Newcomer

by Laurie Alice Eakes

  Copyright

  ISBN 978-1-60260-914-3

  Copyright © 2010 by Laurie Alice Eakes. All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the permission of Truly Yours, an imprint of Barbour Publishing, Inc., PO Box 721, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683.

  All scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

  All of the characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events is purely coincidental.

  Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.

  One

  Cape May, New Jersey

  1899

  A flick of the turkey-feather brush dislodged dust, an invitation to a picnic, and a gray and silver–striped kitten from the parlor mantel. The invitation wedged itself in the fire screen, where it stuck out like a child’s insolent tongue. The kitten displaced a picture of a solemn-faced couple in wedding garb.

  Sneezing from the flying dust, Marigold McCorkle caught the picture before it smashed on the hearth. In the foyer, the kitten squealed then vanished into the library. For a moment, the dust whirled about in the afternoon sunshine, like a taunt, then settled over the carved mahogany mantel once again.

  “That never happens when Mrs. Cromwell dusts.” The observation came from nine-year-old Beryl Chambers. She stood in the parlor doorway, her long-fingered hands on her hips, and every aspect of her appearance—from the white straw hat perched atop her glossy, blond pigtails to her white dress banded with dove gray ribbons to her white button shoes—was in place, spotless, and unblemished.

  In contrast, Marigold knew her flaming hair was bursting from its pins in a hundred directions. Her plain, gray dress bore the marks of stove blackening on one sleeve, and white was no longer a word one could apply to her apron.

  “You should go slower,” Beryl continued. “That way the feathers collect the dust instead of just making it fly around. Would you like my handkerchief?”

  It, too, would be pristine.

  Marigold sighed. “No, thank you. I need to go change my dress and wash a bit. Where’s your sister?”

  “Sulking in the garden.” Beryl stuck her pert nose in the air. “She’s such a baby.”

  “She’s only six.”

  And worried about the new person about to spring upon her life.

  “You need to be patient with her.” Marigold dusted the silver picture frame with a clean corner of her apron and set it on the mantel beside the clock. That instrument ticked by the minutes in an ominous reminder that the train was due in less than an hour, and she’d better get herself up to her room and into clean clothes. Just because her original duties as the girls’ nurserymaid had also turned into governess and housemaid since the death of their parents, didn’t mean she could meet the new master of the house looking like a duster if someone turned her on her head.

  “Is she ready for your uncle?” Marigold asked.

  “No, she wouldn’t let me help her, and Mrs. Cromwell is busy making dinner.”

  “Then will you please fetch her inside and send her up to the nursery?” Marigold let her gaze dance around the room in search of anything in need of dusting, polishing, straightening.

  Every stick of furniture glowed with the patina of fine wood. The aroma of beeswax and lemon scented the air from the polishing, along with the fragrance of some late-blooming roses cut out of the garden and set in tall, crystal vases. White puff balls of hydrangeas appeared to float in their shimmering glass bowls set amid framed photographs, china figurines, and some small, wooden carvings that covered every available surface. Above her, the ceiling fan spun in a lazy circle, the moving air countering the warmth of the August sunshine spilling in through draperies open to welcome home the new owner of the house.

  “It will do,” Marigold decided and headed for the doorway.

  Beryl still stood there, her hands now clutched together at her waist.

  “What is it, child?” Marigold asked.

  “I’m not a child.” Beryl’s suddenly trembling lower lip belied her claim. “I’ll be ten in another month.”

  “I beg your pardon. I’m more than twice your age, and my father still calls me ‘child.’ You, of course, are quite grown up and don’t need me at all, but how may I help you?”

  “It’s Ruby.” Beryl blinked her huge, blue eyes—eyes that looked a little glassy. “She’s afraid Uncle Gordon isn’t very nice.”

  So was Marigold. After all, how good could a man be when he took three months to come care for his orphaned nieces? For herself, she was prepared to heartily dislike him. Those three months of not responding to her pleading telegrams to return to Cape May, New Jersey, had cost her dearly.

