A Bride's Agreement

by Elaine Bonner

She quickly found the couple in the crowd. Amy Henderson was smiling up at Frank’s slender face, her hand tucked securely in his. Pearl’s breath caught in a happy little gasp.

  Jason went stiff beside her and pulled away a fraction. Pearl looked up at him in surprise. Chilly air sliced between them where before there had been only warmth. His brow furrowed into a scowl as he watched Frank and Amy.

  Confused, she looked back at the couple. Another couple was skating nearby. Miranda and Grant. So that was the reason for the change in Jason! Hopelessness wiped away the joy that filled her only moments before. Would Jason never get over loving Miranda?

  She lifted her chin and swallowed the tears that formed a large knot in her throat. Hadn’t she been admiring Grace’s pluck only an hour ago? Had she so soon forgotten “Charity hopeth all things”? They’d only been married a few months. God hadn’t put a time limit on hope, saying one could give up hoping when it seemed difficult or unendurably long. She wouldn’t let herself quit hoping for her husband’s love!

  Pearl leaned into Jason’s side, ignoring the pain that flashed through her at the way he seemed to stiffen further at her action.

  “Today has been wonderful.”

  The look he gave her held no joy.

  She forced herself to continue smiling. “We’d best be getting home soon. We’ll all be exhausted tomorrow if we stay much longer.”

  Without comment, he stopped near the bonfire where Andy was eating popcorn with a number of other skaters. Leaving her, he gathered up Maggie and Grace. Frank had decided to attend a soap bubble party and taffy pulling at the banker’s residence—one of the community’s attempts to follow Rev. Conrad’s advice to draw the town’s young people away from the saloons and billiard halls.

  “How will he get home?” Pearl asked.

  “He’ll find a way,” was Jason’s curt reply.

  Her heart sank. After the friendliness of the last few weeks, were they going to be drawn into another period of silent hostility?

  Without physical activity to keep them warm, the winter cold penetrated their clothing and the robes covering them in the sleigh. Even the bricks that they’d warmed beside the bonfire before leaving didn’t keep Pearl warm. But then, her heart was frozen.

  Once at home, Andy stirred up the embers in the kitchen stove while Jason took care of the horses. Then everyone hurried about hiding their purchases from possible prying eyes. When the stove was hot enough, Pearl made hot chocolate, and everyone gathered about the kitchen table.

  She put bricks and irons on the stove to warm while they visited, as she did every night, to be wrapped in clean rags and used to warm the beds, as there was no heat in the bedrooms other than that which rose from the first story through small square registers in the bedroom floors.

  Soon the household was in bed. After the stimulation of the day, Pearl couldn’t sleep. She mixed buckwheat batter and set it on the back of the stove to rise for breakfast. Still restless, she took the school dress she was working on for Grace into the kitchen and stitched the braid in a fancy pattern along the hem and sleeves by the light of the kerosene lamp.

  Two hours later, she heard Jason’s step on the stairs. He stood beside her chair awkwardly. “Couldn’t sleep?”

  She shook her head. Was he sorry, too, for the stiffness between them this evening?

  He reached out to touch a sleeve of the dress, which looked especially delicate next to his large, callused hands. “It’s pretty. I saw you teaching Grace to sew the other night.”

  “She’s six; it’s time she learned. She’s trying to hemstitch a handkerchief and is determined to give it to Mother Boston for Christmas.”

  “You do a lot for my family.”

  His family. The definition hurt her.

  His eyes searched hers, and she wondered what he was trying to find there. She didn’t realize she was holding her breath until she released it when he moved to a window.

  “Worrying about Frank?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “No. At least tonight there’s no storm for him to get lost in. Actually, I’d forgotten he was still out.”

  “Forgotten?” His one word exploded with accusation. What had she done now?

  He ran a hand through his already tousled hair in the gesture that had become so familiar to her. The despair in his face cut into her chest. “I don’t remember when I’ve been as terrified as I was the night of the storm, wondering if he was lying dead out there. Hoped the experience would be enough to stop his drinking.” He spread his hands helplessly. “What should I do for him? What would Dad have done? I just don’t know what to do.”

