The Wind Harp

by BJ Hoff

  He hadn’t realized that he had taken hold of her until he saw her glance travel down to his hand on hers. He released her at once, saying, “You’re a good teacher, Maggie. A fine teacher. And your students will be blessed for having you in their lives.” You are going to be one of the best things that ever happened to this town and its children, Maggie MacAuley. I know that, even if you don’t….

  She gave him one of her quick, slightly tilted smiles. “Thank you, Mr. Stuart. And thank you for taking me along. I enjoyed the buggy ride!”

  He held the gate open for her, and with a small wave, she hurried up the stone pathway to the house.

  Jonathan stood watching her, waiting until she’d gone inside and closed the door before getting back into the buggy. Before driving off, he tugged the collar of his jacket more snugly about his throat. For the first time since they’d left earlier that afternoon, he felt the chill of the day.

  Chapter Five

  When the Night Is Long and the Questions Are Many

  Night grows uneasy near the dawn….

  W.B. Yeats

  Maggie opened the back door that led directly into the kitchen. She took only one step inside before stopping. The entire family was sitting around the table: her mother and father, her brother, Ray—and her older sister, Eva Grace.

  “Evie!”

  Her sister smiled at her surprise, stood, and moved to hug her.

  “What in the world? When did you get here? Why didn’t you tell us you were coming?”

  Eva Grace laughed and held her at arm’s length for a closer look. “Whoa. Slow down. I got here about an hour ago, but Mum and Da just came in not long before you did. And I did write that I was coming, but apparently I beat the letter here. How are you, little sis?”

  They hugged again before Maggie shed her coat and took the chair her brother gave up to her. Then everyone started talking at once.

  The first thing that struck Maggie as she studied her sister was that, for the first time she could remember, Eva Grace wasn’t reed slim and picture perfect. In fact, she looked as though she’d put on a surprising amount of weight, and her always impeccably styled blonde hair appeared carelessly wrapped into a topknot.

  As she studied her more closely, she realized that Evie didn’t look well at all. Her eyes were shadowed, and that and the extra fullness of her face gave her a somewhat puffy appearance. She was still extraordinarily pretty, of course; Eva Grace had always been the beauty of the family. The beauty of the town.

  Maggie glanced around. “Where’s Richard?”

  Her sister waved a hand. “Oh, he couldn’t come this time. He’s too busy. Board meetings and the like.”

  Eva Grace had “married up”—their mother’s way of putting it. Evie had met Richard Barlow at an extension meeting for young people. Not long after they married, he’d taken a job with a large firm in Lexington, where they had lived ever since.

  Although Maggie had spent some family time with Richard, she learned more about him from her mother’s letters. Richard came from a well-to-do family, was ambitious, and, more recently, had started his own company. She would have been surprised if Eva Grace hadn’t married well. Just about every eligible boy in town had either courted her or tried to, but her sister had never been interested in the local fellows. She’d made up her mind early on that she was going to marry a man who would take her out of Skingle Creek.

  And so she had. But now she was back, and in spite of the way they’d fussed at each other when they were younger, Maggie couldn’t have been happier to see her. Even the thought that she would have to give up her privacy and share a bedroom again didn’t mar her pleasure for more than a second or two.

  That night, Kate MacAuley lay in bed, watching her husband take the pain medicine for his injured back and knee.

  As always, he frowned as he drank the last of it. He hated the taste of the stuff. He said it was vile, but Kate knew that what he hated even more was his need for its relief, his dependence on it. Every few weeks, he would try to go a night without it, but after an hour or two of tossing and turning, he’d throw off the covers and fix himself a dose. He refused to take it in the morning. He went to work in pain and returned home in even greater pain, giving in at night only because he knew he could not go without sleep and continue to work.

  Kate hated seeing him this way as much as she knew Matthew hated being this way. Ever since the cave-in last year, she had watched him change from his former brawny, good-natured if somewhat stubborn self to a man who was often impatient and sharp, even with those he loved, and who refused to admit the severity of his pain, even to his own wife.

