by BJ Hoff
Of course, he could always get two dogs. They could keep each other company when he was gone and liven the place up a little when he was home. Make some noise. Stir up a little dust. It would give him an excuse to clean on the weekends. The way it was, he could go for days if he wanted, scarcely lifting a hand around the house other than to pick up the papers and wash his few dishes.
It seemed only right to clean one’s house, but it also seemed a foolish waste of time when there was no need.
He would ask around next week. One of the local farmers ought to be able to help him find a dog…or two.
The thought cheered him a little. He wasn’t really hungry, but he supposed he ought to eat before too much longer. Food might get rid of the headache that had been nagging at him since noonday.
Perhaps he’d walk down to Blanche Hubbard’s place for a light supper. “Hubbard’s Cupboard,” she called the diner.
One side of the building was a restaurant, the other side a dry goods store, where Blanche sold mostly material, buttons, and other accoutrements. The coal company had fought against the dry goods establishment, claiming everything the townspeople needed could be purchased at the company store. But Blanche had stood her ground and, to most everyone’s surprise, her determination had won out. Both the store and the diner had been in business for nearly four years now, and from all appearances did a healthy trade.
Jonathan was always glad to see a private enterprise survive in Skingle Creek. The coal company owned and controlled almost everything, including the bank, the one general store, even the health care services provided by Lebreen Woodbridge. The Company could be a formidable adversary to anyone who dared to attempt the establishment of a privately owned business. Blanche Hubbard was one of the few who’d met their bluff—and won.
His thoughts turned from Blanche to Sunday and the reason he’d declined Kate MacAuley’s dinner invitation. He had almost forgotten that he’d promised to attend Carolyn Ross’s recital for her music students early Sunday afternoon.
He’d just as soon spend the day digging rocks, but Carolyn had caught him off guard, pointing out that her music students were also his classroom students, and that the event would be brief, given the scarcity of children in Skingle Creek with the means to study anything outside the schoolroom. Jonathan had fumbled for an excuse, but he hadn’t been able to come up with a legitimate one. It wasn’t that he had no interest in the children or in music. To the contrary, he was exceedingly fond of both. He simply had an inexplicable lack of interest in Carolyn Ross, a situation he found regrettable. There was no denying the woman’s appeal: She was attractive, talented, intelligent—and if his friend Ben Wallace was right, she might even be interested in more than a professional relationship.
What was wrong with him anyway? There weren’t many unmarried women in town to begin with, certainly none as attractive or as interesting as Carolyn. Ben was probably right when he told Jonathan that he ought to get his head out of the sand and court the woman. Instead, he found himself avoiding her except at school, where it was impossible to keep his distance for any length of time.
Obviously, it was this lack of interest that had allowed him to forget his commitment to attend Carolyn’s recital. He would much rather be spending the afternoon with the MacAuleys.
With Maggie…
He tried to force his thoughts in a different direction. He was thinking entirely too much about Maggie lately. But no matter how he tried, he couldn’t seem to keep his mind off her. Sometimes when he least expected it, she would invade his thoughts with the sound of her laughter, nearly as mischievous now as when she was still a schoolgirl…or her smile, the way one corner of her mouth turned up a little more than the other…or the way the morning sun would set her hair on fire when she took the children out for their recess.
She was still awkward around him, as if she was never quite certain of his approval. Sometimes she actually jumped when he came into her classroom.
Jonathan wished he knew a way to put her more at ease with him, so they could at least be friends rather than continuing with this awkward teacher—former student relationship. But in truth he wasn’t all that comfortable with her either. He was still trying to come to grips with the young woman she had become rather than the girl he remembered. He was finding it difficult to move past his role as her former teacher into this new capacity as her colleague, and, eventually he hoped, her friend. He didn’t dare allow himself to think about becoming more, although sometimes…
He squeezed his eyes shut, firmly willing himself to turn his mind onto any subject but Maggie. Finally, little by little, his thoughts grew vague and drifted off into the mist of an uneasy sleep.
Chapter Eight
Friday Night in Skingle Creek
There is no pleasure to me without communication:
There is not so much as a sprightly thought comes to my mind
That it does not grieve me
to have produced alone,
And that I have no one to tell it to.
De Montaigne
Kate, I declare if you had nothing at all to worry about, you’d invent something.”
At any other time, her da’s words would have been meant as a good-natured teasing. But sharp-tempered and impatient as he was of late, they cut through Maggie like a jagged blade, and she knew they must be wounding to her mother as well.
Maggie wasn’t deliberately eavesdropping. Indeed, she’d been on her way to fetch a coat so she could leave the house and the tension inside it for a time. But she stopped short outside the kitchen when she heard the tone of her father’s voice and the strain in her mother’s.
“I’m telling you, Matthew, the girl isn’t well. She moped about the house all day, scarcely talking at all. And didn’t you see how she could hardly wait to leave the table and get to her room tonight?”
“Eva Grace is no girl, Kate. She’s a woman grown…and a married one at that. Don’t be fussing at her now. She’s perfectly fine, you’ll see.”
