A Bride's Agreement

by Elaine Bonner

  It warmed her heart that Jason’s mother had tried to make the workroom of the house such a welcoming place for the family. True, table, worktable, sink, and all other available space were filled with dirty dishes and failed baking attempts, but that only went to prove that she was justified in coming out here. “What a cheerful room!”

  The pain in Maggie’s white face brought her up short. She’d assumed the girl’s red eyes were due to grieving over her parents. Now she saw that Maggie was cradling one arm carefully with her other.

  Pearl winced at the long burn on the inside of Maggie’s forearm, beneath a rolled-up sleeve. “From the stove?”

  Maggie nodded, her teeth biting her bottom lip hard.

  Pearl retrieved a chipped graniteware bowl and pitcher from the back porch and placed cold, wet cloths on the wound and on the girl’s forehead. Inside the small oak refrigerator, she found butter, and under Maggie’s guidance located a clean cloth in the pantry. Dirty clothes overflowed a wicker basket onto the pantry floor, making it difficult to walk in the small room.

  “I was baking bread,” Maggie explained while Pearl spread the wound with butter and wrapped it. With a feeble wave of her hand, she indicated an exceedingly flat loaf sitting on a square of wooden slats on the worktable. She sighed and slumped against the straight chair back. “I was hoping to have some bread and pie ready for when the neighbors and hired men help with the harvesting in a couple days. Today seemed like a good time, since my brothers are helping in Thor Lindstrom’s fields—he’s our neighbor—and there were only five-year-old Grace and me to make dinner for.”

  Is Maggie trying to run the household all by herself? Pearl tried to hide how the thought horrified her. “Don’t you have a hired girl to help?”

  Maggie’s shaggy brown braids wiggled as she shook her head. “She married in December, and Jason hasn’t found anyone to replace her.” She rubbed a hand self-consciously over the dirty apron covering her wrinkled green-and-white dress. “I can’t seem to keep up with everything around the house like Mom did. Baking is the worst. I’m pretty hopeless at it.”

  Pearl patted the younger girl’s shoulder briskly. “No one is hopeless. I’ll teach you to make wonderful bread.” There were some things she planned to teach Jason, too, about expecting a girl to take over a woman’s responsibilities.

  Maggie looked up at her eagerly. “Do you really think I could learn? Frank and Andy make fun of my baking and cooking. Frank even brought home bread from Carl’s Bakery last time he was in town. Jason tells them to quit teasing me, but even he doesn’t clean his plate the way he did when Mom cooked.”

  “We’ll show Frank and Andrew what a woman can do in a kitchen. In fact, I intend to stay the rest of the day and help you catch up on your housework a bit.” She held an index finger up in a prim, piano-instructor manner as Maggie opened her mouth to object. “It’s simply the neighborly thing to do, and I won’t be put off.”

  A frown crinkled the girl’s brow, and she rolled her hands in her dirty apron. “Jason may not like it if you help. He says it’s my place to take care of the house now that Mom’s gone.”

  “I’ll see to Jason. Now, if you’ll lend me an apron, we’ll get busy with this kitchen.” Pearl pulled the pins from her flower-covered straw hat. Hoping to cheer Maggie, she said, “Your flower bed looks nice.”

  Maggie’s eyes clouded over again. “Jason weeded the flowers by lantern last night. He said he didn’t want Mom’s flowers to die.” The hint of a sob caught in her sigh. “I can’t seem to do everything he wants me to.”

  “I’m sure Jason thought no such thing when he tended to the flowers. It was only a way to comfort himself by doing something he thought your mother would like.”

  Hope relieved some of the tense lines in Maggie’s face, but she said nothing.

  The afternoon wasn’t nearly long enough to accomplish all that needed to be done. The kitchen was hot from the growing heat of the early August day, and from the large cookstove that stood along the wall between the kitchen and the dining room—the better to offer heat to more of the home during the winter months. They used water heated in the reservoir at the back of the stove during Maggie’s baking attempts to wash the myriad of dirty dishes and to scrub the floor.