  Only a year ago her husband had been one of the strongest men working the mines, as well as a man to whom others looked for level judgment and advice. Nowadays, however, it seemed that even the minor tasks drained him of his strength, and she feared his impatience and short temper were beginning to keep former friends—and his own son—at arm’s length.

  Lately Kate was finding it more and more difficult to force an optimism she didn’t feel. If she countered one of his dour remarks with an attempt at cheerfulness, he would turn a withering look on her that made her feel a fool. Yet if she gave in to his glum mood, thinking perhaps he wanted her to sympathize with him, he would draw in on himself and grow more morose than ever. She had reached a place where she truly didn’t know what to do for her husband.

  If only he didn’t have to work so hard…perhaps that would help. But what choice had they? If Matthew didn’t work, they would lose everything they had. Certainly, the portion of her wages that Maggie faithfully handed over every payday helped, but it wouldn’t keep them, nor did they have any right to expect more of her than she was already giving. And even if Matthew were to relent and allow Ray to go into the mines, they would still need Maggie’s share. The young boys were paid as little as management could get away with when they first started out.

  Besides, Matthew would kill himself digging coal before he agreed to let his son go below ground.

  “It’s nice having both Maggie and Eva Grace home at the same time, isn’t it?” she said as Matthew slipped into bed beside her.

  “Nice, if they don’t take up spatting the way they used to.”

  “Oh, they won’t, I’m sure. They’re all grown-up now. Our girls are women now, Matthew. And wives themselves, except for Maggie. No doubt it won’t be long before she’s married too.”

  He gave a short sound of derision. “And where do you think a husband for Maggie is going to come from? I can’t see that one settling for anyone around here.”

  “Matthew! Sure, and there are still some good men in Skingle Creek.”

  “The good ones are already taken. If it’s marriage the girl’s wanting, she’d have been better off staying in Chicago.”

  Kate pushed herself up on one arm to look at him. “You know why Maggie didn’t go back. She stayed to help us. And I can’t pretend I don’t like having her here. And Eva Grace, too, for that matter, though I know she’ll not stay long. Not without Richard.”

  He curled his lip. “Mr. Hoity-Toity.”

  Kate studied him. “You’ve never liked Richard.”

  “Have I ever said I don’t like him? I don’t recall saying an unkind word to him or about him.”

  “Even so, you don’t like him.”

  He shrugged, then blinked hard, as if the movement had pained him. “It’s neither here nor there whether I like the man. He was Eva Grace’s choice.”

  In truth, Kate had also had a bit of a problem warming to her son-in-law. Richard had a way of making her feel like shanty Irish. Anytime they visited, which was seldom, he acted as if he couldn’t wait to get away. Not once before or after he and Eva Grace were married had he made the slightest effort to build any sort of a relationship with her or Matthew.

  Still, there was no denying that Richard had done well by the girl. According to Eva Grace, they had a fine home in Lexington with all the refinements they could want.
It seemed that Richard was a hard worker and was also a deacon in the church, a man held in the highest regard by their acquaintances.

  The girl could have done worse. A lot worse.

  Matthew reached to snuff the oil lamp beside the bed. After giving Kate a quick kiss on the cheek, he turned away from her. Kate knew he would talk no more. He was becoming more and more withdrawn these days, a clear indication that the pain was growing worse. When nighttime came, he was exhausted and seemed to crave sleep, no doubt as a means of escaping the assault against his body.

  She lay staring at his broad back, listening to his deep, even breathing. Another moment and she moved closer, close enough to touch her face to his shoulder without waking him, drawing comfort from his warmth, from the strength that, even in sleep, gave her shelter and eased her own pain.

  Maggie would have thought that the familiarity of having her sister back in the bed next to hers, sharing the same room that had been theirs throughout their childhood, would have encouraged sleep to come easily. Instead, she was beginning to wonder how she was going to get through what promised to be an exceedingly long night.

