Authors: Robin Lee Hatcher
“He has no place to go.” Suspecting her husband was about to mention taking the boy to the children’s home, she quickly added, “Didn’t Jesus say to care for the widows and orphans?”
That was unfair
, Tyson wanted to tell her. Instead he stepped past her and set about freeing the boy’s foot from the wooden box. Ned glared at him, a ridiculous expression on a dirty face smeared with berry juice. Still, if looks could kill, Tyson would be dead on the ground this very moment.
“The lady wants you inside.” He scooped the kid up from the ground. “So inside you’re going.”
“Take him to the white bedroom at the front of the house. The one that adjoins mine.”
Tyson didn’t know why it mattered where he carried the boy; Ned wouldn’t be staying long. But he wasn’t about to argue with Diana. Not when she had her jaw set like that. He carried the boy around to the entrance off the back hall, not wanting to go through Mrs. Cuddy’s kitchen. No point riling the cook any more than they already had. Up the servants’ staircase they went, Tyson with Ned in the lead, Diana following right behind. When he reached the bedroom, he set the boy on a chair rather than place him on the bed.
As he straightened, Tyson looked at Diana. “Better clean up that leg before putting him on the bed unless you want that new bedspread ruined.”
“Stay with him while I get a few things.”
Tyson nodded. After she left, he looked at the boy again. “Now, tell me where you live.”
“Here and there.”
“Exactly
where
is here and there?”
Ned shrugged. “Barns, sometimes. Back alleys, others. Don’t much matter long as it’s dry and out o’ the wind.”
“How long have you been living like that?”
“Since right after my ma died.” His voice cracked, making him sound a little more like the child he was, but he didn’t give in to tears. “Four years now, I reckon. I was at the orphanage awhile. Didn’t like it.”
Four years? The kid was young, ten years old at most, but there was a host of worldly experience in his voice and eyes. How had he managed to survive for so long? Maybe Diana was right. They would clean him up and fill his belly with good food, and then they could find him a place to live.
“Mister, I ain’t goin’ back to the orphanage. I hated it there, and I ain’t gonna go back to it never.”
“We can talk about that later. For now, there’s one thing you need to know.” He pointed a finger at the boy. “While you’re in this house, you’ll do whatever my wife tells you. Hear me? You hurt Mrs. Applegate’s feelings, you disobey her, you cause her any grief, it’ll be
me
you answer to. Understood?”
“Sure. But I ain’t plannin’ to stay, so it don’t much matter.”
Tyson opened his mouth to give Ned a piece of his mind, but sounds in the hallway made him press his lips together again. Moments later Diana bustled into the room with towels and a large bowl. She wore an apron, its large pockets bulging with bandages and other items. Behind her was Liz, carrying a kettle of warm water.
Tyson moved out of the way, standing with his back against the wall near the doorway. Diana knelt and set the large porcelain bowl before the chair; Ned’s feet hung several inches above the floor. With the maid’s help, Diana bathed not only his wounded leg, but the other one as well. Then she moistened a small towel with fresh water from the kettle and told him to wash his face with it. He obeyed, and from beneath the berry juice and grime emerged a spattering of freckles over his nose and cheeks.
Diana looked over her shoulder at Tyson. “I don’t think he needs stitches, but the swelling is bad. Perhaps we should have a doctor look at it, to be sure it isn’t broken.”
The orphanage might have a physician on staff, but Tyson kept that thought to himself, knowing neither his wife nor the boy would welcome the suggestion. “I’ll send for a doctor.” He pushed off the wall and went downstairs. “Upchurch?”
The butler appeared as if he’d been waiting for his name to be called.
“Mrs. Applegate wants a doctor to look at the boy’s ankle.”
“I’ll see to it at once, sir.”
Throughout his lifetime, Jeremiah Applegate had seldom admitted he was wrong—even if he was. He’d believed it best to decide what one should do and then do it without apology. That’s how he’d lived, in business and at home. But in the years since Tyson left, Jeremiah had had plenty of reasons to second-guess himself. His wife had tried to help him see the truth before she died. He should have admitted to her that he’d been mistaken as a father. He should have promised that he would try to change in the future. But change didn’t come easily to someone like him. Men still feared him. Would his son still hate him?
