Secret Surrender--Jarrett Family Sagas--Book Four

by Vivian Vaughan

  He studied her for a moment, fighting back a protest, she could tell. “Think about it Molly. Please.”

  “I will.”

  “And remember, school starts soon. If you don’t make up your mind in time, Travis might have to wait until the spring semester.” He put his hat on his head, using both hands to adjust it at a cocked angle. “And the Harvey House folks might find another location.”

  Rubal, Jubal, and Jeff were about five miles out of Apple Springs headed for Orange, when Rubal suddenly drew rein at a crossroad that led to San Augustine.

  Jubal had apologized profusely after Rubal explained the rudiments of what had transpired at the Blake House.

  “Hell, it wasn’t your fault. Blame’s mine. I shouldn’t have been so quick to claim I was you.”

  “With a shotgun pointed at your gut, don’t see that you had much choice.”

  “I could’ve turned tail and run.”

  “Not likely. Not from what I saw.”

  “What’d you mean?”

  “Hell, man, the air crackled like it was full of lightning between the two of you. Now I know what’s been eatin’ at you this past year. If you’d’ve fessed up sooner, maybe I could have convinced you to get on back up there before your welcome wore thin.”

  “My welcome was worn out a year ago when I rode off without so much as a goodbye.”

  Rubal hadn’t intended to discuss the matter in front of Jeff, but he was so despondent he couldn’t keep himself from confiding in Jubal, and Jeff was there to hear.

  “Now you know why I was dead set on keeping you and Lindy apart.”

  “Yessir,” Jeff responded. “I’m sure glad I said goodbye.”

  “You headin’ back?” Jubal inquired.

  “You bet. Soon as Ju—uh, Rubal here gives the go-ahead.”

  “Won’t be long,” Rubal assured him. “I didn’t want you mixed up with Haslett when the Rangers get to town.”

  When Rubal pulled up at the crossroads, his companions drew rein beside him.

  “Didn’t you say there’s a reward out for those timber thieves?”

  “Yep,” Jubal responded, “but you don’t qualify. You work for the company. L&M’s not about to pay you a salary and give you a reward, too.”

  “Wasn’t thinking about myself. Jeff here’d qualify, wouldn’t you think?”

  “Should.”

  “Me?”

  “Somehow that reward money is going to send those kids to school. We just have to get our hands on it, that’s all.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Cleatus was serious about selling the Blake House to the Harvey House folks, and although Molly tried to discourage him, she knew better than to turn him down out of hand. Life had taught her well. If it took selling the Blake House to keep the family together, she would do it. Finally she agreed to allow him to invite representatives of the firm to Apple Springs to view the house, but she refused to give him authority to finalize a deal.

  Then out of the blue, one day before Cleatus was to bring the Harvey House representatives by to look the place over, Molly was given a reprieve from making such a dastardly decision.

  One week after she and Rubal discovered her clear-cut land, a letter arrived for Travis from San Augustine Academy.

  Mr. Osborne from the mercantile sent the letter over by the boy who worked for him. Known as Snoopy, the name was more a joke than testament to the fact that the boy snooped into other folks’ mail when Mr. Osborne sent him out with important letters or packages. Most mail remained at the mercantile until folks picked it up. But special deliveries and letters that looked official, such as this one from an institution of higher learning, deserved special treatment. Leastways, that’s what Mr. Osborne claimed. And Travis agreed. He tore into the envelope, while Snoopy hung around, eager to take word back as to the content of such an impressive missile.

  One look and Travis’s eyes widened. “Mol-ly!” Leaving Snoopy to gape after him, Travis raced into the house. He collided with Molly who ran down the stairs, white-faced, at the urgency in her brother’s voice.

  Travis shook the letter in her face. “It’s from San Augustine Academy. My tuition and all expenses have been paid for one semester.” By the time he finished, Lindy and Sugar had arrived on the scene.

  “I start next week. That doesn’t give us much time.”

