Billy sighed. Christine might have grown up on the outside, but down deep she was still a pigheaded, impossible little girl who didn’t know how to keep her world turning unless everything went her way.
He clucked to the mare. No sense in sitting here, watching her cry. He and the good Lord both knew she’d perform as long as she had an audience—and he had chores to do.
Mercy saw the wagon—saw the slender girl beside Billy—and nipped her lip. Christine was back, but she wasn’t happy about it. Even from this distance, the girl’s fashionable hat couldn’t disguise eyes reddened by rejection and a heart torn in two.
Was it her fault, for hiding those letters?
Many, many times after Aunt Agatha had slipped them to her, Tucker’s notes had taunted Mercy’s curiosity and conscience. Was it her fault the Bristols hadn’t met up with their mother again? Her fault that Christine had lost a potential beau?
“Put everything where you think it looks best,” she called over to Michael. He and Reuben Gates were hefting the pedestal table down from the wagon. “I’ll be back in a moment. Some old fences need mending.”
Her new husband, bless him, caught sight of the Bristols and flashed her an encouraging smile. “Good luck, honey. Looks like our girl got some bad news.”
Mercy walked toward the barn to wait for Billy and his sister. What should she say? What could possibly make things right for a girl who’d grown to womanhood without her mother’s love and guidance? Agatha Vanderbilt might have worked wonders and set Christine on the path toward a useful, lucrative career—
But that wasn’t what Christine really wanted, was it?
The mare whickered as Billy pulled the buckboard to a halt. He seemed, as always, to be handling this difficult situation capably. It was his mother, too, who’d eluded them all these years. Bringing his disappointed sister back to this family—this place where she’d never felt she belonged—had been an ordeal for him. Best that Mercy state her case with all the compassion she could muster before Christine’s bitterness inspired another scene they might all regret.
Lord, give me the words that will win her over with my love—and Yours, she prayed as she stepped forward. Before Billy could come around to help his sister down, Mercy reached up to clasp Christine’s knee.
“I’m so sorry this didn’t work out the way you wanted, honey,” she said softly, “and I’m sorry for the extra anguish I’ve caused you by hiding those letters. It was never my intention to keep you from your mother—or from Tucker Trudeau. Please forgive me, Christine.”
From beneath the brim of her lacy lavender hat, the pale-faced girl glared down at her. “That’s a tall order. I’ll have to think about it.”
“Fair enough.”
Mercy watched Christine gaze around her, at large barns, and corrals of Morgan horses, and cattle grazing beyond them. She focused then on the house, a white two-story frame creation that represented Michael Malloy’s extraordinary talent for carpentry as well as his deep love for the family he’d brought together. It was leaps and bounds above the house Judd had built for her—but then, life shot up from humble roots sometimes. People were given fresh starts and second chances at love, and Mercy felt blessed to know that firsthand.
“We have a pretty yellow room upstairs just waiting for you, Christine. Stay for as long as you like. This is our home now, and you’re a part of it.”
The girl’s backbone stiffened. “Thank you,” she muttered. “I need time to decide what comes next. I’ll appreciate it if you and everyone else would just leave me alone.”
Mercy stepped away, nodding. The long-suffering look on Billy’s face told her it was best not to challenge his sister or ask any questions yet.
“Here—let me help you with that,” she said as he pushed a large trunk to the back of the buckboard. “I’ll ask Michael and Reuben to carry the rest of her things upstairs before they return to the other place for more furniture.”
“No need for you to help—”
“Please,” she insisted. “It’s not like I’ve never toted a load.”
Billy’s smile spoke volumes. “Thanks for understandin’,” he said in a low voice. “I don’t know much about this whole thing, but it ain’t pretty.”
He hopped lithely to the ground and then helped his sister down. Christine gripped her carpetbag, resolutely set off toward the house—and then turned. “Where’s Miss Vanderbilt?”
“Last I saw her, she and Solace were sunning on the back porch, keeping Joel and Lily out from underfoot.”
“I’ll go in the front door then. Like company.”
