Christmas Mail Order Bride - A Historical Mail Order Bride Novel (Western Mail Order Brides: Book 1) (14 page)

Eventually, the weariness of the day and the pressing concern for the morrow drove her out of the parlor. She ascended to her bedroom, where she found the bed still made with fresh linens according to her late instructions to Janet. She surveyed the empty bed ruefully, but at last.
she climbed out of her clothes and into her night dress, slipped between the delicious freshness of the cold sheets, and wrapped herself in the blanket before falling instantly and soundly asleep.

In the morning, the first thing Penelope noticed was the empty place next to her in bed. Anders hadn’t come home. Before she could give him much more thought, she remembered the work awaiting her, and she rose in the pre-dawn chill to dress herself and hurried down to the kitchen. She lit the fire, filled a kettle on the back of the stove top to start her soup, and then bent her efforts to the preparation of breakfast. She found the eggs and bacon in the pantry and set to work frying them. Knowing the ranch hands depended on a hearty breakfast before they headed out to their work, she piled up several plates of fried eggs, bacon, and buttered toast for them, all laid out on the table and ready for collection. Then she did the same in smaller portions for her parents-in-law and herself. When Charlie came to fetch the hands’ breakfast, his eyes flew open when he saw the heaping plates, and he laughed outright. “Thank you, ma’am!” he exclaimed as she loaded his arms full of food. She chuckled to herself as she watched him scamper back to the bunkhouse with his booty. After she and George and Matilda ate their own doleful meal, she returned to the kitchen with the comfort of a full stomach and the renewed confidence in her role, so she decided to tackle the baking. Regretfully, she noticed the wooden box on the shelf in which Janet kept her recipes was missing, and she assumed Janet took it with her along with her other personal effects. Fortunately, Penelope knew enough about baking to make a tolerable effort on her own expertise and by the time midday approached, she pulled her baking sheet out of the oven with two nicely browned loaves steaming on them and turned them out onto the tabletop to cool. The hearty smell of fresh-baked bread and the pungent steam from the mutton bone soup filled the whole house with optimism and restored spirits.

Penelope wiped her hands on her apron and viewed her handiwork with satisfaction. She decided to step out into the crisp air for a few moments before setting out the lunch plates. Then, after lunch, she could tackle the dishes as the soup finished boiling. In her heart, she almost celebrated her new office, and she looked forward to the arrangement of the following day’s menu. After a brief tour of the grounds, the biting air numbed her face and hands, so she returned to the sanctuary of the kitchen to warm up. She sliced one of her loaves into thick chunks and laid it out on the tray next to the cheese and the sliced meat. She
had just spooned the mustard out of the jar into a bowl when the kitchen door sprang open and Anders strutted in.

“What are you doing in here?” he bellowed. “I told you to stay out of here!”

“I’m getting lunch ready,” she answered flatly.

“Get out of here!” he raged. “I told you to stay out of here! You’re not a servant! You don’t belong in here.”

“Well, someone has to do it,” she retorted. “Since Janet left, there’s no one else. We can’t all go hungry. Someone has to make the food.”

“Not you!” he asserted. “You’re my wife! I don’t want you degrading yourself in this kitchen! I hired a new housekeeper, a proper white woman who knows her business. She can do it.”

“Well, where is she?” Penelope looked around to emphasize her question. “Until she gets here, someone has to feed the men. And your parents. And me. We couldn’t just sit around, waiting for you to do something. The men would have walked out, and the ranch would have crumbled. I did what had to be done.”

“How dare you argue with
me!” Anders shrieked. “I told you to get out of here! You get upstairs this minute! I’ll deal with you!” As he hovered close to her and screeched into her face, the old familiar stink of rotten liquor blasted from his mouth, his skin, his clothes, and his hair. She thought she would retch from the stench.

“You’re drunk again, Anders,” she grumbled, turning away from him in disgust. “You’re drunk out of your mind. Now, get out of my way. I have to finish getting lunch ready. Charlie will be up from the bunkhouse in a minute to fetch it, and then I have to get the tray ready for your parents. We can talk about all this when I finish. Who do you think has been keeping the whole operation going while you’ve been away?” She returned to her slicing and spooning.