He sighed, aware of the ache in his heart, the one he’d felt daily from the moment Tyson stormed out of the study and then out of his father’s life. His son might never believe it, but Jeremiah loved him fiercely. Was it possible Jeremiah might learn to show it before it was too late?
October 1893
“Is it bad news, dear?”
Diana looked up from the letter in her hands and met her mother-in-law’s watchful gaze from across the morning room. “I’m not sure. Mother writes that she and Father moved to Nampa, Idaho, last month. I had no idea they were even considering a move. It must have come up suddenly.”
Nostalgia wrapped around her heart as memories from girlhood flooded her mind. She loved her parents’ home in Montana. She’d thought she might go to live with them. Her marriage appeared to
be over. There’d been no word from Tyson since the day he’d fought with his father, broken that vase, and then left the house.
Nora leaned forward on the settee. “My dear, are you aware that the railroad went bankrupt this last summer? It’s possible your father had to move in order to have employment.”
“Bankrupt?”
“The financial panic that began in the spring has impacted people all over the country. Few are as fortunate as we.”
Diana closed her eyes and covered her mouth with the fingers of one hand. How ignorant she must appear to her mother-in-law. Since coming to stay under this roof, she’d been focused only on herself, her marriage, and her husband. Nothing else. No one else. Too selfish to even know what had happened in her parents’ lives. Now that she knew the truth, should she go to them? Or would she be more burden than help if she did?
“Tyson will be back,” Nora said softly.
She looked at her mother-in-law again.
“Don’t give up on him, Diana. Be patient. And remember, it isn’t your fault that he left.”
Isn’t it?
“We must learn to forgive so much in this life. Forgiveness may be the most important lesson we have to learn, above all else. I hope you’ll be able to forgive Tyson when the time comes, my dear. Promise me you’ll try.”
Diana’s throat tightened, and her reply came out in a whisper. “I’ll try, Mrs. Applegate. I promise.”
Balancing a tray with her left hand, Diana rapped once with her right, then opened the bedroom door. Ned was sitting up in bed, his injured leg propped with several pillows.
“I brought you something to eat.” She crossed the room, smiling.
The boy scowled back at her, as if he didn’t want the food. She knew better. Over the past twenty-four hours, Ned had eaten every last crumb on his plate, no matter how much Mrs. Cuddy put on it.
“How is your ankle doing? Is it hurting less?”
“Same as it was last time you asked me. I could walk on it if I wanted. Don’t need those crutches the doc left.”
“Use them anyway. The more you rest, the quicker you’ll heal.” Diana set the tray over his lap and handed him a cloth napkin, then sank onto the edge of the bed to watch him eat.
Ned picked up the sandwich. “Why you being so nice to me?” He took a big bite and began to chew.
“I’m being nice because you were hurt and I wanted to help.”
“I been hurt before and nobody helped.”
“I’m very sorry to hear it.”
“I ain’t gonna stay, you know. No matter how nice you are to me.”
He reminded her a little of Hugh. Her brother hadn’t trusted
people. Perhaps with good reason. Hugh had done his best, at thirteen years old, to keep his sisters with him, but Dr. Cray’s Asylum for Little Wanderers hadn’t paid him any heed. No one wanted to take in three half-grown children.
“I was six years old when my ma died,” she said softly. “Same as you were.”
“Yeah?”
“My brother and sister and I were sent to live with different families in the West.” She wanted to add that she knew what it was like not to have anyone to look out for her, but that wouldn’t be true. Her adoptive parents had loved and cared for her. She hadn’t had to live in alleys or barns. Ned shouldn’t have to live that way either.
The boy’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that sound? Been hearin’ it all morning.”
“Sound?” Diana listened, then smiled again. “That’s my cat, Tiger, pawing at the adjoining door. I think she’d like to come meet you when you’re finished eating. Would that be all right?”
“I guess. Long as she doesn’t scratch me. Cats can be mean.”
“Perhaps some cats are, but not Tiger. She’s a dear.”
“Well, she better behave. That’s all I gotta say. If she don’t, I’ll hit her with one of them crutches.”
Diana wanted to laugh at his tough talk but couldn’t encourage cruelty. “Hitting her wouldn’t be very kind, would it? She’s much smaller than you are.”