  Pearl was frying chicken for supper when Grace called excitedly from the post she’d taken up for the last thirty minutes beside one of the kitchen windows. “The boys are comin’!” She was out the door in a flash, racing to greet the men, her shoulder-length dark brown hair flying.

  Pearl’s heart leaped to her throat. Jason! He’ll be inside any minute now. She wiped perspiration from her forehead with the back of a hand that still held the large fork she was using to turn the chicken, and she moaned slightly in dismay. She must look a wreck! Stray bits of her hair were curling wetly against her forehead and cheeks. Her trim chambray dress of tiny blue plaid with a plaited front—chosen to compliment her eyes—was no longer crisply fresh.

  Through the nearest window she saw Jason stop beside her buggy. He scooped Grace up in his arms, and her giggle floated through the open window as Pearl turned back to the stove. Children always loved Jason, with his open, fun-loving manner. She envied Grace. She’d like to greet him so freely herself!

  The men’s responses to Grace’s chatter mixed with the splashing of water as they washed up on the porch. The door slammed, and Frank’s voice moved ahead of his heavy boots as he crossed the kitchen to stare over Pearl’s shoulder. In spite of his recent washing, he smelled of earth and grain and the kerosene farmers used to discourage flies and mosquitoes.

  “Pearl Wells, as I live and breathe, frying chicken on our cookstove. Are you real, or is this a dream?”

  A laugh bubbled forth at the usually reserved Frank’s teasing. They were the same age, and the two of them were quite good friends. With his black hair, thin black mustache, and normally somber dark eyes, he was handsome and brooding in a manner that won girls’ sympathetic hearts easily, but it was Jason’s laughing, golden brown eyes she preferred. At least they used to laugh most of the time, before his parents died.

  “I’m definitely not a dream—assuming you were referring to me and not the chicken.”

  “Of course I was referring to you!” His eyes opened innocently wide. “Though I’m glad to see you’re accompanied by the chicken.”

  “Me, too!” thirteen-year-old Andrew piped up from the other side of her. His face was a duplicate of Maggie’s beneath straight, light brown hair. “We haven’t had a decent meal around here in days.”

  “Thanks a bunch, Andy!” Maggie pushed him aside indignantly and held out a large platter for Pearl to place the chicken on.

  “Neither of you shall have any supper until you’ve removed your boots. You should be ashamed of yourselves, walking over Maggie’s clean floor in those filthy things.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jason beside the door. She stifled a laugh at the sight of him guiltily removing his boots beside his chastened brothers.

  Maggie pulled fresh rolls from the oven and took corn on the cob from the stove while Pearl made the gravy. When the food was on the table and everyone was standing impatiently behind their chairs waiting to sit down, she realized Jason was still standing at the door. He was staring at her grimly.

  She smiled at him in spite of the lead ball that hit her stomach at the growl in his eyes. “Well, Mr. Head-of-the-House, aren’t you going to join us?”

  The veins stood out like cords on the darkly tanned forearms crossed over his sweaty work shirt. His voice was quiet and polite, but that didn’t deceive her after the thunderclouds she saw in his eyes. “What are you doing here?”

  “Who cares? Look at this feast!”

  “I wasn’t speaking to you, Andy.” Jason’s gaze didn’t flicker from Pearl’s face.

  “She’s just helping me, Jason. Don’t be angry.”

  “I wasn’t speaking to you either, Maggie.”

  “I just stopped by with so
me extra baked goods, and…”

  “‘Just stopped by’ three miles from your house?”

  “And decided to stay for dinner. Which is getting cold, by the way.”

  They stared at each other, and Pearl wondered nervously what he would say next. Didn’t he realize he was making everyone uncomfortable? This wasn’t anything like the Jason she’d known so many years.

  Her hands closed tightly around the top of the chair in front of her. “Well, I guess the way to your heart isn’t through your stomach.”

  Frank and Andy guffawed, and even Maggie laughed. Pearl thought she saw a slight softening in the set of Jason’s mouth, but decided a moment later that she’d never been more mistaken in her life.

