Stephanie Grace Whitson - [Quilt Chronicles 03] (10 page)

Quickly, she stepped into the dress she’d spent half the night remaking, removing yards of lace and replacing the expensive French buttons with simple jet. The newly attached buttons fastened, she rummaged in her trunk for a velvet-lined box and nestled the French buttons in place. If things did not go well today, perhaps a local dressmaker would buy them. They might bring enough to cover a simple meal. Maybe something besides eggs.

Reaching up to adjust her collar, Grace crossed the room and stared at herself in the mirror. Normally she would spend the next few moments camouflaging those circles beneath her eyes. She would redden her cheeks and lips and restyle her wig. Today, however, she would let her pale face and weary expression stand. As for the wig—she parted her thinning gray hair down the middle and brushed it until it shone before twisting it into a demure bun at the back of her head.

When it came to a proper bonnet, she’d done her best, covering over bright purple trim with a length of black ribbon she’d removed from another gown. She settled it atop her head, bringing it forward so that it would shade her pale forehead and tying the ends of the black ribbon beneath her chin. She stood back, barely recognizing the demure middle-aged woman in the mirror. The thought made her smile. For a brief moment, she was tempted to walk past the front desk just for the sake of seeing how complete a transformation she’d accomplished. She really didn’t think the hotel manager would recognize her. But she didn’t dare take the chance.

At the last moment, she opened the bottom drawer of the trunk. Bending down, she reached far to the back, feeling her way beneath the mounds of feathers and ribbon until she found the last bit of costume she needed for today’s role. Closing the trunk, she locked it, then dropped the key into the small tatted bag that hung from her wrist.

She returned to the mirror once again, this time to try out several different ways of carrying the black testament. It needed to look natural. Like she was accustomed to toting a Bible along on morning calls. Finally, though, she laid it aside. Even the talented Madame Jumeaux would have difficulty making that seem believable.

She spoke to the woman in the mirror. “You look sufficiently pathetic. Josiah will either pull you into his arms or slam the door in your face. It’s time to find out which it will be.”

Grace looked down at the paper in her gloved hand and then back up at the simple, two-story white frame house. She’d walked right past it yesterday on her way to the hotel from the train station. Right past Josiah’s house. How strange life could be. She’d been so close to him and yet, as Madame Jumeaux, she’d been entire worlds away.

An abundance of red geraniums bordered a brick walkway leading from the street up to the porch stairs. The porch itself boasted a white swing at one end and two rocking chairs near the front door. Grace could not imagine Josiah being content to while away the hours sitting on the front porch. Perhaps his wife—if he had one—had forced the issue. It made her smile to think of Josiah giving in to a woman. It would take quite a woman to make that happen. Someone strong-willed and independent.
Someone like me.

Now that Grace was here, looking up the walk leading to the front door, she didn’t know if she could go through with it. She almost turned away. But then a woman about her age opened the front door. She came to the top of the porch stairs and rested her hand beside a pot of geraniums sitting on the pedestal at the end of the porch railing. “Is there somethin’ I can do to help you, ma’am?” she called out. “You been standing out there watchin’ this house fer quite a spell.”

Grace swallowed and took a few steps closer to get a better look at the woman. She couldn’t imagine Josiah taking up with someone who spoke like a country bumpkin. “I—I was wondering if Mr. Barton—what I mean is—is this Josiah Barton’s home?”

The woman smiled. She was missing one of her front teeth, and when she said, “This is,” Grace imagined a fine spray of saliva exiting the woman’s mouth. “I’m the colonel’s housekeeper,” the woman said. “Is there somethin’ I can do to help you? The colonel’s not here. But I expect him back in a few days.”

Grace’s hand went to the top button of her dress. All that trouble to look respectable, and Josiah wasn’t here? She looked back up the street toward the hotel, and then the other way, in the direction of the railroad station. Fatigue and hunger washed over her, and for a moment she felt faint. Her hearing must be fuzzy. The housekeeper was talking, but Grace didn’t quite catch the words. And her eyes weren’t what they used to be, either. Or maybe it was the spectacles. Maybe she needed to have her eyes checked.

The housekeeper clomped down the steps and hurried to Grace’s side. “Here now, you come up on the porch out of the morning sun and let Ladora get you a glass of water.”

Grace let herself be led up onto the porch. While the housekeeper clucked her way back inside, she settled into one of the creaking rocking chairs and looked about. The porch floor had been painted in a pattern that replicated a tile floor. The ceiling was sky blue. A white wicker planter on either side of the front door boasted an abundance of ferns so healthy they hardly looked real. Of course that would be the case. The Josiah Grace remembered would never have allowed a less than perfect plant in a position of prominence on his front porch. What would people think? Which begged the question of a housekeeper with bad grammar, a missing tooth, and a rumpled apron in serious need of ironing.

The housekeeper stepped back onto the porch. She had a glass of water all right, but it wasn’t in her hand. It had been positioned in the exact center of a blue-and-white saucer. Spode. The exact pattern she and Josiah had dined on in the house she’d sold a few months after he’d headed west as a private in the United States Army.

“There now.” The housekeeper held the plate before her, waiting for Grace to take the glass of water. When she did, the woman sat down in the other rocking chair, setting the now empty saucer on the small round table between them.

Grace forgot to sip like a lady. Instead, she drank the water down in one long draught, then set the glass back atop the Spode saucer. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m sorry I bothered you.” She started to get up. “I’ll be going now.”

