Stone Dreaming Woman (28 page)

“Sticks and stones, sticks and stones,” her father mocked. “Go get ready. Leave your clothes and your books here. You won’t need any of them again. Just bring the family jewelry I know you have with you, and enough clothes to keep you on the trip back. You and Eleanor can go shopping for a new wardrobe as soon as we reach New York. You’ll have a great time doing that, I know.” She shot him such a look of loathing that it would have made a lesser man quail. Then, with a defiant swish of her skirt she disappeared up the stairs, where she fell on her bed. But instead of weeping she pulled herself together and went to Alix’s desk. She picked up her pen and drew out a sheet of her imprinted stationery.

Dear Uncle Richard,
she wrote.
I have decided to return home with Father. Please do not worry for me. I will write to you as soon as I can. Rest assured I am doing this of my own free will. Father has made me see reason. I love you and I always will, and look forward to seeing you the next time you’re in New York
. Then she signed her name. She changed from her casual brown gingham frock into a black skirt and a lawn summer shirtwaist, picked up her jewel case and dropped it into her hand valise, then packed fresh underthings and her Genesse ball gown, tucked toilet items down the side, and stopped to look in the cheval glass. She said farewell to her happiness, to one glorious summer, and to Shane. She would have to leave him without a word, because it was not beyond him to follow her. She came down the stairs with all the aloof dignity she could manage, trying to ignore her father, whose expression was neutral, and Phillip, who could not conceal a gloat. She made a side trip to the water closet, then settled her bonnet on her head and came out into the immaculate assembly room, where she left the note on the dining table.

“Good. You’re ready, then. Come on. The sooner we’re out of this disgusting place the better I’ll like it,” John Weston said.

“It’s not disgusting. It’s home to me, and even though you’ve won and I’m leaving, it will always be home.”

“No. Jenny. I will make a splendid home for you,” Phillip said, not ungently. She looked daggers at him.

“I may be compelled to live in your house, but it will never be my home, Mr. Hildebrand.” Her voice was dead. “You have your victory for the moment, but I promise it will be hollow.” Her father did not quite say “sticks and stones” again, but she knew he was thinking it. She spurned his aiding hand and stepped up into the back seat of the buggy by herself.

Phillip untied the mare’s reins and climbed into the driver’s seat. He hauled the left rein around roughly and smacked the mare with the right one. She fought against the pain of her bit before she straightened herself out and started off in a jarring canter that sent everyone back against their seats. Brutally Phillip hauled her back. Jenny reached into her reticule for a handkerchief but choked back her tears.
Hang onto the injustice, Jennifer Catherine
, she told herself.
Hang onto it and think yourself out of this situation. You’re only doing this because you love Northtown. You know you also love Shane. Perhaps you can have both. Hang onto this thought and think yourself out of this predicament. Thinking is what you do best. You know you can work this out. Phillip is a self-indulgent, dissipated simpleton. You can outfox him and Father both, if you put your mind to it. They may have won the first round, but you will win the war.

The train to River Bend left at 5:30. That gave them over two hours before departure. Her father rubbed his gold pocket watch and considered the time carefully.

“We’ve some time until the train leaves. Is there anywhere in this God-forsaken backwater where we can have dinner?”

“Only Mrs. Hammill’s boardinghouse,” Jenny responded.

“We’ll stop there, then, especially since we need to return the buggy.” Phillip, the eternal yes-man, nodded in agreement. Eventually they pulled up next to Josh Barnes’ livery stable. Phillip led the mare back behind the building and turned her into the corral, leaving the buggy with the harness in a heap on the driver’s seat. In the meantime, John Weston escorted Jenny down the board sidewalk toward Mrs. Hammill’s. Fortunately, the door to the Royal Northwest office was closed. She had no idea what she would do if she encountered Shane, or for that matter, Paul.

Her father very properly opened the door for her and ushered her to a table. To her relief, the girl who waited on them was only a distant acquaintance and not Maddie or Flora Hammill herself. Jenny requested only tea, while her father ordered steak for both himself and Phillip.

“You’re not eating, Jenny?” he asked.

“Do you really expect me to be able to?”