  His words lashed at her. “You have no right to come into my home and take over like this.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Pearl swallowed her shock. She’d expected Jason to be uncomfortable with her after she’d witnessed Miranda refuse his proposal, but she hadn’t expected him to react so rudely in front of his family.

  “Jason!”

  Frank’s sharp bark of disapproval jerked Jason’s gaze from hers, and he had the decency to flush hotly beneath his tan.

  “I apologize,” he muttered, his stance making it obvious that the words were a social requirement only.

  She hoped no one noticed her lips trembling beneath her smile. “Won’t you sit down to supper? We can continue this discussion later, if you wish.”

  One corner of his mouth lifted in the suspicion of a smile. “Well, it does smell mighty good.”

  Beside her, Maggie echoed Pearl’s small sigh of relief as Jason pulled out a chair at the head of the table and slipped into it. The rest of the family quickly followed suit, and Pearl heard Andrew mutter a low “About time!” Following a brief prayer, the food was quickly passed around, and silence ensued as everyone began eating.

  Evidently the silence was too much for Grace to bear. She held a greasy drumstick in one hand, looked everyone over calmly with large, chocolate brown eyes beneath hair that touched her eyebrows. “Maggie burned her arm t’day.”

  Everyone stopped eating and stared first at Grace and then at Maggie. Grace grinned with gratification at the disturbance her announcement caused and promptly began eating.

  “Maggie?” Jason’s forehead furrowed into a frown.

  Maggie fidgeted slightly and looked down at her plate. “It’s not too bad, honest.” She slipped her arm to her lap.

  The girl’s fear and dread of Jason were disturbing to Pearl. Didn’t Maggie understand that it wasn’t she who made Jason angry but the pain of losing their parents?

  “May I see it?”

  At Jason’s gruff request, Maggie held out her bandaged forearm. “Miss Wells looked after it for me.”

  “Maggie cwied,” Grace announced with satisfaction, and Maggie scowled at her.

  Jason gently unwrapped the bandage. Maggie gave a little gasp and dug her teeth into her bottom lip. His gaze darted to her face, then he peeked under the loosened end of the covering. His eyelids slammed shut.

  “How did it happen?”

  Maggie answered his tight question as he carefully retied the covering. “Burned it on the stove. I should have been more careful.”

  Jason leaned over to kiss her forehead. “I’m sorry, sweetie.”

  The guilt in his voice and face both hurt and comforted Pearl. His actions were much more in keeping with the Jason she’d always known than the stern man who frightened Maggie so terribly.

  When the pie had been devoured among numerous and extreme compliments, Pearl rose and began to clear the table.

  “Maggie will clean up.” Jason’s tone let it be known his decision was final.

  “Her injured arm won’t be able to endure the hot dishwater.” Pearl tried to state the fact without sounding defensive.

  “Then Andy can wash the dishes.”

  “Aw, Jase, that’s women’s work!”

  “It needs doing, Andy. Maggie can wipe them for you.”

  “I don’t mind helping Maggie,” Pearl protested.

  “I’m going to hitch up your horse and take you home. It’s already late, and I have to be in the fields early.”

  “I don’t need an escort.”

  He reached for the sweaty beige hat he’d hung on the peg behind the door. Settling it on his head, he turned to look at her. “No lady is leaving my home in the dark without an escort.”

  He left the house without waiting for her reply. Wonderful, she thought. Now I’m feeling guilty for keeping him out late when he obviously isn’t getting all the sleep he needs as it is!

  They’d traveled half a mile through the grain- and earth-scented night before she gave up hoping he would end the silence between them and spoke herself.

  “You needn’t act like such an ogre. I was only helping.”

  “I don’t need your pity.” His tone was harder than the rocks the wheels hit in the road. “You don’t have to play nursemaid to me because Miranda turned me down.”

  “You… you… oh!” Pearl could hardly stop sputtering. “You think I pity you because of Miranda? On the contrary, I think you were fortunate to get out of her clutches!”

