“Because you are leaving, and … I don’t want you to.”
“Do you want me to stay at the cabin to peel potatoes and chop firewood? It must be handy to have an extra pair of hands around.” There was a note of laughter in his voice.
“No, that’s not it.”
“You should have gone on with that fellow, Grimshaw.” The laughter was gone. “I knew once you’d been around other people, you would never go back to living alone in the mountains. You need a man in your life, Annabelle, but it isn’t me. Come on.” He pulled her toward the door. “Let’s meet the dragon lady. She’ll convince you that I’m not the man for you.”
“Miss Annabelle Bergman?” Lavinia Marlowe surveyed Annabelle through a gold lorgnette. The older woman was nearly as tall as her son, and the wide mouth had a notable firmness about it. Her voice was purposeful, that of someone used to giving commands and having those commands obeyed. Annabelle wondered if the narrowed eyes meant Ben’s mother had recognized the dress from her own store, and she tried not to squirm with embarrassment.
Lavinia turned toward her son, lowering the lorgnette. “Benjamin Sylvester Marlowe, I hardly know whether to hug you or rap you on the head.” Although her words were teasing, a glint in her eye made Annabelle wonder if she meant it. Lavinia Marlowe did neither, however. She remained seated in a high-backed chair adorned with elaborate gold-leafed scrollwork, like a queen on her throne.
“You know, of course, that I had given you up for dead. We asked Reverend Wiggins to say a few words of benediction for you when you failed to return after the war, having sent no word. After your father was killed in the flood, I was left alone in this uncivilized wilderness with no one to look after me.”
“You are perfectly capable of looking after yourself, Mother, more so than anyone else I know.” Ben looked unperturbed. “And Oregon is hardly an uncivilized wilderness. I hear it has dozens of churches and several universities by now, including one right here in Salem.”
Annabelle was shocked that Ben did not sound ashamed at having neglected his widowed mother. She darted him a critical look and tried to pull her fingers from his grip. He had surprised her by taking her hand tightly when they entered the parlor together, and she’d assumed he meant to comfort her nerves. Now, impossible as it was to believe, she wondered if it was for the opposite reason.
Lavinia’s eyes rested on their clutched hands and then flicked quickly to Annabelle’s face with a look of speculation. Annabelle felt her cheeks grow warm. Why should she be intimidated by Ben’s mother, when Lavinia Marlowe had been nothing but hospitable? The white-haired woman was not at all the fiery dragon he had warned her of. Mrs. Marlowe must have been shocked when the servant announced their arrival, but had received them with perfect composure.
A young serving girl wheeled in a tea cart, gawking at Ben and Annabelle. “Thank you, Gretchen,” Lavinia said. “You may leave the tray here.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The door closed quietly behind the serving girl. “Please sit down,” Lavinia told them, pouring from a silver pot. “Tell me, Benjamin, what you have been doing all these years? And where on earth did you find this child?”
Annabelle tried to handle the delicate china cup without spilling, while Ben tersely described his travels. He mentioned the friend he’d met during the war who had given him the battered harmonica, and the year he had spent with the Nez Perce. He finished with the tale of encountering Annabelle and her brother in the mountains.
His mother listened. “How charitable of you to help those poor orphans.” She directed a smile at Annabelle, but the blue eyes were cool.
Annabelle tried to look as old and dignified as possible. Did she really look like a child in spite of her new bustle and corset?
“Do tell me about yourself, my dear.” Lavinia addressed Annabelle. “Who is your family, Miss Bergman?”
Annabelle took a deep breath and decided to reveal everything. What was there to hide? “My mother came from a wealthy family in Philadelphia, but my grandparents disowned her when she married my father. He was a German immigrant, a penniless scholar. Our family was on our way west to start a new life when they died.” The memory still brought a pang of sadness. Her brilliant father, so hopeful and hardworking, with such a strong belief in the opportunities to be found in America … Her mother had thought him worthier than all the wealthy suitors Caroline’s parents favored.
Something Annabelle had said sparked Lavinia’s interest. She leaned forward slightly. “A wealthy family in Philadelphia? What were your grandparents’ names?”
