reflexes would be quicker than her aunt’s.

  Vernice lowered her voice when she continued. “I hope your mother and father filled you in on the family history, Georgina. I know it’s shocking, and if things hadn’t come to such a pass, I’m sure they’d never have distressed you with it, but I suppose you need to know now.” She shook her head sorrowfully.”

  Georgina nodded, embarrassed. “Yes. Mother and Father told me all about it before I came out here.”

  She’d been powerfully jolted, too, that day two months ago when her parents had sat her down in the parlor and bared their souls, her mother in tears. It had been dreadful to hear her mother, her face muffled in her soggy handkerchief, say that Georgina’s father had married her mother in spite of her abysmal family background. Georgina had been touched when her father had patted her mother’s knee and said that, however ignoble her kin, he’d married her because he loved her, and he’d never once regretted it.

  Until now.

  How many other families contained black sheep like Grandmother Murphy? Georgina wondered. Of course, since no properly brought-up person ever discussed such things as skeletons in closets and lunatics in territories, there was no way of knowing for certain. Still, Georgina suspected not very many mothers ran away from their families as Maybelle Murphy had done. She’d had the decency to wait until her children were grown up and Evelyn was happily married, but it was still a scandalous thing to have done.

  And then to have lived in sin with a man after she’d absconded from New York ... Well, Georgina would never, in her wildest imagi
nings, have suspected such a thing happening in her own family. She’d always been told that Grandmother Murphy had moved to New Mexico Territory after her husband died. But she hadn’t. Not by a far sight. She’d left him. Bolted. Taken it on the lam. Moved out. Run away from home, as it were.

  Georgina had always enjoyed her grandmother’s letters from the territory. As they were peppered with references to rattlesnakes, horned toads, tarantulas, saloons, cowboys, bandits, Indians, and tobacco spit, perhaps Georgina should have suspected something amiss with Maybelle. But she hadn’t. How could she have? Her own grandmother, for heaven’ s sake.

  Vernice tutted. “It was a pure scandal, I fear. Even out here, where life is much too loose to begin with, it was considered shocking that they never married.”

  “Have you lived with her ever since she moved to the territory?” Georgina had never wondered before, but she did now. Perhaps Maybelle hadn’t abandoned her family entirely. Perhaps she’d—Vernice burst her bubble of hope at once.

  “Oh, no. I only moved out here ten years ago. For my health.” She patted her chest. “It’s the dry air. It does one such good if one has a tendency toward lung complaints.”

  “Yes. I’ve heard as much.”

  “Mother didn’t want me to come.” Vernice’s lips pinched together. “I didn’t know why until I got off the train.”

  “Mercy.”

  “Oh, she was nice enough to me once I was here and there was no getting away from it. I was the first member of the family who really knew what was going on—about Mr. O’Rourke, I mean. She swore me to secrecy, but news leaked out. It has a habit of doing that.” Vernice sighed forlornly.