by Zina Abbott
Dumbfounded, Kendrick stared at her. “No, I had no idea. Are you sure?”
Lydia nodded. “If you’d like, I’ll be happy to show you.”
Kendrick stepped back toward his bedroom door as if to block anyone from entering. It was one thing if this woman had entered while he was gone and she was in there with a gaggle of females to “chaperone.” Under no circumstances would he allow her into his room—alone with him—for any reason. “Mrs. Meyer, please stay here while I return the table to the kitchen. Then I’ll bring out the trunk so we can take a look.”
Wearing an expression of relief, Lydia nodded. “I’ll help you bring in the chair that is still out there, as well as the baby’s dishes. I think her milk jug is about empty. Perhaps I can wash it with soap before you milk the goat and fill it again.”
As Kendrick walked toward the front once more to move the table, he mentally groaned at the subtle hint that, instead of giving it a quick token rinse, he should be washing out the crock container for the goat’s milk with soap before adding fresh. Using soap had not been on Miss Womack’s list of instructions. Maybe the woman assumed he would figure that out.
Soon, the table and chairs were once more in the kitchen. Lydia brought in Madeline’s food and supplies, the work basket with the twins’ fabric project, and a now-awake Madeline. Last, Kendrick entered his bedroom long enough to emerge with Madeline’s chest. He placed it on the center of his table.
Lydia turned to Kendrick. “Here, Mr. Denham. If you’ll take the baby, I’ll unload the clothing inside and show you what I found.”
“What was under the false bottom?”
“I didn’t open it. The trunk is not mine, and anything in there should be seen by you, as Madeline’s guardian.”
Not guardian. Papa. I promised Madeline I’d be her papa.
Lydia turned and began to encourage Madeline to go to Kendrick.
A sleepy-eyed Madeline resisted leaving Lydia’s arms.
Lydia looked down at the baby, who clung to her and wrapped an arm around her neck. She looked over to Kendrick, who shifted from one foot to the other as he stared at the baby. “Mr. Denham, you appear to be reluctant to take her. Is there a problem?”
Kendrick squirmed and looked off to the side before his gaze connected with Lydia’s. “I don’t know. Last night, she remembered her mother and kept saying, ‘mama.’ She was not too happy with me, since I could not bring her mama to her.” He swallowed and licked his lips. Hesitantly, he shared with Lydia the details of the peek-a-boo incident. “I don’t know if she still remembers last night. I assured her I was her papa and would always take care of her, but I don’t know if she accepts that.”
Lydia’s voice came out in a whisper. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Denham—for you both.” She reached down and stroked Madeline’s hair as she rocked the baby side to side. “Babies do recognize those who are close to them, although how long they remember details of their early lives, I don’t know. I know I’m unable to remember anything before the age of about five years. Perhaps, because she has been with her mother recently, something did spark that memory. I imagine that, in time, those memories will fade. As long as she is surrounded by people who love her and care for her, those newer memories will be what stays with her.”
“I don’t know that I want her to forget her mother. I just hope I never again see her as distressed as she was last night. I did decide I’m going to claim her as my child—never abandon her the way she might feel her mother and everyone else she knew has left her. Then again, I feel more inadequate about being her papa now than I’ve felt since they brought her." He offered Lydia a lop-sided grin. “That includes the fiasco involved in changing that first pair of messy diapers.” He looked away. “What I feel now has nothing to do with physically caring for her or providing for her. That I can do, but is it enough?”
“Just keep taking care of her, Mr. Denham. I believe, over time, she’ll realize how much you love her.” Still holding Madeline, Lydia stepped over to the trunk. “Please open it and take out all her things. If you can stack them so they stay folded, I would appreciate it.”
Kendrick gaze turned from Lydia to Madeline. Love her? Yes, I’m beginning to love her. “I’ll do my best.” He sighed as his gaze fell on the folded baby clothes. “Fooling with little stuff like this isn’t my strong point.” Kendrick did as Lydia instructed him. Soon, the contents rested on his tabletop in piles.