Off she marched again, ramrod straight and gripping that carpetbag as though it held the last scraps of her dignity. Too preoccupied to appreciate the differences between this place and the small, dark log house she’d always detested—or to make her usual grand entrance.
Mercy had to chuckle. “I guess we shouldn’t tell her how much she resembles that headmistress she’s trying to avoid.”
“No tellin’ what she might say to that,” Billy replied as they lifted the trunk between them. “ ’Bout as bad as when the messenger brung that telegram from Tucker this mornin’. She knocked over a teapot and a tray of little cakes in the hotel parlor, she was so excited.”
Gripping the trunk’s leather handle, Mercy grimaced. Christine’s spirits had surely plummeted since that moment of high anticipation, before her hopes were dashed. “Was Tucker rude? Or married?” she asked quietly. “Or has something happened to your mother?”
For a few moments there was only the sound of their muffled footsteps on the hard-packed dirt driveway. “Four words—that’s all he wrote her. ‘Go home. Too late.’ ”
“That’s it?” Mercy scowled, wondering what that cryptic message didn’t say. “Seems awfully strange, considering the long letters he wrote to her before—even when he had to realize she wasn’t receiving them.”
“Yeah. Begs more questions than it answers.” He adjusted his grip, looking sadly toward the sway of his sister’s backside, up ahead of them. “In a way, I’m sorry she ain’t takin’ out after Mama. She’ll never get over the way we was abandoned if she don’t work this situation outta her system. Sis has to see things for herself before she believes ’em.”
Mercy followed Christine with her gaze, up the front steps to pause between the two high white pillars that gave the new house an air of true grandeur out here on the endless prairie. At least the girl ran an appreciative hand over the column’s smoothness, letting her fingertips linger on the entwined Ms Michael had carved into the fretwork, so every guest could see the pride he proclaimed in his new family.
“Looky who’s home!” came a voice from behind the house. “C’mon, Lily—it’s Christine!”
“Kwis-teen! Kwis-teeeen!”
Christine topped the steps to quickly cross the porch. As she reached the front door, Mercy hoped the young woman’s disappointment didn’t spew out to scald the two little children who were so excited to see her.
Joel was scrambling up the steps as only a thrilled three-year-old could. “Christine! Come see me!”
“Me, too! Me, too!” echoed Lily. Stairs were a new challenge for her, but the little princess in pink seldom let such things intimidate her—especially since Joel had now latched on to one of Christine’s legs.
For a moment there was only the thump-thumping of the toddler’s determined feet on the stairs and the rapt adoration in Joel’s eyes as he gazed up at his idol . . . and the exasperation of Christine, who stood with one hand on the doorknob and the other gripping her carpetbag.
Mercy and Billy stopped walking. Both hoped two little kids didn’t bear the brunt of Christine’s devastation—and then dropped the trunk to rush forward when Lily teetered precariously on the edge of the top step.
Not daring to cry out for fear the little girl would tumble backward by looking at her, Mercy breathed a desperate prayer. “Don’t let her fall! If she hits her head on—”
Maybe it was a guardian ange
l whose fluttering wings kept Lily upright, or maybe that same angel gave Christine a swift kick. Her carpetbag hit the porch floor as she rushed toward the little girl with her biggest grin.
“Lily! Come here, sweetie!” she cooed as she threw her arms forward.
With a delighted cry, the little girl imitated her. Just as Lily overbalanced to fall toward the porch, Christine scooped her up to toss her into the air.
Lily laughed, wrapping her chubby arms around her rescuer’s neck, blissfully unaware of the danger she’d escaped. “Kwis-teen! My angel!”
“No, you’re the angel, Lily!” Joel crowed. “Dang! How’d you learn to fly?”
“That’s enough of your cussing, Joel,” came Christine’s tart but relieved reply. “I’ll have to wash out your mouth with—”
“But Billy says dang!”
“That’s because Billy is not an angel.”
