Chapter 6 #4
One was better than none, Jane decided. She retrieved it, helped him pull it on, and then found a sock to put over the bandages on his injured foot.
Jane put his arm around her shoulder when he hesitated.
“You really do need my help,” she said. “You said it yourself.” He grumbled something under his breath that she did not ask him to clarify.
Jane accepted his weight, although she realized he did not bear down on her heavily.
In this manner they hobbled through the house to the back door, across the porch, and then across the yard to the privy. The return trip was equally halting. He sent her back to the dining room to get his supper while he washed up. When she returned, he was back in bed.
She set the tray on his lap. “You are a stubborn man, Morgan Longstreet. I did not suspect how deeply that streak ran when I read your letters.”
Morgan picked up one half of his sandwich and bit into it. “But you had a suspicion it was there.”
“I supposed a man who lived the way you described must be stubborn.” She paused and looked at him askance. “Or crazy.”
“Or both,” he said.
“Perhaps.” Jane went to the rocking chair and sat. “Tell me about the mustang. Max says she’s no dink.”
“Max is right. I knew I wanted her the moment I spotted her in the herd. She wasn’t easy to cut out; the stallion wanted to keep her. He interfered as much as he could, but he had a harem to protect. That’s how he lost her. I wanted her more.”
Jane met Morgan’s eyes. She had the sensation of his fingers wrapped around her wrist, the pad of his thumb brushing the delicate blue webbing on the underside. She remembered his mouth on the curve of her neck, how light, how gentle his touch had been.
I wanted her more.
Jane tucked those words away where they could do no harm. It served no purpose to dwell on them. “She should have a name,” Jane said. “I do not think you can know her properly if you do not give her a name.”
“You might be right.” Morgan tossed Jane the extra blanket she had pulled out for him. “Take it before your teeth crack.”
Jane did not argue. She drew up her legs, folded them so her knees almost reached her chin, and tucked the quilt around her.
When she was settled, Morgan asked, “What name would you give her?”
“Sophie.”
“Sophie,” he repeated, one of his eyebrows kicking up. “Why Sophie?”
“I am fairly certain that is her name.”
“And you know this because…?”
Jane shrugged. “It is of no account. In fact, it is a ridiculous notion.”
“I’m not laughing.”
He wasn’t, Jane realized. There was some skepticism, but there was also curiosity.
“Well, when I ran outside after you were injured, she was already turning away and going to the far side of the corral, but when I got there, she turned back. It seemed as if she was looking directly at me. Scared, you know. But sorrowful, too. And in my mind, I thought, ‘Oh, Sophie, how could you?’ It just came to me to call her Sophie, and that was when she shook her head. I don’t mean that she tossed it as if she did not care.
She shook it as if she did but couldn’t explain it to her own satisfaction. ”
“Huh.” Morgan said nothing while he searched her face. Finally, “You know she really doesn’t think like that, don’t you?”
Jane nodded. “I know. It just seemed as if she did. I told you it was a ridiculous notion.”
“What it is, is a nice story, but probably better if it just stays between us.”
“I am sure you are right.”
“So when Jem or his brothers or Max ask why we’re calling her Sophie, we’re going to say it was your great-grandmother’s name.”
“Sophie? She’s really going to be Sophie?”
Her pleasure was arresting, and Morgan felt his breath seize when she smiled without inhibition. “Yes,” he said after a moment. “As a remembrance of your great-grandmother.”
“No, she was Frances,” said Jane. “Like my mother’s cousin.”
“All right, then we’ll say she was my great-grandmother.”
“Yes, let us do that.”
“Oh, good,” Morgan said with a touch of sarcasm. “That’s settled.”
Jane nodded agreeably, her smile only slightly less fulsome than it had been seconds earlier. “What was your great-grandmother’s name? On your mother’s side first.”
“I have no idea. Before you ask, it’s the same on my father’s side.”
“I suppose not knowing makes it easier to repeat the story, doesn’t it? The devil is in the details. Or so I’ve been told.”
