Will started to turn, but there was a knock at the door. He jumped forward, cracking one knee against the desk. “I’ll get it.”
When he opened the door, Jenny was standing there, all bundled up in her coat, a scarf wrapped around the lower part of her face so that all that showed were those large, soft blue eyes. “Oh,” he said, feigning surprise. “Jenny, it’s you.”
She pulled the scarf down, away from her mouth. “Good morning, Will.” She was smiling up at him, and her head was partly cocked to one side in that way she had which Will completely adored. “I was hoping you would be here. May I speak with you for a few moments?”
“Of course.” Will started to step back inside, but then he heard Parkinson chuckling behind him. He changed his mind in a hurry and came out onto the boardwalk porch. “Uh . . . why don’t we walk?”
There was a quick look of disappointment. “I have to go to the store. I was just on my way to work.”
“I’ll walk you there, then,” he said. He grabbed his coat from the peg behind the door. “Jeb, I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
There was an outright laugh. “Take your time, Will.”
He shut the door behind him and put on his coat, and they started back up the street. She glanced up at him, suddenly shy. “I didn’t mean to take you away from work.”
He brushed that aside. “It’s fine.” He glanced down and saw that both of her hands were stuffed into a woolen muff, and he felt a little stab of disappointment. Unless she brought them out, there was no way to hold her hand naturally.
“How come you haven’t been in school?”
He slowed for a moment, then shrugged. “With Pa in Wisconsin, I thought I’d better spend more time here at the freight office.” He was watching her closely out of the corner of his eye to see her response. His answer was partially true. Joshua had taken three men and headed north two days after Christmas, eager now to see if he could get something started during this winter season. Once spring came, logging operations would stop. With him gone, Will did spend more time at the freight yard, but he had still found time for school until that day, almost two weeks ago now, when Jenny had stood and asked Jessica to read Peter’s poem.
But if Jenny noticed the discrepancy she let it pass. “Jessica asked if I would tell you that we’re going to be talking about China next week.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “She would like your help.”
“Well,” he started slowly, “Pa
is
supposed to be back any day now.”
“Good, I’ll tell her.” There was a brief pause, and then she spoke again. “I’m sorry about what happened in school the other day.”
He came out of his thoughts with a jerk, then shrugged. He didn’t really care to discuss it. “It’s no big problem.”
She ducked her head again, and as he looked at her, he was surprised to see that her cheeks had colored a little. “Would you like to come to supper tomorrow night?”
He stopped. She looked up at his face and laughed delightedly. “Does that surprise you so?” she exclaimed. “I can cook, you know. Mother Steed and Caroline have been teaching me.”
“It’s not that, it’s just . . .” He nodded emphatically. “Yes, I would like that very much.”
“Good.” She withdrew her hands out of her muff and pulled the scarf up over her mouth and nose again. “Well, I’m late. I’d better run. Tomorrow night at seven, all right?” She touched his arm briefly, then darted off.
He watched her go, a little dazed, very much pleased, and already starting to feel a swell of anticipation.
By the standards of New York, Boston, or Philadelphia, the meal wasn’t much. In Nauvoo’s slowly growing prosperity it was fine—nothing spectacular, but fine. By the standards of the working-class poor in England, however, it was a rich feast, and Jenny reveled in the cooking of it. In a way, though it meant a great deal more work for her, she was glad that her mother would not be home from delivering laundry until just before supper time. A week before, the family had been talking about finding some maple trees to tap. Nathan promised to give a bucket or two to the Pottsworths so they could make some syrup. “Make syrup?” Jenny had asked in surprise. “You mean it doesn’t come out as syrup?” Will had laughed right out loud at that. What girl didn’t know enough to boil down maple sap into maple syrup? It had stung Jenny, and so tonight it would give her great satisfaction to let it casually slip that she had cooked the meal completely on her own.
The main course was a piece of venison haunch, bought from a farmer who shot deer and sold the meat. It hung from a chain within the fireplace, over the “spider,” a three-legged metal pot in which the makings of a stew—water, sliced carrots, potatoes, and turnips—were already starting to bubble. When the drippings from the meat finally stopped, Jenny put the heavy black lid on the spider, then with tongs carefully packed it with coals from the fire.