“George and Amelia Radstone.”
“Radstone.” Lavinia’s eyebrows rose, and she nodded slightly. “Yes, I’ve heard the name. An old family, from before the American Revolution. Wasn’t there a famous Radstone in the Senate?”
“That was my uncle Thomas, but my parents lost touch with that branch of the family after they married.”
“Hmm.” Lavinia swiftly and efficiently extracted the most important details of Annabelle’s life, including how she and her brother had been orphaned on their way to Oregon. “How very sad!” Mrs. Marlowe looked thoughtfully through her lorgnette at Annabelle again. “At least all has ended well. Although perhaps it isn’t entirely ended after all. Do you plan to return to the mountains, Miss Bergman, or will you stay in Salem?”
Annabelle glanced at Ben. “I will be returning to my farm tomorrow.”
“Ah.” Lavinia flashed a quick smile—of relief? It was difficult to tell.
During the interrogation, Ben could have rivaled Richard for taciturnity. When the maid arrived with the tea cart, he let go of Annabelle’s hand, but he clasped it again as soon as the cups were taken away. Lavinia’s shrewd eyes took this in as well.
Annabelle blushed. She could only think Ben was trying to irritate his mother by showing this possessiveness. She pulled her hand away and succeeded this time. A few minutes later, when Annabelle stifled a yawn, Lavinia rose with the aid of her ivory-handled cane. “Poor thing, you must be exhausted.” She rang for the maid. “Gretchen, take our guest up to the rose room. No, it appears she has no bags. Benjamin, I’d like to speak with you alone.”
“Yes, Mother.” When Ben stood, but something heavy slipped out of his pocket and landed on the tea cart, sending the silver spoons and china cups dancing. He grabbed for it, but Lavinia’s hand darted out and picked it up first.
“Good heavens!” She held it between two fingers, as if displaying something loathsome. “That obscene book of poetry, in my house! I shall have it burned!”
Ben snatched it back. “So you’ve heard of it? Then you ought to know that the poems are not as shocking as some have said, Mother. If you read them, you’ll see.”
“Read them? Never! Honestly, Benjamin, I’m disappointed that you would possess such a thing. I shall make sure the book is banned in Salem.”
“Until then, I’ll go put it in my room so its presence won’t offend you. Come along, Annabelle.” He pulled her into the hallway, where the maid, Gretchen, was waiting to show them to their quarters.
Soon after, Annabelle stood alone in the luxurious bedroom to which Gretchen had led her, feeling overwhelmed. Lavinia’s strong personality. This enormous mansion. The strange new fashions. The events that had moved on without her. It felt as if she’d stepped into a new world, one for which Annabelle felt totally unprepared.
She gazed around the room, at deep-pile carpets patterned with intertwining cabbage roses, at maroon velvet curtains tied back with gold-fringed cords. The dark mahogany bedposts, the matching highboy, and china basin and hand-painted pitcher. It was the room of a princess, not unlike the one her mother must have grown up in, back in Philadelphia.
A discreet knock came at the door. Bearing a stack of folded clothing in her arms, Gretchen slipped into the room and filled the armoire. Annabelle glimpsed of lace-edged linens and folded silk stockings. An instinctive rise of feminine pleasure quickly gave way to alarm. She mus
t refuse it all. Even if Lavinia talked her into accepting such personal gifts, the delicate things were impractical for a farm. Sturdy cotton and worsted were what she needed.
When Annabelle went to tell her hostess this, she heard Ben’s voice rising from the stairwell, his tone cold. “You can’t blackmail me into staying in Salem, Mother. It didn’t work before, and it won’t work now. If you lose this house it will be because of your spendthrift ways, rather than anything I have or haven’t done.” Over his mother’s gasp of outrage, he continued. “You should have known better than to build a mansion like this before the new store was profitable. The chandelier alone must have cost a fortune to ship around the horn.”
“Don’t be silly, Benjamin. When your father forced me to come to this wilderness, he promised to provide me every luxury that we had to leave behind.”