Silence. Then her mother spoke again. “She doesn’t look a bit well, either.”
Her father groaned. “Let it be, woman! I’ll have another slice of that cake, if there’s enough.”
“There’s plenty.”
Her mother’s tone was tight, but Maggie sensed the two had backed off from an argument. Thanks be.
She hurried into the kitchen while things were calm and took her coat from the hook by the door.
“Where are you going?” her father snapped.
“Just for a walk, Da. I thought there might be music at the square since it’s Friday night.”
“Did you ask your sister to go with you?” her mother said.
Maggie nodded. “She said she’d rather not, that she just wanted to stay here where it’s warm.”
“I don’t like you being out alone at night, girl,” Da said with the same sharp edge in his voice.
Maggie gritted her teeth but kept her tone even. “Everyone’s out and about on Friday evening, Da. I’ll be fine. And I won’t be late. I just need to unwind a bit after being in the classroom all day.”
He said nothing else, so Maggie darted a quick smile at her mother and made a hasty exit. She was still chafing when she reached the gate and started toward the square. Would Da never stop treating her as though she were still in leggings? At least tonight he didn’t tell her to be home by eight! No doubt she would be, but it would be her own doing, not in response to her father’s command.
Every day it seemed something happened to remind her how difficult it was to be an adult living under her parents’ roof. Da, especially, treated her much as he always had: as a little girl to be told what to do and when to do it. He had always been severely protective of his daughters, and in truth Maggie wouldn’t have wanted him to be any other way. But he couldn’t grasp that she no longer needed to be ordered about in almost every situation.
It wasn’t quite the same with Eva Grace, of course. She was the married daughter, th
ere only for a visit. With Maggie, however, Da had reverted to treating her as if she were a schoolgirl under his protection…and his authority. Even her mother seemed predisposed to treat her as if she had never left home.
To be fair, the present circumstances had to be as difficult for her parents as they were for her. Although both of them had seemed relieved when she’d told them she wasn’t going back to Chicago, Maggie knew they were uncomfortable with the reason she wasn’t going back. In their minds, perhaps her desire to help out actually fostered a feeling of dependency that was foreign to both their natures. And to feel dependent on one’s own child, even when that “child” was living under the same roof, no doubt could be a bitter pill to swallow.
On weekends and in the evenings, Maggie sensed that they all invaded each other’s privacy, except perhaps in the case of her mother. Mum had always thrived on having the entire family around her. If truth were told, she was probably overjoyed to have both Maggie and Eva Grace home again by the fire. But Ray was at an age where he surely disliked being under the scrutiny of three women, not to mention the way Da quizzed him about every part of his life, from his schoolwork to his friends. She had seen the cornered look in her brother’s eyes more than once, a look that plainly said he wanted to cut and run.
Maggie was already beginning to wish she could afford her own place and at the same time continue to help her parents financially. Even a single room of her own in a boardinghouse sounded good to her. In fact, the idea was rapidly progressing past wishful thinking and taking on the shape of necessity.
She shuffled along, her hands tucked in her pockets as she neared the square. It was an unusually cold night for early October. There was a sharp breeze, for which Maggie was grateful. The wind lifted the acrid coal dust away from the town and carried it up the mountain, leaving the more pleasant odor of wood smoke and the faint scent of evergreen in its wake.
She made a deliberate effort to turn her mind away from her family, uncomfortably aware that lately she’d caught herself too often dwelling on her own problems. And they weren’t even real problems. Problems were what her da had, with his need to go on working in the mine even though he lived in constant pain. Problems were what some of her students had, particularly those from large families where it was difficult to keep food on the table and decent clothing on their backs. And then there were the Lazlo children. Who knew what those two had to put up with?
She was fairly certain that Eva Grace had real problems too. Problems that made her cry in the night long after she believed Maggie to be asleep.
No matter how many times Maggie asked what was wrong, the reply was always the same evasive “nothing.” But in Maggie’s experience a body didn’t cry for no reason. Something was weighing on her sister, something so troubling it was breaking her heart. And whatever it was, she was adamant in her refusal to talk about it.
Maggie sighed so deeply it came out more like a sob. It would be such a help to have a close friend nearby, a friend like she’d found in Sally Ogleby in Chicago. The two of them had quickly become close, working together, rooming in the same boardinghouse, and spending what little free time they could manage in each other’s company. It had been such a comfort to have someone with whom to share the fears of living in a strange city, the problems and discouragement that came with working among the poor, many of whom were illiterate, often ill, and lacking even the most basic of necessities.
The truth was that sometimes even in the midst of her family, Maggie felt lonely. There was Mr. Stuart, of course. He had been a friend to her most of her life, until she went away to college. But he had been a part of her childhood. Things were different now that she was grown up. And he was her principal. She couldn’t very well confide personal matters to him. She was no longer a little girl in need of a strong shoulder and wise advice.
Although sometimes that’s exactly how she felt.
