by Yvonne Jocks
Then he jerked his chin toward the west. “Sunset,” he said— and turned and strode away.
Sunset? Audra stood on the path, alone with the squirrels and the birds and her jumbled thoughts.
When she finally placed the importance of sunset—her aunt expected her home; those were the rules—she didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Turning herself in that direction, as would any respectable, well-behaved young lady, did nothing to answer that question.
Chapter Twelve
By act, word, and deed, teachers will uphold strict educational standards.
—Rules for Teachers
“You may go now.” Audra watched her pupils scramble from their desks to the door, nodding to those who called “Good-bye, Miss Audra.”
“Would you like me to wash the blackboards for you?” asked Jerome Newton, lingering as usual.
As
usual she shook her head, trying not to avert her eyes. He was behaving himself. But she avoided his company even so, and relaxed when he left.
Worse than her pupils' relief at the end of the day was her own. She sensed she was failing them—
and herself. What was she, if not a teacher? She used to sit on the front steps in the morning, watching her sisters leave for school. Her mother would make her a lunch to carry around the house, like those her sisters took, so that she felt more like a big girl. Once Audra was old enough to attend classes, school proved just as magical as she'd hoped. She'd measured her life by the levels she'd advanced, the textbooks she'd used, the awards she'd won. She could imagine nothing better than spreading that joy to others.
But here she stood, months into the term, failing miserably in school for the first time in her life.
Even the pupils who behaved seemed bored, frustrated, confused. She did not know how to
explain ideas that had come so easily to her.
Frustrated herself, Audra sat at her desk to read the fourth-level compositions while she still had light. The first composition was terrible; the pupil made two spelling errors in his first sentence.
She braced her elbows on the desk, etiquette or not, and hid her face in her hands.
The squeak of the schoolroom door surprised her. She looked up, startled. “Charlotte?”
“Miss Audra?” Charlotte Calloway sidled into the room, lunch pail dangling from her skinny, twelve-year-old arm. The buck-toothed girl with brown pigtails rarely spoke in class. Today Audra had caught her hiding a dime novel in her reader. “May I speak with you, please?”
“Of course you may!” Audra stood and moved to one of the seats in front, which had no desks in front of them. “You are always welcome to talk to me, Charlotte. Please, sit down.”
Charlotte hesitated, then sat. Then she said nothing, the toe of one high-buttoned shoe drawing circles on the floor. Her eyes were puffy, her nose red.
Audra tried to look as encouraging as possible. finally, gently, she prompted, "Is this about class today, Charlotte?"
The girl nodded, then, remembering her manners, murmured, “Yes, ma'am.”
“Do you understand why it is wrong not to use your class time for the assigned lessons?” Heaven knew, the girl's marks reflected her distraction.
“Yes, ma'am.”
“Then we can move on with a clean slate, you and I.”
Charlotte nodded, but did not appear consoled.
“Did you want to tell me anything else?” suggested Audra.
“I'm sorry?”
Audra had heard more convincing apologies. Still, better to err on the side of gullibility than harshness. She took one of Charlotte's hands in her own. “I believe that you are, Charlotte.”
Charlotte surprised her then by looking up and asking, “Could I take a whipping?”
For a moment, Audra forgot to breathe. “What?”
“I know I done wrong.”
“Did wrong.” The correction barely squeezed out of her.
"Did wrong. I know I ought to be punished. But... I just got to know what happens, Miss Audra! It was wrong to read it in class, but Mountain Kate was just attacked by the bear, and I just got to know if she gets away and marries Cecil."
“Just have to know.” Audra had confiscated the book. Now she stared at the little girl, at the child's bright hazel eyes and thought, She wants to know how it ends. She's willing to take a whipping to find out how it ends.
What have I done ?
“I just have to know,” whispered Charlotte obediently.
