Laurie Alice Eakes - [Midwives 03]

by Choices of the Heart

  If the note didn’t.

  Another missive. Cryptic. Mean. Too similar to the ones she had brought with her to keep her parents from finding them. She didn’t recognize the handwriting, but then, she hadn’t recognized the handwriting of the letters she had secretly received back in Seabourne. Yet surely no one could have located her. Not so soon.

  She slipped her hand into her pocket and touched the scrap of paper she had tucked into it. Regardless of who had sent it, she would add it to the others tucked away beneath her mattress. She would say nothing about it, pretend she hadn’t received it, as she had pretended she hadn’t seen the others. Griff wouldn’t say anything either if she asked him not to—perhaps.

  She’d forgotten about the younger boys having seen the note. They said they couldn’t read much, but they could read enough, and they brought it up the instant they slid onto the bench at the far end of the breakfast table.

  “Miss Cherrett got herself a note this morning,” the younger one, Ned, said.

  “It weren’t nice,” Jack added. “Said she was to keep running.”

  “I’m sorry.” Griff met her gaze from across the long table, which was polished and embellished with carving enough to belong in a mansion dining room but handmade by Mr. Tolliver. “I should have warned them not to speak up.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t.” Mrs. Tolliver glanced around the table. “What is this about?”

  “Nothing important,” Esther said at the same time Griff said, “Likely a prank.”

  “But why would someone want her to keep running?” Ned asked. “I ain’t seen her run nowhere.”

  “I haven’t seen her,” Liza corrected him. “You gotta speak good in front of the teacher.”

  Esther would have to tell Liza that one spoke well, not good. At that moment, though, she appreciated the distraction and offered the middle Tolliver daughter a bright smile. “That’s what I’m here to teach, I think.”

  “Only if we want to go to school in a city,” Jack, somewhere around twelve years old, pointed out. “I don’t wanta go to the city. They smell bad and got too many people.”

  “But the ladies wear such pretty clothes.” Liza sighed. “Like your dress, Miss Cherrett. What do you call this stuff?” She touched one finger to Esther’s sleeve.

  “Muslin.” Esther shifted on her chair.

  One didn’t talk about clothes and the like with men seated at the table. At the same time, it stopped them from talking about that note burning a hole through her pocket.

  “Can we have some, Momma?” Liza asked.

  Mrs. Tolliver glanced toward her husband.

  He sat silently in his chair, his shoulders hunched like someone trying to hide. Pain lines etched a face that bore the same spectacular bone structure that had produced his beautiful children—all beautiful except for Bethann. His hair was red like hers, his eyes green. The children’s eyes too. Like Bethann’s, his mouth was thin and pursed.

  He pursed it further. “We didn’t bring her here to give our girls notions about wearing fancy clothes. They can wear those if they get themselves husbands who can afford it.”

  “But Pa,” Brenna whined, “those kind of men don’t go for girls in homespun.”

  “You’re too young anyway.” He pushed back his chair. “I’m going to the workshop.” He stalked from the room, every footfall sending a twitch through his shoulders as though he flinched from the pressure of putting each foot down.

  Perhaps she could persuade him to drink an infusion of white willow bark. Or get him to go to the mineral baths in Bath County or Berkeley Springs. Many people with painful backs enjoyed relief—

  But she was no longer a healer.

  Esther stared down at her half-empty porridge bowl. It was corn porridge, something she wasn’t fond of, but she’d eaten as much as she could to be polite. Sweetened with molasses, it wasn’t too bad, though now that she couldn’t swim, as she’d loved to do in the ocean, she would have to walk a great deal so she didn’t get too plump for her gowns, or she’d be wearing homespun too.

  “Maybe for Christmas,” Mrs. Tolliver was saying.

  “But the Independence Day celebration is coming,” Liza protested. “I’d like something nice for that.”

  “You have something nice for that.” Mrs. Tolliver stood and began to gather up dishes. “Brenna, it’s your turn to wash, then get out there and weed—”

  Griff slammed his coffee mug onto the table hard enough to rattle the flatware on the plates. “We were discussing someone sending Miss Cherrett a note. Since the boys mentioned it, we need to talk about it.”

