Spirit of the Valley (25 page)

Cessie nodded. “He did. He had a good breakfast. Oh, honey, he feels the need to help. You can understand that. And he'll be careful.”

Lizzie turned away, trying to guard her expression. The children didn't need any more to worry about. “Well, we're off to town,” she said, trying to sound upbeat.

“I heard.”

“Do you need anything?”

“Not a thing, but stop by afterwards and tell me how it went.”

“I will,” Lizzie answered as she started off.

“Jake,” Cessie called. “Do you want to stay with me?”

Jake looked at his mother hopefully.

“It's all right,” she assured him. “If you want to stay.”

He nodded and hurried toward Sheeba, who was lazing about on the front porch.

“We'll have some lunch ready when you get back,” Cessie called.

Chapter Forty-One

Marie found it surprisingly enjoyable to walk arm in arm with Walt. He'd brought her flowers and a box of candy and asked for the pleasure of a walk. For someone who had never enjoyed mornings, the experience felt like a revelation. The light of morning painted the world a different color than it would be later. Shopkeepers were busy opening their shops and people were already going at their daily tasks, taking no notice of her. Of course, she was wearing a coat and had a clean face, and her hair was pulled back into a simple twist. No one seemed to recognize her, not that anyone was looking twice. They assumed she was decent, that she was one of them. It felt good.

“I got something to tell you,” Walt said, looking straight ahead.

She looked at him. “What?”

He halted, sighed softly, and then turned toward her, finally looking into her eyes.

She tensed, because it was bad news of some sort. Had he met someone else and really only come to tell her good-bye?

“I'm leaving,” he stated.

Her jaw went lax. She really had done it. She's squandered her best opportunity for a normal life. He'd offered and she'd refused.

“My cousin Jeb moved off to Baltimore a few years ago and started a hardware store. He did all right with it, but he had stiff competition from a store that had been there a long time. Well, now the man who owns the store has offered to sell it to him. It's a bigger, better place, and if I go in with him, we could buy it and run it together.”

She felt sick to her stomach. He'd come to say happy birthday and good-bye.

“I'm sick of scratching out a living,” he continued. “Do you know, every year the price I get for a bushel of corn goes down? I work morning to night, and I only cleared a hundred and sixty dollars last year.” He paused. “I like the idea of being a shopkeeper. You open your shop at eight and close it at six. You take Sundays off. Jeb and I talked about it and we'll each take one other day off, as well. I think it would be a real good life. Better than this one.”

She couldn't think of a thing to say. She sincerely liked him and wanted the best for him, but she'd never imagined he wouldn't be here. That he wouldn't be available when and if she decided she wanted him. Which was arrogance on her part, pure and simple.

“My brother will give me a fair price for my land,” he said, “so there's really nothin' to hold me back.” He looked at her searchingly and sadly. “Aw, Marie. You're breaking my heart, the way you look.”

She turned away, blinking back tears. Who would ever want her now? No one as decent and kind and good as Walt.

“You won't even consider going?”

She turned back to him with a gasp, her eyes wide.

“What?” he asked, surprised by her reaction. “You know I want you to.”

“You . . . still want to marry me?”

“Do I still want that? It's all I been wanting for the last how many years? Are you crazy?”

Her limbs suddenly felt weak and words failed her. Or maybe she didn't want to admit what she thought. If he hadn't considered that he was too good for her, she didn't want to put the thought in his head.

“I don't want to be a dog chasing my tail, but—”

She shook her head. “You're not,” she said thickly.

“Then you'll think about it? And maybe we can have supper tonight? You ought to be able to get off work for supper on your own dang birthday.”

She felt light-headed—as if she'd been granted the reprieve of a lifetime. “I'd like that.”

He smiled back, excitement beginning to shine in his hazel eyes. “I, uh, reckon I best get on for now. You want I should walk you back?”

“No, thank you. I think I'll walk for a while.”

“All right then.” He leaned in and kissed her cheek. “I'll see you tonight. Birthday girl,” he added with a silly grin. He stepped back and walked away with a definite bounce in his step.

He still wanted her.
Thank God.

