Chapter 17
Lydia had taken Florence’s hand on the porch and not let go for the better part of an hour.
She had shown her the parlor with its straight curtains, the front room with its dresser, the jar of green sprigs Lydia had cut.
She had shown her the linen press and the way Mrs. Letts folded the corners, the chamber where the bottling things were kept, and the cellar steps.
Mrs. Letts arrived at two.
She was a square, brown woman of fifty-something, in a black dress and a white apron, and she came up the kitchen step at the back door and looked Florence over once with a pair of eyes that did not waste themselves on a person.
"Miss Mills."
"Mrs. Letts."
"You've scrubbed my floor."
"I have."
"You've laid my pantry."
"I have."
"You've made my bread."
"I have."
Mrs. Letts looked at her another beat. Then she nodded once, in the manner of a person who had decided.
“Good. That’ll make it easier.”
“Make what easier?”
“If you’re to oversee the house, it’s better that you know what hard work is.”
That was all. She went to the kettle. Florence watched her go, and felt, for the first time since she had set her foot off the train, that there was at least one woman in this house who was not going to be a stranger to her, even if she was never going to be a friend.
The afternoon wore on. Lydia led her upstairs.
The small bedroom that had been her mother's, kept clean because her father liked to know it was kept clean, the larger room her father slept in, the north room that was Lydia's.
At the end of the hall stood a closed door.
Lydia said only, "Uncle Hudson's, when he comes," and turned away without going in.
They went downstairs. The kitchen smelled of the bread.
Mrs. Letts was already kneading the next loaf.
Lydia sat Florence at the table with a cup of tea, and sat opposite, put both her elbows on the wood, and looked across at her with a face that had something in it that Florence had not seen before.
"Florence."
“Mm?"
"May I ask you something?”
"You may."
"Do you mean to stay?”
Florence held the cup.
"I came to stay."
"Pa was — he was hard on you this morning."
"Yes."
"He isn't always hard."
"I'm sure he isn't."
"He is a good man."
"I'm sure he is, Lydia."
"May I ask you another thing?”
"Yes."
"Has he — has he said anything to you? About what he feels?"
It was a child's question, and it was not a child's question. Lydia had asked it with an adult's patience and waited with an adult's stillness. Florence set the cup down very gently on its saucer.
"No," she said. "He hasn't."
"Oh."
"May I tell you something?”
"Please."
"I love this house. I've loved it from the path. I love the bread and the linen, and the jar of sprigs. I love how you've been with me. I'd like to stay. I'd like to be a friend to you, whatever else happens."
Lydia's face crumpled. A tear caught on her jaw and dropped to the table. She came around the table and pressed her face into Florence's shoulder and put both arms around her neck. Florence held her and stroked the back of her braided head.
"Florence."
"What is it, child?"
"There's something Pa said not to tell you."
"Then perhaps you shouldn't tell me."
"I have to tell you."
Florence stroked the small braided head. A thin cold feeling moved up the back of her neck.
"Tell me."
"Uncle Hudson died. In the last week. Pa got the news the morning you came.
Two men brought it to the porch before we drove in for you.
Pa hasn't been… Pa hasn't been quiet because of you.
He has been quiet because of his brother.
He didn't want you to know on your first night.
He thought it would make you wish you hadn't come. "
Florence sat with the child's head against her shoulder.
Of all the things she had carried up the path that afternoon, this one had a weight she had not braced for.
She thought, very fast, of the man at the head of the table last night, with his head bent over the cornbread, and of the man in the kitchen this morning, with his hands flat on the wood, and of the man in the yard taking the axe from her gently and asking, in his quiet way, whether she had thought about leaving.
He had not been turning from her. He had been holding a brother. He had been holding it from her because he had not wanted to set it on her plate. He had been, by his own slow stubborn lights, trying to be kind.
He had driven to the platform with the telegram barely cold and handed her up into the wagon without letting any of it show.
She bent and kissed the top of Lydia's head.
"Oh, child."
"He'll be angry I told you."
"He won't be angry."
"He will."
"He won't, Lydia."
"You won't tell him I told you?"
"I'll tell him you told me. I won't tell him it was wrong."
Lydia drew back. She wiped her face with her wrist.
Florence's hand was steady on the table. The thin cold feeling at the back of her neck had shifted to gratitude she did not want to look at directly. She thought of two horses at the rail this morning. She thought of two men in coats.
"Lydia. Those two men this morning. The ones who came up to the porch. Are they here because of Uncle Hudson?"
Lydia hesitated. Then she nodded.
"Yes."
"You're sure."
"Yes."
Florence let her breath out, very slowly, all the way out, all of it.
It was a wrong moment to feel relief. She felt relief anyway.
The two men had not ridden out of Arizona to a porch in California for her.
They had not ridden for the bag in the wood.
They had ridden for something that had nothing to do with her at all.
She was ashamed of how clean a sweep of relief moved through her, and then she was holding Lydia's small hand on the table, apologizing silently to a man in a hat she had misunderstood from the platform.
"Florence?"
"Yes, child."
"Are you all right?"
"Yes," Florence said. "I think I am."