  She offered Beryl an encouraging smile she feared wouldn’t ring true. “He’s nice enough to come home, isn’t he? And his telegram was kind.”

  No, kind wasn’t the right word. Polite and promising generosity, yes. Considerate, barely. Kind? Only if implying he could make up for his long and unexplained absence by paying her extra wages was kind.

  She clenched her fingers. A crack like a shot burst through the room. A sharp pain gouged Marigold’s hand.

  “Miss Marigold,” Beryl cried, “you’re bleeding!”

  “I am?” Marigold glanced down to discover blood indeed trickling from her palm. She’d broken the handle of the feather duster, and the sharp ends of the split wood dug into her flesh. “I’d better go wash this. Will you please fetch Ruby upstairs? We can talk while I’m washing up and changing my dress.”

  “We can’t talk about Ruby being scared.” Beryl turned away. “It’ll make her feel bad.”

  “Then we’ll pretend we’re talking about you.”

  Marigold wanted to hug the child, but Beryl would never tolerate a smudge or wrinkle to her appearance. She was already moving away, anyhow. As she reached the door, she slipped her hand into a tiny white pocketbook and withdrew what was, without a doubt now, a spotless, white handkerchief with a black border to remind everyone of her recent loss.

  “Poor babies,” Marigold murmured.

  Her own eyes burning—possibly from the dust—she gathered up her skirt and raced up the steps. Fifty-three minutes were not enough to wash, change her dress, and do something reasonable with her hair, plus tidy Ruby.

  “Please don’t let anything else interfere,” Marigold prayed, meaning she hoped Mrs. Cromwell, the cook and housekeeper, wouldn’t request her assistance for anything.

  Marigold darted into the room the girls’ parents had converted to a nursery bathroom. She longed for a bath after cleaning all morning in the sticky, New Jersey August heat. She settled for a wash in the deep bowl of the sink then pulled the remaining pins from her hair. It cascaded around her face and shoulders in carroty curls so tight most combs broke trying to make their way through. It would have to wait for renewed pinning until after she donned a clean dress and saw to Ruby.

  Marigold’s clothes lay on her bed in the room reserved for the governess, though she’d only been hired as a nursemaid fifteen months earlier. White muslin dotted with tiny violets fluttered over her head, sending her hair floating outward, then settled onto her petticoats. Twisting a bit, she managed to get the buttons into their holes, then reached for her buttonhook to remove the heavy black footgear she wore while doing housework and don the pretty white ones for dress apparel.

  She’d gotten off the first pair and stood in her stocking feet, reaching for the second pair in her wardrobe, when Ruby scuffed through the bedroom door and Mrs. Cromw
ell called up the back steps for assistance lifting the roasting pan out of the oven.

  “Now,” the housekeeper emphasized.

  Marigold eyed Ruby’s smudged chin, grubby hands, and torn dress with its suspiciously squirming pocket. “If that’s not the kitten in there, take it outside immediately. If it is, sit on the chair there and wait for me. I’ll be back in a moment.”

  “It’s Dahlia,” Ruby mumbled. Her voice had grown too soft since her parents’ death. “She was sitting on Daddy’s desk, and he doesn’t like her there.”

  “If you hold on to her, Dahlia is in good hands.” Marigold tousled Ruby’s golden hair, which would also need to be braided again, then dashed out the door and down the rear staircase to the kitchen.

  “Do you have a clean apron? I don’t want to soil this dress.”

  “You know where they are.” Mrs. Cromwell pointed her salt-and-pepper bun toward the pantry door.

  On a row of hooks, spotless aprons hung. Marigold snatched one down and yanked the strings so hard around her trim waist that one parted from the apron.

  “I’ll sew it back on,” she said before the housekeeper could scold her.

  “If you go more slowly,” Mrs. Cromwell admonished, “that sort of thing won’t happen.” She gave the apron a narrow-eyed glance. “That was the one you mended last week.”

  So she didn’t sew any better than she dusted.

  Marigold sighed and, with the speed of a turtle crossing the road, removed another apron from a hook and tied it behind her.

