Christmas Mail Order Bride - A Historical Mail Order Bride Novel (Western Mail Order Brides: Book 1) (10 page)

From the window, Penelope walked slowly over to the bed, peering down at her husband. Her own weariness, which overrode even her hunger, added to the knowledge that there was nowhere else for her to sleep, induced her to sit down on the bed next to him, and then to lie down on top of the coverlet herself without even unlacing her own shoes. The intoxicating aroma of stale booze wafted up off of Anders’s skin and burned Penelope’s eyes and nose, but in an instant, sleep claimed her, and she ceased to think anymore about anything.

The cold wind gusting through the open window woke her up but through the open curtain, the morning light illuminated the dreary room. Anders still snored next to her, and she studied him closely for a while before she sat up. A thick bristle of unshaven hair darkened the lower part of his face, and his hair and moustache stuck out at odd angles, showing the unkempt signs of neglect. Had the sight not annoyed her so much, she could have taken it as evidence of his extreme distress at losing her. But the collection of evidence on the table of dissolution in drink and smoke, as well as the other signs around the room of abandoned indulgence, told a different story.

Anders didn’t stir when she climbed down from the bed. She changed her clothes and fixed her hair. She wrapped the clothes she wore during her week in the Indian camp into a tight bundle, and when she went out of the room, she took them with her to give to Janet to be laundered. To her surprise, she met the housekeeper on the landing outside.

“Oh, ma’am!”
Janet exclaimed. “I was just coming to find you.”

“And I was just coming to find you, Janet,” Penelope returned. “I want these clothes laundered, and I’ll want a hot bath drawn up for me after breakfast.”

“That’s just what I was coming to find out, ma’am,” Janet nodded—neglecting, however, as Penelope noticed, to smile at her. “The Missus said last night that you would want to take a bath, but then you went to bed beforehand, so I reckoned you’d want it for this morning.”

“And I want you to clean out that room,” Penelope jerked her thumb back over her shoulder.

“Oh, I daren’t, ma’am!” the woman refused. “Mr. Anders absolutely forbade me to enter that room, on pain of dismissal. I can’t go against him on that, leastways not until he tells me otherwise.”

“But I’m telling you otherwise,” Penelope pointed out.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Janet retreated. “I can’t. If Mr. Anders found out, he’d sack me for sure, and I can’t afford to lose my position. You talk to him about it, and if you succeed in changing his mind, he can tell me so. Otherwise, I don’t dare.”

“Come, now, Janet,” Penelope gaped at her. “That room looks like a tornado went through it. It looks like it hasn’t been cleaned in the whole time I’ve been gone. It’s hardly fit for human habitation!”

“Oh, I can imagine!” Janet agreed with her. “And you’re quite right! It hasn’t been cleaned since you left. Mr. Anders won’t permit it. He says he doesn’t like me sneaking around in there. I can only imagine what it must be like in there. It isn’t a place for a lady like you, that’s for sure. But, I can’t go in there! I’m sorry, ma’am. I wish for your sake that I could. But I can’t!”

“Alright, Janet,” Penelope conceded. “I’ll talk to Anders about it when he wakes up. Now, I’ll go down to breakfast, and after I’ve had a bath, I’ll figure out how to handle Anders.”

The two women descended the stairs together and repaired to the dining room, where Matilda and George already sat at the breakfast together, waiting for her.

“Oh, my dear!”
Matilda gushed. “You’re awake! My, how you slept! You must have been absolutely devastated! Well, now you can have your bath and a nice hot meal!”

“I’ve just spoken to Janet about that,” Penelope informed her. “I’ll have a bath after breakfast. I’m shocked you haven’t let her clean Anders’s room. It’s a dreadful sight in there! It needs a good clean and a thorough airing! We’ll have to see to that today.”

Both George and Matilda froze. “No, dear,” Matilda protested gently. “Anders won’t allow it.”

“But surely you can’t have that room turning into a foul pit of decay and not clean it!” Penelope insisted. “It’s got to be cleaned
some
time!”

“When Anders says he’s ready to have his room cleaned,
then it will be cleaned,” Matilda maintained. “It won’t be cleaned before then. He’s adamant that no one should enter that room.”

“Well, what about me?” she shrilled. “I
have
to enter that room, and it’s hardly livable the way it is. I want it cleaned. Don’t I count for anything?”