Lydia pointed to the darker lump near the side edge of the bottom. “I believe that is a ribbon which, if you can pry it free, will allow you to lift out the liner. Here, use one of my hairpins to work it loose.” She reached her free hand to her chignon, pulled out a thin metal pin, and handed it to him.
Accepting the makeshift tool, Kendrick used it to work the ribbon. Soon, enough of it stuck above the fabric-covered flat piece at the bottom to allow him to grip it with his fingers and pull up. He looked over when he noticed Lydia step back.
The motion of pulling up the bottom cover disturbed a heavy piece of linen below it. He lifted off the cloth and stared at the contents. His gaze was drawn to an oil painting portrait of a young woman. Picking it up, he fingered the edges of the canvas. He suspecting the portrait had been cut from its frame. He pulled it out and held it up so the light coming through his kitchen window would shine on it.
The portrait was of a young woman, perhaps only a couple of years older than the Thompson twins. She wore a rich blue gown with drop-shoulder sleeves and a modest vee-neckline edged in heavy lace. A blue gemstone hanging from a thin chain adorned her neck. She wore her hair in a style typical of an earlier decade. The artist had captured the pink glow of her complexion, the spark of merriment in her eyes, and a beguiling smile.
Kendrick turned to Lydia as she approached.
Holding Madeline so the baby looked over her shoulder instead of forward, she studied the image. “Is that her?”
“Yes. She’s much younger in this picture, but this is the same woman who came to my shop about two months ago. I’m pretty sure this is the baby’s mother. Let me see what else is here.” Kendrick picked up another flat object and carefully removed the square of flannel in which it had been wrapped. He studied the daguerreotype of the stunningly beautiful woman.
The daguerreotype revealed every detail of the same woman’s features and the clothing she wore. The light-colored gown—possibly white—with its full skirt and low décolletage was adorned with flowers only a few shades darker than the fabric. The same flowers had been worked into her elaborate hairdo of dark locks and sausage curls arranged around her face. The effect highlighted her clear complexion and the depths of her dark pupils set in her round eyes—eyes Madeline had inherited.
What Kendrick did not understand was, if she wanted the baby to have pictures of her, why did she hide them beneath the false bottom of a trunk?
One last item in the bottom caught Kendrick’s eye. He lifted out a yellowed piece of paper that appeared to be a newspaper clipping. Nothing identified the name of the publisher, the place it had been published, or the date. The headline read, “Boston Socialite Missing, Foul Play Suspected.” He read on to discover it detailed the disappearance of Margaret P. Crandall from her home in a fashionable Boston neighborhood a week before she was scheduled to wed Arthur Benton, a business associate of Crandall Enterprises, a growing cotton milling conglomerate in the region. It also named a man from the same area wanted in connection with her disappearance.
Kendrick recollected what he had read in the letter sent by Madeline’s mother. In it, she had stated that Mayfield was not the name given to her at birth. Did this article with her portraits hint she was a Crandall? Mayfield, the surname she last went by, also was not the surname of the man to whom she was engaged to marry, nor the man believed to be instrumental in her disappearance.
It was not until she spoke that Kendrick realized Lydia must have read all or part of the article while looking over his shoulder.
“Mr. Denham, I beli
eve it’s important for you to go to Sonora to find out what you can about this baby’s mother. There appears to be more involved than what meets the eye. Now, if you’ll excuse me, unless you want me to keep her while you milk the goat, I better return to my sister’s place.”
Kendrick turned to Lydia with a smile. “Thank you for your help. You have no idea how much I appreciate you discovering the false bottom. It’s warm enough outside, I’ll take Madeline outside and let her play on her quilt.”
“Then please let me out the front door first.” Lydia disentangled Madeline’s fingers from the fine strands of her hair. “Take your daughter, Mr. Denham. Have faith that she will come to love you and accept you as her beloved papa. We’ll work on teaching her to say ‘papa’ as her second word.”
Hesitantly, Kendrick held his hands out to Madeline. “Come to Papa, Madeline. Let’s go milk Waggles.”