  “My roast is drying out.” Mrs. Cromwell tapped the toe of her heavy brogan, shoes that reminded Marigold of her great-grandmother Bridget. “Can’t be waiting all day.”

  “No, ma’am.” Marigold snatched up towels folded for the purpose of protecting one’s hands from the heat and opened the oven door. Steam smelling of roasted beef, potatoes, carrots, and sweet onions billowed toward her. Her stomach growled. Her mouth watered. Her hair sprang into wilder curls, as it tumbled around her face, tickling her nose and tangling with her eyelashes.

  She blew the hair out of her face and hefted the huge roasting pan onto the worktable, something Mrs. Cromwell was growing too frail to manage on her own. “Do you need anything else, ma’am?”

  “No thank you, I can manage from here.” Mrs. Cromwell frowned at Marigold. “But will you please tie your hair back before coming into my kitchen. As pretty as it is, we don’t want to be eating it.”

  “Pretty?” Marigold laughed. “It’s a fright, and you are a dear for saying otherwise.” She kissed the old lady’s wrinkled cheek then raced back up the steps.

  “Slow down before you hurt yourself,” Mrs. Cromwell called after her.

  If only she had time to slow down. The train was due into the station in ten minutes. Even if Mr. Gordon Chambers disembarked last and waited for his luggage to be unloaded, experience with the train on a weekday, not as busy as the weekends, told Marigold he would arrive in half an hour at the most—and too possibly less. Cape May just wasn’t large enough for getting anywhere to take long.

  Marigold charged into her bedroom to gather up Ruby and take her for a wash and change of clothes. But Ruby no longer perched on the desk chair. Nor did she appear to be anywhere in the room or the bathroom. Marigold glanced into the girls’ room. No Ruby appeared there either, though her dress, matching Beryl’s, lay across her pink gingham coverlet.

  “Ruby, where are you?” Marigold called. “Where—”

  A thud and a cry from the schoolroom on the other side of the bathroom interrupted the query.

  Marigold sprinted in that direction. She burst through the doorway in time to find Ruby lying on the floor beside an overturned chair and Dahlia, the kitten, glaring down at the scene from atop the bookcase.

  “Are you all right?” Marigold dropped to her knees beside Ruby.

  Ruby nodded but didn’t move.

  “Where are you hurt?” Marigold touched the child’s head, seeking lumps. “Look at me, baby.”

  Ruby looked at her and gasped for air.

  “She’s just winded.” Beryl marched into the room, stood on tiptoe, and plucked the kitten from the shelf. “You should know better than to climb onto chairs.”

  “I—know.” Ruby managed to wheeze. “She was—crying to get down.”

  “Next time,” Marigold admonished, “you ask someone taller to get her down, all right?”

  Ruby nodded.

  “Good. Are you in pain?” Marigold debated whether to call for a doctor. “Can you get up on your own?”

  Ruby nodded again.

  “Then let’s get you dressed and your hair combed.” Marigold took the girl’s soft little hands in hers, noting a long scratch on one of them. “And clean up that scrape.”

  “You need to let Dahlia go when she wants to go.” Beryl sighed. “You never learn.”

  “Beryl,” Marigold said, “please go downstairs and see if Mrs. Cromwell needs your help setting the table.”

  “She doesn’t.” Beryl selected a book from the shelf and perched on the window seat. “I already did it.”

  “At least one of us is competent,” Marigold muttered. Aloud she said, “Come along, Ruby.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Ruby sat up with no apparent difficulty.

  Marigold helped her to her feet, then led her into the bathroom to wash her up, then to the girls’ room to change Ruby’s dress. Her hair, like Beryl’s, brushed out with barely a snarl to slow the progress. It waved so prettily, Marigold was half tempted to leave it flowing down Ruby’s back. But Beryl insisted that they have their hair braided and wear white ribbons tied around the ends. So Marigold sat on the dressing table stool and began the tedious task she’d performed that morning—twisting the child’s waist-length tresses into smooth, even plaits.

