‘I want her moved, Edmund. The woman has an infectious disease,’ Chloe insisted.
‘No. Philomena is not leaving.’ Edmund shook the doctor’s hand. ‘You will come as you think necessary?’
‘Of course, I’ll return tomorrow. She needs nourishing soups and plenty of fresh air and rest.’ The doctor turned briefly to Philomena and, with a shake of his head, excused himself from the room.
Chloe’s cheeks were tinged red.
‘You will have one of the spare rooms made up for her, Chloe,’ Edmund said evenly.
His wife folded her arms. ‘I will not.’
‘I will not send Philomena away.’
‘Think about what you are doing bringing her here,’ Chloe implored. ‘It is a ruse on her part. Philomena planned this to be sure, and you have stupidly fallen prey to another of her manipulations, just like your father.’
‘Are you listening to yourself, Chloe? You heard the doctor. Philomena has consumption.’
‘I don’t care what she has. I want her out!’ Chloe’s face was ablaze. ‘If you won’t do it for me, at least think of your son.’
‘I am thinking of our son. What kind of example is it to leave a relative to the care of strangers when we have the means to provide for her here? If I am failing in my duty as husband and father, then so be it. The restoration of my dead uncle’s descendants from the clutches of the Apache to this family was my father’s life work and I am now compelled to continue it.’
‘Philomena had her chance to be reinstated in this family, as her granddaughter did.’
‘Are you truly without a shred of human kindness?’
‘My kindness is for those who deserve it, Edmund. If you do this thing I cannot promise that I will remain by your side. I certainly will not share your bed.’
‘My cousin will stay here, Chloe, until the end if need be. She will not die among strangers. As for our bed, I find it already cold.’
Chloe’s jaw twitched, her hands clutched at the material of her skirt. ‘You’re as bad as your father. You’ve fallen for a pretty face.’
Edmund strode past his wife and out into the hall. ‘If I have, the blame must be apportioned equally, don’t you think, my dear?’
‘Where are you going?’ Chloe called after him.
‘To speak to my mother.’
The room was uncommonly bright. The curtains were drawn wide open and a cold breeze stirred the air, flapping the drapery and rustling the black silk mourning gown that still graced the dressmaker’s dummy. It was as if his mother wanted to be reminded of her duty even though ill-health prevented her from dressing accordingly. Annie sat propped up in bed, her head lolling to one side. Such was her stillness that she almost resembled an effigy atop a sarcophagus. The cream flannel nightgown and shawl that clothed her merged with pale skin and age-lightened hair. Her hands were folded across her body. Only the patchwork quilt under which she lay provided colour. Edmund still hoped for a resurgence of spirit, for his mother to dispense with her grieving and rejoin the world. She stirred at the sound of his tread.
‘I am awake, my boy.’
He closed the door.
Annie opened one eye and frowned. ‘That maid is trying to blind me.’
Edmund moved about the room, drawing the thick beige material against the view of the fields and the barn and the windmill. His mother’s room was hygienically clean. He could smell chloride of lime. There were damp patches on the floor where a mop had been. The maid’s thoroughness was pleasing but the girl was yet to understand that this was not a sick room. It was a place of waiting. At the far end of the room the pages of a Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalogue rustled in the breeze. Edmund repositioned the magazine on the washstand, placing it under a blue and white soap bowl and then closed the window until only the slightest of gaps remained. Outside, the irregular tree line marking the North Canadian River was stark against the sky. If he craned his neck further to the left he would be directly in line with the light rail bridge where Thomas had met his demise. He turned to his mother. Annie’s sorrow had not begun with his father’s passing.
‘Edmund, come sit.’
He turned on a lamp to combat the now dim light and positioned a high-backed timber chair close to his mother’s bedside. There were voices in the hall. Chloe was talking to one of the servants. From next door came the noise of wooden clothes hangers being rattled and something large, probably the leather travelling trunk, being dragged across the floorboards.
‘You have caused quite a commotion.’ Annie gave a weak smile. ‘But you have done the right thing.’
Edmund fussed with the coverlets. ‘How did you know, Mother?’
