“Yes, Mama, please!”
Diana reached out and tapped Jo on the nose. She scrunched up her nose and leaned forward, rubbing against Jo’s cheek and giving her butterfly kisses. Jo squirmed and let out a giggle, ducking down and trying to get away. Diana moved so that she could grip Jo more fully around the waist, tickling her stomach and her underarms.
“Mama, stop!” Jo cried out through her giggles, squealing again when Diana started to blow raspberries against her cheek. “Mama!”
Diana teased Jo for a few more seconds before picking her up with one arm and putting her onto her lap. She reopened the book, which had fallen shut while Jo and she were playing. She placed her bookmark in between the pages and set the book beside her. “Jo, I want to tell you a story. It was one of the first books that I read when I was away at boarding school, and it has been my favorite ever since. Would you like that?”
“Yes!”
“Good.” Diana kissed the top of Jo's head again. “Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Alice . . . ”
Dessie knocked her knuckles against Jo's temple. “Are you still with us, Joanna dear?”
Jo blinked her eyes and shook her head softly. She adjusted the tray so that it rested better on her arms. “I'm sorry, my mind just slipped for a moment. Shall I take Mrs. Anderson's breakfast up now?”
“Yes, please.” Dessie reached down and lifted the lid off an intricately designed chrome powder box to reveal three small, round white pills. She made sure that Jo had seen them before replacing the lid. “Remember, if she refuses to take them, break them up with your thumb and place them in her soft-boiled egg—”
Dessie paused and looked down at the tray before picking up the chrome box again and taking it over the counter. She plucked the pills out and put them on the counter before doing exactly what she had instructed Jo to do. Once they were crushed to her liking, she brought them back over and dumped them into the egg.
“What did you do that for?” Jo asked, wrinkling up her nose as Dessie stirred the egg mixture. Just like the gravy the night before, the medication gave the eggs a chalky texture. “I am perfectly capable of giving Mrs. Anderson her tablets.”
“I know you are, but she's going to be ornery enough today as it is. Trust me, this will make things much easier for you. Now go before she starts making a racket. She's surprisingly quiet this morning.”
Mrs. Anderson must have heard Dessie from across three levels, as the moment she finished speaking, the banging began. Dessie sighed and shook her head, waving her hand in the direction of the stairs.
Jo took the hint, and started to walk. She nearly tripped over the hem of her skirt as she ascended the first staircase, but she regained her balance and made it the rest of the way up to the third level in a more graceful manner.
Jo paused outside of Mrs. Anderson's door, her heart racing and her palms sweating as the full volume of Mrs. Anderson's impatience reached her ears. She closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath before going in.
Before Jo had even managed to open the door all the way, Mrs. Anderson exclaimed, “Do you want me to starve? Ungrateful girl, I give you a place to live, and this is how you repay me? By taking days to bring me my breakfast?”
Jo clenched her teeth, struggling not to respond to Mrs. Anderson in the way she most desperately wanted to. She took the tray over to the corner table and set it down before turning around and dropping low into a curtsy. “Good morning, ma'am. Did you sleep well?”
“This damn leg kept me up all night, not like it's any matter to you. Where's Dessie? Has she fallen too ill to tend to me, or did she finally decide that she hates me enough to leave me alone with you?”
Jo rose back up and furrowed her brows, walking over to Mrs. Anderson's bed. She pulled the blankets off the older woman's legs and wrapped her arms around her waist like she had seen Dessie do to get her back and forth between her chair and her bed. Mrs. Anderson, surprisingly, did not put up a struggle. “Hate you? Mrs. Anderson, Dessie thinks the world of you. Susanna does, too.”
“And yet they're so miserable helping me that they insist on bringing me wench, after wench, after wench, instead of just taking care of me themselves.” She flopped into her chair, crossing her arms and digging her heels into the floor when Jo tried to move her to the table. “I'm sick of Jezebels like you waltzing into my home and acting like they are better than me just because they can do anything they want and I'm stuck in this Goddamned chair. Stop trying to move me, I'm not eating this morning!”
