Chapter Eight #2
After performing her nightly ablutions in the upstairs bathroom, she had donned her favorite blue flannel nightgown and smiling a little now, decided that Ornetta wasn’t going to solve the puzzle of Stella MacIntosh anytime soon.
Lizbet made up her mind to befriend the other woman, though she mustn’t be hasty about it. Stella was anxious, painfully so, and Lizbet didn’t want to be pushy.
Behind her, in the bed, Jubal stirred, raised himself onto one elbow. “Why didn’t Father say goodbye?” he asked, in a loud whisper.
Lizbet’s heart cracked a little.
Frankie, was still asleep, exhausted from hours of playing in the fresh September air with her brother and, for a while, Hector the dog.
Lizbet came and sat on the edge of the bed. It would be a tight fit, with the three of them sleeping there, but she didn’t care, and neither did her brother and sister.
They were together and, for now, that was all that mattered.
Plus, sometimes a place was good just because it wasn’t somewhere else—like Mr. Henry Middlebrook’s mansion.
Ornetta’s house wasn’t fancy, but it was welcoming and comfortable, and Lizbet felt safe there, as did Jubal and Frankie.
Taking Jubal’s small hand in hers, she whispered, “I’m sure your father didn’t mean to leave without speaking to you and Frankie first. He seemed pretty overwrought to me.”
“What’s ‘overwrought’?” Jubal asked, crinkling his little nose.
“Upset. Distracted.”
“He never thinks about anybody but Marietta,” the boy said.
Sadly, that was true, but it wasn’t an idea Lizbet wanted to encourage in the boy. “Most likely,” she said very quietly, not wanting to disturb Frankie, “he’ll come back to get you and your sister, or send for you.”
Privately, of course, Lizbet hoped for no such thing. She only wanted to reassure a little boy who’d just been abandoned in a strange new place by his only living parent.
“I don’t want Father to come back,” Jubal said, with some spirit. “I just thought it was mean that he didn’t say goodbye.”
Briefly, Lizbet closed her eyes and offered a silent prayer that William would decide to leave the children permanently in her care, so he could concentrate on keeping his wife happy and making his risky business deals.
She knew, though, that the prayer probably wouldn’t be answered, if only because both Frankie and Jubal had small trust funds.
Since his deals never seemed to work out—what actual agreement had he made with that awful Mr. Middlebrook?
—and funds from selling his first wife’s properties, jewelry and valuable paintings would surely run out, sooner rather than later, he would be looking for ways to increase his bank balance.
And when the money ran out, so would Marietta.
Too bad William hadn’t divorced Marietta and then married her off to his alleged friend, Henry. Lizbet had seen the woman taking in the mansion and all its glittering contents, and she was pretty sure Marietta would have agreed to the bargain without hesitation.
In the next moment, Lizbet realized she’d been letting her thoughts wander—again—and leaned down to kiss her little brother on the forehead.
“It was unkind to leave without saying goodbye,” she said, knowing Jubal was still waiting for a reply.
“Your father shouldn’t have done that. The thing is, you need to forgive William, Jubal, not for him, but for yourself.
When you carry anger around for too long, it can turn your whole life sour. ”
Jubal’s indigo blue eyes widened. “Really? My whole life?”
“Maybe not your whole life,” Lizbet conceded, inwardly kicking herself for the exaggeration, “but a lot of time when you could be happy instead.”
“I was real happy today, when Mr. Whitfield and Hector were here,” Jubal told her, making one of his quick conversational turns and thus catching her off guard. “When we get our own house, can we get a dog?”
“It might be a while before we can move from here,” Lizbet said, wondering, not for the first time, how she would find work in a town as small as Silver Hills.
Miss Helen Denny, the schoolmarm, the last of her fellow boarders except for the children, had been a dour sort, rather like Mrs. Harriman at the Middlebrook mansion.
And, as she had told John, the woman had made it plain, upon learning of Lizbet’s profession at the supper table, that one teacher was all the town’s one-room school required, thank you very much.
Jubal was persistent. “But when we do move, can we have a dog?”
This was tricky ground. Like her brother and sister, Lizbet loved dogs, cats and horses, but this was a promise she couldn’t make, not until their situation was more stable.
“No promises,” Lizbet said, but with a smile. “Suppose we can’t get a dog, for some reason we haven’t even thought of yet? You’d be disappointed and sad, and so would I.”
“But someday?” Jubal pressed, with a sleepy smile and then a yawn.
“Someday,” Lizbet finally agreed.
At that, Jubal closed his eyes, still smiling, and drifted off to sleep again.
Lizbet remained where she was, ready to stretch out and sleep herself, but stuck on the distinct possibility that William would return to claim Jubal and Frankie.
She feared, in the deepest, sorest part of her heart, where she kept sweet memories of her mother and father and others that she’d lost, that she might lose these children, too. Forever.
William could take them from her with a word; the law was on his side.
What were her options? She’d been over them many times, ever since Marietta had convinced William to abandon their lives in St. Louis and take her to Hollywood, so she could become a film star, and they hadn’t changed.
She could flee, move somewhere where William couldn’t find her and the little ones, but she knew that wouldn’t work.
William wasn’t a rich man, but he had means, and he would pay some detective agency to locate her. Then, when she was inevitably found, he would take Jubal and Frankie—and eventually their trust funds—and probably have Lizbet arrested for kidnapping.
No point in running away; she’d be no good to her siblings or anyone else, shut away in some dreadful prison.
She shuddered at the thought, then squeezed into bed, practically balancing herself on the edge of the mattress.
There was one other option; she could marry Henry Middlebrook, even though the mere thought of him touching her made her physically ill. And he would almost certainly send Frankie and Jubal away to some distant boarding school, where they would be unutterably lonely and even mistreated.
That wouldn’t do, either.
For the time being, it seemed, Lizbet was stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place.
She sighed and closed her eyes.
And when she opened them again, the night was fading into the pink and gold glow of dawn, and her spirits rose to meet the new day.