Audra went to her desk, opening the drawer. There lay the book, its paper cover sporting a line drawing of a woman aiming a revolver at a bear as it leaped at her. In the background, drawn in less detail, a man waved a rifle. Obviously Mountain Kate's survival was in her own hands and not Cecil's. When Audra took the dime novel from her drawer, the edge of a playing card caught her attention. She knew that if she turned the card over, she would see hearts.
Oh, hush up, Jack, she thought, and tucked the card deeper into the drawer. Then she brought the book to Charlotte. “Here.”
Charlotte hesitated only briefly, then snatched the book with both hands, clutching it to her like a mother recovering her child. “Oh, thank you, Miss Audra! Thank you so much!”
“You are welcome. No reading it during lessons though, agreed?”
“Oh, yes, ma'am!” Charlotte's sigh relaxed her whole skinny body. Then, slowly, the joy faded from her face. Her expression sobered. “I'll take that whipping now, ma'am.”
Oh, heavens. “I am not going to whip you, Charlotte.”
“But I done wrong. I got to get punished ... don't I?” Those were the rules, after all.
Audra shut her eyes against an unwelcome chaos of warring thoughts.
“Did wrong,” Charlotte corrected slowly, when Audra did not. “I have to be punished.”
“Well, yes,” agreed Audra. “But was your crime so severe that it merits a whipping?”
Low marks or not, Charlotte wasn't simple. “Um ... no?”
“So let's talk, you and I, and see if we can think of something more appropriate.”
The girl's expression wavered between relief and wariness as she nodded. But she offered little else. She simply clutched the book, as if afraid to lose it again.
Audra thought of stories she'd enjoyed, how she would have felt to lose one before its ending. Not that she ever took one to school! But. . . sometimes, on nights with full moons, she had sat up past bedtime, curled against the window, squinting to make out every word in the silvery light. Even in winter, when she had to wrap herself in blankets and scrape frost off the windows, when opening the indoor shutters might chill her sisters, she sometimes risked it.
Barely a year ago, her father had gotten up in the night and caught her reading Ben Hur. Instead of scolding her, he'd simply drawled, “We got lamps, Audra Sue.”
The next morning, neither of them spoke of it. She wondered how long he'd suspected her
nocturnal disobedience, and tolerated it, but wasn't sure she really wanted to know.
Now the memory gave her an idea for Charlotte.
“Tell me about Mountain Kate,” Audra suggested.
* * *
She all but danced from the school to the mercantile an hour later. The wind that had locals complaining of the cold felt delicious. The live oaks and cedars added a Christmasy green to the landscape. She had not read a single composition—but she had reached a pupil.
finally.
Charlotte Calloway's face had shone as she related the adventures of Mountain Kate's daring heroine. When Audra decided on a book report as fitting punishment, Charlotte stared, then gave her a quick, surprising hug. “Oh, thank you, Miss Audra!”
Audra could only imagine what Aunt Heddy and the school board might say if they learned of this.
Dime novels really weren't appropriate reading for young ladies! But wasn't it better for Charlotte to read Mountain Kate than nothing at all? At least she was reading.
In any
case, Audra had not exactly condoned the dime novel; she simply had not condemned it.
And—she smiled—that was not against the rules. Yet.
She had to tell someone, so, as soon as Charlotte left, Audra wrote home to her sisters. Then she decided to post the letter right away.
When she entered the mercantile, some of her joy ebbed into confusion. Mr. Hamilton, not Jack Harwood, stood behind the display counter and asked, “May I help you?”
Audra stared, dismayed. She'd spoken to Reverend Col ins the day after promising Jack she would.
Had that been all he wanted before leaving? Or perhaps he'd been angry at her. He'd seemed angry, though she hadn't been sure he meant it for her.
Had he gone?
She almost asked it— Where's Jack? Impropriety or not, reputation or not. For a fleeting, panicked moment, she didn't care a fig about her reputation if Jack had left Candon for good.
Then a familiar voice drawled, “Well, Miss Garrison; if you aren't the dew on the daisy.”
She turned slowly, half-afraid to trust her ears, but there he sat, across the cracker barrel from Mr.