  “We don’t know nothing about it,” the children chorused in a way that sounded rather too practiced and coordinated not to have been performed before.

  Mrs. Tolliver scowled at them. “I’ve heard that once too often to believe it. If I find out any of you know—”

  “We don’t this time,” Liza said. “We never left the house until the boys went to fetch her, except for Griff last night.”

  “Bethann wasn’t even gone,” Brenna added.

  “Where is Bethann now?” Griff asked.

  Liza curled her upper lip. “In bed. She says she has a headache.”

  Esther started to rise, certain she knew what ailed Bethann. Perhaps if the sickness was bad enough, she would accept help, a cup of ginger tea, or some mint—

  She gripped the edge of the table as though a riptide would suck her up the stairs to Bethann’s bedside. “May I help with something?”

  “No, ma’am.” Mrs. Tolliver smiled at her. “You go on and tell us what you need for the schoolroom. We got our four youngsters here, and my sister is sending her two boys. If you need supplies, Griff can go up to Christiansburg to get them.”

  “Christiansburg?” Esther’s head shot up. “Aren’t there any other towns closer?”

  “Not that’ll have schoolbooks and things,” Griff said, watching her from beneath half-lowered lids. “Is something wrong with that?”

  Only the doctor and midwife, who had literally known Esther since her birth. One of them, Phoebe Lee Docherty, had delivered Esther into the world.

  “No, I just thought it rather far away.” Which was partly the truth.

  “It is. Seventy-five miles will take me more time than I should be away after being gone these past six weeks.” Griff rose. “I’m off to the fields and may look in on the mine. Don’t expect me for dinner.” Without a word or a glance at Esther, he strode from the house, his curls lifting from his head in the breeze from the opening door.

  He needed a brush and a pair of shears. Esther could neaten up those curls. She’d done so for her brothers often enough.

  But Griffin Tolliver wasn’t her brother. She had no business touching his hair, let alone running her fingers through it. But it looked soft and springy. Pulling out one of those curls and watching it rewind itself—

  She jerked her shoulders straight and clasped her hands behind her back as though they had actually reached for a curl. “If you have some black paint and a smooth board, I can make do without books and even paper for a while. I have chalk.”

  “We got slates,” Jack said. “The chalk’s kinda broke into small pieces, but we got it.”

  “Then we’ll manage fine.” Esther smiled at him.

  A flush ran up his neck.

  With a silent sigh, she turned away. “I’ll go inspect the school and see what supplies are there.”

  “We’ll come with you,” Ned offered.

  “You have chores,” Mrs. Tolliver reminded them. “Get to ’em.” She flashed a sympathetic glance at Esther. “Just tell them to get out of your hair if you need to. And make ’em work hard at their schooling. The younger ones need to get off this mountain if they can. There ain’t room for everyone now, and if the fighting continues . . .” She raised the corner of her apron to her eyes. “God surely sent you to us.”

  Esther murmured something she hoped appropriate or incomprehensible. She didn’t think God h
ad anything to do with her being there. He wouldn’t approve of her leaving home as she had, disobeying her parents. Even if she was twenty-four, she had lived under their roof.

  She beat a hasty retreat first to her room to stash the note under her mattress with the others, then to wander through the ten-by-fifteen-foot space set aside for a classroom, a space the size of her bedroom at home and far more sparsely furnished. Nothing covered the floor except dust. Hard benches were all the students would have to sit upon, unlike the comfortable chair in her father’s study she had enjoyed for her schooling, as he taught her arithmetic and philosophy, literature and history, the Bible and French. As if a village midwife would need to know a foreign language.

  Momma had taught her chemistry as they worked in the stillroom making medicines and preserving food. Momma taught her the workings of the human body and, of course, the art of birthing children, as her mother had taught her, and her mother before her, and back for as long as any of them remembered. Back when physicians scarcely ever delivered babies and midwives ruled the birthing chamber.

  Not so much now. Now women preferred doctors with their forceps that could ease a difficult birth—but could destroy the woman if the doctor were not properly educated, which far too few were.