‘I saw you carry her in.’ Annie reached out and patted her son’s hand. The action exhausted her and her arm fell on the coverlets. ‘Your father would have expected no less. And it is proper that she should pay her respects.’
‘I’m sure she didn’t come for money.’
‘Regardless, she will eventually be the beneficiary of a princely sum.’
From the sounds next door it was obvious Chloe was packing.
‘I did not choose very wisely,’ Annie said weakly, rolling her eyes. ‘Usually plain women are more amenable. Unfortunately Chloe has never felt comfortable being a part of this family. Oh, it may have been different if we didn’t have the horrors of forty-plus years ago still nipping at our heels but she is not a Wade by birth. She was monied, but she married up, as my mother used to say, and even in this backwater city she has had a hard time fitting in. Anything on and above, well, it is beyond her ability to cope.’
‘Do you think she’ll return?’
Annie leant back in the pillows. His mother was like a rabbit burrowing down for the coming winter. ‘She has been quite vocal in her dislike of our native relatives, so in her defence she does need to make some sort of a stand, for appearance’s sake. But she will return. Chloe will take Tobias and visit her parents in Dallas and then, after a period of time, they will tell her to leave. You don’t look very happy about that, my boy.’
‘I’m inclined to tell Chloe to stay in Dallas.’
‘Now, now, you are husband and wife.’ She took a little breath as if fortifying herself. ‘So, is Philomena so very lovely?’
Edmund hung his head and looked at his interlaced fingers. ‘Yes.’
‘Hmm, maybe Chloe should stay for she is your only vanguard against corruption.’
He lifted his chin. ‘Mother.’
Annie chuckled. ‘I have little enough to amuse me these days, my boy, so allow an old lady her moments. Has she heard from Serena?’
‘Yes, the baby was stillborn, but as to Serena’s whereabouts …’ He shrugged.
‘Ah yes, well, I am not surprised. I do mourn the young innocent child who I grew to love, but that time has gone. Serena does not belong here, Edmund. Should she return you must send her away.’
‘I think Father –’
‘Your father did his very best,’ Annie interrupted, ‘but you can want something too much. In the end his obsession with his brother’s descendants killed him.’ Annie plucked at the covers. ‘He was such a strong man, I would never have imagined such a weakness in him.’ She sniffed and dabbed at her nose with the cuff of her nightgown. ‘How ill is your cousin?’
‘Very, Mother. Philomena has tuberculosis and the doctor mentioned the possibility of consumption.’
‘When she rallies, bring her to me. I would like to look at this young woman who has caused me so much strain.’
Edmund didn’t wish to undermine his mother but he would not expose her to Philomena’s illness nor rekindle memories from the past.
‘What are you thinking, my son? That Philomena will upset me? I do know that your father, my beloved husband, was enamoured with Philomena’s mother. I am a woman and women know such things.’ Annie scratched the thinning skin on the back of her hand. ‘You have read his diary, have you not?’ She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I have too. Early on, bef
ore my betrothal to your father it was clear that Aloysius and his brother were competitors for Ginny’s affection. Poor Ginny, she was quite the belle of Charlestown and I’m sure when she accepted Joseph’s proposal of marriage she expected to be the wife of a newspaper baron, not relegated to the territory of New Mexico to be left alone with two young children when Joseph joined the Confederate Army.’ She clasped bony fingers together. ‘I was not immune to your father’s interest in Ginny, but I knew Aloysius as a practical man and Ginny, vivacious, intelligent and captivating Ginny, was silly enough to marry your uncle instead. What I did not expect was for your father’s unrequited love for this woman to haunt us through the ages and through her children.’ Annie’s fingers traced the needlework embellishing the sleeve of her nightgown. Her pale blue eyes flickered to a spot on the far wall of the bedroom.
There was much hurt in his mother’s face. ‘I shouldn’t have brought Philomena here. Chloe was right.’
‘To know that right at the end his niece was returned to the bosom of this family would have filled your father’s heart. You know this, Edmund.’ Annie’s voice faded and she closed her eyes.
