As she headed downstairs and through the hallway to the chambermaids’ parlor, she reasoned she’d likely have a quiet evening. The desk clerk indicated only two people had checked into the hotel that day. With the holidays upon them, most people were staying home rather than traveling. She’d write a bit to Amos and maybe turn in early. Her body gave an involuntary jerk as she remembered that going to sleep meant the possibility of another nightmare. She shuddered. No, she’d keep herself awake as long as possible. Maybe even until the chimes announced midnight. Then, if she were very lucky, she’d be too tired to dream.
She sat in the chair in the corner, laid the paper across her knee, and began to write.
My dear Amos,
It is New Year’s Eve, and the town is celebrating with a party. If you were in attendance, I would be at the party, too, like Ruthie and many of the townspeople. But you aren’t here, and I don’t want to go without you. So instead I will write you a letter. Writing to you is almost as good as talking to you. It makes me less lonely.
With a start she realized she didn’t feel quite as alone with thoughts of him filling her mind. Smiling, she bent over the page again.
I hope the stove you bought is keeping the chicks warm. It must not be a very large stove if you carted it home in your wagon. But chicks are so tiny they probably don’t need a large stove for warmth. Have you trained Samson and Gideon to cuddle with the chicks and help keep them warm? I think smart dogs like Sam and Gid could learn just about anything. Even being kind to baby chickens.
Since you haven’t been able to get into town easily, are the eggs—
A light “ahem” intruded. Startled, Dinah jerked, and the pencil lead left a thick mark on the page. Sucking in a breath of aggravation, she set the paper and pencil aside and turned to see who had disturbed her. But the person framed in the doorway wasn’t Mr. Irwin, one of the hotel employees, or even a guest. Her heart gave a happy leap, and she dashed toward the door.
“Amos!”
Amos
Dinah stopped just short of reaching him. Amos would have welcomed her leaping into his arms, but the expression of delight on her face was reward enough for making the long, chilly trek to town. How could he end this year without one more glimpse of her sweet face? The ache in his hip, the pain in his ears, toes, and fingers from the biting wind were a small price to pay to have pleased her so much.
He smiled and stretched out one hand, which she gripped between both of her palms. The warmth of her flesh felt good against his wind-chilled fingers. “Happy New Year, Dinah.”
“Oh, happy New Year to you, Amos.” Her voice trickled out, carried on a soft sigh. “I didn’t know you were coming. This is a wonderful surprise.”
The way she clung to his hand was a wonderful surprise for him. Although he often reached for her, to cup her hand or graze her arm with his fingertips, she usually scurried away from his touch. He admired her restraint, while at the same time he longed for signs of affection. But she held to him now, and his ring sparkled on her finger. Both promised him that one day, when they had become man and wife—and such a day it would be!—she would respond differently to his affectionate advances.
“I came to take you to the New Year’s Eve party.” He glanced across her uniform, and his spirits sank. “But you must be working.”
She released him and took a dainty backward step. “Mr. Irwin told both Ruthie and me we could go to the party, but I didn’t want to go without you.”
Her statement made his heart sing.
“So I decided to stay in my uniform. If you’re willing to wait, I’ll run upstairs and change into my ball dress.”
“I’ll wait.”
She inched toward the door. “I’ll only be a few minutes.”
Amos would wait hours if need be. “Take whatever time you need. I’ll be here when you come down.”
She flashed a grateful smile and grabbed the doorframe as if to propel herself into the hallway. “Good! I’ll—” The clatter of a bell sounded from somewhere up the hall. Dinah gave a little stomp and pursed her lips into a scowl. “Oh, pooh, there’s a beckon-me bell. I need to see to a guest.”
Her reaction tickled him, and he stifled a chuckle. “Well, go ahead and take care of it.” Consternation marred her brow. He added, “We’ll have the whole evening together.” He intended to stay until midnight so he could start the new year with Dinah at his side.