While that cooked, she carefully swept off the hearth of the fireplace, then molded small patties from a wet, sticky cornmeal paste. Flour was expensive and still in limited supply among the Saints, but the ubiquitous cornmeal was not only cheap but very forgiving when it came to cooking it. Laying the patties in a neat row along the hottest part of the hearth, she then covered them with hot wood ashes and left them to bake. When they were done, she would wash them off, and these “ash cakes” would serve as their biscuits for the meal.
That task done, Jenny took the rest of the cornmeal and mixed it in a bowl of water. The resulting gruel, when poured into a pan of boiling water, would make “hasty pudding,” a legacy from New England that Mary Ann showed her how to do. The hasty pudding, sweetened with honey or some of last year’s maple syrup, would be their dessert.
Done at last, she looked at the small clock above the fireplace. “Oh, dear,” she said. It was nearly quarter of seven already.
Will caught himself humming as he rounded the corner of his father’s corral and started down the snowy path that led to the door of the Pottsworth cabin. He was in a jubilant mood. After weeks of being jerked back and forth like a two-man saw cutting through a log, he felt that things were finally looking up. Jenny Pottsworth liked him. He knew that. He sensed it as clearly as he sensed when a horse was skittish or when a wagonload was about to shift. And that left him feeling wonderful.
From the moment she had stood beside him on the railing of the riverboat and asked him to teach her about America, Will had been lost. The eight-day trip up the Mississippi was one long, wonderful experience. He loved to watch her as she eagerly drank in the landscape around her. He loved the way she dropped her
h
’s and trilled her
r
’s. He loved to hear her call her mother “Mum,” and the way her brows furrowed when she talked about her life in the textile factory. When he spoke of China, or described what it was like to climb the mast in a driving gale, or talked about hitching six span of oxen to one of the big Conestoga wagons, she watched him with such open awe that it left him totally intoxicated.
And then they had come to Nauvoo. He went from ecstasy to ordeal in a matter of one day. For all of his experience, for all of his travels, for all the fact that in the last two years Will had matured significantly beyond his natural age, he felt totally outclassed by Peter. There was only six weeks’ difference in their ages, with Will being the older. But Peter was gentle and refined. Peter could express himself so precisely and so artfully. Peter wrote poems!
He shook his head and snorted softly in disgust, his breath making a cloud around his head in the cold night air. But then immediately his mood lifted again. Jenny had invited him to supper. Her eyes had danced with anticipation when she asked him, and had been filled with pleasure when he accepted. So all in all, Will was in a mood for humming. In fact, were he not almost to the door now, he might have burst into a lusty song of rejoicing.
He stepped up onto the small porch and rapped sharply. There was a sound from inside, then Mrs. Pottsworth opened the door.
“Good evening, Mrs. Pottsworth,” he said, taking off his hat.
“Hello, Will,” she said, stepping back. “Come in.”
“Thank you.” Will followed her through the door, then stopped dead. He gaped in openmouthed shock. Peter Ingalls was sitting on a chair near the fully laid table. Peter looked up, then shot out of his chair, his astonishment as great as Will’s. And then in one flash of perfect clarity, Will understood. In one blinding, bitter instant, he saw it all. The dinner wasn’t for him. It was for them. Peter and Will. Poor, helpless competitors brought and laid at the altar of their adoration.
Jenny was at the fireplace, bent over and stirring something in the big black kettle. She turned and straightened. As if time were suspended, Will saw her beauty, saw the color in her cheeks from the heat of the flames, saw the firelight dancing in the gold of her hair. Her eyes lit up and she dropped the wooden spoon into the pot she was stirring. “Oh, Will, it’s you,” she said. She started toward him.
He backed up a step. His eyes darted once to Peter. Peter was still staring at Will, not comprehending yet the game that was being played. “I . . .” Will saw the bewilderment on Mrs. Pottsworth’s face. He saw Jenny’s smile freeze. But none of that was enough. “I’m sorry,” he blurted, and turned and plunged out the door.
“Will!”
He strode out all the more quickly, rounding the corner of the corral.
