Chapter Sixteen
Sixteen
Two weeks before Christmas, there was a thaw in the weather, melting away much of the snow, soon followed by a hard freeze, which made the roads perilous, if still passable.
Because Pearl’s health had greatly improved, and both Nelly Carlyle and Stella MacIntosh were helping out with the cooking and housework in their spare time, Ornetta was well rested and almost ready to resume her usual schedule.
All of this meant that Lizbet could, in good conscience, leave the boarding house with Frankie and Jubal and take up her new position as Gabe Whitfield’s housekeeper.
The relief of being able to provide for herself and her siblings in an honorable way was tremendous, and she found herself humming happily as she packed the few belongings that had been taken from their trunks and valises upon arriving at Ornetta’s.
One fine December morning, Gabe arrived, as previously agreed, driving his buckboard. This time, Hector accompanied him.
John had taken the day off from blacksmithing, and he and Gabe carried everything Lizbet and the children owned downstairs and out to the wagon, where they loaded the bulky objects carefully and covered them with a tarp.
It had been nearly a full month since Gabe had offered Lizbet work, and she had accepted, which meant that practically everyone in town knew.
Lizbet was not so naive as to think there wasn’t gossip about her and Gabe, but she couldn’t afford to dwell on it.
Silver Hills was a good town, but every place had busybodies, folks with so little of interest in their own lives that they groped and grabbed for it in the lives of others.
Just two Sundays ago, in fact, a woman named Susan Henderson had stood up in the middle of that week’s church service to announce in a ringing voice of righteous indignation that Lizbet Fontaine and Gabe Whitfield were about to commence living in sin, right under all their noses.
A hubbub had arisen, followed by John Avery’s midsermon intervention. He had cleared his throat loudly, leveled his gaze at the troublemaker and told her to go outside and fetch a stone.
She, along with the rest of the congregation, including Gabe and Lizbet, who weren’t even sitting together, stared at him in confusion.
John swept up everyone present—man, woman and child—in a single sweeping glance.
“If any of you agree with Miss Henderson here, then you’d best go out and find yourself a stone, too.
” He paused, and Lizbet, despite her red-faced mortification, had thought he would cut an impressive figure on any stage in the world.
No one had moved except the reprimanded, who dropped back into her seat on the pew as if she’d been struck in the forehead by a pebble from a slingshot.
John had scanned them again, his expression grim.
“No takers?” he’d inquired solemnly, his usually gentle eyes hot with a fury fit for the prophets of old.
In those moments, he might as well have been Isaiah himself, or Elijah, such power did he exude.
“No one here is without sin and thus qualified to throw the first stone?” he’d demanded, in a voice like a thin sheet of metal rippling in a hurricane wind.
No one had spoken.
And no one had gone to fetch a stone.
Remembering that incident as John and Gabe stood somewhat awkwardly in Ornetta’s parlor, waiting for Lizbet to say her goodbyes, Lizbet silently reminded herself that as long as her own conscience was clear, it didn’t matter one whit what others thought. Or said.
The way Ornetta and Lizbet clung to each other, their eyes brimming with tears, a person would have thought they were about to be parted forever, which, of course, they weren’t.
The bond between the two of them, Lizbet knew, would hold forever, but saying goodbye and leaving the warm friendliness of that house was beyond difficult, just the same.
Frankie and Jubal, bundled up against the cold, were ready to move in and share a house with their beloved friend, Hector.
They’d already bid a solemn farewell to everyone in the boarding house, and Pearl had baked and packed two dozen sugar cookies to sustain them on their five-mile journey to the Whitfield farm.
So they shifted impatiently from one foot to the other, in amusing tandem, while their elder sister turned to embrace Pearl, being careful not to hold her too tightly, for though she had recovered, she was still delicate.
Blessedly, the other boarders were out of the house, though each one had taken time, the evening before, to wish Lizbet and the children every good fortune.
Presently, the ceremony of parting was concluded, and John led the children and Hector toward his own wagon, which stood behind Gabe’s under the clear, ice-blue sky, and helped them scramble their way into it.
As there was no room for them in Gabe’s wagon, Frankie was to ride with John, on the seat, a dignified little soul in her layers of wool clothing, while Jubal, similarly clad, settled in the back, with an exuberant Hector to keep him company.
Lizbet, it had been tacitly decided, was to join Gabe on the high seat of his buckboard, and she did. He’d brought heavy blankets to cover her lap and legs, and she was feeling grateful and unaccountably shy in the bargain.