  Of the three girls, Eva Grace had always slept more deeply than Maggie or Nell Frances. At times their mother would become so exasperated with Evie that she threatened to pour water straight from the well on her if she didn’t get up when she was called.

  Apparently marriage had changed all that. At least, something had changed it. It seemed as if her sister had been in motion ever since they’d gone to bed, well over an hour ago.

  Having been apart for so long, they’d talked the first few minutes, catching up on each other and their parents. Although now that she thought about it, Maggie realized that she had done most of the talking. For once, Eva Grace had had little to say—a few remarks about her house and the city of Lexington, but nothing more. Even when Maggie asked questions, her sister seemed disinclined to answer. At one point, Maggie was tempted to ask if something was wrong, but Eva Grace had chosen that moment to say goodnight and turn her back.

  She’d been quiet for a while, leading Maggie to think she was asleep. But then she turned restless, changing positions, tossing the bedclothes, occasionally making the little clicking sound in her throat she’d made as a child when she’d had too much johnny-cake and couldn’t sleep.

  By now Maggie was restless too. She could feel herself growing frustrated, reaching that pivotal point where she’d be too irritable to sleep the rest of the night. That was no way to face Monday morning. With a deliberate effort, she turned onto her other side, her back toward Eva Grace, and willed herself to lie motionless and breathe deeply until sleep came.

  She finally did doze off, but in what seemed only a short time, she stirred, listening. At first she thought the sound was outside, perhaps from a night creature that had come near the house. She waited, listening closely. She realized then that the sound was coming from Evie’s side of the room.

  Maggie struggled to focus her eyes in the darkness. Finally, framed by the dim glow of moonlight filtering through the window, she made out her sister’s form. Huddled under the blankets, her shoulders rising and falling, Eva Grace was sobbing.

  Alarmed, Maggie slipped out of bed and went to her sister. Even with the hooked rug, the floor was cold on her bare feet and she shivered.

  “Evie?” She put a hand lightly to Eva Grace’s shoulder, and her sister turned to look at her. “Evie? What’s wrong?”

  Her sister stared up at her. “What?”

  “You were crying. What’s the matter?”

  Eva Grace lifted a hand and wiped it across her eyes, then shook her head. “I’m not crying.”

  “I heard you, Evie.”

  Again her sister shook her head, glancing away from Maggie. “No, I wasn’t…I must have had a bad dream.”

  There was just enough light seeping in beneath the window shade for Maggie to see her sister’s evasive expression. She was deliberately refusing to look at her.

  Uncertain, she dropped her hand away from Eva Grace’s shoulder.

  “Go back to bed, Maggie.” Evie’s voice sounded ragged and phlegmy.

  Torn, Maggie hesitated. “You’re sure?”

  Eva Grace nodded, turning onto her side.

  Stung by this gesture of dismissal, Maggie again touched her sister gently on her shoulder before going back to her own bed. By the time she finally heard the sound of Eva Grace’s even, shallow breathing, she was wide awake. Had Evie lied to her? She had been so sure she’d heard her weeping. That was what had awakened her in the first place. But why would she lie?

  Of the three of them, Eva Grace had been the only one who cried easily as a child. Easily and often. In fact, Maggie and Nell Frances had more than once grumbled about the way their older sister seemed to be capable of turning on the tears at will, either to get her way with one of her beaus or else to coax a bit of sympathy from a family member—usually their mother. And it almost always worked.

  As accustomed as she’d once been to using tears to her advantage, why would she try to conceal a bout of weeping?

  Maggie curled up on her side, just barely able to make out the outline of her sister in the other bed. Maybe Eva Grace and Richard had had a fight. For the life of her, she couldn’t imagine Richard Barlow raising his voice, but then she hardly knew her brother-in-law. She didn’t think she’d ever been around the man more than an hour or so, and then never alone.

  Richard had always struck Maggie as a bit of a stuffed shirt. Whenever Mum would bluntly ask Eva Grace whether there was a grandchild on the horizon yet, Maggie would almost strangle at the thought of the tediously proper Richard summoning enough emotion to sire a child.

