Chapter Thirteen
Thirteen
By the time the storm ended, five full days after it had begun, Lizbet was exhausted.
She gazed out the window of the room Ornetta and Pearl shared as the previously incessant snow transformed itself into rain, then within mere moments, sleet.
She shivered and pulled her shawl around her in an attempt to stave off the chill.
Not that the house wasn’t warm.
There was plenty of firewood, thanks to Gabe Whitfield, and the other boarders kept the kitchen stove and the parlor fireplace roaring.
Pearl’s fever had broken at long last, and Max Gannon was sure she’d survive, if she allowed herself the time and rest to recover. She was able to sit up in bed for longer and longer periods, and she took the rich chicken broth Ornetta made for her, though with some reluctance.
Still, the pneumonia had weakened her severely, and she’d been fragile in the first place.
Lizbet, Miss Helen and Miss Ellie took turns sitting with Pearl, reading to her or simply keeping her company, when they could persuade Ornetta to break her vigil for an hour or two to lie down in Lizbet’s room or make her way downstairs for coffee or tea or something to eat.
“Miss Lizbet?” Pearl’s voice was weak. Hopeful.
Lizbet turned from the window, managed a weary smile. “Just Lizbet,” she said softly. “What is it, Pearl? Is there something you need?”
“Is Preacher John back from the blacksmith shop yet?” she asked. “I want him to pray for me.”
Lizbet sat down in the chair pulled close to the bed and took Pearl’s hand, worried. “I believe he’s still working,” she said gently. “Are you in pain?”
Pearl’s smile was brilliant in her small, childlike face, and she shook her head. “I want him to praise the Lord for me. I ain’t got the breath.”
Lizbet’s eyes stung, and she held Pearl’s hand a little tighter. This woman was so innocent, so pure and generous and good that it was a wonder she could even exist in such a difficult world.
Surely, she belonged in a better one.
Though she’d wanted to tell Pearl that she could pray silently, if she wished, and God would surely hear and know she was grateful to be getting well, Lizbet chose to leave those things unsaid.
Instead, she told Pearl that John wouldn’t have to be asked to come upstairs and talk with her, hold her hands in that gentle way he had, he with his big self and even bigger heart, because he was sure to appear as soon as he’d returned from his shop, washed up and changed his clothes.
Ever since Pearl had fallen ill, the preacher-blacksmith had visited her every evening but one. The time he was absent, he’d spent the night on Gabe Whitfield’s farm, because he’d traveled out there in the storm and been unable to return until the following day.
He’d told Lizbet about this after supper one evening, and since then, he’d seemed to be watching her, not in the troubling way Henry Middlebrook did, but with tender concern. There were things he wanted to say to her, she knew that, but so far he had kept them to himself.
Lizbet had made up her mind to inquire the next time she had a chance to speak to John privately.
“Shall I get you some tea? Maybe some broth?” she asked the patient, having dragged her mind back to the present moment.
Pearl shook her head. “I just want to sleep awhile,” she said, and her large, shining eyes drifted closed. Her lids quivered and a smile formed on her lips, as though she were already dreaming.
Lizbet quietly left the room.
When she ventured downstairs, stopping first in the kitchen to make sure Ornetta wasn’t there, trying to cook when she should be lying down or just sitting in her favorite chair in the parlor, watching the world pass by on the street, she found John Avery there instead.
Surprised, because it was only two o’clock in the afternoon according to the kitchen clock—she gasped when she saw him.
John, his hands and face pink from a recent scrubbing and a wintery trek back from the blacksmith shop, was standing close to the stove.
He smiled when Lizbet paused on the threshold, struck by the fact that she’d just been thinking of speaking with John and now here he was.
“Good afternoon, Miss Fontaine,” he said.
“Lizbet,” she corrected him.
“I’ve been meaning to speak to you,” he told her, with a brief nod, hands still extended to absorb the heat from the stove.
It was visible, that warmth, undulating, shifting.
Lizbet sighed, pulled back a chair and sank into it.
Frankie and Jubal would be back from school within the hour, wanting to tell her all about their days, and that meant she couldn’t let this opportunity for a quiet conversation pass.
“That’s a coincidence,” she replied, “because I’ve been meaning to speak to you as well. ”
“Here’s our chance,” John said affably.
He crossed to the table, took a seat. He was graceful for such a large man, and easygoing. “It’s about Henry Middlebrook,” he went on, after nearly a full minute of hesitation. “He’s been preventing you from getting work, Miss—er—Lizbet. Telling folks around town that they’d better not hire you.”
Lizbet had suspected something like that, since she’d run into a brick wall everywhere she’d gone looking for a job, but she was still infuriated. She felt a hot flush rise, throbbing, from her neck to her face.
“I see,” she said, not trusting herself to say more, at least not in that moment. “People are afraid of him, then?”
This time, it was John who sighed. He sounded as tired and overwhelmed as she felt.
“Not in the way you’re probably thinking.
Henry’s an old man, and he’s not strong, physically at least, but he runs the only bank between here and Painted Pony Creek, Lizbet, and that means he holds a lot of mortgages.