She knew townspeople were watching, some kindly, raising a friendly hand to acknowledge the little convoy, while others peered out from behind curtains, Lizbet was sure, clucking in disapproval and shaking their heads at this example of what the world was coming to.
She smiled and waved back to the good people coming in and out of the general store and the saloon and the other establishments along Main Street. For the benefit of the disdainful ones, she kept her shoulders straight and her chin high.
Deep down, where no one but God could see, she actually felt a little thrill at the prospect of living—chastely, of course—under the same roof as Gabe Whitfield.
The ride to the farm was long, cold and, although Lizbet would have preferred it otherwise, almost entirely silent, at least in Gabe’s wagon. Laughter and merriment rang through the sharp chill of the December air from the one carrying John, the children and Hector.
Gabe’s mood was pensive, and that caused Lizbet to wonder, after several minutes, if he was regretting his decision to open his undoubtedly quiet home to her and two lively children.
He hadn’t reacted at all, as far as Lizbet knew, to that Sunday of prospective stone throwing, except to set his jaw and glare at the flush-faced miscreant.
He’d told Lizbet straight out, that night in Ornetta’s kitchen when he’d offered her employment, that he still loved his wife.
In other words, her virtue was safe with him.
That was reassuring but, strangely, it had caused something within Lizbet to sink a little, and so far it had never resurfaced, whatever it was. Hope? The first, faint glimmer of love?
Lizbet did not love Gabe Whitfield, she reminded herself, as they jostled along over slippery roads, frozen solid.
But she could. Oh, yes. She definitely could come to love him. Would probably never love any man except him.
Why was she so sure of that?
Because Gabe was everything she believed a man should be—honorable, strong, hardworking, smart, generous. And a thousand other things she couldn’t yet name, but merely sensed whenever he was near.
She had never met another man like him except, perhaps, her late father, whom she had admired as well as adored.
Gabe, unlike her father and John Avery, his most valued friend, was a man who kept to himself for the most part, which made it all the more surprising that he’d set this potentially scandalous plan in motion to start with.
Was he regretting it now that the big day had actually arrived?
Lizbet found that prospect hard to bear, and for all her self-discipline, she wasn’t able to stay silent.
“Mr. Whitfield?”
He turned his head, looked down into her face. His own was red with cold, but with an odd glow underneath, and though his mouth didn’t smile, his gray eyes did. “Yes, Miss Fontaine?” he asked, with pointed formality.
“Are you sorry?”
“For what?”
Lizbet fidgeted on the hard seat of the buckboard and fiddled with the blankets in her lap, wishing she hadn’t spoken up after all. Now there was nothing to do but follow through with her real question.
“Are you sorry you gave me a job? That Frankie and Jubal and I are moving into your house? We might be a disruption—”
At last, he smiled. Really smiled, in a way Lizbet had never seen him do before. “I’m not,” he said, with cheerful resolution. “Are you sorry you agreed?”
Lizbet shook her head, so earnest in her answer that she couldn’t wait to say no aloud.
“I’m—we’re very grateful for the opportunity,” she said moments later.
They were rounding a corner, and when they’d made the turn, Lizbet was heartened to see that the road leading to the house was lined by cottonwoods.
Bare-branched in the cold of winter, like sketches against a painfully blue sky, in spring and summer and even into fall, they would be covered in glittering leaves.
“You might change your mind,” Gabe replied in a wry tone, “when you find out how much work it’ll be, keeping up a farmhouse the size of mine.”
“I won’t at all,” Lizbet said, thinking of the simple luxuries that awaited her, like a bed of her own and worthwhile tasks to occupy her time every day.
Except for the prospect of William taking Frankie and Jubal from her, or Mr. Middlebrook pulling some dastardly trick out of his hat, she had no worries at all.
“You’ll find that I am a diligent worker, Mr. Whitfield, well worth my wages. ”
“I’m sure you will be,” Gabe replied quietly. “But if you change your mind and decide to take up another profession elsewhere, I won’t give you any trouble over it. If you stay, it will be difficult at times, especially if my brother, Finn, shows up, which he’s promised to do.”
Lizbet stared at him, eyebrows lifted. This was the first she’d heard of his having a brother, though John might have mentioned it during one of their conversations.
“Is he so troublesome?” she asked. “Your brother, I mean?”
Gabe shook his dark head, resettled his hat with a motion of one hand, and he looked more amused than irritated. “I wouldn’t say that. Finn’s a good man, but he’s one of those types who take up more space and use up more air than other people.”
Lizbet was left to ponder the meaning of that cryptic reply.