“I understand how you feel,” Matilda smiled her sad eyes at Penelope. “I couldn’t live in that room, either. I haven’t seen it, but I can only imagine what it looks like. Anders hasn’t left it for a moment in the last week except to restock his supply of whiskey and cigars and firewood. But I’m afraid it is his room, and he gave absolutely explicit orders that no one was to enter that room for any reason, especially not Janet. If we contradicted his orders, we would all pay the consequences, and I don’t think we want to do that.”

“Then what am I to do?” Penelope complained. “Am I to sleep in another room until he comes to his senses?”

“I can’t answer that for you, dear,” Matilda sighed. “But I wouldn’t sleep in another room, if I was you. That could make him even
more angry.”

“Then what would you do, if you were me?” Penelope inquired.

“I really don’t know,” Matilda shook her head. “I really don’t know what I would do.”

At that moment, silence descended over the table as a heavy tread clumped down the stairs. The three breakfasters sat in silence as Anders stomped toward the door and stopped there. He peered into the room with milky eyes, hardly recognizing the faces at the table, and turned away toward the kitchen. George called out to him, “Come and have breakfast with us, Anders.”

Anders stared at the three people in the room again, thinking hard about his next move. Then he lumbered into the room and flung his disheveled frame into an empty chair. He glared around the room, but didn’t touch any of the food. “Did you sleep well, darling?” Penelope asked.

His eyes registered no recognition at all. Without answering, he dragged himself out of the chair once more and, to Penelope’s horror, he staggered to a cabinet against the wall of the dining room and poured himself a tumbler of brandy. He bolted the liquid in one gulp, poured another, and returned with it to the table. Penelope stared at him in astonishment, but George and Matilda kept their own eyes down in their plates, refraining from observing him.

Penelope tried again. “How are you feeling this morning, Anders?”

He still didn’t answer. He seemed to have no memory of her disappearance and no appreciation of her return. He simply stared around at the faces of his family with no comprehension at all.

She was determined to wring some response from him. “Will you be going out to work this morning, darling?”

This question finally succeeded in penetrating his brain. “No, I won’t be going out to work this morning,” he growled. “I’m going into town later.”

“Oh, are you?” she brightened. “What will you do there?”

“I’m meeting Frank and Tony at the hotel for a game,” he announced.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Well, then, that will give us a chance to get your room cleaned up.”

He receded into a haze of distant reverie, tossed back the remainder of his drink, and quit the table without further comment. The three remaining breakfasters sat riveted, listening to him stamping toward the kitchen, where his banging and rummaging resounded through the rest of the house. Eventually, he tromped back up the stairs and the bedroom door slammed closed after him. An audible sigh went around the table.

“At least we can get the room clean when he’s gone,” Penelope remarked.

Matilda stared down into her plate, and Penelope wondered if she might be hiding the beginnings of tears.

“He didn’t say we couldn’t,” Penelope pointed out to no one in particular. George twiddled his fork amongst his eggs, pushing pieces of bacon and toast absently from one side of the plate to another.

“I don’t believe he would even notice, if we did clean it,” Penelope muttered.

Silence answered her. She finished her own breakfast and left her two parents-in-law sitting like statues in their chairs at the table. She found Janet in the kitchen and, after making the necessary arrangements, prepared to take her bath. She instructed Janet to set up the tub in the kitchen so she could avoid taking a bath upstairs. She didn’t want to inadvertently bump into Anders before he left the house, and she wanted to bathe in peace, taking as long as she wished. As it turned out, Anders departed as she still made her preparations. So when the water steamed in the tub, and she laid out the soap and the towel on the chair, Janet went upstairs to clean Anders’s room, closing the kitchen door and leaving her alone.