  She looked down at her stitches. “We can only keep praying for him until God shows us something He wants us to say or do.” What else was there to do? We are both too young and inexperienced with life to know the answers to things like this, she thought.

  Jason dropped into a kitchen chair and rested his head in his hands, dejection in every line of his body. “Sometimes I think God must get downright weary of hearing me ask Him about Frank.”

  “Proverbs says, ‘Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.’ It’s natural to become discouraged waiting for the things we hope for. That doesn’t mean we’ll never see what we desire. God will answer our prayers for Frank.”

  Jason propped his chin on the palm of his hand. “You’ve been studying scripture verses on hope for some time now. What is it you’re hoping for so hard?”

  A smile started on her lips and grew until she wondered whether it would ever stop. Could he read the answer in her eyes?

  “I’ll tell you when my hope is fulfilled.”

  The morning chores were completed, breakfast eaten, the dishes done, and the children off to school before Frank came home in the company of Sheriff Amundson the next day.

  Jason and Pearl hurried out to meet the wagon as it pulled up at the gate, Pearl pulling a shawl about her shoulders on the way.

  Frank’s angry eyes challenged Jason’s from beneath black brows when the sheriff said in his Norwegian accent, “Frank here has been fined five dollars. Didn’t haf the money to pay, but I figgered you’d be good fer it, Yason.”

  “What’s the charge?”

  “He vas arrested vit a number of ot’er men last night—some of t’em prominent businessmen—in a raid on the gambling den over Plummer’s Saloon.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Tears sprang to Pearl’s eyes, and she caught her breath in a gasp. First drinking and now gambling! Hadn’t the Lord heard their prayers at all? She shoved the thought away from her immediately. Of course, He had. It was Frank who hadn’t been listening to God.

  Her gaze collided with Jason’s. His face was stiff with restrained emotion. “I’ll get the money.”

  Pearl watched him walk swiftly to the house, hating the pain this latest revelation was causing him.

  When the sheriff left, the three remained standing in tense silence in the snow-filled yard. Frank’s eyes smoldered, refusing to back down from Jason’s steady gaze.

  “Why don’t you say it?” he finally blazed. “Tell me what a failure I am, how I’ve dirtied the family name!”

  Jason didn’t say a word. His silence curdled like fear in Pearl’s stomach.

  Frank shifted his feet. “It was just a friendly game of cards.”

  Pearl knew his anger would only increase if she or Jason reminded him that any form of gambling, including cards, was illegal in Chippewa City.

  “With the low price of wheat making money hard to get and stores refusing to give credit, it’s no wonder folks are resorting to gambling.”

  Jason dug his hands into his coat pockets. “Would seem spending money on liquor and gambling might not be a wise investment in hard times.”

  She could hardly believe Jason’s voice was so calm. He’d always flared at Frank’s indiscretions in the past.

  “You can say that? When farming is the biggest gamble of all?” Frank challenged.r />
  “If that’s true, I shouldn’t think you’d have need of any other kind.”

  Frank made a sound for all the world like a growl, turned on his heels, and stalked toward the house.

  Pearl stared after him, rubbing her hands over her arms beneath her shawl, wondering miserably what she could say to comfort Jason.

  “You’d better go inside, too, Pearl. You must be freezing.”

  The look in his eyes stopped the words on her lips. Was it pity she saw there? Pity for Frank she could understand, but for her?

  His worn suede work glove rested on her cheek, and the gentleness in his voice almost hurt her. “Don’t give up on him. We’ll keep hoping for him, just like you said.”

  Later Jason drove into town for supplies. The day seemed long with him away. Frank spent the day husking corn. Pearl was glad to have Frank and his grumpy mood out of the house.

  She was surprised to find Miranda on her doorstep in the early afternoon. Her smile did nothing to ease the apprehension Pearl felt at her presence. “May I come in?”