  Throughout the process, Ruby stood perfectly still. Marigold would have been pleased at such compliance, except Ruby had fought having her hair tended to only three months ago, right up to the day her parents, full of life and laughter and love for their children and one another, went out sailing on one of the boats the Chambers Excursion and Sailing Company owned and returned when the tide washed their bodies ashore. Now Marigold wished Ruby would squirm and complain, instead of playing like she was a breathing statue of a little girl.

  Halfway through the second braid, Marigold remembered she was going to talk to the girls about not being frightened of their uncle. She supposed it was best. Just the sound of his name in her own head made her stomach curdle like cream left in the sun. Gordon. Too much like “gorgon,” some mythological monster out of a fairy tale.

  “Ouch!” Ruby exclaimed.

  Marigold realized she’d tugged too hard on the child’s hair, while thinking of Gordon Chambers and his tardy arrival home.

  “I’m sorry. Almost done here.” Marigold picked up the second ribbon and tied it around the end of the pigtail. “You look lovely. Let’s go show Beryl.”

  Hand in hand, Marigold and Ruby started for the schoolroom. Before they reached it, Beryl’s voice reached them. “He’s here.”

  “Already?” Marigold peeked at the clock hanging on the schoolroom wall.

  Either the train arrived early, or Mr. Gordon Chambers hadn’t waited for his luggage.

  Marigold’s stomach felt as though it were wrapping itself around her sinking heart. In a few minutes, she would turn her charges over to a man who hadn’t cared enough to come home in time for his twin brother’s funeral, then waited another ten weeks to say whether or not he would return at all, and another two weeks to send a telegram announcing the train on which he would appear. As much as she wanted to get back to her own family in Hudson City, she hesitated at the top of the steps, each of her hands gripping that of one of the girls, her feet unwilling to carry her forward to open the front door to such a cold, indifferent man.

  “These girls need lots of love, Lord,” she mouthed toward the fanlight spreading its jewel-toned light over the foyer and steps. “They only
have me, and I can’t stay.”

  The doorbell chimed. It reverberated through Marigold’s head like a hammer blow.

  “Answer that.” Mrs. Cromwell’s voice drifted through the house.

  “Follow me down,” Marigold whispered. “And stand at the bottom of the steps and wait to be introduced. Remember to—”

  The doorbell chimed twice in rapid succession.

  “We know,” Beryl said. “You’d better go.”

  “You don’t want to get punished for making him wait,” Ruby murmured.

  No, it was Mr. Gordon Chambers who needed the chastisement for being late.

  Marigold gripped the banister for support and ran down the carpeted steps and across the runner to the front door. Well-oiled, the bolt slid open without a sound. Marigold tugged the heavy portal open and stepped back to allow the man on the front porch to come inside.

  Other than giving her a brusque nod, he didn’t acknowledge her, but strode past to set his valise on the floor and crouch before the girls. “Beryl, Ruby, I’m your uncle Gordon and so very sorry it’s taken me this long to get home.” He spoke in a voice as warm and rich as lemon custard. “Will you forgive me now that I’m here to see to things?” He held out his hands—long-fingered hands like his brother’s, like Beryl’s, only his were bronzed and hard-looking.

  The girls made no move to take his hands or even speak. Ruby stuck the first two fingers of her right hand into her mouth, and Beryl’s right toe tapped against the carpet.

  “It was inexcusable of me to stay away so long, wasn’t it?” Mr. Chambers said.

  Though Marigold only saw him in profile, she caught his smile and the way it creased the corner of his eye. Breath snagged in her throat. From the side, his resemblance to his brother made her blink. For a heartbeat, Gerald Chambers might have returned to them—but only for a heartbeat. A second glance showed Gordon’s hair curled more, and his shoulders appeared broader, his arms more powerful.

  Marigold inhaled to steady herself from the shock and switched her gaze to the girls. Their faces had paled, their eyes widened. Marigold half expected them to cry “Daddy,” but they remained silent, motionless, possibly as stunned as she.