She slipped out of her clothes, folding them carefully on the table, and lowered herself into the scalding water with a heady sigh. She submerged herself up to her neck in the water and lay back so the nape of her neck rested on the lip of the tub. Then she closed her eyes and let the heat seep into her limbs, loosening her aching muscles and loosening her stiff joints. A quiet peace pervaded the whole house, now that Anders no longer lurked upstairs or prowled the hallways. In her undisturbed state, she reviewed her experiences since leaving on her shopping trip for town, and in this way, her mind returned to the subject of Caleb. She wondered what he was doing at that moment, if he was thinking of her the way she thinking of him. At least she could rest assured that Anders wasn’t after him or oppressing him with accusations. Anders seemed totally oblivious to her return, which surprised her until she remembered that, in all likelihood, he had obliterated all consciousness with drink since she left. Now, he was somewhere in town, doing God knows what. At least he was safely out of the way, away from Caleb and away from her. She wondered if, after she finished her bath, she could sneak out of the house and find him alone for a few moments before Anders returned. Then again, Caleb went out with the other men during the day, and she wouldn’t likely find him alone anywhere near the house at this time of day. She couldn’t hope to find him alone in the barn, as she did before, until night, when Anders could return at any moment. She couldn’t run the risk of trying it then.

The sound of Janet returning to the outer scullery roused her from her daydream, and she began soaping her body and hair. When she finished bathing and drying herself, she dressed again and arranged her hair before returning to the parlor. She found Matilda there, reading on her couch. “Have you finished all your Christmas decorating?” she asked her mother-in-law.

“Yes, I think so,” Matilda replied. “We did a lot more before you left than I’ve done in the last fifteen years. I think we have quite enough.”

“But we haven’t hung up the stockings yet,” Penelope observed.

“Oh, I don’t think we’ll do that,” Matilda remarked.

“Why not?” Penelope swung her head around abruptly.

“You were the only one interested in giving gifts,” Matilda commented. “And I don’t think you’ll do so now.”

“But there’s still time,” Penelope stated. “I can still go to town to do some shopping. There’s still another week left until Christmas.”

“You were lucky the last time, just convincing Anders to let you go,” Matilda maintained. “I don’t think he’ll be so accommodating again. And then, you had such unfortunate trouble on your last trip. I wonder why you would be willing to hazard such a venture again.”

“Well, I can’t exactly stay locked up here in the house for the rest of my life, can I?” Penelope pointed out. “I’ll have to go out again some time. I don’t see why I shouldn’t go now, when I have some reason to do so. And I wanted so much to celebrate a proper Christmas. It just doesn’t seem right, to have Christmas without stockings and gifts and a proper Christmas dinner all the other things. Even in the orphanage, we had all those things. I can’t lose them, not now that I’m in a real family.”

Matilda smiled. “Your idealism is very refreshing.

“But don’t you want to do those things, too?” Penelope pressed her. “Don’t you want to have a proper Christmas?”

“Of course, dear,” Matilda maintained. “But Anders wouldn’t allow it.”

“I am so sick of hearing about what Anders would allow us to do,” Penelope groused. “We should just do it, and let Anders twist in the wind.”

“No,” Matilda argued. “You can’t do that. He’s your husband, dear. You have to defer to him on things like that. That’s what marriage is all about.”

“I would defer to him if it were something reasonable,” Penelope returned. “But this is Christmas! He can’t take Christmas away from us! He couldn’t!”

“I feel the same way you do,” Matilda declared. “I wish he was more
reasonable, and that we could be closer as a family and do those kinds of things together. But this is the way it is. We just have to accept it.”

“I won’t accept it,” Penelope grumbled.

“In time, I think you will,” Matilda assured her. “You’ll realize this is the best way.”

“But does he really have to drink so much, and storm around keeping everyone on the edge of their seats all the time?” Penelope whined. “It doesn’t make sense to live in fear of him.”

“What do you suggest we do?” Penelope asked rhetorically. “There’s nothing to be done. He controls everything, and if any of us tried to oppose him, his reprisals could be terrible. I don’t even like to think about it. I’ve just learned to live with it.”

Penelope didn’t answer, but sulked at the injustice of the situation. Still, she found herself constantly alerted to any sound indicating Anders return, and she quaked inwardly at facing his reaction to either the cleanliness of his room, the arrangement of the Christmas decorations, or anything else she imagined might displease him. More than once, she found her fingers knotted together in anxiety at the thought of interacting with him, even under such mundane circumstances as sharing a meal with him in the dining room. The anxious anticipation of his return spoiled the otherwise complete tranquility around the house, and Penelope noticed her parents-in-law both behaving with the same apprehensive unease, glancing out the windows at any noise in the yard and training their ears for any evidence of their son’s return.