“I like dogs. There’s one that used to follow me around out on this end o’ town, but I haven’t seen him in a week or two. Maybe a coyote got him.”
“I hope not. What did you call him?”
“Dog. What else?”
What else, indeed
.
They fell silent while Ned ate the remainder of his sandwich, a bowl of canned peaches, and a large slice of Mrs. Cuddy’s berry pie—the one that had survived Ned’s fall the previous day. When he was finished, Diana took the tray and set it in the hall before going to the door that adjoined her room to Ned’s. She opened it. Tiger meowed loudly before rubbing up against her skirt, first one direction, then the other.
Diana picked up the kitten and carried her toward the bed, whispering near the cat’s ear, “You two must become good friends. You have much in common.”
As Tyson left the private men’s club on Main, he saw Kendall Michaels come out of a restaurant across the street. Tyson paused and took a step back into the shadow of the awning. A reflex action, and one he was thankful for when he recognized the man with Michaels: Brook Calhoun.
Dislike for both men rose like bile in his throat.
This would explain the newspaperman’s remarks at the judge’s dinner party. If Calhoun and Michaels were friends, Michaels might have felt justified in attacking Tyson through Diana. But that might also imply Calhoun cared about her. Not a comforting thought.
Tyson had convinced himself that Brook Calhoun felt no true affection for Diana. That his interest had been in the fortune he would come into if he married Tyson’s widow. Could he be wrong about that? Had the man’s feelings for Diana been real? And if so, what about her feelings for him?
Intolerable questions, all of them. They complicated an already complicated situation.
He wondered if he’d done the right thing, telling Diana he
needed her by his side to win the election. Would it have been so terrible to leave that out? He could have simply said he wanted their marriage to work. But that wouldn’t have been honest. He owed her honesty. After so many years of neglect and betrayal, that was the very least he owed her.
Tyson’s carriage pulled to the curb, and he climbed in, his thoughts continuing to churn.
It amazed him how Diana had filled his home—his life—so completely and in such a short period of time. Sometimes he feared he thought about her when he should be thinking about the election, about matters of importance to the country, and not his own domestic happiness.
Happiness? A small smile curved his mouth as he looked out the carriage window. Yes. Except when he let jealousy creep in, it made him happy to think of her. To wonder what she did when he was away from the house. To watch her brush a loose tendril of hair back from her face as they sat at the supper table. To see her hold that scrawny stray cat. Even to observe her as she tended to the injured street urchin who’d taken up residence in one of the empty bedrooms.
Peculiar, wasn’t it? He’d scarcely given Diana a thought while he traipsed around the world, climbing mountains, exploring islands, hunting big game, visiting famous cities, charming beautiful women, going to war. Now, thinking about her kept him awake at night.
As the carriage pulled into the driveway leading around to the back of the house, Tyson saw a black cab at the front curb and wondered who might have come visiting. He tapped the roof and called to the coachman, “Stop here, Gibson.” As soon as the vehicle halted, Tyson opened the door and hopped to the ground.
He felt no foreboding. He had no reason to. His first clue of
the trouble awaiting him inside wasn’t until Upchurch didn’t open the front door. Tyson opened it himself and stepped into the entry hall. He saw the butler at once, standing to one side of the parlor doorway, looking uncertain. A moment later he knew why.
“I should have been informed at once!” Seven years hadn’t removed the thunder from his father’s voice.
Now
Tyson felt the foreboding.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Applegate,” Diana replied in a softer tone. “It wasn’t my place to do so.”
Before his father could respond, Tyson moved to the parlor entrance. “She’s right, Father. The fault is completely mine.”
Jeremiah Applegate’s voice might not have changed, but his appearance had. His hair had thinned. It and his beard were stone gray instead of black. He’d also put on a good thirty pounds. The years had not been kind to him.
Tyson crossed to Diana’s side. “I planned to contact you soon, but I’ve been rather busy since my return to Idaho.” He drew a quick breath and lied. “You’re looking well.”
“That’s all you have to say to me? I look well?”
Tyson hated the defensiveness that welled inside of him. The Bible said he must honor his father. He should also remember that a soft answer turned away wrath.