She shook her head even as she dressed her little son in his third outfit of the day, removing clothing that looked like he’d been wearing it for at least a week even though she’d helped him dress just before the noon meal. She couldn’t help thinking how funny it was that Warne, who had plenty of young women in Lavender who wouldn’t have minded his attentions, was obviously attracted to this scrawny girl from another time who looked like a lost and bedraggled kitten.
She couldn’t help smiling at her own thoughts, then bent to place a kiss on the top of her naughty son’s head, reminding herself that she, a 21 century liberal had fallen in love with a wounded confederate soldier. There was just no accounting for the ways of love.
So, having previously alerted both Warne and Violet to her intentions, she arranged with a reluctant Sylvie to look after the babies, offering handsome pay and other inducements. Sylvie preferred admiring her niece and nephew while they were in their mother’s care, especially being short on patience where Ben was concerned. “He won’t mind me,” she protested. “He doesn’t mind anybody.”
Betsy drew comfort from the knowledge that Mom and Papa would be seeing patients down in their offices, available in case of any emergency, and that Dottie and Mrs. Myers would be in the house as well.
Surely Ben and Emilee would be safe while she took a few hours to try to help Violet and Ben.
A sizzling Texas afternoon wasn’t exactly the time to set out on a long drive, but Mrs. Myers had sent them off with burlap-wrapped bottles of honey-sweetened tea and cold water, as well as sandwiches and cookies in case they got hungry, so Betsy decided to try to make the best of the few hours freedom from maternal responsibilities.
Warne took control of the reins and to her own dismay, Betsy was made to squeeze in between him and Violet on the buggy seat, an uncomfortable position physically and socially.
They seemed stiff and unnatural with each other this afternoon, which surprised her considering they’d known each other for years. He’d been there when she lost her front teeth. He’d told her about getting knocked out by a baseball.
She knew because Warne had told her all about it back when they were both attending Lavender Grade School. She had been his confidant even after he’d learned not to tell the other kids about Violet. She’d been a few years older and not inclined to disbelief considering her own background. And she would never have laughed or teased him about his unusual attachment to a girl who hung around like a sad little shadow, visible only to him. For him, she’d been a waking dream, but from what he’d told her, she’d seen him only in her own nighttime dreams.
Most likely the events of the last few days had seemed as though she were caught in that continuing dream, Betsy thought now. Or maybe, considering the death of her friend, a nightmare.
She wished now that she could loosen them up so that they could chat in normal fashion, but feeling the stiff posture on either side of her, she couldn’t help thinking this was going to be one long dreary ride.
Violet sat stiffly, not knowing what to say to either Warne or Betsy. This seemed a foolish little trip to her, rolling through the beautiful late spring landscape where flowers blossomed on trees and the grass was greening. Now and then she saw a rabbit jump away from their approaching vehicle or a deer peeping through the woods. Farms looked prosperous and inviting with fat cattle, goats and sheep, and chickens pecking their way across the landscape.
Violet had rarely seen the countryside. Most of her life had been spent in the house in London and until recently she hadn’t seen much of the city because of her restrained lifestyle. Even her rare hour off had been restricted because of her youthfulness and physical limitations. Mrs. Rolfe and the cook after her had bossed her, for her own good they said. A girl like her walking the streets of the city was in eminent danger, so they’d made her spend her ‘leisure’ in sewing or other small tasks. Not until London was under siege and the smell of bombing was in the air, driving the family and most of the servants to the country, was the door opened to freedom of a kind.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Betsy’s words crashed through her absorption and she looked around, reorienting herself to where she was at this moment. Up until now she hadn’t allowed herself think about how they had arrived here, the three of them, an ocean and lots of land away from where they’d been when the house collapsed around them.
She didn’t know exactly where in the United States the state of Texas lay and for a girl accustomed to the limited geography of water-locked England, Warne’s description of distances had been imaginable. He’d said Texas was huge and deep into the interior of the country, though the very tip lay against the Gulf of Mexico.
All the teaching she’d had Warne had given her. He’d corrected her speech so that people in the house said she talked funny, had helped her learn to read her first words in books he held up before her eyes, and he’d talked to her about what had happened in the past, more in his country than in hers. He hadn’t seemed to know a lot about English history and, in fact, didn’t consider it important compared to the brief, but exciting lifetime that the United States of America had existed. He knew a great deal about the pilgrims, the revolution and the terrible civil war. By comparison the war of the roses sounded rather tame. Not that he knew much about that time, but he couldn’t imagine a war that was about flowers.
Chapter Eight
Harkening back to memories from her early childhood, Violet could almost remember a place like this with flowers, animals and a prevailing feeling of emptiness. To a young woman accustomed to the buzz of what used to be a house full of people, more servants than the upstairs people, and to the bustling streets of wartime London, the countryside was almost frightening in its quiet space.
Acres and acres lay around her unoccupied by people and their dwellings. The sounds she did hear were unfamiliar like the mooing of a cow or the crowing of a rooster.