Chapter 15
February, 1903 – Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Territory
Edmund galloped across the field toward his home. The horse was flighty in the crisp air, keen to charge over the springy turf and turn back towards the river. He let the stallion have his head. Okie was used to fast rides. He had chased white thieves and black boys, run down murderers and wayward cowboys, and even given a little lost boy a ride back to safety. For the moment, however, Sheriff Cadell did not need their assistance. Winter had forced the bad indoors. Brawls in the public houses were common. It was a good season for the whores. More than once Edmund had contemplated partaking of their services. With Chloe and his son still in Dallas, he had spent nearly two months in Philomena’s company. Now he understood a little how his father felt. Edmund gripped the reins and coaxed Okie back towards the Wade residence.
The house his father built no longer commanded the area. Larger residences pointed to the continued growth of the city and the increasing wealth of its citizens. In a few years Edmund knew he would be offered good money for the fields surrounding his home. Lots would be redrawn, boundaries renegotiated and the views of the river would eventually be all but obliterated. But for now, much remained the same. Okie trotted up the slight incline reluctantly. The stallion knew they were nearing the stable and that he was unlikely to be freed from his stall again today. Edmund patted the animal’s glossy brown neck and then walked him past the garden fence and along the rutted track towards the stables and carriage shed.
His mother’s bedroom was located on this corner of the house and Edmund was mindful that he should visit her. He’d not been to see her for three days. He loved her, but they had said all there was to say over the previous months and now when he visited, Annie tended to nod off when he shared the content of his days. It was two months since she’d last stood unaided, a month since she’d been able to bathe in a tub. It distressed Edmund to see his mother so frail and uninterested in life, but her ill-health at least put an end to any suggestion of her meeting Philomena. He wanted her last days to remain peaceful and this was being achieved with the dutiful companionship of Helen, who performed the crucial role of caring for the two sick women under his roof. It was no wonder Edmund filled in the daylight hours either at the office downtown or in the saddle. He rode to work every day and went through the motion of managing the newspaper that at last was wholly his. Yet after so many years of trying to coerce his father into expanding the business, of working his way steadily and conscientiously up the chain of management, he found his new position bittersweet. The paper didn’t hold him as it once did. Nothing held him. He felt at odds with his old life now that she was here.
Dismounting, he walked the stallion to the stalls. They had a new stable boy, a white lad named Wes Kirkland, who had joined them a few months before Aloysius’s passing. He did a reasonable job caring for the horses, carriages and saddlery items. In return he was given food and board and a weekly wage. Wes was a sullen lad, but the boy had a sharp eye and was quick to both learn and obey.
‘You finished with him for the day, Mr Edmund?’
‘Yes, thank you, Wes.’
The fifteen-year-old was short and solid with a stocky torso. Edmund had seen him ride. The boy stuck to horses like glue and he’d once told Edmund that he aimed to be indispensable to the Wades. Edmund didn’t doubt it. The boy had no-one and came from nothing. One day when his son Tobias escaped the clutches of his mother and returned to Oklahoma City as Edmund prayed he would, Wes would be a solid man to have by his side. ‘Next time I go out with the sheriff you should come along for the ride.’
The boy gave a slow smile. ‘I can shoot, Mr Wade, and I ain’t afraid of nothing or nobody.’
‘Then Sheriff Cadell will be pleased to have you around.’
Cadell had proven to be a firm friend, although it was not friendship that caused the sheriff to move from Dallas to Oklahoma Territory. This newly settled land offered a tenacious lawman opportunity aplenty to test his skills.
‘There’s a man waiting for you over yonder at the big house, Mr Wade.’
‘A man?’
Wes crinkled his nose. ‘Yeah. I didn’t much like the look of him. He was asking questions and poking about the place so I told him to move on. Squared up to me, he did, like he wanted a fight but he backed off when I held up my fists,’ demonstrated Wes, squaring his jaw to good effect. ‘Said his name was Hugh Hocking.’
‘Hocking? Can’t say I expected to see him again,’ Edmund replied.
‘So you do know him, Mr Wade?’
‘Yes, I know him.’ Edmund passed the boy the reins to his horse.