“Of course! You’re going back to the place where you belong, after all.” She deigned not to reply, fixing him instead with a glare that could curdle milk. He ignored it.

Phillip fell to his meal with a gusto that left her vaguely ill. She was sipping her tea when Paul came through the front door. She watched him assess the situation, then he made a beeline for her.

“Doctor Weston…” he began, but she interrupted him.

“I’m going back to New York, Corporal Weller,” she said, touching his scarlet sleeve, a debutante’s delicate gesture. Her failure to introduce Phillip and her father was a deliberate snub as evident as a lighthouse at midnight. “I’m glad for the chance to say goodbye to you and to thank you for all your gracious kindness toward me this summer.”

“It’s good that I caught you before you left, then. Could you please come back to the office for a moment? You filled out the death certificate for Mrs. Morris yesterday, but you forgot to sign the jurat on the back.” There was no Mrs. Morris and certainly no death certificate, nor did they have jurats. But she played along.

“I’m so sorry, Corporal Weller. I’m still not used to Canadian paperwork. In the States the attending physician only signs in one place. There’s no jurat. Father? Mr. Hildebrand? Will you please excuse me? I shan’t be but a moment.”

“Of course,” her father said with a superior smile.
Magnanimous in victory, aren’t you, you old bastard,
she thought sarcastically. She followed Paul into the office, and he immediately closed the door. Her control snapped. She flung herself into his arms, sobbing silently against the unforgiving wool of his Red Serge. His long arms gathered her against his chest.

“Jenny, Jenny, hush. Calm down and tell me what happened,” he said soothingly. She gulped, got hold of herself by main force, and scrubbed her face with her handkerchief.

“Paul, they’re making me go. Father always wanted me to marry Phillip. I can’t stand the man. He makes my skin crawl. I’ve told him ‘no’ sixteen ways to Sunday, but he won’t accept it. But unless I go back, his father is withdrawing his support from Northtown Surgical Clinic’s research programs.”

“Does Shane know about this?” More tears and a vigorous shake of the head.

“No. Neither does Uncle Richard. I’m sure you remember that he’s in Cambridge to deliver a guest lecture at Harvard. Father and Phillip just arrived on the scene this morning with absolutely no warning, and I’m… Paul, I have to leave with them. I’ll think my way out of this situation somehow, but I can’t just out-and-out refuse. So much good comes out of Northtown’s research.”

“But what of the good you do here? The lives you’ve saved? Jenny, you can’t just up and leave Elk Gap. People here need you, too. And need I mention Shane? He’s so in love with you that half the time he doesn’t know whether he’s afoot or on horseback.”

“Please don’t. You’ll make me cry again, and Father will know something is fishy. Tell Shane…tell him somehow I’ll be back, and as soon as I can I’ll write to him and explain.”

“He left early on rounds. He and your father spoke briefly. Your father told him you and Phillip Hildebrand were engaged and that Shane is beneath you. Your father said you and he had agreed you’d stay here for six months and then come home and marry Phillip. Shane believed it.”

“Oh, no! That’s so wrong! It’s all lies, every last bit of it! I never made any such agreement, and Shane must know that.” Then her defeat at her father’s hands caught up with her and all the fight drained out like water in dry sand. “Well, then, let him believe it for the present. It’s probably for the best. Somehow I’ll get out of this mess, and I’ll come back and make everything right. Tell him that for me, please?”

“I so hate to see you go. I haven’t words. I’ll tell him you’ll come back. I’ll also tell him your father was lying to him. Please take care of yourself, and come back to us soon.”

“I will, Paul. I promise. Stay well and stay safe.” She hugged him and pressed her cheek against his. It took some control to make her chin stop quivering. When she had herself in hand again he made a great show of very politely opening the door for her.

“Thank you very much. Doctor Weston,” he said, his voice a shade louder than it needed to be in order to reach the two men at their table. “This fortunate coincidence has saved me a lot of work and worry. I’d have had to track you down, you know.” She gave him a crooked half-smile.

“After all, they say the Mounties always get their man.”

“Very true, Doctor Weston. Goodbye, then, and Godspeed.”