  Something inside Molly turned cold. “Indeed it doesn’t.” Taking the letter, she read and reread it. Nowhere did it say who paid the fees, only that they had been paid for the fall semester. “Come with me, Travis. We’re paying Master Taylor a visit.”

  The schoolmaster wasn’t surprised to see them. “I’m as bewildered as you, Miss Durant. I received a letter, too. A request for Travis’s grades and a recommendation.”

  “You didn’t send them money, or…” Molly eyed the schoolmaster carefully. She’d been deceived by one man in the last week; she had no desire to make that two.

  “No, ma’am. Frankly, I thought you had that all worked out. Travis said…”

  “I did, until the timber on our property was cut by thieves.”

  “Ah, yes, I heard about that. A disgrace when thieves can take a person’s livelihood right from under his nose.”

  Molly refused to be diverted from the issue at hand. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “I do,” Travis interjected. “I’m going.”

  “Not until we’re certain who paid the bill. I don’t want to discover in a month or two that we’re beholden to…” She eyed the schoolmaster, “…to anyone.”

  “I understand,” Master Taylor sympathized. “My advice is for you to travel to San Augustine and learn the facts for yourself. Since it’s so close to time for the beginning of the term, why don’t you take Travis with you. You could go prepared to leave him, saying everything is to your liking.”

  While Master Taylor and Travis compiled a final list of items Travis would need for school, Molly headed for the bank.

  Cleatus was ecstatic to see her, coming out of his office, beaming, taking her arm, making sure everyone in the lobby knew she had come to see him.

  “No,” he replied when she questioned whether he had paid Travis’s school fees. “But it’s a godsend, for certain.”

  “Yes, now I won’t have to decide about selling the Blake House for a few months.”

  “Now, Molly, I’ve gone to a lot of trouble bringing the Harvey folks to town. You’ll at least hear them out? For my sake?”

  She stared, grim-faced.

  “Come Friday, I can take off and drive you and Travis up to San Augustine.”

  She eyed him suspiciously. “Give me your word that you didn’t pay for Travis’s schooling.”

  “You have it. Now, tell Sugar to fix up something special. I’ll bring the Harvey House folks by early so they can look over the place before we eat.”

  Molly didn’t believe Cleatus. Not that he had ever lied to her; she was certain he hadn’t. But she didn’t doubt for a minute that he would have paid for Travis’s first semester at San Augustine Academy, if he thought it would help settle matters with the children. And as mad as she’d gotten about it, she doubted he would have had the courage to confess the good deed.

  In a way she was glad to have the fees paid. Travis wanted to go to school so badly. But the strings that added to her relationship with Cleatus were distressful and unwelcome. And what did it mean for the rest of the children?

  The Harvey House representatives arrived at ten o’clock the following morning. Molly strove to greet them graciously, but the idea of people looking over her home with the intention of buying it was unnerving—in a week that had been unnerving in too many ways already.

  And there was so much more to do. She and Sugar had begun preparing Travis’s clothing for school early in the summer, hoping against hope that he would be able to go. They cut down two suits that had belonged to his father, altered several shirts, and made others and his underwear from sacks and remnants of worn-out garmen
ts.

  A few weeks back Molly had paid Mr. Osborne in advance to order Travis a new pair of shoes. The day they arrived was a red-letter day in the Blake House.

  “You’d better wear them around the house, break them in, so they won’t rub blisters when you wear them at school,” Molly suggested.

  Travis didn’t want to wear them, for fear of scuffing the shiny black toes or putting creases across the smooth vamps. He set them on the kitchen table, as far from the cooking area as possible, and gazed at them. As did the other children. Willie Joe wanted to try them on, and Little Sam wanted to carry them around.

  It was the first new pair of shoes for the Blake House residents in years, and that fact brought a lump to Molly’s throat. Somehow, she promised herself, she would see all the children had new shoes. Perhaps for Christmas. If they cut back on—She wasn’t sure what they could cut back on.