  Her face burned in the darkness, not only at her totally inappropriate thought about her sister’s husband, but also because she knew she was being unfair. She had never heard Eva Grace utter a disparaging word about Richard. To the contrary, her sister had never seemed anything but ideally happy with him. Of course, that was in the early years, when she rarely spoke of him in anything but glowing terms and an almost annoying spiel of lovestruck adulation. She had seldom been with Evie over the past few years. Their contact had been almost entirely through letters.

  Well, it wasn’t her place to approve or disapprove of her sister’s husband. She didn’t have to live with him.

  There’s a mercy…

  She bit her lip, impatient with her own pettiness. Deliberately she turned her thoughts back to the afternoon, but the memory of the meeting with Huey Lazlo’s parents unsettled her so much she grew more tense and wakeful. Even though Mr. Stuart’s caution not to go back to the Lazlo’s alone had at first made her feel childish, in truth she was grateful for his concern. She didn’t want to go back to that house ever again—certainly not by herself. Should the occasion arise that she had to, she definitely would want Mr. Stuart at her side.

  What was there about Jonathan Stuart that had always made her feel so safe—and still made her feel safe? When she was a child, he had been dreadfully ill for a long time: thin, even gaunt, lacking any real physical strength or stamina. Yet despite his failing health, his students had looked to him as a protector, as a rock. And she had been no exception.

  Indeed, for Maggie, he had been her safe place to go when everything else seemed to be falling away. She had trusted him as she had never trusted another soul, other than her own parents. And he had never failed her.

  As was the case with many of the older girls at school, Maggie’s admiration for Jonathan Stuart had eventually bloomed into a full-blown crush. In spite of the fact that she and Kenny Tallman had been considered a “couple” until they graduated, Maggie had spent most of her adolescence and teen years half in love with her teacher, as only an ingenuous schoolgirl can be. The hopelessness of her infatuation served only to make him loom larger in her estimation.

  Increasingly restless now, she pitched onto her other side. She knew her thoughts had taken a treacherous turn, but she allowed herself t
o indulge them anyway. She almost wished Jonathan Stuart didn’t seem so much younger than she’d remembered him. Probably because he had been her teacher for years—she had practically grown up under his watchful eye—she always thought of him as being much older than he actually was. But it took only a moment of figuring to realize that when he had first come to Skingle Creek, he couldn’t have been much older than she was now!

  One facet of her memory hadn’t failed her: He was still as handsome as ever.

  Enough. She wasn’t a schoolgirl any longer, and she needed to stop thinking like one. Hadn’t she promised herself when she accepted the teaching position that she’d behave like a woman grown instead of the child she used to be?

  Besides, Jonathan Stuart was as far removed from her today as he had been all those years ago. There was a considerable age difference between them, after all. Not that that would make a tad of difference to her, but it probably would to him, his being ever the gentleman.

  Then, too, she wondered if there might not be something more than a professional relationship between him and Mrs. Ross. She’d speculated more than once as to whether they might not be romantically interested in each other. Well, she didn’t know about Mr. Stuart—he was almost impossible to read. But Mrs. Ross was more transparent, and unless Maggie was badly mistaken, the woman would like to be more to Mr. Stuart than just the school secretary.

  And given the fact that Mrs. Ross was not only closer to Mr. Stuart in years but was also enviably attractive, Maggie figured the likelihood of his ever seeing her as anything other than the skinny little red-haired schoolgirl she’d once been could hardly be more remote.

  Disgusted with herself, she flipped onto her back, gave the bedclothes a couple of thumps, and expelled a sharp breath. Wasn’t she going to be in fine fettle tomorrow, though? Not only would she start off the work week with no sleep, but she hadn’t bothered to braid her hair, so it would be as wild as a grass fire. An hour later she was still staring at the darkened ceiling, wide awake and wondering if it had been folly entirely that had convinced her to stay in Skingle Creek instead of going back to Chicago.