Mrs. Anderson's face had gone scarlet in her anger. Jo had to stifle a giggle as she realized that the beautiful woman had begun to resemble a tomato with her bright-red face and light-red hair. Mrs. Anderson heard the noise, which only served to make her angrier. “Get out of my house!”
Jo bit back another giggle and used all her strength to tilt the chair back so that Mrs. Anderson couldn't touch the floor with her feet. Mrs. Anderson let out an undignified squawk and began to thrash back and forth. “Insolent girl, put me down this instant! I will have you fired for this!”
Jo ignored her and pushed the tilted chair over to the table. She was surprised at how easy it was to move the woman once she couldn't dig her feet into the ground. Mrs. Anderson was incredibly light, and the woven wood of the chair didn't weigh very much, either. Jo got her all the way over to the table and put the chair back down. Mrs. Anderson immediately tried to push herself away, but Jo stuck her foot behind one of the wheels so she couldn't move.
Mrs. Anderson hurled more insults about Jo, Jo's family, Dessie, Susanna, and just the day in general, but Jo ignored her and reached around Mrs. Anderson to grab the egg-medicine combination. She scooped out a portion and held it up to Mrs. Anderson's mouth. Mrs. Anderson clamped her mouth shut and turned her head.
Jo sighed. “Come on, Mrs. Anderson, the less of a struggle you put up, the quicker you'll be done eating and can get back to sitting up here all alone.”
Mrs. Anderson shook her head and looked in the opposite direction. Jo tried to take the spoon around to the other side of Mrs. Anderson's face, but Mrs. Anderson, much like she had on Jo's first night, batted her hand out like a cat and knocked the spoon to the floor.
Jo bent down to pick it up before straightening back out and trying again. “Mrs. Anderson, you have to eat.”
“I want Dessie or Susanna up here with me.”
“Mrs. Anderson—”
“Get one of them up here!” She grabbed the tumbler of sugar and threw it to the ground. It bounced for a moment before shattering, grainy shards of glass spreading out around the wood floor.
Jo grit her teeth. “If you eat, I promise I will get one of them up here to help get you dressed.”
“No. There will be no helping you. I don't want you here at all!”
“I realize that, Mrs. Anderson, but Dessie and Susanna—”
“I don't care what they say! Leave my chamber! I want them!”
“Mrs. Anderson—”
“Be quiet!” Mrs. Anderson wrapped her hand around the soft-boiled egg and hurled it at Jo. It smashed against her left cheek and trickled down the side of her face down to the bodice of her black-and-white serving gown in a gooey yellow mess. Mrs. Anderson cackled, clapping her hands together as she shook with laughter.
Jo clenched her fists and dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands, trying as hard as she possibly could not to yell. She bit down on her tongue and counted to ten before saying, “You refuse to eat? Fine, then. You can starve.” Jo stepped away from the chair and turned sharply on her heel and stormed out of the bedchamber, slamming the door behind her.
Jo could hear Mrs. Anderson screaming at her as she went down the hallway and back to the lower levels, but Jo ignored her. Her stomach was rolling and she could feel fury and hatred bubbling up in her chest, threatening to explode. She stomped down to the kitchen and glared at Susanna and Dessie when they asked how it went.
Jo bit down one final time b
efore answering the girls. “No, it did not go well. I am going to take a walk and calm down. I will be back before Mrs. Anderson's midday meal.”
Susanna looked worried. “Jo, it's freezing outside, and it has been snowing since late last evening. Are you sure that's a good idea?”
“I will be fine. I just need to calm down.” Jo grabbed one of the extra muffins Susanna and Dessie had not sent up to Mrs. Anderson and ate it as she left the kitchen. She went to the closet near the front doors and pulled out her peat coat. She put it on and went outside to walk with no real destination in mind.