  Especially with Rubal gone. While he’d been here, they’d had plenty of fresh game for the table, but now they had to buy meat from Mr. Crockett down at the market, except for an occasional squirrel Travis shot, or the few catfish they were able to catch on their trotline.

  Molly entertained the fleeting notion that if Cleatus truly cared for her, he would provide them with meat. But that was foolish. Cleatus cared. He had her best interests at heart. He wanted her to sell the Blake House, to marry him, and to put the children in foster homes. To those ends, providing them with food would be counterproductive.

  Even though he argued that living with aunts and uncles wouldn’t be the same as foster care, she knew the truth. Neither Uncle Darrell nor Aunt Charlotte would love the boys like she did. And the worst part was that they would be separated.

  Even worse than her having to give them up, Willie Joe and Little Sam would be separated. They were so close she knew they would never get over the hurt.

  And nothing had been settled about Lindy. Yes, she was sixteen, and yes, that was practically grown—physically, not emotionally. Of course, pretty as she was, suitors would present themselves at the drop of a hat. But that wasn’t the way it should be.

  Lindy should have someone she loved—after she had a chance to experience a little bit of life for herself.

  As the days wore on Molly even began to regret having stood in the way of Lindy and Jeff’s romance. As lonely as she was herself, if she didn’t have memories of loving Rubal to sustain her, she knew her life would be bleaker still. Even though she still believed she had done the right thing in sending him away, she reveled in the memories of their time together. And with that realization, she began to understand the importance of memories.

  Sugar was right. Rubal had made a big difference in this family’s life. For one thing, he showed her that a man could love children who weren’t his; that a man could be playful and compassionate, could even help around the house without losing his masculinity; that a man could bring joy to a house without buying it or building it or even without owning it.

  Cleatus and his mother and father accompanied Mr. James Braun and Mr. Daniel Thrope, Harvey House representatives, to the Blake House for the inspection tour and dinner. At Cleatus’s request, a sign had been posted on the front gate, advising prospective diners of a private party in progress.

  Tense and ill-at-ease from the outset, Molly led the visitors on a room by room inspection, uncertain what aggravated her more—seeing the two Harvey House representatives knock on the walls and tap on the ceilings, hearing them discuss how many more people the house could accommodate if a wall were removed here, a new wall erected there; or having Prudence Farrington peer into her personal belongings. In her own bedroom Molly found herself standing as if to shield the bed from view, a foolish thing, given its enormous size.

  While she watched Cleatus’s foster mother examine the top of her dresser, almost hoping the woman would ask where the dried dogwood blossoms had come from, she spied Cleatus in the mirror.

  He stood stock still in the doorway, his eyes riveted on her feather bed. The memories that evoked brought tears to Molly’s eyes. Hastily she ushered the unwanted visitors out of her room, leading them down the hall to the guest wing—where Prudence Farrington puckered her lips into a tight persimmon. Making no attempt to conceal her distaste, the woman glanced back along the hallway toward the private sleeping quarters in the other wing.

  “This is where those…uh, men sleep.”

  “Slept,” Molly corrected. “We have no boarders at present. But yes, this is where we put boarders.”

  By the time they took the back stairs and arrived in the kitchen Molly was ready to turn the tour over to Sugar. But one glance at Sugar’s indignant expression told her they would both regret such a move.

  “Sugar doesn’t come with the deal,” Albert Farrington observed. “Although after you taste her cooking, you’ll be tempted to bargain a little harder with my son.”

  The implication irritated Molly, but she let it pass, and during dinner remained calm, outwardly, at least. They were the only diners at the meal, since the children had been fed early. Hating herself for lying to Lindy and Travis, Molly nevertheless was loath to tell them the truth—until it became fact. If it became fact.

  So she sent Travis to Master Taylor’s with a lengthy list of questions about matriculation, and persuaded Lindy to take the little boys fishing, saying Cleatus wanted to entertain visiting dignitaries at dinner. The children’s absence, however, did not mean they were forgotten.

  “By the way, Molly,” Prudence spoke from where she had seated herself beside Cleatus, who had assumed his previous position at the head of the table. “I heard from your Aunt Charlotte this week.”