‘Well, he’s waiting for you, Mr Wade, but if he gives you any trouble I’ll be glad to get rid of him for you.’
Edmund hid his smile. Hugh was twice Wes’s age.
‘Snow’s a-coming.’ Wes called out as he led Okie away.
Overhead the clouds were swirling. The northerly winds had kept the temperature low for a number of days. Edmund could sense a familiar nip in the air and knew the boy was right. ‘Rug the horses up well, Wes.’
The boy gave a wave in response.
Hugh Hocking waited silently on the front porch. Five years had passed since Edmund had last seen him and he noticed that Clarence’s son had filled out in the body although he looked tired and strained.
‘This is a surprise, Hugh, I wasn’t expecting you.’ Edmund held the front door open. Both men removed their overcoats and hung them on the coatstand in the hallway before Edmund showed Hugh into the sitting room. Clarence’s son went straight to the fire and rubbed his hands vigorously.
‘I would have called to announce my coming but I thought you’d probably turn me away.’
‘Can I offer you some coffee?’ Edmund enquired.
‘No, thanks.’
Both men sat. ‘I’d hardly turn you away, Hugh, considering your father’s association with the family.’
Hugh raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, we both know that association ended a long time ago. Your father, may he rest in peace, didn’t even come to my father’s funeral.’
‘If you remember we had a bit of a catastrophe that day,’ Edmund reminded him.
‘Yes, that was the day Serena pushed the maid down the stairs and killed her.’
Edmund cleared his throat. ‘I never took you to be the kind that listened to gossip, especially newspaper gossip.’
Hugh met his gaze. ‘Well, it’s all in the past now,’ he answered smoothly.
‘So what can I do for you, Hugh?’ Edmund asked. ‘What are you doing here in Oklahoma Territory?’
‘I’ve been looking at some investment opportunities for a client out east, then I’m en route to Montana on business. I’m inspecting a couple of ranches out there.’
‘And?’
‘I thought with your fath
er’s passing you might be considering new business opportunities as well. I remember when I worked for your father as his assistant that you were keen to expand.’
‘You’ve a good memory.’
Hugh gave Edmund a direct look. ‘And a long memory.’
‘It sounds like you’re doing well.’
‘You seemed surprised?’
‘Not at all,’ Edmund countered. ‘It’s just that I imagine that things haven’t been easy for you at times and to embark on a new business path and succeed takes effort and discipline. So have you had much experience managing ranches?’ Edmund was curious.
Hugh laughed. ‘I don’t know anything about cattle, Edmund, but I do know how to manage cowboys and supplies and bookkeep.’ He stood. ‘Well, I just wanted to pay my respects.’ They shook hands.
‘You might keep in contact then, Hugh, let me know where you are. I have been considering some business options recently and I may well call on your expertise at some stage in the future.’
They parted amicably. Edmund watched Hugh as he mounted his horse. He couldn’t help but think back to the day of Serena’s tenth birthday when he and his father were readying to leave the offices of Wade Newspapers. Hugh had asked Aloysius to put in a good word with those clients who at that stage were yet to leave the floundering Hocking & Son, and Edmund recalled only too clearly how bitter Hugh seemed that day. He was glad the boy wasn’t one to hold a grudge, for in truth, although Aloysius was not to blame for Clarence’s financial downfall, he’d not been a friend in the true sense of the word.
Through the window Wes appeared on the road as Hugh turned his horse towards the city. Arms crossed as if a gatekeeper, the stable boy stood to one side as Hugh Hocking rode by.
All was quiet inside the house. Edmund walked up the oak staircase. On the landing above he turned towards his mother’s room and then headed across the hall instead. Edmund had done his best to keep away from Philomena. He had kept long hours, returning when he knew it was past the time of decency to visit her. Such restraint was easier the first few weeks when it seemed as if the woman would sleep her life away, then gradually she began to eat a little more, drink a little more. Now she could sit and talk. The few times a week Edmund visited her, he asked after her health but did not linger, he did not dare. Helen was pleased with his cousin’s progress. Dr Hubert was less enthusiastic as he feared the end result would not change.
The Great Plains Page 14