“But we love him. And we love you, Kwis-teen!” Lily proclaimed. Her voice rang with the finality of a princess who must have her say. “Huh, Joel!”
“Double-dog right!”
Christine blinked, caught by the familiar phrase from her own childhood. She glanced at her brother, and then at Mercy, and then, still holding the little blonde to her shoulder, she sank down to sit on the top step.
“I love you, too,” she whispered as she pulled Joel close.
Billy let out the breath he’d been holding. “I s’pose there’ll come a time when we wish Lily and Joel didn’t repeat every little thing they’ve heard,” he whispered, “but right now, I can’t argue with a thing they said.”
Mercy could only nod and brush away a tear.
Chapter Eight
Unable to sleep, Christine paced between the two windows of her room. From the front of the house, she could make out the rutted road and the stubble of an endless, harvested cornfield. The Smoky Hill River wound behind the barns and corrals, its surface shining beneath a layer of mist that hovered above the moonlit water.
The silence set her on edge. Miss Vanderbilt’s huge home, which housed her Academy for Young Ladies, sat on a block where, even in the wee hours, an occasional wagon clattered down the cobblestone street. Or delivery men greeted each other while leaving their ice and milk around the wealthy St. Louis neighborhood.
But here, the quiet could drive a girl insane. Or force her to face the unpleasant facts that kept her awake.
Tucker didn’t want her. Didn’t care that intercepted letters had kept them apart. Even though it wasn’t her fault.
And Mama, well—those newspaper articles had only hinted at the sins she and Richard Wyndham had committed. When Billy told her the Gates family had come all the way from Georgia to claim Mercy’s homestead because of a phony deed, she could no longer delude herself. Virgilia Bristol, by whatever name, was now a sham and a shyster like the man she’d run off with. A far cry from the mother she’d sat beside in church or shopped with in Richmond.
So what should she do? It was a sorry enough task to shove Tucker Trudeau into a dark corner of her heart after being lovestruck since the moment she’d met him. He was dashing and playful, and memories of meeting him three years ago had seen her through many a lonely weekend or boring society ball.
But how could she forget about Mama?
Reading again from that red velvet diary had called up her mother’s voice, with its soft drawl . . . memories of sitting in the sun-drenched parlor, working needle-point samplers together . . . the sweetness of Mama’s magnolia perfume, dabbed behind her own ears on special occasions.
Oh, she’d been outraged and humiliated when her mother left her behind to be with that dapper Englishman. But right now just a glimpse of Mama—a single smile between mother and daughter—would wipe away her foul thoughts. She could forgive and forget her mother’s misbehavior in a flash if she could have just one last glance at her.
Well, a glance and the answer to that all-important question: why?
But it looked like that was never going to happen.
She could no longer indulge in imaginative fantasies about what she’d do and say when she met her mother or Tucker Trudeau again, so graduating and then working for Madame Devereaux seemed her best option. Her friends at the academy would never know that for a few bright, shining hours, her life had taken a much more exciting turn. By comparison, she now felt like a candle with a very short wick, as though the best years of her life had already burned away.
Christine opened the window. Not a cicada sang; not a tree stirred. For miles around, the prairie appeared frozen in the moon’s pale light. It could’ve been an enchanted land where fairies and elves held sway.
But she could no longer believe in such fanciful notions. Mama had snatched away her childish dreams, so it was time to face her future. Time to get on with life as an adult for whom a lot of people had a lot of expectations.
She turned from the window, eyeing the narrow bed, but then stopped. Had an animal made that noise?
Pressing her nose to the cold glass, Christine gazed out over the moonlit yard to where the mist hovered above the river, ethereal with mystery. There it was again, low and harmonious and—happy. It was laughter.
Gasping, she stared at one figure, and then another, darting between the trees. Christine raised the window higher, putting her ear near the opening. A lithe, long-haired woman sprang from the mist as though coaxing her companion to follow—and he did.
And they were naked!
“Oh, my Lord. . . .”
Glued to this alluring little drama, Christine put her fist to her mouth to keep from crying out. Mercy and Michael Malloy were kissing, caressing each other’s bare bodies with an abandon that held her in horrified fascination.