  “Women should be doctors too,” Esther had once told her mother. “I know more than any physician I’ve met.”

  Momma had laughed at the notion. “Females don’t go to college like doctors do.”

  But Esther had heard tell of a college in Ohio that let women in to study right alongside men. A fascinating prospect.

  But what would be the use? She wouldn’t be allowed to get medical training and be called a physician. She would only be able to teach, and she didn’t need to waste money on schooling to do that.

  And here lay her school—barren and stuffy, lacking in proper books and writing materials. But she would have six students and perhaps an entire mountainside to use as a classroom when the weather permitted.

  She stroked one of the benches. Perhaps she could find some of that homespun cloth everyone wore and make cushions for these benches. Discomfort did not promote better attention. After all, she didn’t know how else she would spend her wage of five dollars a month, which was paid, Zach had informed her, from the mine profits. She supposed she should save some for the day she needed to leave. Until then, she would enjoy making her classroom more appealing.

  Planning when and how she would conduct her first day of class, she wandered outside. Perhaps the children would have time to take her for a walk up one of the trails. Surely they didn’t have chores all day. Otherwise how could they attend classes?

  The chatter of young voices drew her back to the schoolhouse. Across the yard, Zach stood at the gate, his hands at his sides but not relaxed. Three of the younger Tollivers surrounded him, and the voices weren’t welcoming. Even as Esther gathered up her skirts to run, Brenna picked up a stone the size of her fist and aimed it at Zach’s face.

  10

  Esther grabbed Brenna’s wrist and spun her around. “What do you think you’re doing, young lady?” Her voice rasped. Her heart raced. She glared into the girl’s set face. “You never, never, never throw anything at a person’s face.”

  “Or anywhere else,” Zach added in his quiet drawl.

  “Um, no, nowhere else either.” Esther’s face heated, perhaps from the rush across the yard, perhaps from the embarrassment of implying that throwing rocks at other body parts was all right.

  Brenna tugged against the restraint on her arm. “Let me go. He’s a Brooks. We hate Brookses.”

  “We don’t hate anyone.” The words popped out reflexively. Esther expected the retort before Brenna jerked herself free and faced her with hands on her hips, one hand still clutching the stone.

  “You aren’t we. You don’t know nothing about this, how a Brooks shot my daddy and probably stabbed my brother and killed my other brother and Bethann’s baby and—” Tears starred in the girl’s eyes, and she loosed the rock then. It thudded to the ground. She covered her face with her hands.

  Esther jerked a half step backward. “Bethann’s—” She closed her mouth. This wasn’t an appropriate discussion to have with a female not yet a woman, with a man listening nearby. She was, after all, supposed to teach the girls deportment.

  “Jesus taught us to turn the other cheek,” she said instead. “No matter what someone does to us, we are not, as Christians, supposed to fight back.”

  Hypocrite that she was. Trying to fight back had gotten her nowhere but publicly shamed.

  “And,” she added for good measure, “I don’t think Mr. Zach has done anything.”

  “Remember,” he interjected, “I stabbed Griff, or so Bethann claims.”

  Esther looked at Zach’s face—just rugged enough to not be pretty, his striking blue eyes, his gentle smile—and shook her head. “Griff doesn’t believe it, and neither do I.”

  “You don’t know him,” Brenna wailed. “They’re all slippery as eels.”

  “Brenna—” Esther swallowed down the tightness of anger in her throat to gentle her voice. “You need proof to accuse a body of trying to kill someone.”

  “Bethann has proof.”

  “Your brother doesn’t accept it.” Esther stepped forward and laid a hand on Brenna’s shoulder. “Now then, go into the house and wash your face.” She turned to the silently gaping boys. “Jack and Ned, if you’ve finished your chores, will you take me for a walk around the area?”

  “I’ll take you.” Zach’s eyes glowed. “I came over to see if you wanted a look around. The walk down to the ferry is right pretty.”

  “You shouldn’t go anywhere with a Brooks.” Brenna dashed her sleeve across her eyes. “They like to hurt us Tollivers.”