“Just like that?” The housekeeper leaned forward, her gaze steady. “What should I tell the colonel?”

“He’s a colonel?”

The woman shrugged. “Never heard him called anything else.”

“I thought—he was always quoting the Bible,” Grace said. “I expected he’d be a minister by now.”

The housekeeper shook her head. “Not so as he’d climb into a pulpit regular-like. He ministers a-plenty, though. In his way.”

What a curious thing to say. Grace put her hand to her midsection, hoping to muffle her stomach’s demands for more than water. A train whistle sounded. People would be milling about at the station. Perhaps she could manage success enough to buy breakfast. No one would pay any mind to a battered, gray-haired old woman. She rose from the rocking chair. “Thank you for the glass of water. I really should be going. I apologize for bothering you.”

“Didn’t bother me a bit,” the other woman said. “The colonel’s been gone nigh onto a month now. There’s only so much a woman can do with a house without its people in it. No washing, no cooking—and about the third time I dusted the parlor I started feeling like some kind of fool.” She laughed a mellow, low laugh. “Ladora,” I said, “you are some kind of fool. The colonel don’t care if you dust when he’s here. Sure don’t care about dust when he’s gone.”

Grace paused at the top of the porch stairs and looked behind her at the house. She knew all about rattling around in an empty house, waiting for a man to return. In fact, she and that housekeeper had waited for the same man, although if Josiah didn’t notice dust on furniture, he’d changed some.

The housekeeper rose from her seat and picked up the empty glass and the Spode saucer. “A house is a strange place with its people gone. But the colonel? I’ve worked for him for nearly ten years now, and he never leaves it really empty. Gives me my time away when he’s got no plans for travel. Makes sure I stay put when he’s gone.” The woman shook her head. “Would you believe he has me leave a note if I so much as go up to Klein’s for groceries? It’s like he’s waiting for someone to show up. You had breakfast yet this mornin’?”

Grace almost missed the question, added as it was on the end of a monologue, almost as an afterthought. “Wh–what? I mean, excuse me?”

“You had breakfast yet? Because I wouldn’t mind a bit of company. My sister—her name’s Lila—sometimes she comes by and keeps me company awhile, but she’s got some big doin’s out at the house where she works today. Said she wouldn’t have no time for it. I was sittin’ there in the parlor just waitin’ for the morning
Dispatch
when I seen you staring up at the house. And I wondered. So, you want some toast and eggs? Colonel Barton, he likes his eggs almost raw.” The housekeeper shuddered. “Can’t stand it. But I fix ’em just so’s he likes it. When he’s gone? Not on your life. Ladora likes her eggs cooked through. You like scrambled?”

“Well I—I don’t—no, actually.” Eggs. Again? If God was paying any attention at all to this conversation, He had to be laughing.

“Don’t know? Never met a person don’t know how they like their eggs. You don’t have to eat ’em scrambled. I can fix eggs any which way, ya know. Or oatmeal. We got our own oat mill right here in Beatrice. Maybe you’d rather have oatmeal?” When Grace’s stomach growled, the housekeeper laughed another rich, warm laugh. “Well now. To my mind that was a yes to oatmeal and a no to eggs.” She nodded. “All right then. You come on in. I’ll cook, and you can tell Ladora why you been standin’ out there at the end of the walk afraid to come up and see the colonel.”

She opened the screen door, then peered through the screen at Grace. Her voice softened. “You don’t have to be afraid of him, you know. Some folks seem to think he’s fearsome, but they don’t know him. He’s a right fine man, the colonel is.”

The woman paused. Her countenance changed, and her gray eyes watered. “You one of the mothers? Oh my, I bet you are, and here I am going on and on like some idgit. I am so sorry, ma’am. You come right in here with Ladora. You can write it all down while I make that oatmeal, and then we’ll have us a nice talk. And you know the colonel will do everything he can. If your boy can be found, he’ll do it.”

Grace had no idea what the fool woman was blabbering on about, but it didn’t appear that she was going to have to worry about saying much to get a free breakfast of something besides eggs. After that—well. Josiah wasn’t home. Maybe that could work to her advantage somehow.

Cinnamon.
The aroma had wafted up the stairs and seeped beneath Emilie’s bedroom door in the early morning hours, but she’d resisted its call, pulling the sheet over her face, trying to ignore the morning light pouring in her east-facing windows. Finally, though, she couldn’t resist any longer.

Slipping out of bed, Emilie padded across to the door that opened onto the small balcony that looked out over the beginnings of a flower garden. Several of Mother’s new plants had succumbed to the punishing heat this past month. And it was going to be hot again today. Already Emilie was dreading donning petticoats and chemise, white hose, and a long dress. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on the feeling of the cool morning air against the bare flesh of her feet and ankles.

She thought of the day ahead and how miserable it was going to be to clean the cottage and set up. At least Father had had screens installed on the windows for this season. How would people housed in tents stay cool? Would the Bee Hive have windows? Or would they have to roll up the sides of the tent to get so much as a breath of fresh air into the place? Thank goodness April had landed the spot beneath a shade tree. At least she said she had.

A constant stream of wagons would haul supplies and tents across the river today. Scores of men would swarm over the Chautauqua grounds, erecting the tents campers had reserved in recent weeks and much larger tents to house things like the park grocery store, a post office, and Taylor’s photography studio. Last year there’d been a bookstore and a meat market, too. And then there was the dining hall, almost as big as a circus tent and claiming to seat three hundred, although Emilie had her doubts about that number.