Anders flew into a rage. With one swipe of his fist, he clubbed her across the side of the head, sending her sprawling full length across the kitchen floor. She screamed in shock and pain, covering her head with her arms, but he leapt onto her, giving her no time to recover. In an instant, he dragged her back to her feet, his fingers digging into the tender flesh of her upper arm. He threw her against the side of the table, at the same time that he leaned over her and shouted into her cringing face. “I told you to get out of here!” he roared. “I told you, I hired another housekeeper, so you can forget about all this! How dare you talk back to me in my own house! I’ll teach you to disobey me!” He brought back his hand to strike her again, but the door opened again, and the timid voices of George and Matilda arrested his attack.

“What’s going on in here, Anders?” George trilled.

“You stay out of this, Dad!” Anders snarled. “I’ve had enough of this woman flouting my authority and doing what I tell her not to! The only way she’ll learn is if she’s taught a lesson, and that’s what I’m doing! Now, if you can’t stay out of it, you better leave now.”

“But what’s she done, that’s so wrong?” Matilda chimed in. “What can she have done, to make you treat her so vilely? She’s your own wife!”

“My own wife!” he snarked. “Some wife! Would a wife of mine continually come into this kitchen and sully her hands with the work of a servant, when I’ve told her so many times not to? Would a wife of mine talk back to me with such insolence, when I try to discipline her and tell her what I expect her to do? No, she wouldn’t. If she was my own wife, she would do as I say, and she would take her punishment for disobeying me!” Anders seized Penelope by the arm again, jerking her around like a rag doll. Penelope cried out in agony at his vicious manipulations.

“Leave her alone,” George whimpered. “She’s only trying to help.”

“Help!” Anders sneered. “Help! She’s not the help! How many times do I have to keep repeating myself! She’s my wife! She’s not the housekeeper! I hired another housekeeper to do the work. She should be sitting in the parlor sipping sherry and decorating the Christmas tree, not serving working men their meals.”

“We didn’t know you hired another housekeeper,” George mumbled. “Where is she?”

Anders let out a terrible shriek of rage. “Shut up!” he screamed. “Everyone, stop arguing with me! I make the decisions around here! The rest of you, keep your mouths shut and do as I say!” He glowered at Penelope again. “Now, you get out of here! Get out of here before I lose my temper!” He delivered another punishing blow to Penelope’s face, which, had he not still held her by the arm, would have knocked her over backward onto the table. Instead, he yanked her up again and, with one swift motion of his hand, he drove his hand down inside the bodice of her dress and tore it open the length of her chest before he threw her onto the table on her back. He would have pursued his assault had the kitchen door, between the scullery and the yard, not rattled with a tentative knock and opened. Anders whirled to face the intruder. “You!” he hissed. “What are you doing here?”

Caleb ventured into kitchen, his eyes skipping from Penelope’s bleeding mouth to the overturned plates of food on the table near her. “I just came up to get lunch. Bill sent me up to get it.”

“I told you to stay out of here!” Anders growled.

Caleb took another step into the kitchen, glaring down at Penelope’s tear-streaked cheeks and her frightened eyes. “You never told me to stay out,” he countered. “What’s
goin’ on in here, anyway? I could hear you yellin’ clear across the yard. All the boys in the bunkhouse can hear you carryin’ on.”

“It’s none of your business what’s going on in here!” Anders thundered. “Get out of here, if you know what’s good for
ya!”

Caleb took one final step, bringing him next to Anders at the edge of the table. He cast a gentle look down into Penelope’s horrified face before he turned a searing scowl on Anders. “I don’t think I’ll leave. No, I don’t. I think maybe what’s
goin’ on in here
is
my business, and I don’t mean to stand by and watch it happen.” He extended his arm and steadily pressed it back against Anders, pushing him away from Penelope and the table. “I think you’d better step away from the lady, Mr. Anders. I think you’ve done enough.”

“Why, you little…!” Anders didn’t finish his sentence. He backhanded Caleb in the face, driving him back. Caleb stumbled and struck the counter behind him.

