Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
By the time they left Jane’s, snow had started to fall. Emily reached under her seat and brought out the blankets and handed one to Rory in the back seat.
“These should help us stay warm. I’m so glad the carriage has a cover. That definitely helps, too.”
She cuddled closer to Ben and covered both their laps with one blanket, and then took the second blanket and wrapped it around their shoulders.
“Snug as a bug in a rug.”
“You two give me another reason to want to get married,” said Rory.
“What’s that,” asked Ben.
“Warmth. If I had a wife, we could cuddle for warmth, too.”
Ben chuckled, and Emily giggled.
“You two wouldn’t be laughing if you were sitting in my seat.”
Emily turned to look at Rory.
“Bring the blanket up over your head. You’ll keep the wind off your neck and stay much warmer.”
He grumbled some but did it.
“You’re right. I am warmer.”
“How can you have lived out here that long and not know that?”
“I haven’t ridden in a carriage before. Never had need to cover my head with a blanket. Besides. I didn’t want to mess up my new hat.”
“Take it off, silly. Put it in your lap under the blanket.”
“Or keep it on and put the blanket over the hat,” said Ben, who had done just that.
“Let’s just get home as fast as possible,” said Emily.
“We’re traveling as fast as we dare on these snow-covered roads. I don’t want to injure the horses by having them slide on ice.”
“No, of course not. How long will it take us to get home?”
“Since we are traveling a little slower, it will be about two and a half hours or so.”
Emily leaned her head on Ben’s shoulder.
“That’s okay as long as I’m with you. The beauty here astounds me. The snow is so clean and white. The way it looks draped on the bare tree limbs and weighs down the dried prairie grass, a winter wonderland surrounds us.”
“Didn’t you have snow in New York?” asked Ben.
“Yes, but it was never this clean or beautiful. The soot in the air, turned the snow grayish even before it landed. Here everything looks pristine.”
Ben squeezed her closer.
When they arrived home the house was dark.
“That’s odd,” said Ben. “Usually, at least one lamp is burning.”
“She is angry at us and probably hoping I’ll fall to my death in the dark,” muttered Emily.
“You wait here in the kitchen,” said Ben. “Rory, you and I will go through the house make sure we find no surprises.”
He grabbed two kerosene lamps from the porch and lit them, handing one to Emily.
“If she comes in here, you scream.”
“Will do.”
Emily sat at the table, watched them leave and then waited.
A short while later, she heard a creak behind her.
Doris came out of the pantry holding a large knife.
“Ben! Ben!”
Emily tried to get out of her way, but Doris brought down the blade, slashing Emily’s upper right arm.
She stood and grabbed Doris’s hand with the knife and kept the woman from stabbing her again. Emily’s arm was on fire but if she weakened, she knew Doris would do more than slash her arm. She’d bury that knife in Emily’s heart.
“You don’t want to do this Doris. I’m having Ben’s baby. You don’t want to kill Ben’s baby do you?”
“Whore! You don’t deserve my Joseph. You have to die Ava, so I can get back Joseph. You see that don’t you?”
Emily heard running footsteps coming down the hall.
Ben tried to get his mothers attention.
“No. Mother. Put the knife down.”
“I will. Right in her heart.”
Doris and Emily kept grappling with each other.
Insanity gave her crazed mother-in-law strength and she felt herself weakening.
As she kept holding her off and kept Doris’s attention on her, Ben came up behind Doris, grabbed her arm with the knife in it and forced her to let it go. The knife clattered to the floor.
Then the woman started screaming, shouting things at Emily.
“Whore. Jezebel. Trollop. Hussy.”
“Mother! Shut up!”
Rory came around to Emily. He helped her to sit at the table.
“It’s all right now. Ben has her.”
“Rory,” said Ben. “A hook and eye lock is in the drawer closest to the pantry. Would you get that, and a hammer for me.”
“Sure.”
Rory squeezed Emily’s uninjured shoulder and went to get the supplies for Ben.
Emily watched and thought, finally, she’d be safe.
Ben took his mother up to her room. He lit the lantern and made her sit on the bed and showed her that Emily was not there.
She was calmer when she couldn’t see Emily.
Then he attached the hook and eye to the door so it could be locked from the outside. He hated doing this but the guilt he felt for not protecting his wife outweighed the guilt felt for locking up his mother like an animal.
“That should keep you…and us safe for now.”
He shut the door and locked it before walking back to the kitchen where Rory sat with Emily.
Ben stood where he could see her injury.
“That’s a long gash, and it’s bleeding an awful lot. You need stitches. Do you trust me to put them in?”
She was pale, more so than he’d ever seen her. He thought she was probably in shock.
