Stephanie Grace Whitson - [Quilt Chronicles 03] (7 page)

After penning the announcements about Miss Ida Jones, Emilie sat back. Father might veto the idea of highlighting that last announcement, but surely the ladies who read the
Daily Dispatch
would appreciate the newspaper’s emphasizing such a topic. She pondered the lecture title. It was hard to imagine anyone believing that a woman could have as much influence as a man. The women she knew didn’t have any influence at all—at least not when it came to things that really mattered such as politics and business.

She looked back up at the Methodist ladies’ announcement about pie and cake and “mission efforts at home and abroad.” As far as Emilie knew, that was the only acceptable way for women to have influence in the nation—or the world, for that matter. No one looked askance at a woman selling cake so that she could send money to missionaries in China—or to the Pawnee students attending the boarding school in Genoa up in Nance County. The latter was one of Mother’s pet projects. Mother thought the single missionary ladies who served on Indian reservations heroic. Wasn’t it interesting that a woman who thought it was perfectly all right for someone else’s daughter to socialize with Indians declared her own daughter’s writing for a newspaper unacceptable. How ironic. How hypocritical.

Emilie looked over the announcement again. How did Miss Jones manage to travel the lecture circuit and still maintain the kind of reputation that encouraged Chautauqua boards to invite her to speak? How wonderful to be free to travel from place to place: to teach and speak about things one cared about; to be independent, with no one to answer to but oneself; to make a living from words. Whatever Emilie did over the next few days, she would make it a point to attend Miss Jones’s lecture and to linger afterward to ask a few questions.

Inspiration struck.
I could request an interview.
In fact, she could interview all the women teaching or speaking over the next ten days. She could give them a chance to express their views to the thousands of ladies who’d be coming from all over this part of the country to attend Chautauqua. Emilie’s mind raced from one possibility to the next, and then, as quickly as she’d gotten excited about the idea, things came to a grinding halt.

If Father wouldn’t let her continue with the Ladies’ News, there was no possibility of his publishing interviews. That was, after all, real news. Something that people might actually read. Something that could give Emilie a chance to use her writing talent. If she’d ever had any. She glanced over at the trunk that held the books and papers from her year away at Rockford. Excellent marks on school papers might not translate to newspaper interviews. But then again, who was to say they wouldn’t? She wouldn’t know until she tried.

What had Bert said just moments ago?
“People everywhere are going to read Emilie Rhodes someday.”
She reread the announcement about Miss Jones. Taking a deep breath, she put her final Ladies’ News in the folder for Father. And she decided that somehow, in the midst of delivering it and going to rehearsal and helping Mother get set up out at the cottage, somehow she would manage to interview Miss Jones and take the resulting article to Father. Somehow she would convince him that the female portion of his readership would be fascinated to read interviews conducted by a woman. She smiled.
Another View.
The perfect title. And if Father refused to publish it—well, the
Beatrice Daily Dispatch
wasn’t the only newspaper in town.

A new challenge reared its head. Father had already interviewed a Mr. Shaw. If she wanted the scoop concerning Miss Jones, she would need to conduct the interview as soon as the woman arrived at the Paddock Hotel. All the speakers stayed there, but there’d be no chance of preempting Father if Mother ruled Emilie’s every waking moment tomorrow, and she was depending on help with the cottage.

Getting the place ready for habitation was no mean task. Dinah’s husband Calvin had hauled camp cots and cleaning equipment out there today. He’d probably done some cursory cleaning, but Mother would never be satisfied with that. She would insist that cobwebs be swept and walls be washed and floors be scrubbed. After that, Mother and Dinah would set up the “camp kitchen.” They didn’t really cook at the cottage—Dinah stayed at the house and made “picnic food” and delivered it every day. Still, Emilie had no doubt that Mother would think of all kinds of things for her to do.

With a sigh, Emilie plopped down on her bed. There had to be a way to make things work—to help Mother and still get that interview. She looked across the room at the folder lying atop her writing desk. At least the Ladies’ News was done. She and Mother could get an early start. Except for the fact that Mother never got an early start anywhere.

And then…Emilie smiled. Bert had left her Royal. She could leave at sunrise if she wanted to, riding into town to leave a note for Miss Jones with the night clerk at the hotel and then going on to the grounds. She could have most of the scrubbing and cleaning done before Mother so much as drove up in the buggy. They could be finished by early afternoon.

It was perfect. Father would be pleased that she’d written the final Ladies’ News without any further protest. Mother would be pleased with Emilie’s hard work. And then—then Emilie would be free.

She returned to her writing desk and wrote a note explaining that she’d gone on ahead. Mid-note, she looked out her window and realized that the moonlight was so bright it was casting shadows as it shone through the trees. Why spend the next few hours tossing and turning in anticipation of the day ahead? She could leave right now. All she would need was a change of clothes for rehearsal with the Spring Sisters. She could fit everything in a carpetbag.

Emilie finished the note to her parents. Next, she penned an interview request to leave at the Paddock on her way through town. And then she packed a bag.

N
oah stood beneath the roof of what the locals called “The Tabernacle.” Not much was visible in the night, but as he meandered across the fresh sand spread over the ground—benches would likely be hauled in and arranged tomorrow—he imagined the thousands of people who would crowd those benches.

He made his way past the uprights supporting the permanent roof and finally up the stairs and onto the stage. Glancing off toward the Blue River, he once again imagined campfires glowing in the night. He closed his eyes and listened. Frogs croaked and locusts buzzed. A lone coyote howled. A chorus of barks answered.