Jo pulled her coat tighter around her almost as soon as she stepped off the porch, her leather boots and thick woolen socks barely helping to contain the warmth in her feet. Susanna was right to have warned Jo about the snow; it was already several inches deep and went up to her calves. She couldn’t tell the difference between the thick, pale-green grass that normally covered the grounds and the cobblestone path that Susanna had told Jo that Mr. Anderson had had installed for his family and their patrons to walk on. Normally, Jo wouldn’t mind walking strictly on grass, but the snow meant that she had no way of knowing what was under her feet.
Behind the house, there was a thick throng of trees. She knew that some of them belonged to Mrs. Anderson, and that her property was spread out quite a few feet beyond the yard, but she couldn’t recall if Susanna or Dessie had said where the line was.
Jo shook her head, swallowing as her anger and irritation began to morph into a much more somber feeling as she thought back to the events that had landed her in St. Louis in the first place. She loved her brother, she truly did, but Jo couldn’t live the rest of her life trying to make him happy. Besides, he had his own family to worry about without Jo being added to the mix. She had had friends back home, too, but she was the only one that had not yet gotten married or started a family. Everyone swore that she was still young, that she had time to find a husband, but she could see the judgment in their eyes, especially when whispers of Jo’s true interests began to move along with the wind.
After she had been walking for a while and her thoughts had begun to wane, Jo started to realize that it was impossible that she was still on Mrs. Anderson's property. The trees still looked the same, as did the snow, and the animals . . . but something felt different. The air was thicker, and Jo's surroundings began to smell foul. It reminded her of when she went to visit her mother's eldest brother, Matheus, who owned a pig farm. Jo couldn't recall Dessie and Susanna mentioning any farms around, either, so she must be much farther from Mrs. Anderson’s home than she realized.
Jo turned around, determined to walk back towards Mangrove House. She had only taken two or three steps, however, when she noticed a fatal flaw in her plan: the snow, which was still falling, had made her tracks invisible. She spun around, trying to recognize any small feature of the trees she had passed, but beneath the cloud-darkened sky, everything looked the same. The snow began to fall harder, and soon, Jo could barely see her hand in front of her, nonetheless any markers of the path she had walked.
The harder that the snow fell, the more worried that Jo felt. Her coat was soaked, and the wetness had begun to seep through and dampened her dress and her underclothes. She was freezing, and her hunger was suddenly hitting her in full. All she had eaten that morning was that muffin, and she had fallen asleep the night before without eating any of her supper. She was beginning to feel lightheaded, and the dampness of her clothing was making her feel clammy and sick.
Jo pushed forward, dragging her feet and letting her hands dangle limply as she struggled to find a way out of the brush. She didn't know whether to go left or right, forwards or back, up or down.
I am going to die out here, Jo realized, tears burning in the corner of her eyes as she lifted a hand to scrub at her face. Her skin felt like ice when she touched it, and she quickly realized that her hair was just as soaking wet as the rest of her. Even if she somehow managed to make it home, she was cursed to fall ill no matter what. She had to get warm and get something in her belly before things got any worse.
Jo felt her steps slowing down, and she knew that she was reaching the end of her struggling. Darkness was beginning to creep into the corners of her vision, and she was feeling more and more sleepy the more that she walked. Every step felt like miles, and each mile felt like fifty as she lifted her knees high enough to make it through the snow that was now deep enough to reach her thighs.
Fortunately, when things felt like they were coming to an end, Jo noticed a bit of light up ahead. It gave her a newfound burst of energy, and allowed her to move quicker than she had before. She hoisted up her skirts and began to jump, each step transforming into a hop as she moved through the powder. The light was getting brighter and brighter and, although it could have just been her imagination, Jo swore that she could hear a woman laughing and a child squealing. The trees were getting thinner, and the foul aroma was going away. She was almost there, just five more steps, four more, three more, two, one . . .
The darkness overcame Jo as she reached the end of the forest.
6
When Jo opened her eyes, she was lying in a bed she did not recognize, in a room that she did not recognize, and in a dress that she definitely did not recognize. The dark-brown blanket felt rough against her skin, and the pillow was propped at an angle that made her back ache. Her ears were ringing, and there was something that she was meant to do—
Mrs. Anderson! Jo shot up as she remembered that she had promised Dessie and Susanna that she was going to be home before it was time for Mrs. Anderson’s dinner. Jo had to have been in the woods for at least a few hours, and if Mrs. Anderson had decided not to eat her morning meal and hadn't taken her first dose of her pain medication . . . Jo was in for a world of hurt when she returned to the Mangrove House.