She heard the sound of music now, and her spirits lifted a little. Normally she didn’t much like crowds, but tonight the thought of being among people seemed more desirable than usual. She picked up her pace as she headed toward the square.
The Company had cleared a small piece of ground—the “square”—for the town’s few activities: fairs, bake sales, the occasional tent meeting. On most Friday nights until the weather turned bitter, a few of the local men would come together with their musical instruments and play for two hours or more. They almost always drew a crowd. There wasn’t that much going on in the way of weekly entertainment in Skingle Creek, so folks tended to congregate for almost any event.
Maggie recognized the musicians right away. The lanky Dewey Easter was fiddling up a storm, with Chester Rydell and his oldest son backing him up on banjo and guitar. These three were favorites around town and always drew the largest Friday night audiences.
Maggie made a place for herself in the midst of the crowd, smiling at those who greeted her. In no time at all her foot was tapping along with the beat. She loved music and had often thought she might like to play an instrument herself, but there had been neither the time nor the money for such things when she was growing up. Even so, her lack of musicianship in no way diminished her enjoyment of the talents of others.
She tucked her coat collar more snugly around her throat and tugged her cap down as far as it would go. Soon she was smiling, her troublesome thoughts caught up and blown free by the driving, irresistible mountain music.
Jonathan made no attempt to make her aware of his presence, not just yet. He was enjoying watching her from where he stood, well behind her and off to the right. He couldn’t stop a smile at the sight of her. Her cheeks were flushed from the brisk night air, her hair peeking around her cap and falling over the collar of her deep-blue coat as she hugged her arms to herself and swayed to the rhythm of the music.
His gaze went to the musicians, who at the moment were deep into the Celtic type of music commonly expected from them. He glanced back at Maggie and saw that she was now tapping her foot to the energetic beat. In that instant, he was struck by the awareness that, like the majority of the town’s populace, Maggie was thoroughly Irish. Yet not since she was a little girl had he given any real thought to the fact. But as he studied her, it came to him that everything she was, everything that made her so undeniably special could never be separated from the part of her that was linked to her family, to the heritage of a distant island about which he knew too little.
Unexpectedly the need to know more, to know everything about Maggie, pressed in on him and set off a kind of yearning. He wished he could walk up to her and take her arm, even hold her hand, and ask her all the things he wanted to know about her.
He swallowed hard and clenched his hands. But after another moment he could stand it no more and began to move, threading his way through the crowd until he came up next to her.
He touched her lightly on the arm to get her attention, but quickly dropped his hand away. “Maggie.” His voice sounded strained to him, unfamiliar.
She turned, and he was pleased to see her face light up, as if she was glad to see him. “Mr. Stuart! I didn’t know you were here.”
“I was over there.” He motioned to where he’d been standing. “They’re very good, aren’t they?” he said, gesturing toward the trio in the middle of the square.
“They are! I can’t stand still at all when they’re playing.”
They stood without speaking for a time, taking in the music, occasionally looking around at their neighbors.
“You’re here alone?” Jonathan finally asked.
She nodded. “I tried to get Eva Grace to come with me, but she wouldn’t budge.”
“Still doesn’t like the cold?”
She studied him. “How do you remember things like that? And you’re right. Eva Grace always hated cold weather.”
Jonathan shrugged and smiled a little. “Her dislike for winter was never exactly a secret. The classroom was never warm enough for her. In truth, it was never warm enough for an
yone, myself included.”
“It’s better now though.”
“It’s the new furnace,” Jonathan said. “A long time coming.”
For some reason he was finding it difficult to manage an intelligent thought and wondered if she sensed his awkwardness.
He glanced down at her to find her staring directly into his eyes. Disconcerted, Jonathan glanced back toward the musicians, who had stopped playing and were rubbing their hands together as they conferred.
“I think they’re about to stop for a bit,” said Maggie. “It’s probably difficult to play very long at one time, what with the cold.”
Jonathan turned to look at her. Did he dare ask? Well, why shouldn’t he? They worked together, after all. They were friends, weren’t they?
“Maggie, I…I was on my way to Hubbard’s to have some dinner. Have you eaten?”
The instant the words left his mouth Jonathan wondered what had possessed him. Had he actually just invited her to have dinner with him?
She stared at him, her surprise obvious. Or was she embarrassed?
“Have I—oh yes. Yes, Da likes to eat early, soon after he gets home.”
“Of course. I should have realized. Well, I thought if you hadn’t—” He was stammering! How foolish he must seem to her.
“But I could keep you company, if you like,” she offered.
Jonathan found his breath. “I’d love the company.” He felt himself grinning like a smitten schoolboy, but he couldn’t stop. “You’ll at least have a piece of pie, won’t you? Blanche Hubbard makes a really fine pumpkin pie, you know.”
Without thinking, he tucked her arm inside of his and began to steer her through the crowd, his mood suddenly lifting away from the usual Friday night discontent to an uncommon exhilaration.
Chapter Nine
The Beginning of Something New