Madeline, now fully awake, twisted around in Lydia’s arms until she faced Kendrick, a wide grin on her face at the sight of him. She held both arms out to him. She chortled as she slipped into his embrace. Immediately, the knot on the bandanna he had tied around his neck drew her interest and her expression became one of concentration as her fingers began to prod and poke.
Kendrick exhaled a breath he had not known he held and tightened his grip on his little girl. She might be related to the Crandalls of Boston, but her mother had given Madeline to him. He recalled the letter he received from Margaret Pearline and some of the hints she had given him regarding what had driven her across the North American continent from Boston to California. The Boston Crandalls will never get their hands on Madeline except over my dead body.
“Enjoy your evening with your daughter, Mr. Denham. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Lydia’s gentle laugh recaptured his attention, and he remembered he needed to allow her out his front door. As he once again locked his door behind her, he realized how much he would miss her until he saw her again the next morning.
Chapter 16
Tuesday, May 30, 1854
O nce again, Lydia needed to wash Will’s sheets and, this morning, even his blanket. She made a separate pallet to protect both her and Cole from ending up damp during the night. Still, scrubbing the floor and washing bedding took time—time she had to find between fixing breakfast and washing dishes.
What had broken Lydia’s heart was, as soon as Will had changed into dry clothing, he wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her waist. Tears in his eyes, he looked up at her. “Do you have to go away again, Mama? I want to go with you.”
Lydia had barely been able to force out the words. She knew, of the three of them, Will suffered the most with the current living conditions. “Mama needs to work so she can help provide for you, Will. You’ll be all right staying with Aunt Dorcas. Isn’t it wonderful you can learn so many interesting things by attending her school?”
Will shook his head. “I don’t want to go to school. Aunt Dorcas is mean.”
As Lydia stood there several minutes stroking Will’s hair, she had not known what to say. True, Dorcas spoke sharply. She brooked no misbehavior. She held high expectations for her students and expressed her impatience when they faltered. Then there was the eighteen-inch ruler she owned which she used both as a pointer and an attention-getter when she slapped it on a desktop. Having been one of her sister’s students back in Pennsylvania, Lydia understood Dorcas’s teaching style.
Lydia had leaned down and kissed the top of her son’s head. “Just do the best you can, Will. You and Cole fell behind in your studies during our journey here. As you get caught up, it will get better.”
Now, in the kitchen heating the water left from the day before in order to prepare mush, she fought back tears as she recalled the scene. The effect on her son wore on her more than the extra laundry. Burdened with guilt that she should be available to comfort and help him instead of working away from the home to care for someone else’s child, she found little joy in preparing the morning meal for the two families.
While the twins and Eddie carried water from the cisterns on Main Street, Lydia saw to cooking bacon and stirring oatmeal mush. She had also used some bread going stale and the eggs Kendrick had given her to prepare a bread pudding for the noon meal.
When the three Thompson children on water duty entered the kitchen, they distributed their buckets. Charlotte placed hers on the dry sink counter, and Eddie squatted to put his below it.
Charlotte huffed a strand of her hair out of her face. “I’ll sure be glad when Papa and his men get that aqueduct built so we have water running down Maine Gulch all year.”
Caroline turned from where she partially emptied her bucket into the iron kettle, which she would then place on the cooking surface of the stove. “But, Lottie, even when it’s finished, we’ll still have to walk several blocks to get our water.”
“It has to be better water than what we pull out of the cistern. Look at the green stuff growing in it.”
It was all Lydia could do to keep from grimacing as she eyed the moss floating on top of the water in one of the buckets. She wondered how long the city would survive with its limited access to water half the year.
Eddie grunted as he rose to his feet. “Maybe we can convince Mama to let us wedge a barrel or two between the seats in our surrey and fill them with the creek water. That way, the horses can do the hauling, and we won’t have to go so often.”
Charlotte, her hands on her hips, turned to her brother. “Don’t you dare make that suggestion to Mama, Eddie. You wait and bring it up with Papa. If he says it’s all right, he’ll make sure Mama will let us.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Shaking his head, Eddie started to walk out of the kitchen. “I’ll go check on Cole and Will, make sure they got the front porch swept and windows dusted well enough to suit Mama.”