  Pearl wanted to refuse, but decorum wouldn’t allow it. She lifted her chin a trifle and stood back to allow her to pass. Silly to wish the door opened into a lovely entryway instead of the kitchen, when the visitor was the dearest friend from her childhood and had entered her adoptive parents’ home by the kitchen hundreds of times!

  When she took her guest’s coat, dismay rippled through her at Miranda’s fashionable Nile green costume. Loops of ribbon edged the narrow plaitings, waist, and wrists. The yoke of faille in front of the waist was trimmed with passementarie. The leg-of-mutton sleeves exaggerated her already tiny waist. Pearl’s own checked gray flannel housedress seemed inordinately dowdy in comparison, and she hoped fervently that Jason wouldn’t return until the visitor left.

  She hung Miranda’s cloak on a peg behind the kitchen door and indicated the rocking chair beside the stove. “Won’t you sit down? If I’d expected you, I’d have started a fire in the parlor stove. I’ll just put on some coffee for us.”

  “My, but you are the domestic little woman, aren’t you?”

  Her glance darted suspiciously at Miranda, who was gracefully adjusting her skirt. Had she imagined the sarcastic undertone?

  Miranda looked up at her innocently and smiled. “What do you do with your days out here?”

  “The same thing most housewives do with their days—care for the home and family.”

  “Does it seem terribly dreary after living in town? I seldom see you at the socials or dances.”

  Why, oh why had she come? Her very presence seemed to taint the atmosphere of their home. “Dreary?” She kept her voice light and smiled airily back at her guest. “Spending time with my new husband?”

  Miranda’s lips stiffened slightly. “Ah, but there are so many others underfoot.” Her fingers moved to play with the delicate cameo pin at her neck.

  The brooch Jason had given Miranda for Christmas only last year! Pain and fury twisted feverishly in Pearl’s stomach. No true lady would flaunt such a gift in front of a man’s wife.

  Frank’s taunt rang in her thoughts—“How easy will life be for you, living out your years with a man who loves another woman?” She slammed the door of her mind against the words, and brought to mind a picture of herself tucking into her hope chest the memory of Jason and herself praying together for his family.

  It calmed her. “This is Jason’s family’s home. We do not consider his family an imposition and do not allow our guests to speak of them as such.”

  In spite of Miranda’s assurance that she had stopped to call in order to repair their friendship—“it is the Christmas season after all”—Pearl found the visit most uncomfortable and impatiently wished Miranda would leave.

  “Have you and Mr. Tyler set your wedding date?”

  “Not yet.” Miranda dropped her gaze self-consciously to her lap. “Grant does pester me to agree to a date until his insistence is almost improper, but I feel it isn’t wise for a woman to agree to marry so quickly. Don’t you feel the same?”

  “Yes, I do. Providing the couple doesn’t know each other well.”

  Miranda’s fingertips flew to her pursed lips. “Oh my dear, I do apologize. I’d forgotten you and Jason married so impulsively.”

  Of course she hadn’t forgotten! Pearl looked demurely down at the fine china cup in her lap. “When two people are very much in love…” She shrugged daintily.

  She had the satisfaction of noticing Miranda’s lips tighten momentarily.

  “I was disappointed not to receive an invitation to your wedding. But I forgive you, dear. Grant and I hope that you and Jason will attend our wedding, just the same.”

  Pearl set her cup and saucer on the table, avoiding an answer. If Miranda called her “dear” once more, she would scream!

  “Since I wasn’t at your wedding, won’t you show me your wedding gown?”

  “I don’t think…”

  Miranda was already standing. “I do so love beautiful gowns. The master bedchamber is this way, is it not?”

  Pearl hurried behind her, furious at Miranda’s brazen manner.

  Miranda didn’t hesitate at the bedchamber door, but walked in as though it were her own.

  She looks like she’s cataloging every detail, Pearl thought angrily as Miranda’s eyes darted about the room.

  The unwelcome guest stopped beside the dressing table and ran the tip of her index finger along Pearl’s mother-of-pearl hand mirror. “All your lovely toiletries. Does your husband have none of his own?”

  Their eyes met in the mirror, Pearl refusing to look away from Miranda’s amused gaze.

