Chapter Fourteen
Fourteen
The discovery bent Lizbet double, and she could barely catch her breath. The money she’d so carefully hidden in the hem of her velvet coat was gone.
She’d stitched those folded bills carefully out of sight, and it wasn’t as if they could have fallen out.
No, someone had deliberately opened the stitches and stolen them.
Lizbet didn’t need to ask herself who that someone was, because she knew.
Marietta.
Somehow, William’s insatiable wife had found Lizbet’s hiding place, even though Lizbet had made every effort to keep the money a secret from everyone, including Frankie and Jubal and certainly William.
Had Marietta suspected, and searched through Lizbet’s private things when she was occupied elsewhere, with the children for instance? The journey out from St. Louis had been long and arduous, and the task of looking after Frankie and Jubal had definitely fallen to Lizbet.
Before they all left St. Louis, traveling most of the way West by railroad, Marietta hadn’t had access to Lizbet’s belongings, at least not easy access.
Except when they stopped to rest for a day or two along the way, which happened twice, much to William’s impatience, the bulk of Lizbet’s baggage had been safely locked away, in the care of porters and the like.
It didn’t matter when or how it had happened, Lizbet decided.
Except for a few dollar bills still pinned to the inside of her bodice, there was no money to meet even their simplest needs.
Quietly frantic, she began to search through those things she had yet to unpack.
But nothing else was missing.
Her mother’s delicate heirloom ruby necklace was still in its worn velvet case, along with a single strand of pearls that had belonged to Lizbet’s maternal grandmother.
The remainder of the jewelry was of the costume variety, mostly gifts from her friends, her mother and her favorite and long-dead Aunt Dora. Lizbet preferred to dress simply and rarely wore baubles of any kind.
It was, of course, conceivable that a railroad or hotel employee had found Lizbet’s carefully hidden bills and coins, but how would they have known where to look for it? And why, if one or more of them were thieves, hadn’t they taken any of her jewelry, especially the two valuable pieces?
No, she’d been right in the beginning.
Marietta had found, and stolen, practically every penny Lizbet had or was likely to have, given the way her job search was going.
Hardly able to hold back sobs of frustration and rage and sheer helplessness, Lizbet buried her face in the soft velvet of her only truly fancy garment and breathed, just breathed, slowly and deeply.
“Lizbet?”
The voice was small, tentative. Full of concern.
Frankie.
“What’s wrong?” the child asked, standing in the doorway.
Lizbet had heard neither her approach nor her entry, and she instantly straightened her spine and lifted her chin and did her level best to smile at her sister.
“Nothing,” Lizbet lied. She abhorred liars, but there was no point in making the children bear her burdens.
“I don’t believe you,” Frankie replied. “You’re just being strong so me and Jubal won’t be scared.”
“Jubal and I,” Lizbet corrected automatically.
Frankie rolled her eyes. “Jubal and I, then,” she replied, after several moments spent studying her older sister. “I still don’t believe you. Something’s happened. Is it Father? Is he back in Silver Hills?”
Lizbet shook her head, set the coat aside and practically leaped to her feet, hurrying across the small room to hug Frankie. “Your father isn’t here,” she assured the child. “Not yet, anyway.”
“You think he’ll come and take Jubal and me—Jubal and I ? — away to live with him and that dreadful Marietta, don’t you?”
There was no sense, Lizbet realized, in trying to fool Frankie; she was too smart, and getting smarter with every passing day.
“Yes,” she admitted reluctantly. “Yes, Frankie, I do worry about that.”
“Marietta doesn’t want us,” Frankie said, with a stalwart certainty that made Lizbet’s heart crumble.
“You know she doesn’t, Lizbet. And Father’s willing to make a fool of himself over her—that’s obvious.
” She paused. “He’s like an organ-grinder’s monkey, dancing and tumbling and rolling around on the ground. ”
As grave as their present situation was, Lizbet had to smile at her sister’s imagination and the picture it brought to mind of a miniature, furry William, wearing a red velvet vest and a gold-trimmed fez to match, performing for Marietta’s amusement and, yes, any coins that might be tossed his way.
Hers was a broken smile, though, and it fell away almost immediately because despite her antipathy toward her stepfather— former stepfather, she supposed, now that he was married to Marietta instead of her mother—Lizbet knew William was being used and, though subtly, humiliated.
And she wouldn’t have wished that on anyone—not even Henry Middlebrook.
She centered her attention on Frankie again.