Times were hard during the war, and then the epidemic of Spanish flu came along and folks had to borrow against their property, against the next year’s crop, against the livestock and equipment they needed.
Henry could call in all those loans at any time with one swipe of his pen. ”
Lizbet felt weak all over, completely defeated. She was nearly out of money, as hard as she’d tried to make her limited funds stretch.
She covered her face with her hands and her shoulders drooped.
John’s huge hands grasped her carefully by the wrists and lowered hers, so she would meet his gaze.
“Henry wants to force you to marry him. Am I right?”
Lizbet fought back the threat of tears and barely won the inner skirmish. She could not, would not lose her dignity. “I think so.”
“Do you know why?”
She shook her head. “Not for sure, but I believe it has something to do with my stepfather, William Keller. William is forever chasing the next business deal, the bigger and riskier it is, the better he likes it. William wants Mr. Middlebrook to invest in his newest venture, whatever it might be, and Mr. Middlebrook apparently wanted me in return. As human collateral, if you will. Worse still, I suspect William is planning to use Frankie and Jubal to pressure me into agreeing to the marriage.”
“You’ve heard from your stepfather?” John asked.
“No,” Lizbet said. “I don’t know what I’ll do if I have to give those children back to William.
He just up and left them here, you know, without a thought for their welfare.
His wife, Marietta, despises them, and I’m afraid they’ll be mistreated—or sent to any old boarding school, as long as it’s far away, just to get them out of her sight.
William will do whatever she wants him to, he’s so besotted with the woman. ”
“Quite a story,” John said with another sigh, this time one of regret. “Isn’t it possible that Mr. Keller left his children behind simply because he and his wife wanted to be rid of them? Doesn’t he have any kind of fatherly love for them?”
Tears sprang to Lizbet’s eyes then, and she couldn’t stop them from slipping, stinging, down her cheeks, which were chapped from her forays to the general store and the schoolhouse and to various businesses, seeking employment in the cold weather.
Miss Helen walked the children to school in the mornings, but Lizbet sometimes went to meet them in the afternoons, as eager to see them again as if they’d just returned from the other side of the world.
“I don’t know what to do,” she confessed. “I’ve prayed and prayed, in church and out, and no solution has come to me, either for keeping Frankie and Jubal with me or for finding work. I wonder sometimes if God is listening.”
John smiled. “He’s listening,” he assured her. “But God works through people most of the time, and I reckon right about now, He wants me to help out however I can.”
Lizbet laughed through her tears. “I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes and cheeks with the sleeve of her practical brown woolen dress. “I’m no blacksmith.”
At that, John laughed, too. “I wasn’t talking about hiring you to work the forge, Lizbet, or pound horseshoes into shape with a steel mallet.
But I do have something in mind—something I can’t mention just yet because I need to discuss it with someone else first—but even if it happens, it would only solve half your problem. ”
Hope surged through Lizbet’s brave, bruised heart. “Is it a way to keep the children?” she asked, almost breathless.
John sighed and shook his head regretfully.
“That still needs some figuring out,” he answered.
“I do know a good lawyer over in Painted Pony Creek. Name’s Tom Hollister.
He might be able to help, since Mr. Keller basically abandoned those little ones—in your care, it’s true, but it’s still a callous thing to do.
Did he give you any money for their keep, Lizbet? ”
“No,” Lizbet answered, saddened again. She couldn’t afford to pay a lawyer. Once the money stitched into the hem of her fancy coat had been used up, she would be destitute. “No, he didn’t give me money.”
“That’s another point in your favor,” John commented. “But let’s worry about it later.”
“I never stop worrying,” Lizbet said truthfully. “I can’t lose my sister and brother, John. Not to anybody.” Here, her voice broke. “I love them so much, and I promised our mother I would make sure they are well cared for, no matter what.”
He didn’t respond to her statement directly.
“You come to church every Sunday,” John replied good-naturedly. “Haven’t you been listening to my sermons? Faith and worry don’t go together. You’ve got to trust God to help you get through this, Lizbet. There will be a solution.”
“But you’re not going to tell me what your idea is? For finding work, I mean?”
John’s smile was warm. “No,” he replied succinctly.
With that, he pushed back his chair, rose to his feet and headed upstairs, most likely to sit with Pearl.
Lizbet waited several minutes, then retreated to the attic room, where she riffled through her trunks until she found the special coat she’d once worn to operas and symphony concerts.
The rent was due soon, although Ornetta had offered to let it pass this month, out of gratitude for Lizbet’s help with Pearl and many of the household tasks. Trouble was, Ornetta couldn’t be expected to do that for everyone, and all of the boarders had assisted, one way or another.
So Lizbet had politely refused.
Now she sat down on the edge of the bed she still shared with both the children, the lovely, frivolous coat in her lap, and turned it inside out to get to the spot in the hem where the last of her personal savings was hidden.
In the next moment, a terrible shock barreled into her like some great beast on a dead run, and shook her to her soul.
The special place in the hem was already undone, and the money was gone.