  “The gown must be in here.” Miranda pulled open the doors of the handsome cherry clothespress and ran her hand along the gowns hanging there. “Why, this holds only your clothing.” She turned to face Pearl, a self-satisfied smile spreading across her round face. “Jason isn’t sharing your bedchamber, is he?”

  CHAPTER 18

  I believe it’s time you left, Miss Sibley.”

  Pearl almost went limp in relief and gratitude at the sound of Frank’s voice, rigid with constrained fury. When had he come up behind them?

  He strode across the room and grabbed Miranda by the arm. “Allow me to escort you out.”

  “Frank, let go of me this instant!” She jerked her arm, but he only tightened his grasp on the voluminous Nile green sleeve and hurried her toward the stairway. “You’re hurting me!”

  Pearl hurried along behind them telling herself she should insist Frank unhand their guest, but she couldn’t get the words out.

  Frank grabbed Miranda’s lovely cloak from the peg and threw it into her arms. Yanking open the door, he shoved her through it. “Don’t ever come to this house again.”

  The door slammed between them, closing off Miranda’s indignant face.

  “I don’t know how to thank you. I couldn’t think how to stop her, and… and… How could anyone be so dreadful?” To her horror, tears shook her last words.

  Frank propped his fists against his hips. “Why didn’t you tell that imitation of a lady to leave yourself?”

  She wiped her fingers across her cheeks to catch any stray tears. “I’m surprised at you. A lady would never do such a thing.”

  His guffaw brought a trembling smile to her lips, and she hiccuped. “Jason mustn’t know what she said.”

  “He won’t hear it from me,” he promised. “My big brother should thank God daily that he’s not in that woman’s clutches. Imagine spending your life with someone like that!”

  “She isn’t all bad,” Pearl defended automatically.

  “Well, he got a much better deal with you. He’s a good man. He deserves a good wife.”

  “You’re no longer angry with him?” Surprise tinged her question.

  He shrugged. “Not his fault Mom and Dad died or that the country is so strapped financially.” He ducked his head self-consciously. “I just wish he’d quit treating me like a kid or a
hired hand. I’m only a couple years younger than he is, and I was raised on the farm, too. Do you think he ever asks my opinion about how anything should be handled around here? He does not! Why he even talks things over with you, and you’re just a woman!” He flushed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

  “I understand.” Another time she would have argued that women have as much intelligence as men, but she didn’t want to stop his confidence. It was true Jason discussed the business of the farm with her often. His sharing meant a great deal to her. She knew how uncommon it was for a man to discuss business with a woman.

  “I just wish he’d treat me like an equal,” Frank was saying.

  She linked her fingers loosely in front of her. “I don’t believe Jason realizes the way you feel. Taking on the burden of the farm and the family is the only tangible way Jason knows to deal with the grief of losing your parents. It’s the last thing he can give them—the only thing he can give them now.”

  Frank’s deep-set brown eyes met hers. “How does he expect me to deal with my grief?”

  She had no answer.

  He leaned back until the chair stood on only two legs. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. Figured Jason would be ready to wallop me when the sheriff brought me home, but the only thing I saw in his face was disappointment.” He shook his head slowly. “Hurt me a lot more than anything he could say or do.”

  A flush spread up his neck, and the chair dropped back to all four legs. “What you said about being a man Amy could love—well, I’ve been considering that. You’re right. With every passing week I’ve become more like men I don’t respect—men like Ed Ray. Amy deserves a man of strong character, like Jason.”

  Thank You, Lord! her heart cried. “Jason isn’t perfect,” she said cautiously. “He makes mistakes like everyone else. I believe the strength he does have comes from leaning on Christ’s strength.”

  Frank propped his elbows on his knees and examined his fingertips as though they held the secret of life. “Along with being angry at Jason, I’ve been pretty mad at God, too. Couldn’t stop thinking about the things you said a few weeks back about God meeting us where we are and forgiving us—though, believe me, I tried to forget! This afternoon I told Him I was sorry. I mean to follow Him from now on, with His help.”