Matilda cried out, “Anders, no!” but the interjection came too late. Anders jumped across the room, striking Caleb in the head and body with repeated blows of his fists until he beat him to the floor, where he kicked him again and again. Caleb huddled into a ball, his head tucked underneath his arms. Clutching the shredded remains of her dress to her chest, Penelope rushed screaming to separate the two men, but Anders shoved her away with his hand and continued his reprisal against Caleb. The attack would have continued indefinitely had the kitchen door not flown open a second time and Bill Olsen rushed into the room without waiting for any invitation or explanation. He shouldered Anders away from Caleb and straddled the fallen youth with his legs.

“That’s enough, Anders!” he declared in a voice like the falling of an iron hatchet. Silence immediately descended over the room, and only Anders’s panting breath, rasping in and out through his clenched teeth, and Matilda’s muffled sobs across the room, disturbed the terrible stillness. Penelope swallowed her own choking sobs, still holding the remains of her dress together with her hands. Anders glared hard at Bill for a long, agonizing minute, his forehead dripping with the sweat of exertion and his wretched breath scraping as it escaped from his mouth, but he dared not oppose the older foreman. His eyes blazed with anger but instead of renewing his aggressions, he circled the table and ran from the room, leaving Bill in possession of the field. A moment later, they all strained their ears to listen as the
clippety-clop of horse’s hooves pattered out of the driveway and disappeared down the driveway. Bill kept his place, standing over Caleb’s prostrate body, and scanned the faces around him with the superiority of final authority. George and Matilda retreated before his gaze and quit the room, Matilda’s mounting sobs echoing down the hall toward the parlor before fading from their hearing. When they left, Bill sighed and let his shoulders sink slightly into his body. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he addressed Penelope with a shake of his head. “Could you please help me lift him onto the table? I’ll send Charlie to town to fetch the doctor. He looks pretty bad.”

Penelope crunched her lips together to stifle her own cries. “I’m sorry, Mr. Olsen. Would you please give me leave to go upstairs and change my clothes before I help you? I hate to leave Caleb lying on the floor, but if I take my hands away from my dress, I’ll be exposed for
all the world to see. Please, just give me a fraction of a minute to get myself decent, and I will help you in any way I can.”

Bill dropped his eyes. “I’m sorry, ma’am. You go ahead. I’ll go get Charlie and send him now. Then, when you come back, we’ll lift him up.”

Penelope ran from the room. She hastened to her room, tossed her torn dress off, and replaced it with another, returning to the kitchen just as Bill returned from the bunkhouse. Together, they heaved Caleb’s senseless body onto the table and stretched him out on it. Penelope sobbed afresh when she saw his face and the crusts of blood thickening in his hair. She wet a cloth in a bucket and dabbed his forehead, but she didn’t dare disturb his injuries before the doctor arrived. After placing him on the tabletop, Bill departed to send the other hands out to their work, and he didn’t come back until the doctor arrived. In the meanwhile, Penelope sat on a kitchen chair at Caleb’s side, stroking his limp hand and making no further effort to manage the kitchen.

About an hour later, a knock at the kitchen door recalled her from her reverie. She met there an elderly, pinched lady in a black traveling costume who narrowed her eyes at Penelope and tried to peer around her into the house.

“Can I help you?” Penelope asked.

“I’m Mrs. Wallace,” the woman announced. “I was hired by Mr. West to work at this house as a cook and housekeeper. And who might you be?”

“I’m Mrs. West,” Penelope stiffened. “I’m Mr. West’s wife. He isn’t here at the moment, but if you come in, you can get started as best you can.” She conducted the woman into the kitchen. “This man is injured, as you can see. We’re just waiting for the doctor to come and examine him.”

Mrs. Wallace cast a critical eye around the kitchen, taking in the broken plates and scraps of food on the floor. Finally, she trained her piercing gaze on Penelope. “You look like you need a doctor, too. Where’d you say Mr. West was?”

“I didn’t say,” Penelope snapped back. “Now, if you don’t mind, we’ve had a pretty chaotic time, the last couple of days, since the last housekeeper left. I’ve been handling the cooking duties as best I can since then, so please begin work straight away. No one has had lunch today, so we’ll all be very grateful for a proper supper tonight. You’ll find everything you need in all the usual places. Please make yourself quite at home. You may inform me if you need anything further.”

Mrs. Wallace listened to her with the same impassive frown. “And how, may I ask, am I to do my work, with
this
,” she waved her hand in the direction of Caleb. “in the way?”