With a sigh she rounded the corner. Curious to see her at work and unwilling to let her out of his sight after their long week apart, Amos followed, keeping a few yards’ distance between them. The bell jangled again, more loudly, and Dinah sped into a little trot. When she halted outside a door, he stopped, shifting to lean against the opposite wall where he had a good view, and watched her flick her apron smooth, tuck a wayward curl behind her ear, and finally give a few taps with the brass door knock.
Moments later the door swung wide. A gray-haired man with a thick mustache stood in the doorway. His shirt was untucked and unbuttoned at the throat, giving him a slovenly appearance. Amos scowled. Was Dinah subjected to such sights daily? Protectiveness tightened his chest. Lord, let me complete my plans quickly so I can take Dinah away from this job. Witnessing men in states of half dress isn’t suitable for a young, innocent woman.
The man seemed to examine the thick towel draped over his arm. “I was preparing to make use of this towel, but I discovered a stain.” He pointed at a spot. “Has this been washed?”
Dinah leaned in slightly, peering at the fabric. “I’m sure it’s been laundered, sir, but I’ll gladly retrieve a fresh one for you.” Her courteous voice contrasted with the man’s brusque tone.
He thrust the towel at Dinah, lifting his head as he did so, and his brow furrowed as if he puzzled over something. Then recognition burst across his face, and he barked out a brief laugh of surprise. He gave the towel a toss toward her waiting hands and then leaned his shoulder on the doorjamb. Folding his arms over his chest, he sent his leering gaze up and down Dinah’s length.
Dinah’s face drained of color. Her frame began to tremble, and the towel fell to the floor at her feet. She stared at the man in mute horror.
Amos’s blood ran cold as fury writhed through him. How dare the guest eye Dinah as if she were a common strumpet. He balled his hands into fists and started toward the insolent man. If only he could charge like a bull instead of limping over the carpet in his awkward gait.
“Well, well, well …” The guest laughed again—this time the sound low, knowing, mocking. “If it isn’t little Dinah from Chicago. Working as a chambermaid, are you? I don’t imagine it pays as well as your former occupation.”
Amos froze in place, confusion and revulsion replacing the ball of fury.
The man went on, his voice wheedling. “But if you’d like to earn a few extra dollars while I’m in town, maybe we could …”
Nausea flooded Amos’s gut as the guest’s meaning became clear. He forced one word past his aching throat. “Dinah?”
Dinah
Standing there beneath the lewd grin of the man who had haunted her dreams while Amos—her beau, her prince—looked on with an expression of pain and disillusionment, Dinah wanted to die. She tried to go to Amos, but her foot caught on the discarded towel. The tremors shuddering through her made her clumsy, and she couldn’t free herself to move. So she remained in place, aware of the businessman from Chicago witnessing her appeal to Amos with her eyes.
Amos shifted his gaze from her to the man in the doorway. He snapped, “You know Miss Hubley?”
A chuckle rumbled from the man’s chest. “I certainly do. I know her well.”
Shame burned in Dinah’s middle. She folded her arms across her waist in a feeble effort to tamp it down. She sent Amos a pleading look. “It … it isn’t what you think.”
Amos hitched toward her, his face set in such a grimace of agony she thought her chest might explode from pain. “What I’m thinking, Dinah, I cannot bring myself to say
aloud.” Although he spoke softly, even kindly, his words flayed her. “This man … In Chicago …” His dear eyes slipped closed, as if he couldn’t bear to look upon her. He whispered in a grating voice, “Did you take money from him?”
“I … He …”
Amos opened his eyes and pinned a steely look on her. “Answer me. Did you lie with this man in exchange for money?”
Regret and disgrace and so much sorrow—she marveled that she could hold it all—rolled through her, making her body go hot, then cold, then hot again. For a moment, she felt incapable of drawing air into her lungs, as if her very breath had been snatched away. Could someone drown from shame? Icy waves seemed to break against her frame, growing stronger and more stifling with each ebb. The cloying feeling of being sucked beneath a whirlpool stole her ability to speak. Her lips flopped helplessly open and closed. But she didn’t need to answer him. Amos saw the truth. Her body sagged in defeat as the raging seas consumed her. Her humiliation was complete.
