Chapter Eleven
Evelyn carried the tea tin, a jar of honey, and the pie she’d promised down the pine trail toward Mrs. Montgomery's homestead, because a person did not show up empty-handed at an old woman's door two days running without bringing provisions.
The orphanage had taught her plenty of useless lessons—how to fold sheets with military corners for one—but the one good thing the matron had drilled into every girl under her care was that you brought food to people who needed feeding, and you brought it before they had to ask.
Mrs. Montgomery opened the door before Evelyn reached the porch, standing in the frame with her shawl pulled around her shoulders and a smile that started the moment she spotted Evelyn on the trail.
She must have been watching through the window.
The thought of that—an old woman at her window, waiting to see if the person who'd promised to come back would actually come back—sat heavy in Evelyn's chest.
"Miss Granger! Lord above, you're a sight for weary eyes. Come in, come in, get yourself outta that wind 'fore it plumb carries you off."
"I brought tea, Mrs. Montgomery. The good kind, from Harlow's. The stuff Sam buys could strip the varnish off a church pew, so I reckoned you deserved a sight better. The pie too, of course."
"Oh, bless your heart, child, with your pie.
And ain't nobody brought me tea since—well, it's been a powerful long time.
" She ushered Evelyn inside, fussing over the cold on her cheeks and whether she'd eaten properly that day.
"Now you set yourself right down at that table, and you're gonna try my jam before we do another blessed thing.
I been makin' chokecherry jam since before you drew your first breath, and I won't hear a word of conversation till you've had yourself a taste. "
She set a jar on the table with a spoon and a piece of cornbread she'd been saving, then went to the stove to heat water for the tea.
Evelyn spread the jam on the cornbread, took a bite, and her eyes closed of their own accord.
It was rich, tart, and sweet all at once.
The chokecherries still held their wild flavor under the sugar; it had a depth that the store-bought preserves in Springfield had never come close to touching.
Mrs. Krauss would have approved. Mrs. Krauss would have demanded the recipe.
"Mrs. Montgomery, this here's the finest jam I've ever tasted in all my born days."
"Oh, go on with you." The old woman waved a hand from the stove, pleased and flustered.
"It ain't nothin' special. Just chokecherries and sugar and time, is all.
The trick is you gotta pick 'em after the first frost, once they've sweetened up proper.
Mr. Montgomery taught me that. He always did say—"
She stopped mid-sentence, glancing at the stove and then at the shelf beside it before opening a cupboard and closing it again all in the space of about three seconds.
"Now where on earth did I put that kettle?"
Evelyn glanced toward the stove. The kettle sat on the left burner, exactly where Mrs. Montgomery had placed it thirty seconds ago.
"It's right there on the stove, ma'am."
"On the—oh! Well, there it sits. I'd lose my own head if the good Lord hadn't fixed it on, I swear to mercy." She laughed and busied herself with the kettle. "Now, as I was sayin', Mr. Montgomery always did say the best jam comes from patience. You can't rush chokecherries. You gotta let 'em—"
She paused, her hands going still on the kettle handle.
"I done told you about the chokecherries already, ain't I?"
Evelyn took another bite of cornbread and kept her voice easy. "You were tellin' me about Mr. Montgomery's trick with the frost. I'd dearly love to hear the rest."
Mrs. Montgomery brightened again, picking up the thread, but Evelyn's mind had snagged on the kettle.
On the repeated story. On the way the old woman's hands had paused mid-motion, uncertainty flickering across her face before she'd covered it with a laugh.
The orphanage had housed an old laundress named Mrs. Dalton who'd started forgetting things in her sixties: where she'd put the soap, whether she'd eaten breakfast, the names of girls she'd washed clothes for every week for years.
The matron had sent Mrs. Dalton away eventually, to a home in the city. Nobody had explained where she went.
They drank the tea. Mrs. Montgomery told Evelyn about her garden—the beans she grew every summer, the squash, and the herbs she dried for cooking.
She described the layout twice, using the same words both times, and once she called Evelyn "Mary" before catching herself with a stricken look that lasted about two seconds before she smoothed it over.