“Forced you? Coming here was your idea. Father was happy back in New York, but you thought moving to Oregon would advance his political career.”
His mother fell quiet, either from its truth or the intensity of Ben’s tone. Annabelle wanted to retreat to her bedroom but was afraid they would hear her footsteps in the deep silence. Her hostess would be mortified to know Annabelle had overheard Ben’s show of disrespect.
“I had a little chat with Jeremy at the store,” Ben went on after a moment, his voice returning to normal volume. “It appears the store sells only luxury goods, instead of what people need in this growing state. Marlowe’s Emporium shouldn’t be selling ball gowns and imported perfumes, like it did in New York, but rather calico cloth, pickaxes, and seeds.
Annabelle carefully started tiptoeing back toward her room, but she could not avoid hearing Lavinia’s last words.
“That’s why I’m glad you’re here, Benjamin. The truth is, I need a man to look out for me.” The older woman’s voice shook a little. “I’m not young anymore, you know, and your father is no longer here.”
Annabelle could guess how much it cost the proud woman to beg her son for help. Hating herself for invading their privacy, she finally reached her room, lowering the latch with barely a click. She knew Lavinia’s words would echo in her memory.
Dinner contrasted with the simple meals Annabelle was used to in the mountains. Gretchen brought in a large silver platter of salmon, followed by a roast oozing bloody juices, and rolls whose golden-brown tops glistened with butter—far too much food for the three of them. Annabelle wondered what was done with the excess.
Despite the delicious meal, Ben scarcely touched his plate, and Lavinia seemed lost in thoughts of her own. From time to time she remembered her guest and made conversation for a few minutes before relapsing into silence.
Annabelle ate quietly, admiring the older woman’s attempt to keep up appearances despite the simmering tension. There was no denying the uncomfortable situation was entirely Annabelle’s fault. Ben had warned her, after all. On the other hand, she told herself, if Ben hadn’t come, he wouldn’t have known of his mother’s dire financial circumstances. If she united her voice to that of his mother’s, maybe they could convince him to do the right thing.
After dinner, Ben excused himself, saying he wished to take a walk. Lavinia invited Annabelle to the parlor, where they chatted about inconsequential things, glancing frequently at the French ornolu clock on the mantel. When it chimed eight times, the older woman stood.
“I hope you will not think me rude, but I believe I shall retire early. You may look through the books in the library, if you like, Annabelle, or, if you are musical, please feel free to play the piano.”
Annabelle said goodnight, and as soon as the older woman disappeared upstairs, she went outside. Her instincts were correct. Rather than heading toward the town center, Ben had headed in the opposite direction. She found him on a low not far from the house, gazing at the star-spotted night sky and the mountains in the distance.
He stood silhouetted against the dim lights of Salem, apparently oblivious to her approach. As she neared, however, he turned. “Hello, Annabelle.”
Annabelle plunged right in. “Your mother is a perfectly sweet lady, and you are behaving abominably!”
A pause. “What exactly have I done that is so abominable?”
“You are selfishly planning to run off for adventure, even though your poor mother is about to lose her home.”
“So you heard us?”
“I didn’t mean to listen,” Annabelle admitted, “but your voices were raised. How could you treat her with such disrespect, Ben? Your own mother!”
Annabelle was close enough now to see Ben’s mouth tighten in the moonlight. “What you heard was one of her ploys to force me to take over my father’s business. She’s a master at manipulating others, but it won’t work on me.”
“You are calling your mother a liar?”
He made a gesture of impatience. “The store may be struggling, but that’s not my point.”
“That is the point! It’s your duty to care for your widowed mother. Nothing else matters.”
He thrust his hands in his pockets. “So you are saying I should give up my dreams and enslave myself to her, to make it possible for her to continue living her extraordinarily ostentatious and selfish lifestyle? That, from now on, I should allow her to direct all my affairs?”
The hardness in his voice dismayed Annabelle. She blinked, but pressed on. “Why, yes. If that’s what she wants.”
“Why?”