She tried to jump out of the bed, but it seemed that her legs weren't yet as awake as the rest of her body. She fell to the floor in a heap, pulling the blankets down with her with a loud thud. Jo flushed a dark red and scrambled to stand without making any more noise. She wasn't sure where she was, but she was determined to somehow get home before the owners of the house—
Drat. They were already up. Jo looked up from the ground to see a man with sandy-blond hair and a pretty brunette smirking at her. The man had his arms crossed with an eyebrow raised, and the woman was leaning against the doorway with a hand over her mouth as she struggled not to giggle. Jo was sure that she was quite the sight, lying on the floor tangled up in blankets in a dress that was much too large for her. She couldn't blame the couple for being amused, but it made an ashamed blush cover her cheeks nonetheless.
Jo pulled the blanket up over her chest and shakily stood up. She made her way back down onto the bed and pulled the blankets up even higher over her chest before saying, “Where am I? What time is it?”
The man and the woman looked at each other before nodding. The man turned around and disappeared down the hall, but the woman came into the room and shut the door behind her. She came over to the bed and lifted her skirt and her petticoats before sitting down on the end of the bed next to Jo. She placed a hand on Jo’s shoulder, but Jo flinched away, too uncertain about this woman’s intentions to be candid. She allowed her to sit next to her on the bed, but she made sure there was a modest amount of space in-between them.
The woman seemed to understand Jo’s reluctance, and nodded before she began to speak. “My name is Theresa Martin, sweetheart, and that was my husband, Will. You're in our home in Saint Louis. Where do you come from, honey? Do you live around here?” Theresa paused, her lips screwing up to the side when Jo started shifting around. Jo meant to sit still until she knew whether the woman was friend or foe, but the large gingham dress was beginning to itch as the seams scraped against her rib cage. The woman waited for her to readjust before continuing. “I'm sorry about the size of the dress. The only gowns that were clean were the ones I wore when I was in the family way. Your frock and stays shoul
d be nearly dry; I placed them by the fire almost immediately when you joined us.”
Jo shook her head, unsure of how she was supposed to respond. She knew that she should make some sort of comment about the dress, say that she was just happy to have dry clothing, but she was still feeling too anxious to voice more than a few words. She couldn’t even voice her gratitude at being brought in from the snow. She took a breath before whispering, “I need to get back to Mangrove House.”
Theresa’s eyes widened at the mention of the house. “Oh! You're Cordelia's new nurse! Dessie told me you were coming, but I didn't know that you had already arrived! Joanna, is it?”
Jo's brows furrowed. How did news travel so fast in a town so large? “Yes, it’s Joanna, ma’am, but you may call me Jo, if you’d like.”
“Jo. I like that.” Theresa's smile grew, and she reached a hand out to pat Jo's knee. Jo shied back again, but Theresa didn't seem to notice. “Oh, I haven't seen Cordie since her husband and son passed away, but we used to be bosom friends back when we were girls. We grew up next door to one another and ended up marrying men who lived right next door to one another——then again, both of our marriages were arranged, so maybe that was our fathers' plan.” She giggled. She opened her mouth to say more when she was interrupted by a loud growl coming from Jo's stomach. She raised an eyebrow. “A little hungry now, are we not?”
Jo’s blush deepened. “Yes, ma'am. I best be getting home, though, ma'am, Mrs. Anderson is waiting for me—”
“Pish posh, I daresay that Dessie and Susanna have done well enough over the last three years without your help; they will be fine to make Cordie her dinner and her supper without a fuss. However, if you're so bent on getting home, then I guess I must agree. Eat a bowl of stew and let your garments dry a little more first, all right? I promise once you are done Will will take you back in our carriage.”
For Whom the Roses Grow Page 4