Taking a deep breath, he walked to the edge of the stage and looked out, imagining a sea of faces looking back at him. Expecting…expecting what. Would they want to be challenged? Encouraged? Comforted? Convinced? He was glad he’d have a day to wander the grounds before he actually had to mount this stage and face the audience. It would give him time to get a sense of things. Not every audience wanted Shakespeare. Of course if the G.A.R. had a strong presence, he would definitely do the St. Crispin’s Day speech from
Henry V.
Depending on how many young people frequented the evening assemblies, he might tell Twain’s story about the jumping frog. Boys especially enjoyed that one.

Tonight, though, Noah wasn’t really in the mood for humor. Taking a deep breath, he gazed over the imaginary crowd and began. “Ladies and gentlemen, I have found that audiences in Maine and Georgia and Missouri and California and, I hope, Nebraska”—he paused to allow for the expected smiles and chuckles to ripple through the crowd—“all share the same curiosity about speakers they have not heard before.” He made a joke about himself and then mentioned the article about himself in the
Daily Dispatch.
William Rhodes should appreciate that. It never hurt to befriend a newspaper editor.

He’d just segued his introduction to the Shepherd’s Psalm—he’d recite that at the opening exercises—when he thought he heard a scream. He glanced toward the river. A coyote? He was imagining things. But the second scream convinced him. Very real. And coming from—the direction of that row of little cottages he’d walked past earlier. Empty cottages, he’d thought, although now, as he jumped down off the stage and trotted out from beneath the overhang, he saw a light glimmering in a window. And heard another scream. A woman.

Noah ran.

Emilie had been standing, frozen with fear, but with the second scream, she managed to move. She’d barely managed to keep from dropping the lighted oil lamp when the flickering light revealed that thing.
I could have burned the place down.
At least she’d managed to set the lamp down atop the old table. But now what?

Her heart pounding, her eyes on the vile creature curled up in the opposite corner of the cottage parlor, she stepped back. And back. And back until, finally, she sensed the closed door behind her and grasped the glass doorknob. And there she stood.

She couldn’t just leave the lamp burning, but there was no way on earth she would be able to muster the courage to reverse her steps. Even if that thing didn’t seem inclined to attack. She shuddered. She would step out onto the porch and regroup. Maybe it would leave. She would keep the door open and watch from a safe distance. Maybe she could outwait it. Maybe the light from the lamp would make it do…something.

Slowly, she turned the doorknob and felt the catch release. Taking a deep breath, she stepped to one side, flung the door open, and whirled—directly into the arms of a stranger. She screamed again, before clinging to him like a five-year-old girl welcoming her father home from the newspaper office.

When the stranger rumbled that things were “all right,” Emilie backpedaled away from him, nearly tripping off the edge of the porch. He reached out to catch her lest she fall. She waved him off and pointed at the open door. “S–s–snake.”

The stranger stepped to the doorway and peered in. “It’s just a bull snake.”

He was tall. Very…tall. And rather good-looking—at least based on the side of his face illuminated by the lamplight. Emilie hugged herself and took another step away. “Who are you? And what are you doing out here in the middle of the night?”

“Noah Shaw,” he said. His voice was deep, but gentle. Calming. “And prior to charging across an open field to rescue a damsel in distress, I was practicing one of my monologues over on the Tabernacle stage.”

“In the dark?”

Mr. Shaw shrugged and glanced back into the cottage before answering. “I’m accustomed to tents. I wasn’t certain what it would be like—how to project.” He paused. “And I assumed I’d have the grounds to myself at this hour.”

Shaw.
After hearing Father talk about Noah Shaw, she’d envisioned spectacles and a bald pate, not someone so young. So handsome. Not someone like the man standing before her. She glanced down at the faded calico dress she’d donned before riding over here. Thankful for the low light, she said, “This is my parents’ cottage. I came out here to get a head start on setting up camp.” She shivered. “I didn’t expect slithering company.”

“If you didn’t have the snake, you’d likely have mice or rats.”

“You can set traps for mice,” Emilie said. She looked past him toward the cottage door. “Are you sure it’s safe? I mean—it isn’t poisonous or anything?”

Shaw made a show of inspecting the snake, bending at the waist to rest his hands on his knees, pondering. Finally, he stood back up. “I’m quite sure it’s safe. This one looks exactly like the ones that used to wreak havoc in my mother’s larder when I was a boy.”

“I suppose you rescued her, too.”

He grinned. “I was quite the hero.” He stepped into the room. There was a brief pause, and then he called out, “I’ve got him. Now what?”

Emilie crept to the doorway. The thing must be over three feet long. “What do you mean ‘now what’? Kill it.”

“Why? I daresay the poor snake has had nearly as bad a fright as you. How about I take him down to the river and let him go?”

Emilie sighed. That’s exactly what Calvin would have done—had done, in fact, this past spring when he’d found an entire nest of bull snakes under the front porch at home. “If you must.”

“I’ll go out the back door. After I’ve let this one go, I’ll return and inspect the premises to make sure he didn’t have a companion—if you’d like me to, that is.”

“Th–thank you.” Emilie lingered in the doorway, watching as Mr. Shaw opened the back door and stepped into the darkness stretching between the cottage and the river. She should have asked him to take it farther away. What if it slithered back? She couldn’t imagine staying out here now. What if there were other surprises lurking in the night?

She gazed up toward the bare rafters, and the lamplight reflected off the silken threads of a spider web. A large one. Its creator similarly large, poised right in the center of the web, waiting for a nocturnal feast. She brushed her forearms with her palms to rid herself of the imaginary sensation of an encounter with silken strands. With another shiver, she stepped back outside. Perhaps part of the reason Mother would linger over breakfast in the morning would be to allow Calvin plenty of time to come back out here and eradicate spiders and snakes. Suddenly, lingering over breakfast with Father and Mother had a certain appeal.