He took a step backward, angling his head away from her but shifting his eyes so his gaze continued to bore into her with accusation and disbelief. “You … are a harlot?”
Dinah threw her fists outward, rejecting the name he’d thrown at her. “No!”
“What else except a harlot takes money for something that should only be given in love?” His tone was flat, his expression dead, but his blue eyes had never seemed so dark and foreboding. “How many men did you favor in Chicago?”
Men? Did he really think so little of her? Too hurt to speak, she stood in silence, rubbing her thumb over the gold band of the ring he’d given her as a promise of good things to come. Now, with the opening of a door, all the bright promises had crumbled. If only she hadn’t responded to the beckon-me bell. If only Amos had stayed away this evening. If only she could turn back time and choose a different path. If only those crashing waves would swallow her up.
Bible-Dinah’s brothers felled an entire village in retaliation for their sister’s defilement. Dinah had no brothers. She only had Amos. And instead of attacking the defiler, he’d turned on the defiled. She’d never felt such torment. The pain she’d experienced during the hours in the hotel room in Chicago were only a scratch compared to the deep wounds Amos’s reaction inflicted on her soul. Had she really believed he wouldn’t hurt her? How wrong she’d been. With only one question—“How many men did you favor?”—he destroyed every bit of trust she placed in him. How could her heart keep beating? How did her lungs keep drawing in air? Her body went on living, but inside … Inside she surely died.
The guest—the gentleman who was no gentleman—pushed off the doorframe and scooped up the towel from the floor. “I suppose I can tolerate a little stain on my towel. Never mind bringing me a fresh one.” He closed the door, leaving Dinah and Amos standing several feet apart in the hallway.
Gas lamps flickered. Music and laughter and chatting voices floated from the ballroom. The pendulum clock in the lobby ticktocked its familiar cadence. Minutes slipped by as if nothing were amiss. Yet her world had crumbled. She stood so still and stiff her muscles ached while she waited for Amos to say something, do something. But he remained as motionless and stone faced as a statue. She couldn’t let him go on believing she had sold her body to men. She must at least tell him that much truth.
Dinah forced her tight chest to fill with air, gathering courage. “Not men.”
He visibly jerked, as if jolted from a stupor. His head swiveled and his emotionless gaze fell on her. “What?”
She dared to inch forward two tiny steps. Linking her hands together, she beseeched him with her eyes. “It wasn’t men. A man. Only one, Amos.”
His brows rose and his mouth fell open. He shook his head as if removing stones from his ears. “Only one. Did you say, ‘Only one’? The number doesn’t matter. You took money from a man for—” His face contorted. He clutched his temples and groaned. A horrible, pain-filled groan that seared Dinah’s heart. “I … I have to go.” With a stumbling step, he aimed himself for the front doors.
Dinah darted after him, reaching out with both hands but not touching him. “Amos, wait. Please.” He pumped his arms, his feet falling heavily on the floor as he broke into a clumsy trot. Even though he wouldn’t look at her, she scuttled alongside him, gazing into his stern face and hoping for some hint of softening, some small glimmer of understanding. But they reached the double doors leading to the porch and his expression remained forbidding.
He reached for the doorknob, and she caught his sleeve. Through gritted teeth he said, “Let go of me.”
She shook her head. “No, I won’t.” When had she grown so bold? She never exhibited such fortitude, but she never faced losing something so precious before. She tightened her grip, feeling the strong cords of his muscles even through the sleeve of his wool coat. “Not until we’ve talked.”
“There’s nothing left to say.”
Where had her gentle, tender beau gone? This mask of cold indifference had no place on Amos Ackerman’s face. And she—what she had done—had brought the change. She’d destroyed herself. She’d destroyed him. Her burden of shame heightened, nearly collapsing her. She swallowed tears. “Please, Amos, let me—”
He whirled on her. “Explain?” His icy tone lashed her like a whip. “There is no explanation, Dinah. Nothing you can say will excuse what you did. You are a trollop. You sold yourself. And the man who purchased you might be willing to use something that bears stains from another’s use, but I—” His body jolted as if someone had plunged a knife into his heart. Tears spurted in his eyes, and he crunched his face into a horrible grimace. He jerked free of her grasp and lunged for the doorknob. “I cannot.”