  Although her initial impulse was to condemn the woman for meddling in her life, Molly mumbled, “How nice.” Turning to Mr. Braun, she offered the roast beef she had paid dearly for at Mr. Crockett’s butcher shop, using her dwindling supply of Rubal’s rent money. “Please have another serving. You, too, Mr. Thrope. Then we’ll pass it around. Don’t be shy about second helpings.”

  “Your Aunt Charlotte is delighted with the idea of rearing the little boy, what’s his name—”

  “Willie Joe,” Cleatus supplied. Molly glared at him down the length of the table. He grimaced, as though chagrined at his mother’s audacity.

  “Yes, well, your Aunt Charlotte is delighted at the idea of rearing the boy in Galveston. She’s sure he will love living so near the ocean.”

  Dropping her eyes, Molly studied her plate, her lips pursed. She didn’t dare respond, for anything other than an outburst would be a lie. She wanted, desperately wanted, to put Prudence Farrington in her place—out of the Blake House. But she dared not cause a stir. It had become more obvious with every passing day that she must carry this interview off with poise. She might very well be required to accept the Harvey House offer—should they decide to make one.

  Molly’s only pleasure during the tour came from one of the representatives themselves. Albert Farrington, a sure example of the kind of man his son would someday be, brought it about after the meal was finished.

  Molly passed out hats and walking sticks to the men from the Harvey House. Albert Farrington stood with a thumb tucked into his watch pocket, gloating, at least in Molly’s eyes.

  “Why don’t you men follow my son on over to the bank so we can get discussions started. He’ll drive a hard bargain, but I think you’ve seen enough to know the property holds possibilities.”

  James Braun surveyed the group—Prudence, Cleatus, stopping on Molly. “I was led to believe that you’re the owner of the property, Miss Durant.”

  “I am. Along with a younger sister and three younger brothers.”

  Mr. Braun motioned toward Cleatus. “Have you empowered Mr. Farrington to deal for you?”

  “No.”

  Cleatus blanched, but Albert Farrington didn’t miss a beat. “My son will own the property, once he and Miss Durant here are married.”

  James Braun turned back to Molly, as if to verify the claim.
>
  “If I decide to sell the Blake House, Mr. Braun, I will let you know. Cleatus may advise me, but I will make the final decision.”

  Knowing he was in trouble, Cleatus tried to follow the guests down the walk, but Molly held him back. With her hand on his sleeve, they watched the Harvey House representatives and his parents walk down the path and exit the yard gate.

  Even then, in her fury, Molly thought about Rubal. Poignant thoughts. Angry thoughts. If he were here, none of this would have ever happened. If he were here, she wouldn’t have had to endure such a degrading ordeal by herself.

  If he were here—

  But he wasn’t here and he never would be. She had to deal with things alone.

  “Cleatus, I can’t take much more of either of your parents.”

  “They mean well—”

  “Meaning well isn’t good enough. I will not let the boys go to separate homes. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

  He perused her at length. “Are you saying you would allow them to go to a foster home, if they went together?”

  Furiously, she turned away. He caught her by the arm. Before she could stop him, he had pulled her to his chest. She went rigid in his arms, but his voice was soothing. She knew she shouldn’t blame him for his parents. But what if he turned out like them?

  “Time-out,” he whispered into her hair. “Let’s not discuss this any more until Friday.”

  “Friday?”

  “We’re taking Travis to San Augustine Friday. Have you forgotten?”

  “I haven’t forgotten, but I don’t intend to fight with you all the way up there over—over things that are my business.”

  He rubbed her back, trying, she knew, to soothe, but all he did was remind her of Rubal. Rubal, in whose arms she had felt safe and secure and wanted.

  Even when she wasn’t.

  The school was beautiful—brick buildings shaded by giant hardwoods and nestled in a cradle of centuries-old pines and oaks. Master Wintrope, the headmaster, wasn’t any help in revealing where the money had come from for Travis’s school fees.