Some might have found this bucolic setting restful, but for Violet the very unfamiliarity of the environment increased her tension. Almost unconscious of her companions, she sat so statue-still that her body began to ache and she wished for the known places and people back home.
Even the abused child can long for its parents, even as Violet indulged in a sentimental need for Lady Laura and the now destroyed mansion in London.
When she did get back what would she find? Nothing would be left of what she’d known. And she couldn’t stay here and be a burden to Warne and Betsy. From what she’d seen of the irregular household on Crockett Street she was beginning to suspect that most people did their own chores and there would be little need for the only skills she possessed.
It came as a surprise to her when Betsy announced, “Here we are.” Warne drew the horses to a halt and they sat looking out on a landscape of green meadows and a tree-lined creek. “We’ll eat first,” Betsy said, a certain sound of strain in her voice.
Violet trusted Betsy and Warne, but she felt sure that somehow she’d misunderstood what they’d tried to explain to her. She didn’t want to bother with food and drink, not now, but would have preferred to get on with whatever was about to happen.
In spite of that she obediently got down from the buggy and carried the basket of sandwiches as she followed Betsy and Warne, each with a bottle of cool liquid, to a shady spot by the creek.
“I didn’t think to bring a blanket to sit on,” Betsy apologized while Warne went back to free the team to graze on the lush grass.
Violet didn’t mind sitting on that same grass. It made a more than adequate cushion and the scent in the air were fresh and sweet.
Betsy sniffed the air. “Sweet clover,” she said with a smile.
They each took a sandwich, sharing the tea and water between them. As she listened to the soft chatter of the other two, Violet began to relax a little. Even with all her worries, she gave herself these moments to just allow her mind to drift, to not be afraid. For years she hadn’t known if Warne was real or not and hoped to be wit
h him, her only friend. Now she was here and instead of enjoying the experience, she was wasting time worrying about the future.
It would all work out. She would manage to look after herself even if she had to stay in this strangely beautiful place.
She supposed she would have to look after Margaret too. Somehow even that thought wasn’t too daunting at this moment.
She finished her sandwich while Warne consumed three and Betsy, who didn’t seem hungry, sipped tea and nibbled at the bread.
The silence grew too deep and Violet felt she must say something. “You and your family live in the country?” she blurted out the question.
Betsy nodded. “We have a little cabin and some land my husband farms.” She made a face that comically distorted her sweet features. “I’m afraid I’m not cut out to be a farmer’s wife. I can be concentrated on hoeing the garden and the next thing I know I find myself leaning on the hoe and dreaming up a story. That’s my principal job, telling stories to the people of Lavender. My sister, Eddie, who has a fantastic memory, is learning our history and she talks about that. You see we don’t have much in the way of books or paper so we can’t write our history.”
Books and paper hadn’t been very important in Violet’s life, at least not until Warne had taught her differently. Now she had two books of her own, one a tattered Bible and the other a copy of David Copperfield, both of them rescued from the dust bin and hidden away under her bed to prevent their being taken away. She found little time to read, but those stolen moments were precious.
“I’d like to see you and your sister do that,” she said shyly.
“Eddie should be coming for a visit soon, she and her husband Zan. Zan is a scientist and the most brilliant man I’ve ever met.”
“But a bit on the weird side,” Warne added drily.
Betsy laughed. “You’ll like both of them,” she assured Violet. “Do you have brothers and sisters, Violet?”
She shook her head. “Don’t think so.”
Betsy looked puzzled and Warne stepped in to fill the gap. “Violet was a foundling,” he said, smiling apologetically at her. “That’s what she told me.”
Violet found this humiliating. She didn’t like to talk about the fact that she had no family and her own mother had abandoned her. Still, Betsy was only making conversation. “I was left at Hatton House as a newborn. In the kitchen,” she added to the indignity.
“And nobody knew who had left you?” Betsy asked.
Again she shook her head. “Mrs. Rolfe said it was probably some servant who got in trouble,” she admitted.
Betsy shrugged. “My mom and I came here because we were afraid of my dad,” she said.
Violet recognized that Betsy was trying to match sorrow for sorrow, to offer her own pain as sop to Violet’s. She smiled.
“We go on,” Betsy said matter-of-factly, “but I don’t mind telling you it took me years to work through things and there are still days . . .”
Violet nodded, embarrassingly near tears and determined not to cry.
“It could be worse,” Warne contributed hastily. “You could have my mama and sisters.”
Betsy gave his shoulder a shove. “Come on, Warne. They’re the nicest people in the world.”
“Oh, sure, but you’ve got to admit they’re a mite over-protective.”
She chuckled. “I hear you didn’t learn to talk until you were four because your sisters talked for you.”
The other two laughed and somehow the mood was lightened.
When they’d finished the light meal, Betsy led the way ahead, walking around the creek in determined fashion; and when she was past it, stopping abruptly. “We’ll leave you here to look after the horses, Warne,” she said. “Won’t be gone long.”
A shiver ran down Violet’s spine. She couldn’t believe this, couldn’t believe something strange was about to happen, but Betsy seemed so confident.