“Will Steed, you stop this instant!”
His step slowed, though he still didn’t stop. He could hear her footsteps crunching in the snow behind him. Finally he stopped and let her catch up with him, but he didn’t turn around.
She came around him to face him. “Will, what is the matter?”
“What is the matter?” he cried. “You mean you don’t know?”
She shook her head, and he saw that she really didn’t. For some reason, that infuriated him all the more. She was like an innocent playing with fire in a barn full of straw. “I thought you invited
me
for dinner.”
“I did,” she started, and then it hit her. She half turned, looking back at the open door of the cabin where her mother and Peter stood framed in the light from within. Instantly her hand came out and grabbed his arm. “You mean Peter?”
“Yes, I mean Peter,” he hissed. “Did you tell me Peter was going to be there? Did you tell Peter I was coming?”
“I . . .” She looked hurt. “I thought you knew.”
Let her be hurt,
he thought. He was feeling a little pain of his own. “How was I supposed to know?” He pulled his arm free of her. “Well, that’s fine. You can invite whoever you want, but leave me out of it.”
He started around her, but again she grabbed at his arm, pulling him back. “Will, I didn’t realize. Mum and I wanted to have a supper for some of my friends. Margaret Naylor is coming. Betsy Blake—who was on the boat with us—she’s coming too. Peter is my friend. You’re my friend. I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”
“You didn’t hurt me,” he shot back. “I just remembered I have something else I have to do.” He reached down and gently pushed her hand away. “I’m sorry, Jenny. I can’t.”
“But why?”
He just shook his head and started away.
“Don’t do this, Will. Please.”
He could hear the quavering in her voice and for a moment he hesitated. He knew he was making a fool of himself. If the others were coming, it wasn’t as if it were just him and Peter. And maybe it wasn’t deliberate. But then he knew it was too late. The hurt was too deep. His hopes had been too high. “I’m sorry, Jenny,” he mumbled, and then he walked swiftly away.
Chapter Thirty-One
Caroline didn’t know what else to do. For the past three days she had stood by, watching her son bear the hurt and the shame by himself. Twice she had tried to talk with him, to see if that might help. It didn’t.
When Joshua returned home from Wisconsin the previous night, she told him the whole story. He tried to talk with Will, and got nowhere. Then Will made the mistake of telling his father that part of the problem was that he wasn’t a Mormon and Jenny was determined she would have only a Mormon. That proved to be disastrous. Joshua was furious with “this snippety little English tart,” and swore he was going to go over and tell her a thing or two himself. Horrified, Will began shouting at his father to stay out of his business, and Joshua started yelling back at him about having had enough of these narrow-minded Mormons to last him a lifetime. Caroline had finally walked out on the both of them, and that had jerked them back to some semblance of reason.
After that, Will only withdrew deeper into himself.
And so they waited. Will would mope around the house for hours, then launch into a furious burst of activity. The first night he walked the wintry streets until well after midnight. Late the previous afternoon, before Joshua had returned, Jenny came to the house looking for Will. But Will saw her through the window and fled. When Caroline told her that Will wasn’t home, she turned and left again without a word. Caroline wanted so badly to tell Jenny that it was shame as much as hurt that was eating at Will now, but she couldn’t. He would not tolerate any parental interference on this one.
Caroline walked from the kitchen to the hallway to where it opened into the parlor. Will was still sitting on the sofa, his back turned to her, the curtain drawn back so he could stare out into the night. “Where’s Olivia?” she asked.
Will turned around, half-surprised. For nearly an hour Olivia had sat beside her brother on the sofa, pretending to read a book but really there to comfort him. Olivia was certain that she was the only one who fully understood unrequited love. But as far as Caroline knew, Will had not spoken a word to her. He shrugged. “I guess she went to her room.”
Joshua was in the next room writing a letter to Abner Montague about next year’s cotton crop. Like Olivia, he had come into the parlor and tried to strike up a conversation. But it was like conversing with one of the oxen down at the stable, so he too gave up and went into the study. Caroline sighed and started back toward the kitchen.
“Mother?”
She turned back quickly. “Yes, Will?”