The skirt of the little girl’s calico dress was speckled with mud, and she was in her stocking feet. Since she wasn’t wearing her coat, hat and boots, she must have been home from school for a while.
“Where’s Jubal?” Lizbet asked, instantly worried. Frankie was three years older than Jubal and growing up fast, but they were still nearly inseparable, especially when they weren’t with their elder sister.
“He’s in the kitchen,” Frankie answered, with a note of affectionate disdain. “Ornetta’s making cherry pies to go with supper, and he says he wants to help.”
With that, Frankie crossed the room, found a clean dress to wear, and turned her back so Lizbet could undo the buttons of the one she had on.
The last warm and sunny day had been in mid-October, and Lizbet had leaped at the chance to do her family’s laundry, as well as her own. From now on through to spring, any garment she washed would have to be hung up on the folding rack Ornetta kept in the kitchen for just such times.
She’d considered taking in washing and ironing to make money, but most people around Silver Hills handled such ordinary, if arduous, tasks themselves, just as they raised gardens and kept chickens and cattle to feed their families.
She sighed again, briefly wondered what John Avery’s plan was and when he would get around to telling her about it, then left Frankie lacing up dry shoes and headed down the rear stairway.
“Ornetta Parkin,” she scolded gently, watching as the older woman placed two pies carefully inside the oven on the wood cookstove, “you’re supposed to be taking it easy. You’ll exhaust yourself.”
Ornetta smiled in mock defiance. She jutted out her chin, too, but her eyes sparkled with kindly glee.
“I appreciate all you’ve done to help me and Pearl these past days, Lizbet, and don’t you ever think I don’t.
” Here, Jubal, seated at the table, glanced his sister’s way, probably wondering if she was about to correct Ornetta’s grammar, the way she did his and Frankie’s.
“Just the same, this is my boarding house and it’s my job to look after the people who live here.
And I dare say, I make the best cherry pie in the State of Montana. ”
Just being in Ornetta’s presence, now that she was essentially her old self again, or mostly so, cheered Lizbet immeasurably.
“I won’t argue with that,” she said with a smile, ruffling Jubal’s already-mussed blond hair as she passed him.
“You just ask Gabe Whitfield if you don’t believe me,” Ornetta went on, as though Lizbet hadn’t spoken.
At the mention of Gabe, Lizbet’s spirits dipped a little. He’d been to the boarding house just once since that first visit, delivering a second load of wood for Ornetta’s stove and fireplace, but he hadn’t brought Hector along and he hadn’t come inside for pie and coffee, like before.
The disappointment Lizbet had felt, unjustified though it was, was with her still.
“I saw Gabe going into the general store a little while ago,” Ornetta went on, shutting the heavy oven door and placing her hands on the small of her back as she turned away from the stove.
“I sent a neighbor boy over to invite him to supper tonight, and he sent word back that he’d come, on account of my cherry pie. ”
Lizbet felt a flutter in her midsection, not entirely unpleasant, and pressed one hand to the base of her throat, where her heartbeat was suddenly pounding away like a jungle drum.
Ornetta chuckled. “You’re taken with that man,” she told Lizbet. “I thought so. I surely did.”
Jubal spoke up. “If Lizbet is taken, me and Frankie are going, too.”
Lizbet realized she was too tired to correct the boy, though it felt like dereliction of duty. Was she forgetting how to teach?
“That’s not what is meant here,” Ornetta explained kindly, seating herself at the table with a heavy sigh and reaching over to pat Jubal on top of the head.
“Would you please do me a favor, young Mr. Jubal Keller, and run on in to the parlor to see if the ladies are home yet? I reckon they could do with some tea and a few cookies, if they are.”
Jubal was on his feet instantly, looking as vigilant as a little soldier. “Cookies?” he echoed. “There are cookies ?”
Ornetta laughed, and it was a joyful sound, one that soothed Lizbet’s heart, because it reminded her that there was, problems notwithstanding, a lot of good in the world.
“Indeed there are, young man. I made them while you and your sister were at school, and I reckon I can spare a few, provided you do what I asked you to.”
Jubal raced out of the kitchen, lively obedience personified.
“How much do you know about Gabe Whitfield?” Ornetta asked, the moment he’d gone. The change in her countenance was marked.
Lizbet shrugged, trying to sound casual. “Not very much,” she conceded. “He’s a widower—he owns a farm—he and John Avery have been friends since they were in the Army together. That’s about all.”
“John tell you anything more than that?”
Lizbet shook her head.