To her surprise Warne leaned over to give her a soft kiss on the side of her face. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Betsy does this all the time bringing her sister and Zan in and out. She’ll look after you.”
Betsy seemed to hesitate. “I can take you out of here,” she said, “but not to the place where you want to go. When we step across the line we’ll be in my own time.”
“When’s that?”
“About 2020 or a little later.”
This was so unbelievable that Violet laughed, then stopped abruptly when she saw that she’d hurt Betsy’s feelings.
“We have to be in physical contact,” Betsy said. “Usually we hold hands.”
Violet offered her own small, slim hand, glancing over her shoulder at Warne who stood comfortingly close. Wherever they were going, she wished he were going too.
Betsy gripped her hand and together they began to walk forward. They took two steps, three, then half a dozen. Betsy frowned and muttered something incomprehensible to herself.
Violet glanced back to where Warne still stood. He shrugged. “This always works,” Betsy murmured to herself. “In all the years it’s never failed.”
But though she went on, keeping Violet firmly in tow, it didn’t happen.
Finally she left Violet standing with Warne and tried to do it by herself. Violet didn’t know what exactly was supposed to happen, but nothing changed.
Two hours later they drove home. This time Violet rode beside Warne and Betsy had the other seat to herself.
Violet heard her say, apparently to herself, “You know what this means. This means Eddie can’t come home.”
Warne patted Violet’s hand. “And it means you can’t leave,” he said. He didn’t sound particularly unhappy about this.
Violet still didn’t see what the problem was. Once she’d managed to earn some money, she would simply find out where she could catch the nearest train back east, then she would go either by boat or plane over the Atlantic to England.
But there was no hurry. Even the promise she’d half made to the dying Lady Laura couldn’t be helped if she didn’t have the means to travel.
Lady Laura would have to excuse her this time.
Chapter Nine
Mama absolutely refused to take Violet into their home. “A young unmarried woman,” Katy Chapman said firmly, her round face flushed pink with indignation, “it wouldn’t be proper for her to move in here with a young bachelor.”
“Then I’ll move out,” Warne suggested. “Harl says I can bunk at his place and help pay the rent. He won’t mind.”
“I guess not. Harlan Crombacher is a wild young man and no fit company for any son of mine. Anyhow, Warne that girl doesn’t look like somebody I’d want in my home. And that’s final.”
Warne was accustomed to thinking of his mother as a warm and welcoming person who would offer a meal or even a bed to anyone in need. This refusal had come as a total shock to him. He was just glad his sisters weren’t here to pile on him as well.
“This is my home.” Katy pulled herself up to her full height of five feet three inches, but her short stature did not take anything away from her authority. Plump and fiery, she was like a mother bear defending her cub. “And I’ll thank you to let me choose who I want to share it.”
He took that in. Easygoing to a fault, Warne had profited from maternal and sisterly devotion. Home cooked meals and a freshly ironed shirt could always be found for him in his home and he hadn’t minded, not much, that the three females in his home had largely managed his life.
He’d become town constable, an honorable position, after graduation when Mama had talked old Forrest Stephens into giving him a try at the job. Since it had seemed a good fit, he hadn’t minded, not much, that others had planned his occupation.
And he’d continued to live at home because Mama said she needed him there. Oh, she had plenty of money to keep things going since Papa had left comfortable savings and she was an expert seamstress much in demand to create the fashions displayed at Forrest’s dry goods store. But he’d figured she meant she�
�d be lonely with both the girls in their own homes. Maybe even a little afraid without her big strong son around.
Now he looked at her thoughtfully and realized there wasn’t much on this earth that could scare Mama. Katy Chapman was more than capable of looking after herself and she’d insisted on continuing this arrangement because she thought he needed her to take care of him.
Time she realized he could take care of himself.
“I’m going to move in with Harl anyway,” he said quietly. His plan didn’t work out that easily. When he approached Harlan about sharing rooms, he was rejected. It seemed Harl had other plans. He’d asked long-time girlfriend Jewel to marry him and he wanted Warne to serve as best man at the upcoming wedding. But of course, he was no longer looking for a roommate.
It was hard to think of old Harl as a married man, but Warne offered his congratulations and agreed to serve as best man. Then he went looking for a place of his own.
It was disconcerting in a way. He had been on the brink for a while, knowing it was time to reach toward independence, but somehow those moments of realization with his mother had given him a push and he couldn’t go back. And he couldn’t take the easy step of sharing rooms with his longtime friend so he went to the town hall where available rentals and properties for sale were listed.
He fully intended to look only at the rentals, but there it was on the top of the short list. The little house just two blocks down on Crockett Street from where the Stephens lived was up for sale. Well, he did have several years of savings stowed away in the bank and it wouldn’t hurt to just look at the house. Not that he was really thinking of buying. No sir. Not him.
Violet, who had virtually been born to the only job she’d had in her whole twenty three years, sat on the front porch of the house on Crockett Street and contemplated how a girl like her could go about looking for work.
Lavender Dreaming: A Time Travel Romance (Lavender, Texas Series Book 5) Page 5