Cooper. One of the Randal boys had mentioned their grandfather taking ill.
She pressed her lips together to keep from smiling. In Mr. Randal 's absence, Jack was keeping Mr.
Cooper company at the checkerboard! He'd never looked more handsome, lounging with relaxed grace in a ladder-backed chair, his coat off and his fine shirtsleeves rolled up. His dark hair fell, mussed, over his forehead. His eyes danced at her, as deep a blue as the star sapphires her mother sometimes wore, and the smile that slowly stretched his mouth reassured her that, though he might feel something toward her, it wasn't anger.
Oh, my! The stove in the center of the room certainly did put out plenty of heat!
Jack looked even more handsome than Audra imagined Mountain Kate's Cecil could. And Jack thought she was the dew on the daisy?
“Good afternoon, Mr. Harwood,” she said, uncommonly pleased. She barely remembered to add,
“Mr. Cooper. Mr. Hamilton. I hope you are feeling well today.”
“Fair to middling,” assured Mr. Hamilton. “May I help you with something?”
She tried not to look over at Jack as she crossed to the counter. “I wish to post a letter.”
But she still relaxed when, behind her, Jack said, "Weren't you just saying that you wanted to sit down, Ham? Why don't you let me help Miss Garrison post her letter."
Chair legs scraped against the floor behind her.
“That's real helpful of you there, Harwood,” said Mr. Hamilton. “But there's no need.”
“I assure you, I don't mind in the least,” Jack said.
Mr. Hamilton narrowed dark eyes over Audra's shoulder. Flattered, she felt the most unladylike urge to giggle.
Then old Mr. Cooper said, "Now, wait a minute there, sonny! You owe me a chance to win back some of that hundred dollars you done took off me."
Audra's urge to giggle vanished. Jack had won money off nice old Mr. Cooper?
A hundred dollars?
As the shock faded, anger replaced it. The Cooper children came to school barefoot at first; now they wore too-large shoes in the hope that their feet would grow into them . . . and Jack was taking from their grandfather more money than the family saw in profit all year?
She began to shake, deep inside. It didn't matter if he'd won it fairly or not. Not that much money.
“Where is this going?” asked Mr. Hamilton—he had none of Jack's charm, but at least he
attempted politeness—and took the letter from her numb hand before it began to tremble, too.
“Wyoming. I should have guessed, hmm? Postage for that will be—”
“Never mind,” whispered Audra, and turned away, walking carefully toward the door. She felt that she might fall down at any moment—fall down and never ever want to get up.
“Miss Garrison?” asked the storekeeper.
Jack said, “Audra?” but, despite her encroaching dizziness, she walked faster. The store seemed suddenly overcrowded, lanterns and shoe boxes and spades looming into her field of vision, trying to catch at her coat with every step. But it was a hand that caught her—Jack's hand.
“Audra?” he repeated, his voice low, his tone gentle. He ducked his head around her, concern softening his sapphire eyes, his handsome face. But he was, after all , a confidence man.
When she met his gaze, his expression cooled fast enough. “What—” His gaze darted back to Mr.
Cooper. “Oh, that! Audra, you've got it all wrong.”
“Excuse me,” she said, her tone frigid.
“But, darlin'—”
She yanked her arm free of him. "Don't cal me darling. Don't even cal me Audra! I do not speak to people like you!"
He cocked his head. “By telling me you aren't speaking to me, you are in fact—”
She stomped by him.
“Miss Garrison,” called Mr. Hamilton. “You left your letter.”
“I'll pay the damned postage,” Jack said with a snarl. It wasn't the first time he'd cursed around her, either, but she'd made foolish excuses for him before. Why, why had she trusted him?
“Well, isn't that charitable of you,” grumbled the storekeeper. Even as she reached the door—out of the mercantile, the lies, her suffocating disappointment—Audra made herself turn and stalk back in to the counter. She passed Jack, who stood, arms folded, staring at her as if she had done something wrong. “Here,” she said, digging a nickel out of her reticule and laying it on the glass. “I should not want to owe anybody interest.”