“Yes. Just get it done.”
Her voice was quiet, determined.
“Okay, let’s get you sewn up. Rory, would you go in the other room please?”
“Sure. Call me when you need me.”
Rory left the room down the hall toward the living room.
“Now let’s get your dress open.”
Ben unbuttoned the blouse of her dress and pulled it off her shoulders, down to her waist.
The slash was long but not as deep as he feared.
“Let me get the supplies I need.”
He went into the pantry and came back with a needle, thread, clean white cloths, boric acid, laudanum and a bottle of whiskey.
She sat up straighter and leaned back away from him.
“What is the whiskey for? You are not putting that on my wound.”
He shook his head as he set each item on the table.
“No, the boric acid will go on your wound to clean it. The whiskey is for you to drink. It’ll help you deal with the pain when I stitch you up. Here go ahead and drink some now before we get started.”
Emily took a long pull off the bottle of whiskey, then she coughed so hard, he thought she’d vomit.
Ben grinned.
“Good girl. Take another drink. Perhaps not quite so big this time.”
“It hurts, especially when I cough.”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’ll do the best I can to be as quick as possible, but it’ll take some time. The cut is long.”
Ben spent the next twenty minutes or so stitching his wife’s arm. Emily drank more whiskey, but sipped it, every time he put in a stitch, she took a sip. By the time he finished, she’d drank a quarter of the bottle.
“Now, I’m wrapping your arm in bandages to keep the wound clean and protected. I’m sorry the scar will mar your beautiful skin.”
“I’m happy you sinks I has beautiful skin.”
“Of course, I do.”
The whiskey loosened her lips.
“So you sinks I’s beautiful. Hiccup. But you can’t love me, ‘causin Melissa hurted you.”
Ben’s movements became jerky as he put away the supplies.
“Hiccup.”
“You know how I feel. Love isn’t an emotion I can feel any longer.”
“But you like me, don’t you? I sinks you do. Hiccup.”
She leaned forward and rested her forehead on Ben’s shoulder as he faced her in a chair.
“Here now,” he took her by her left arm and sat her up straight.
“You’ll fall over if you’re not careful.”
“Not fall over. I’m perfectly fine.”
She was listing to the right and he saw she couldn’t seem to correct herself from leaning over.
Ben took her by the arm again and righted her.
“You just sit right there for a minute and then I’ll take you to bed.” He got up and went to the sink.
She giggled.
“I like when you take me to bed.”
“That’s the liquor talking. You’re hammered.”
She hung her head and then righted it.
“I hurt, Ben.”
He came over to her and handed her a glass of water.
“I want you to drink this down. It will help you feel better.”
She dutifully drank the water.
He picked her up in his arms careful of her injury.
“I know you hurt and, unfortunately, you’ll hurt worse when the whiskey wears off, but the laudanum I just gave you should help you sleep and ease your pain.”
She wrapped her good arm around his neck.
“I love ya, Ben.”
“I know you do.”
“Dis is where ya tell me ya love me back.”
“I know.”
She nodded. “Okay, long as ya know.”
She laid her head on his shoulder.
He carried her upstairs.
“What am I to do with you, Emily? I can’t love you like you want me to, but I can’t let you go either. You’re my wife and carrying my child. I care for you deeply and that will just have to do.”
She snored and then snorted.
He groaned and slowly shook his head. She hadn’t heard a thing he said.
When he got to the bedroom, he sat her on the bed, finished undressing her and then laid her down on her left side, so she wouldn’t hurt her injured right arm.
Then he undressed and slid into the bed beside her, scooted close and laid his arm over her hip.
“Sleep now, sweetheart. Morning will bring you more pain and I wish I could take it away but I can’t.”
Ben closed his eyes.
Banging on the wall between their room and his mother’s began at about three o’clock in the morning.
“Mother, go to sleep,” shouted Ben, adding to the noise.
Emily turned toward him. “Ben. She won’t stop. She knows this bothers us and will keep pounding on the wall, as long as she thinks she’s having results.”
He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “Well, we’ve got to do something.”
“My head hurts and she’s not helping. Seems to me the only way the banging will stop is if you tie her to the bed and that is something you don’t want to do. First of all, it’s mean and second, it would be messy and I’m not cleaning up after her.”
Ben pressed his head back into the pillow.
“Well what are we supposed to do?”
Emily scooted over, careful of her arm.
Ben stretched out his arm for her and gathered his warm wife close.
She cuddled up to his side and ran her fingers through the sprinkling of hair on his chest.
“Get that house built fast. You only need three rooms. One big one for the kitchen, dining and living rooms combined and two bedrooms.”
“Two bedrooms?”