  “Ah, but I’m a Cherrett, not a Tolliver. Your feud has nothing to do with me.”

  “You might find wild berries on the walk,” Ned added. “I’ll bring a pail.”

  “You boys are as bad as Griff and her.” Her wide skirt flaring out like a sail bellying in the wind, Brenna spun on her bare heel and dashed for the house.

  Zach frowned, then his shoulders slumped in an expression of resignation. “I’ve never hurt a Tolliver in my life.”

  “Momma and Pa say that,” Jack said. “And Griff. The ones who caused the trouble are all gone.”

  “Not quite,” Zach answered. “But if the rest of us can be an example, there won’t be more fighting.”

  “I’d rather shoot bears than people.” Ned lifted his hands as though aiming an imaginary rifle.

  Esther smiled to cover up a quaking in her middle. “Run along, boys, and ask your mother if you may come along. And say, ‘May we go?’”

  “Sounds funny to me,” Jack muttered, but he sprang into a hop, then a jump that ended in a cartwheel, then another, all the way to a perfect landing at the door of the house.

  Esther watched him, her smile genuine. “I always wanted to learn to do that, but my mother wouldn’t let me. Too unladylike, and I could hurt my hands.”

  “Do you play an instrument?” Zach asked.

  “A little pianoforte. Not very well, though I can sing some. Why do you ask? Are you a musician?”

  “No. I can’t sing or play anything, but you mentioned your hands.”

  “Oh, that.” Esther stared down at her long, slim fingers and narrow palms traditionally required of a midwife. In defiance of that tradition, she had grown her nails out past the ends of her fingers. “A lady needs nice hands.”

  The truth, as far as that went.

  “You are a lady.” Zach stared into her eyes. “I saw that straightaway. I mean, we figured you were, and, well, you’re right fine, Miss Esther.”

  “Thank you. But I’m nothing special. My father is a preacher and my mother comes from simple folk. Her father was a schoolmaster. Quite ordinary.”

  As if anyone would consider her parents ordinary. Despite living in a small seaside village as its pastor for more than
half his life, Papa was still very much Lord Dominick Cherrett. And Momma! Momma was kind and gentle and strong—independent, yet a true helpmeet to her husband. They were smart and loving and—

  Esther’s throat closed. Her heart ripped open a little more.

  “Is something wrong?” Zach asked.

  Esther thought of the note—the new one—tucked beneath her mattress, and the pain eased. She was here to make her family’s lives easier. She must not mourn. They would understand the wisdom of her decision to leave quietly now that she had gone.

  She shook her head. “I’m all right. I simply miss my family a bit.”

  “I expect they miss you too.” Zach’s gaze held hers with brilliant blue intensity like the hottest of flames.

  Esther shivered despite the growing warmth of the day. So he liked her—too much. She should tell him now that he possessed no hope of anything more than superficial friendship with her. If she didn’t, she just might have to keep running, as that note had said.

  Could Hannah have sneaked over and nailed it to the door, not wanting Esther to attract her brother?

  The idea was ludicrous. She shook it off like the chill of a cold wave washing over her and turned toward the house. “I’ll see what’s keeping the boys.”

  “I’d rather they didn’t come along.” Zach fell into step beside her. “They’ll scare off any hope of us seeing some of the birds or maybe even other wildlife along the way.”

  “That’s quite all right with me. Well, the birds might be nice, but not wildlife. I’m, um, not used to animals that aren’t domesticated except for fish and the occasional snake.”

  “We got plenty here. Mountain lions, bears—”

  Esther skittered to a halt. “Bears? I thought Ned was joking.”

  “Naw, he’s shot at least one, maybe two. The skins’ll be put away for the summer, but come winter, they come in right nice on a cold night.”

  Running sounded like a grand idea at that moment.

  Esther glanced toward the line of trees beyond the stockade. Mrs. Tolliver mentioned how it was to keep wild animals away from her chickens, but she thought the older woman meant foxes and badgers—unpleasant enough, but not large enough to harm a person. But a ten-year-old boy shooting something the size of a bear?