 

 

Even before they'd reached the schoolhouse, Rebecca saw a friend waiting and bid her mother a good day before running ahead. Midway there, she turned back to wave, and it was a moment that would be etched in Lizzie's mind. Rebecca, with the striped skirt of her new dress peeking from beneath her coat, and a smile of sheer happiness on her face. Lizzie smiled and waved back.

This general store was owned by the Dugans, and it was the closest stop. There were already a half dozen customers milling about when she stepped inside. “Help you?” the proprietor asked as he pointedly looked at the box in her hand. He was around thirty years of age, a small man with receding hair and sharp features. He'd never struck her as particularly helpful.

“I bake,” she said when she reached the counter. “I was hoping you might have an interest in selling my wares.”

“What do you bake?”

“All sorts of things. Cakes, breads, cookies.” She set the box on the counter and the aroma of the muffins wafted out. “I made muffins this morning. Would you care for one?”

He shrugged. “Why not?”

She opened the box. “Blueberry?”

“I like blueberry,” he said, eyeing the contents of the box. “How much you thinking?”

She handed a muffin to him and watched him bite into it. “I was thinking thirty-six cents a dozen,” she said quietly. “I thought you could mark them up to five cents apiece and you'd make twenty-four cents profit per dozen.” She handed him a handwritten list of goods she could make, the price she was asking, the suggested retail amount and the profit. “I made this list.”

Curtis Dugan glanced at it dispassionately. “Cut your prices in half and I'm interested.”

It took self-restraint not to show the offense she felt. She'd priced everything out in order to make a modest profit, not nearly the profit he would make for simply reselling her hard work. “Mr. Dugan, prices are what they are. A five-pound bag of flour is fifteen cents. The same amount of sugar is thirty-five cents. A pound of butter is twenty-six cents.”

“Yeah, I know prices,” he scoffed.

“My point is, by the time I put a loaf of bread before you, or muffins or a cake or a dozen cookies, there is a cost involved. If I can't exceed that cost, there's no point in trying to sell my goods.”

“Just saying you're asking too much.”

“I can't take less unless you're willing to cut the prices of the ingredients by half.”

He smirked. “Not likely.”

She felt shaken, but he seemed immovable and so she closed the box, tipped her head to him, and left the store. Outside, she kept her chin high as she walked, but she only had enough vigor to make it to the empty bench between the barber shop and the cobbler. Mr. and Mrs. Adams owned the other general store, but Mrs. Adams had been decidedly cool the last time she'd left the store. Would the lady be willing to work with her now? If not, where else could she go?

 

 

Marie sat in the cemetery with her eyes closed as the church bells clanged eight times. Usually she slept right through the morning chimes, but she loved the sound of them. She opened her eyes and inhaled the autumn-scented morning air, watching as gravediggers went about their task across the cemetery. Already there were a dozen graves dug, and there would be more. Many more.

It was a strange realization that as she turned another year older, mere children were being put into the ground because they'd taken up the wrong profession. She too had taken up the wrong profession, but she wouldn't be in it much longer. Walt was a good man, and she was fortunate that he wanted to marry her. She would marry him and she'd try hard to make him glad he'd chosen her.

The younger Marie who had pined so long for Jeremy seemed a different person altogether, a more foolish, naïve, and, in truth, manipulative young woman. She'd once been told she was too beautiful for her own good and she saw the truth of it now. Which was ironic since her looks were beginning to fade. Or was it just her unhappiness that made it seem so? She rose and began the walk back home. Except it wasn't a home. It was a brothel. But soon she'd have a home of her very own.

When she saw Lizzie Carter sitting on a bench on Main Street, she came to a halt. How strange to see her today, when her life had just taken such a startling turn. Did it mean something? Something like she should warn Lizzie about the possible danger she might be in? She started toward her because she knew the answer. She'd known it for some time. Warning her was the right thing to do. “Good morning,” she said as she drew close.

 

 

Lizzie looked up and blinked in surprise to see the very person who'd caused Mrs. Adams to turn unfriendly. The woman looked different today. She didn't look like a prostitute at all. “'Morning,” she returned.