"Forgive me, child. You just remind me powerful of somebody I loved somethin' dear."
Evelyn covered Mrs. Montgomery's hand with her own. "That's the finest thing anybody's ever said to me, ma'am."
The old woman's face crumpled suddenly, the way a person's face gave out when the thing holding it together finally broke loose. She pulled her hand free from Evelyn's and pressed her fingers against her eyes while her shoulders started shaking.
"Mrs. Montgomery, what's ailin' you? Tell me what's the matter."
"I didn't—I didn't want to lay this burden on you, child. You been so good to me, and I just hate somethin' terrible to…"
She stood up from the table, crossed to the shelf by the bed, and pulled a folded paper from behind a stack of books. Her hands trembled when she held it out. "This here come three days past. I been totin' it around ever since."
Evelyn took the paper and unfolded it. Heavy stock, and printed letterhead from the First Territorial Bank of Montana. She read it once, then read it again because her brain had refused to accept what her eyes told her during the first read-through.
Dear Mrs. Charlotte Montgomery,
This letter serves as formal notice that your account remains in arrears.
Payment of the outstanding balance, inclusive of accumulated interest, is required in full on or before the last day of this month.
Failure to remit will result in seizure of the property and all structures thereon, in accordance with territorial statute.
The bank aimed to take this woman's home. The cabin her husband had built, the garden she'd tended for decades, the windowsill where her jam cooled in the afternoon light—all of it, seized for a debt she couldn't pay.
Evelyn set the letter on the table and pressed her hands flat against the wood because they wanted to shake.
"Do you know how much you owe, Mrs. Montgomery? The full amount?"
The old woman had sunk back into her chair, her face blotchy from crying, her fingers knotted together in her lap.
"Mr. Montgomery took out a loan way back when we first raised the place.
For lumber and such. He paid on it regular, right faithful, every season, right up till he took sick.
After he passed…" She swallowed hard. "I kept payin' what I could.
But that interest, it just—it growed faster'n I could manage.
I'd pay a little, then the interest'd pile on more'n what I'd paid, and I'd fall behind all over again.
I don't rightly know what the full figure's come to.
I'm afraid to ask. All I know is it's more'n I'll ever lay hands on. "
“Oh, Mrs. Montgomery…”
"I ain't got nobody to turn to, Miss Granger. Mary's gone on to glory. I got no kin left on this earth. Just this house, and them chickens, and my jam, and if they take this place out from under me… I ain't got nowhere to go. I ain't got nowhere on God's green earth to go."
Evelyn moved her chair around the table, close enough to put her arm across Mrs. Montgomery's shoulders.
The old woman leaned into her, trembling, and Evelyn held her there, rocking her slightly in a way that she, herself, had never been rocked.
The orphanage girls used to hold each other during storms, four or five of them crammed into one narrow bed with the thunder crashing outside, until the matron would come in and tell them to get back to their own beds because comfort between children constituted a disruption of routine.
Evelyn had stopped reaching for comfort by the age of eight.
But she could give it. That capacity had survived everything else the orphanage had tried to stamp out of her.
"You listen to me now, Mrs. Montgomery." She tightened her arm around the old woman's shoulders. "You ain't losin' this house. You hear me? I don't know the how of it just yet, but we'll puzzle out a way. I give you my word on that."
"You can't go promisin' such a thing, child. You don't even know what's owed. Could be more money'n either of us has seen in a lifetime."
"Then we'll find out what's owed. That's the first step. You can't fight a thing you can't measure. But you ain't losin' your home, and that's the last I aim to hear on the subject."
Mrs. Montgomery looked up at her with red eyes and a wet face, then reached up and touched Evelyn's cheek with papery fingers.
"You're a good soul, Miss Granger. A right good soul."
Evelyn stayed another hour. She washed the tea things and stacked kindling by the stove for the morning, then checked that Mrs. Montgomery had enough food for the next two days.
She straightened the quilt on the bed, swept the floor, and made sure the door latch caught properly because the wind had picked up fiercely outside.
When Mrs. Montgomery finally settled into her chair by the stove with the quilt over her lap, Evelyn kissed the top of her head and stepped out into the cold.