She floundered. It was so obvious to her, even if it was not to him. “Because Lavinia is your mother!” Annabelle thought of her own parents, how she would do anything—anything—to have them back. “You have a duty to her.”
“So you’ve pointed out, many times. I still fail to see how that gives her the right to dictate how I run my life.”
Annabelle expelled a frustrated gust of air. “Families need to be there for each other, for better or worse. Like it or not, Ben, your mother is your responsibility.”
He pushed his hands deeper into his pockets and looked down the hill in the direction of the river. “You mean, just as your brother Richard is your responsibility?”
“Exactly. He needs me too, and I would never desert him. That’s why I’m going back to the farm.”
The tower of the new capitol building pierced the sky, and smoke from hundreds of chimneys stirred the summer air, making the stars shimmer. Ben’s back appeared as straight and rigid as the trunk of the tree next to him. His voice was quiet. “Richard is still a boy, but my mother is an intelligent, experienced woman who is much more capable than she likes to admit.”
“You’re the one who is selfish.” Annabelle’s voice quavered in spite of her efforts to keep it even. “How could I have thought I loved someone who has no compassion for the one person he should be the most devoted to?” She turned on her heel and headed back toward the house.
“Wait!” Rapid footsteps scraped the gravel, but she didn’t slow her pace until Ben grabbed her arm and turned her around to face him. In the moonlight, his face was deadly serious. “Do you really mean this? That I should sacrifice my future for hers?”
“What future? Drifting aimlessly, like you have been ever since the war ended?” She angrily shrugged off his grip. “What do you care what I think anyway? I’m going back to the mountains tomorrow!” Annabelle marched back toward the mansion.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Ben
Salem
Late Summer, 1866
Despite Annabelle’s stubborn refusals of help, Ben ordered the burly hired man, Zeke, to fill a wagon with everything he could think of that the two young people could need: sacks of seeds, tools, bolts of canvas, and work boots for Richard, china dishes and cast-iron pots for Annabelle, and shutters and glass windows for the cabin. Last of all, he had Zeke purchase a pair of strong Percheron horses to pull the wagon, and later, Richard’s plow.
Ben had been looking forward to his journey to San Francisco and the Orient, but his thoughts kept turning back to Annabelle. Despite
her passion, she hadn’t convinced him that Lavinia needed his help. Even if the store did fail, his mother had enough wealth and connections to survive in comfort.
Annabelle would survive too. No, she would thrive. Eventually, Ben had no doubt, she would move to town, make friends, find a husband, and live happily. But what about himself? Could he be happy without Annabelle? His feelings for her were different from what he’d felt for Shining Water, deeper. Perhaps it was because they had more in common. He admired her courage, her strength, her high moral standards, of course, but those were not the only reasons he found it so hard to imagine a future without Annabelle in it. Why could he not stop thinking about her?
“What’s wrong, Mr. Benjamin?” Jeremy, standing behind the store counter, was staring at him strangely.
Leaning his forearms on the counter’s polished surface, Ben tried to relax his scowling facial muscles. “Can you think of anything else the Bergmans will need in the mountains, Jeremy?”
“No, sir. I’ve added quilts, a water pump, and everything you requested. We can always send up another wagonload, if necessary.”
Plopping on a stool, Ben watched Jeremy go back to straightening the shelves behind the counter. “Have you ever had a wife, Jeremy?” He’d known the old man since he could remember, but only now did it occur to Ben to wonder about the storekeeper’s life before coming to work for his parents thirty years before.
Jeremy turned and set down his polishing rag, a faraway look softening his eyes. “Why yes, I married once, but my dear Bella died of consumption only five years after our wedding. While she was with me I was the happiest of men. Why do you ask, sir?”
“No reason.” Ben wished he had not raised the topic.
Jeremy’s face cracked into a grin. “I think I understand. Don’t worry, Mr. Marlowe. It is clear that Miss Annabelle loves you very much.”
This was not what Ben wanted to hear. He didn’t want Annabelle to love him. Life had hurt her too much already. “If I were to marry her—” It was the first time he had allowed himself to state the thought aloud “—she’d expect me to settle down in Salem.”
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