Didn’t they know children—or guests—could see them from the house? Wasn’t it too cold to be outside? Surely they hadn’t left the house without their clothes!
And why were her eyes glued to the clean, sleek line of Michael’s backside as he held his new wife?
And why did she feel an intense tingling below her belly? Because she might get caught spying on this wildly intimate act? Or because this was how she’d always wanted Tucker to kiss her—even though it was a sin to think such lewd, unladylike thoughts?
Yet Mercy, that paragon of prairie virtue, now stood in full moonlight, undulating in perfect rhythm with her mate. Shamelessly returning his attentions. This wasn’t at all what she’d pictured when Mama had made veiled references to a woman’s wifely duty. While her parents had slept in the same room, they always wore layers of nightclothes, neck to toe. And they had certainly never behaved this way!
She knew. That’s what keyholes were for.
Her heart was pounding so hard she couldn’t breathe. Christine sensed she should turn away from the window, but she wanted just another glimpse of the way Michael gave and Mercy took—
“You’d best get your rest, Miss Bristol. Billy’s taking us to the train station tomorrow.”
Christine pivoted. Thank God the room’s shadows hid the flush of her face—or did her headmistress know what she’d been gawking at? Her friends often speculated that Miss Vanderbilt watched their reflections in her spectacles when her back was turned. She had a knack for knowing when any one of them wandered from the straight and narrow.
And because she was truly grateful that this woman had encouraged her design skills—and because she suspected Miss Vanderbilt didn’t accept any tuition from Mercy—Christine behaved herself at school.
But now, face to face with the culprit who’d kept her from corresponding with Tucker—and perhaps even her long-lost mother—she felt something snap. It was the same release she felt when her roommate Becky unlaced her corset after a long day.
“I won’t be going with you,” she said, hoping her loose nightgown hid her shaking knees. “While I appreciate the many things you’ve done for me, Miss Vanderbilt, hiding Mr. Trudeau’s letters isn’t one of them. I—I feel the trust between us has been compromised. I sincerely believe
I’d have caught up to Mama had I received them when they were written.”
Even in her floor-length flannel nightgown, the little headmistress could fill a room with her presence. While Agatha Vanderbilt resembled a wraith, with her white braid hanging down her back and her moonlit face the shade of her nightgown, only a fool would believe she was old and helpless.
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” she replied crisply. “Let us hope that you will never do what you consider best for someone and then stand accused of ruining her life. And let us hope you won’t regret renouncing the opportunities you’ve been offered. And let us pray that if you do reunite with your mother, you won’t learn things about her you don’t want to know.”
Christine almost lashed out at this woman, who remained totally in control even at three in the morning. But the headmistress wasn’t finished with her.
“And if you find yourself with a houseful of children and guests on your wedding night,” she continued in a stern whisper, “let’s hope you’ve married a resourceful, passionate man who can’t keep his hands off you—and let’s hope you will respond joyfully to him. Few people follow their dreams and experience real joy, Christine. What a shame, if you were one of them who don’t. Now get into bed,” she said with an impatient wave. “Your pacing awakened me.”
Christine searched for the perfect retort. But Miss Vanderbilt had just dismissed her. For good this time.
“Mistah Michael! Miss Mercy!” came a shrill cry from outside. “Anybody home who can help us? We got us a girl in a real bad way!”
As one they all rose from the long table in the dining room to see what the ruckus was about.
“Sounds like Sedalia Gates!”
“Bet Libby is havin’ her baby!”
“We’d better put water on to boil, and fetch the rags and the laudanum,” Mercy said as Michael and Billy rushed outside. “Lord only knows where those things ended up when we were moving in yesterday.”
“I’ll brew up some of my special tea, too,” Asa remarked, already heading for the kitchen. “That little gal’s gonna need all the help we can give ’er. Small as she is, it’s gonna be like a dog birthin’ a donkey.”
Journey to Love (Angels of Mercy) Page 7