  “Fortunate?” He drew hard on the lines, drawing Angel to an abrupt halt that set the carriage rocking precariously and brought a nervous whinny from his own horse, tied behind. Jason’s eyes blazed in the light that darted over his face from the swinging lanterns. “You think I’m fortunate to lose her?”

  “Yes! No. I don’t know.” Her arms clenched tightly over her chest. He wouldn’t appreciate hearing how her heart went out to him when Miranda turned him down.

  Her voice was only a throaty whisper the prairie night tried to snatch away. “I think we both lost her. I miss her, too.”

  After her quarrel with Miranda, she’d felt so empty. Now it appeared she was losing Jason’s friendship also.

  “I don’t understand.”

  It was the friendliest his tone had been toward her all evening. Relief loosened the tightness in her chest. “I… I as much as told her she was a fool not to marry you.”

  “I don’t know whether to thank you or upbraid you.”

  “I know it wasn’t my affair, but…”

  “But that’s never stopped you before.” The tremor of a laugh jiggled his words.

  “You and Miranda are my best friends! If I can’t be honest with you, with whom can I be?”

  “I assume she wasn’t pleased with your interference?”

  “No.” Interference! That put her in her place. “How could a year in Saint Paul have changed Miranda so?”

  “I don’t know.” Hopelessness filled his voice.

  The plopping of horses’ hooves, the swishing of Angel’s tail, the singing of crickets, and the thumping of moths against the lanterns all sounded incredibly loud in the night air. Pearl longed to reach out to Jason, to let him know that he wasn’t alone or unloved because one woman had been fool enough to let him out of her life.

  “You’ve never been to the farm before, so why now, two days after Miranda…” She heard him swallow hard. “If it’s not out of pity, why come now?”

  “I only meant to leave some baked goods. But when Maggie told me how she was trying to take your mother’s place—and failing miserably—and I saw how much needed to be done, and worst of all how afraid she is of you…”

  Jason swung to face her, his square jaw dropping. “Afraid?”

  “Yes. She didn’t say it in so many words, but she’s terrified of displeasing you.”

  He snorted. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “You’ve given her an adult’s responsibilities before she’s even through grieving for her parents. She isn’t prepared for those duties.”

  “Someone has to take care of the cooking and laundry and such.”

  “Naturally. But a twelve-year-old?”

  “There isn’t anyone else. What do you expect me to do? Give up working in the fields or caring
for the livestock? Give up sleeping to do the household chores?”

  Pearl gritted her teeth and swallowed the anger that rose in her throat at his sarcasm. He is impossible! Did I expect him to remain the easygoing boy with the constant grin and laughing eyes I’ve always known, she reprimanded herself. Did she think a person could lose his parents, his fiancée’s love and support, and the work he loved without being affected by his loss?

  She took a deep breath and counted to ten, gripping her patience to keep her voice calm. “Maggie said you’ve already tried unsuccessfully to hire help. Until you can find someone, you might accept the help of friends.”

  Jason stared stonily ahead a moment longer, then brushed his floppy hat back farther on his head and wiped a hand down his face with a weariness that caught at Pearl’s heart anew. “My family isn’t your responsibility.”

  “We’re friends. That makes us each other’s responsibility.”

  He grabbed her arm, and she was forced to look into the eyes only inches from her own, eyes that looked stormy in the swaying lantern light. “Can’t you understand? When the grieving time is over, there’s still going to be the fieldwork and the animals to care for and the garden and the housework. That isn’t going to change. So we have to change—me and Frank and Andy and Maggie and even Grace. We have to learn to rely on ourselves.”

  A chill swept through her at the raw pain in his fierce explanation. He was right; she hadn’t understood.

  He dropped her arm with a muttered apology.

  It took a few minutes for Pearl to regain her courage, for she had no intention of letting the matter drop. “I understand now why you’re so angry about my helping out. Just the same, Maggie is too young…” She held up a hand as if to ward him off as he turned toward her. “Let me finish! Maggie is too young and inexperienced to take on all your mother’s responsibilities yet. If I… that is, if you let me… help out for a bit, I can teach her some of the things your mother hadn’t time to teach her.”