He threw the door open with force and then left it standing wide when he lurched onto the porch. Cold wind blasted through the opening, carrying fluttering snowflakes that fell on Dinah’s skirt and glistened like stars in a blackened sky. She shivered, but she made no effort to close the door. Instead she stood in the doorway while wild winds tossed her hair and penetrated her dress to chill her limbs.
Eyes dry and unblinking, she stared into the darkness where Amos had disappeared and waited for the frigid gusts of winds to freeze her heart. Maybe then it would stop beating. Maybe then she would feel nothing. Maybe then the pain would end.
Amos
Amos held on to his fury the entire long walk home. With every step he took, the drawling comment of the guest in the Clifton—“I know her well”—repeated itself in his mind. With every blast of cold wind, an image of Dinah’s pleading face appeared in his memory. With every wink of a star in the sky, he recalled the sparkle of the ring she wore on her finger. And with each remembrance, his anger grew—an anger more intense and encompassing than any he’d faced before.
He thought he’d been angry when as a young boy, he’d awakened to hear a doctor tell him he’d never walk normally again. But the anger he felt then paled in comparison to this. Then, he’d been angry at the circumstance. This anger was personal. Which made it much more difficult to bear.
Despite the cold, sweat trickled between his shoulder blades. She’d duped him. He’d pledged himself to a girl whose innocence was a farce. A girl who’d sold herself would be looking for a man too green to see the truth. And along came Amos … So stupid he’d been—so naive. He was angry at Dinah, yes, but even more he was angry at himself. How could he have been so blind?
By the time he reached his farm, the anger had begun to cool, and a deep, throbbing ache sneaked in to replace it. As he layered wood on the glowing embers in his fireplace, he tried to rekindle the fury. But it faltered, much like the little tongues trying to take hold of the larger chunks of dry hedge apple. On one knee he remained in front of the fireplace and fed log after log to the inner hearth, hoping as the fire grew his anger could return to burn out the pain. But even when the fire blazed, searing him with its heat, he couldn’t renew his anger.
He hurt. Worse than he’d ever hurt. Worse than when
he’d faced his father’s disappointment. Worse than when he’d been rebuffed on the school playground. Worse than when he’d heard disparaging comments whispered behind his back about his gimpy way of passing. Even worse than when the wagon wheel snapped his bones and he’d screamed in agony. He’d opened his heart to her. And she ripped it from his chest.
In his mind’s eye he saw Dinah kneeling beside his cart, her fingers twining through Gideon’s ruff, her face alight with pleasure. His arms tingled as he remembered her tiny hand resting in his palm the night of the Calico Ball. Without conscious thought, he swayed slightly as if moving to the melody of “Roses from the South.” An image of her delighted dash across the carpet when he’d surprised her earlier this evening—of her hands reaching toward him, her smile igniting the pale blue of her eyes—filled his memory, and a bolt of pain stabbed through him.
He lowered himself to sit on the braided rug in front of the hearth and rested his weight on his good hip, burying his face in his hands. “Why, God?” Tears formed in his eyes, but the fire’s heat dried them before they could fall. “Why did You let me love her when You knew … You knew what she was?”
Too weary to rise, he remained there until the flames consumed the logs and turned them to chunks of glowing, red-eyed char. He remained there until the embers had died, and a chill fell around him. When the clock on the mantel announced the arrival of the new year, he was still sitting there, waiting for an answer. But it never came.
Ruthie
Ruthie crept into the sleeping room on her tiptoes, cringing when a floorboard creaked. Dinah snuffled and a bedspring twanged, letting Ruthie know her roommate had roused. She froze in place until no sound carried from the bed. Then, without lighting the lamp, she made her way through the heavy shadows to the wardrobe and changed into her nightclothes.
Through the Deep Waters Page 27