“Goodbye, Corporal Weller. Take care.” She returned to the table.

“What did Mrs. Morris die of?” her father asked when Jenny returned.

“Old age. A series of small strokes. She was 89. She just slept her life away at the end.” He nodded mildly, a parody of Richard.

“A long, fine life, that. And an easy death when it came. So Canadian law is different?”

“Yes. I forgot to sign the part that says I swear under penalty of perjury that the information I entered on the certificate was the truth. It’s really only important in cases of suspicious deaths, but here it’s required on all death certificates.” She was putting on the best impromptu performance of her life. In point of fact, Canadian death certificates were an almost word-for-word counterpart of American ones.

“Well, that’s a useless fact you’ll have no more need of.”

“You have your pound of flesh. What more do you want?”

He ignored her rudeness as he had ignored all her arguments. “You were in there quite a while for just a signature.”

“He had trouble finding the certificate. His filing system is somewhat informal, if you will.” That was another fib. She knew that at Shane’s insistence Paul and even Laurence could instantly put their fingers on any piece of paper in the whole office.

A moment later Paul closed the office door behind him and strode out without so much as a wave toward Jenny’s party. He was going somewhere with long-legged determination, and since he was wearing his Navy Colt and carrying his Enfield, it was obviously no social call. Not long afterward, while John Weston enjoyed a leisurely cup of tea and Jenny sat numb with grief, she caught sight of Paul cantering Brandy eastward along Main Street.

****

Under the shadow of spreading trees and stirred by a breeze, the August air actually felt rather pleasant, as did the rhythm of Midnight’s mile-eating gait. But Shane was beyond noticing anything. His life lay in shreds at his feet.
August curse,
he thought.
And this year it’s showed me up for the fool I am. I never should have let myself come anywhere near Jenny. I knew all along she was as far above me as the Queen, but I never considered that associating with me could do her real harm. I’d cut my own arm off first.
His brown study broke up abruptly when three shots echoed through the woods around him. Reflexively he twitched Midnight’s reins and the horse stopped. He drew his pistol and fired three answering rounds. Midnight’s training was so thorough he did not even cock an ear at the racket. Then, in the silence that followed, Shane heard a familiar voice call his name.

“Paul!” he shouted back. He turned and cantered back the way he had come. Only a few moments later he had his partner in sight down a long, straight stretch of trail. He galloped toward Paul, and then both men pulled their mounts up hard.

“Paul, what in heaven’s name is going on?” he asked.

“Come on. There’s no time to waste. We need to beat the train to River Bend.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve talked to Jenny. Everything her father told you today was a pack of lies. She’s not engaged to that fat popinjay. She told me she turned him down several times. You’re the one she loves. Her father is forcing her to go back to New York with him under duress. You need to go after her or you’re going to lose her.”

However, his mind was still stuck back in the disastrous conversation in the Northwest Mounted office. “It’s true that I’m part Iroquois.”

“I surmise that most everyone in Elk Gap has known that from the beginning. It must have been an open secret. If it didn’t matter before, it won’t matter now.”

“But if I’m really illegitimate…”

“Horseshit. I know what your birth certificate says. I’ve seen it in your personnel file. That’s proof enough for anybody.”

“I was born way out in a railroad camp, and my birth was never registered until I had to have a birth certificate to go to college. It says my parents were married only because I went to Angus and he falsified his medical records to say he had attended my mother when…”

“There you have it!” Paul interrupted viciously. “Keep your bloody mouth shut and brazen it out! I’ve never known you to be afraid of anything or anybody. What’s the matter with you now? Did you lose your balls somewhere? Listen, man, if you won’t go after Jenny, I will, and I won’t be nice about it, either!” He smacked Brandy’s rump with the free end of his reins and booted her in the ribs. She leaped out into her leggy Irish Thoroughbred gallop. Shane watched after him for a moment. He knew Paul well enough to realize that his partner never said anything he did not mean, and on the rare occasion when he had his dander up he was a force to be reckoned with. He flicked Midnight’s shoulder with his reins, and the gelding, with his sire’s penchant for being first in every race, jumped at the chance to catch up.