“May I?” the woman asked when she reached her.

“Of course.”

She sat, although she kept all the distance it was possible to keep on the bench. They both started to say something at the same moment and then laughed.

“Go ahead,” the dark-haired beauty urged. Lizzie didn't know her name.

“The fabric that you pointed out that day—” Lizzie began.

Marie nodded.

“I made my daughter a dress from it and she wore it today to school.”

Marie smiled. “I'll bet it's nice to have a little girl.”

“It is,” Lizzie replied. “I have a young son, as well, and it's just as wonderful.”

“I'm Marie, by the way. Or did Jeremy tell you?”

Lizzie's smile slipped a bit at the odd question. She shook her head. “I'm Elizabeth Carter, but everyone calls me Lizzie.”

“Looks like you made a purchase already this morning,” Marie observed, as if trying for conversation.

“No,” Lizzie said, running a hand over the top of the box. “Just the opposite. I was hoping to sell some baked goods. Would you care for one?” she asked as she opened the lid.

“Those look good.”

“Please.” Lizzie brought the box closer.

Marie chose one. “Thank you.”

“I might as well, too,” Lizzie said as she picked up one. “I don't think anyone's going to be interested. Mr. Dugan certainly wasn't. He'd allow me to
give
them to him but not sell them at a fair price.”

“He's an ass,” Marie stated with a curl to her lip.

Lizzie laughed at the blunt statement and they each took a bite.

“That is so good,” Marie said when she'd swallowed. “What you should do is go to the bakery. The man who used to run it is hardly able to do anything anymore. He had one of those fits that left him so he can't move or talk right. His boy is trying to run the place, but he's young and he just doesn't have a talent for it. Mr. Alford's wife helps but—”

This was all news to Lizzie. “Thank you. Maybe I will call on them. You don't think that would be insulting?”

“No. Not at all. I think they'd be glad for it. Thing is, Curtis Dugan's a cheap, mean-hearted little fool. If he had taken on your stuff, he could have put the bakery out of business. And what did he have to do except ring it up?”

“I had the same thought. Well, not the first part. I didn't know about the baker.”

“They're pretty nice folks,” Marie said with a light shrug. “The wife won't look at me much, but that's nothing new. Mr. Alford was always real polite though. I was real sorry to hear about him taking sick.”

Lizzie nodded slowly. Marie was puzzling. She was beautiful and she looked so perfectly normal this morning, not like when they'd met in the store. That day, it had been abundantly clear what she did for a living. Why had she chosen a life of prostitution instead of getting married? She must have had many suitors.

“How's Jeremy?” Marie asked.

“He's . . . well. Well enough to have gone back to help with the rescue operation.”

“They don't think anybody else is left alive,” Marie said, looking out. “But I get him wanting to help.”

Lizzie nodded slowly. She understood, too. She would have preferred him to rest and recuperate, but she understood.

“What I was wanting to say,” Marie continued, “I should have said before.”

Lizzie looked at her and was baffled by the angst in Marie's expression and the tension in her posture.

“I know about someone named Ray who's looking for you,” Marie said with a shamed expression.

Lizzie's breath caught.

“I think he may know where you're at. I liked you right away in the store that day, and I should have told you then. I should have warned you.”

Lizzie's eyes filled, the words were so shocking. Her skin suddenly felt painfully chilled.

“It's just”—Marie looked away—“Jeremy. I don't think right around him, and I know I haven't acted right. I'm really sorry.”

Lizzie felt as if she couldn't breathe. Ethan knew where she was and Jeremy had betrayed her. He'd sworn he wouldn't tell what she'd confided, and then he had told Marie. Why? She'd opened her home to him and given him everything she had to give. He'd said he loved her. He'd said he would never betray her trust. He'd said he would never tell.

“If there's anything I can do,” Marie added weakly, “I will. Today is my birthday,” she said with a sheepish smile.

Lizzie swallowed hard. She felt ill and remarkably strange, as if this wasn't really happening. As if it was a bizarre nightmare.

“And I've decided everything will be different from today on,” Marie continued. “I'll be different.”