Then she turned to leave the store a second time.
“I don't charge interest,” defended Jack testily.
Ferris, behind her, said, “Ha!”
"Which is not to say I don't take it when it's offered. Miss Garrison, will you wait a minute and listen to me?"
“No,” said Audra, all but lunging for the door.
“You have two pennies in change,” called Mr. Hamilton, and Jack said, “Shut the hell up!”
Before the door had completely closed behind her, Audra heard old Mr. Cooper saying, "What did you do—ask the gal to dance with you again?" But before she heard Jack's answer, the door shut and she could hurry away from him and from all the improprieties he'd encouraged in her. She wished she could run, but lady teachers did no such thing.
So she waited until she reached the shelter of Aunt Heddy's barn.
Then she cried.
On Thursday, Melissa went by the store to check their mail. When she returned, she slipped something into Audra's pocket. “For you,” she whispered with a secret smile.
When Audra found the privacy to look, she discovered a pink candy heart with crimped edges. She knew Melissa hadn't bought it. How dare he send gifts, as if they were or could ever be on intimate terms! Worse, how dare he corrupt Melissa by using her as a go-between? Perhaps reputation meant little to a confidence man who questioned right and wrong, but hers meant a great deal.
She had no intention of letting any man destroy it for a second time!
She stalked into the chicken yard, threw the candy heart onto the ground, and stomped on it. Then she left the bits for the chickens. It occurred to her, watching the white and brown birds flock and peck at the treat, that she'd never before done anything so purposefully destructive in her life.
Perhaps she should feel vindicated, or at least satisfied. Instead she felt empty.
It had been a very pretty candy to be wasted on chickens.
“Do not accept any more gifts,” she told Melissa as soon as they had a moment alone.
On Friday, their last school day before the Christmas holidays, she gave her pupils arithmetic assignments using chestnuts and gifts and snowflakes. On Saturday, she helped Melissa and Claudine pack before their fathers arrived to take them home for the week. On Sunday, of course, she attended church. Afterward she practiced her piano for Christmas.
Then, as she starte
d home, someone whistled the first few bars of “Silent Night” at her, down from the trees.
Her heartbeat sped up. She walked faster, and heard leaves and acorns crunch as Jack Harwood dropped to the ground. “Audra.”
“Go away. And do not send me anything else.”
He started to keep pace with her. “I know what's got you so riled, and you have it all wrong.”
She turned to glare at him. "I do not care if you cheated or not. Mr. Cooper cannot afford to lose that kind of money." Then she remembered that she was not talking to him and started walking again. He began pacing her again, and he had longer legs.
“You are fixing to be so embarrassed when I explain things.”
And he would be embarrassed when she reported him as the masher he was! Audra doubted she had enough venom in her to ask for his arrest—but she might, if he did not leave her alone! She'd stomped on a nice candy heart, hadn't she? “As if I would ever believe you!”
He stopped and said, “We were playing for pretend money.”
She made it three more haughty steps before her intention to never again believe him faltered, along with her steps. Pretend money?
He was probably lying. Gamblers did that! But... what if he wasn't?
“That's right,” assured Jack, taking his own sweet time to catch up with her now. "Pretend money.
Five dollars for each piece we took; thirty dollars for winning a game. Now"— finally he reached her, stepped in front of her where she could see him without having to actually turn and look
—“doesn't that seem like a passel of money, if it weren't imaginary?”
She could not decide if seeing him was a good thing or not. He'd folded his arms in front of him again, his shoulders tense. His eyes smoldered in the shadow of his hat, and his lips were flat, not even a ghost of a smile playing across his usual y friendly, usual y inviting mouth.
He really did look angry. At her. As if he truly were in the right, and she in the wrong.
Despite her best efforts to keep her thoughts in check, she considered his words. It did seem like a great deal of money.