“Umeh.”
“Yes, that’s so.” Jane smoothed the quilt over her knees. “What about your grandmothers’ names?”
Morgan shrugged. “I didn’t know them. Is it important?”
“No, not important. I was merely wondering. Your letters contained nothing about family. I think I might have written too much about mine.”
“Broad strokes,” he said. “For instance, I know your parents died when you were young. Of cholera, I believe, but you never explained how you came to live with the Ewings.”
“Did I write that my parents were missionaries?”
“No. You did not write that. I would remember.”
“Yes, I imagine you would. I also imagine I would not be here if I’d told you, although that had nothing to do with my omission.
I did not know you were a godless man then.
” Jane was not certain that he was now, but she kept that thought close.
“I did not write about their missionary work because as a child I did not fully understand it, and it was a bone of contention growing up in Cousin Franny’s house.
My mother was ‘in a bad way’ when she married my father.
That is how my mother’s ‘delicate condition’ was explained to me until Alex explained it better when we were twelve.
There is also some disagreement in the family as to whether or not Robert Middlebourne is my father. ”
Jane tilted her head to one side, raised her hands in a helpless, but uncomplaining, gesture.
“I think you can appreciate why I did not put this tawdry tale to paper. My father accepted a mission in India sometime before my second birthday. I traveled with my parents, but I have no memory of the voyage, and few memories of India except for the heat and the animals. What I recall is the return to New York, alone this time. My parents sent me away when they heard the sickness was coming. I do not know what they understood about cholera, but they meant to protect me. I lived with my mother’s mother for a short time, not out of graciousness on her part, but out of duty.
When word came that my parents were dead, she would not have me any longer.
My father’s parents did not claim me as one of their own so there was no room for me there.
I am not certain how it happened, but I eventually came to the attention of Samuel Ewing, Esquire. ”
Morgan removed the supper plate from his lap and placed it on the nightstand. Only crumbs remained. “Samuel Ewing,” he said. “That would be Cousin Frances’s husband. He took you in?”
“He did more than that. He welcomed me.”
“But not your cousin.”
“No, but she tolerated me, and she did not send me away when her husband died. She showed considerable forbearance. I will always believe it was the best she could do.”
Morgan’s soft grunt was noncommittal. “Did you make a list?”
His question made no sense to Jane. She stared at him, puzzled. “Pardon?”
“A list. Jem’s going to town tomorrow. I suggested you make a list of things you need. Did you?”
So he was changing the subject. And rather firmly too. “No, I did not. Truthfully, I had forgotten. Thank you. I will do it first thing in the morning. Is there any particular thing you want?”
“Maple syrup.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “If you’re going to feed us hotcakes, I prefer mine with maple syrup, not molasses.”
“All right.” Jane unfolded her legs, stretched, and started to rise.
“What are you doing?”
She thought the answer to that was so obvious that his question must have a deeper meaning. She pointed to the door. “I am going to bed.”
“This is your bed.”
Jane froze. “I don’t think that—”
Morgan did not allow her to finish. “My bed is on the other side of that wall.”
It required a little effort, but Jane managed to unlock her knees and straighten. “I am not helping you walk next door.”
He shrugged.
“Good night, Morgan.” She snapped the quilt and let it flutter across his legs. “Shall I turn back the lamp?”
“I’ll do it.”
Jane nodded. “Sleep well.”
Morgan watched her go. He picked up Daisy Miller and opened it in his lap.
He had been thinking about naming the mustang Daisy, but that was before he knew her name was Sophie.
The memory of Jane’s explanation surprised a chuckle out of him.
Sophie. Morgan could only shake his head.
He wondered if Jane knew that it meant wisdom.
From the beginning, the mare struck him as more wily than wise, but then Jane was disposed to see the better side of all God’s creatures.
If she could do it for Frances Ewing, she certainly could do it for a feral horse.
Whether or not she could do it for him remained to be seen.