Lydia smiled at the insight into how the children manipulated—survived—their mother. As soon as Lydia found herself alone with her nieces, she turned to them. “I might need your help this morning. Since he has to leave early, I promised Mr. Denham I would come over as early as possible to watch Madeline. I know you’ve helped him with the baby in the past. If you’re free before I finish up with Will’s bedding, please go over there to see if there’s anything you can do so he won’t be delayed.”
Caroline smiled and nodded. “Oh, we will, Aunt Lydia. We’ve got this all figured out. He will probably have to open his shop for a little while for his customers.”
Charlotte canted her head, a puzzled expression on her face. “I wonder about his deliveries. Did he make any yesterday?”
Lydia began to turn the meat in the skillet. “I believe so. He mentioned he left his customers enough ham and sausages to last them until Thursday. He also said he will open his shop for only one hour again today.”
Lydia watched as the girls faced each other. She had always found it fascinating that they seemed to communicate with each other without saying a word.
Charlotte turned back to her. “As soon as we eat, we’ll get our reading assignment from Mama and tell her we’ll be on the other side of the oak…”
“…way on the other side. Lottie, I think Mama said today she’ll have us read from the world history book instead of one of the classics.”
Charlotte wrinkled her nose. “Not my favorite. It’s good we’ll only be there a little while to help Mr. Denham dress and feed Madeline before Aunt Lydia comes, because I think we’ll need to pay closer attention to our studies today.”
Lydia’s mouth dropped open and she stepped closer to her nieces. She hoped her words would not be heard outside the room. “Girls, please tell me you do not plan to enter Mr. Denham’s private quarters. It is highly improper for you to do so.”
Charlotte sniffed and shook her head. “You worry too much, Aunt Lydia. We’re perfectly safe. Mama can’t see past the canvas cover on the tree, and Mr. Denham always behaves like a gentleman around us. After the first day, he’s even made sure to be fully d
ressed before we show up.”
Lydia gasped. “Fully dressed?”
Grinning wide, Caroline nodded. “To be fair to him, we did catch him off guard…”
“…but he learns quick. He was only missing his shirt, and he put it on right away…”
“…as soon as he realized it, and we’ve seen Papa wearing only his drawers.”
“Except, Papa didn’t know it, so don’t bring that up with Mama, Caro.”
Caroline frowned at her sister. “I won’t. I’m not stupid.” She turned to her aunt, smiling once more. “Besides, Aunt Lydia, any time we are at Mr. Denham’s house helping him with Madeline, we are properly chaperoned.”
Straightening to her full height, Lydia closed her eyes and held up her hand to stop them, for she already knew their version of what “properly chaperoned” meant. “I don’t want to hear it. Just please, be careful, my dears. I don’t want you to do anything to ruin your reputations or anger your mother.”
Charlotte stepped forward and patted Lydia’s upper arm. “We’ll be fine, Aunt Lydia. When you finish here, go sit on a stool on the other side of the oak tree. We’ll watch for you. If Mr. Denham is finished with his customers, one of us will come and tell you it’s all right to walk around to the front of his shop.”
“And, if he’s not finished yet, we’ll show you the secret way to his back door.”
Lydia returned her attention to the skillet. Her sister had already made several snippy remarks in passing earlier this morning. The last thing she needed to do was burn the bacon. Secret way to his back door? What was she getting herself into?
Kendrick gritted his teeth, frustrated that it had taken so long to all but shove the last of his morning customers out his shop door. He did not know which had disgruntled the majority of them more—the lack of fresh beef, which he assured him he intended to remedy within the next two days, or the lack of Madeline in her crib. Finally, with everyone gone, he locked the door, ran toward the doorway to his kitchen, slapped a palm against the rail, and leapt over the new bannister. Won’t be able to do that with all the furniture in here, but today I don’t have the time to fool with that fancy gate latch Jeb installed.