Softly Falling (16 page)

L
ily remembered to take some scraps of fatback for Freak the next morning. She set it on the rock and went inside to take a pencil to the brown paper and begin the letters. By the time the Sansever sisters arrived after their kitchen duties, the fatback was gone. She didn’t know if the cat had appropriated it, or some other creature, but Chantal mentioned that Freak was seated near the safety of the tree line, washing his face with his paw, something she had never seen before. Perhaps he was tidying up after breakfast.

The first dilemma of the day was solved by Fothering, in his usual unflappable way. He watched Amelie struggling to cut out one brown-paper letter with Lily’s embroidery scissors and said, “One moment,” as he held up one finger.

He returned a few minutes later with a pair of dressmaker shears and the sole comment, “Mrs. Buxton hasn’t used these in years.”

Luella trailed along behind with another pair of scissors, which she stated were hers, and only hers. Chantal frowned at her but returned to her task of darkening the letters. Lily had penciled them in lightly, mainly to give Chantal a chore.

In the middle of the morning, Jack and Nicholas arrived with a wood box and a load of wood. When the wood box was placed to Jack’s satisfaction near the stove but not too near, he directed Nick to stack the rest outside.

“Nick will bring more later,” he said, his hand on the boy’s shoulder. He gave it a little shake. “Nick, you’ll be here in school with your sisters.”

“Too old,” Nick said.

“Twelve’s too old for school?” Jack asked. “That’s a pity, because I don’t hire anyone who can’t read and write.”

“You hired my pa,” Nick argued.

Touched, Lily saw Nick Sansever for what he was, a boy with too many responsibilities thrust on him, maybe even before the death of his father. She said nothing.

“He had a skill I needed,” Jack replied. “I mean what I say.”

“I don’t have to like it,” the boy said, looking at Lily this time, daring her to say anything.

“No, you don’t,” she agreed. “All I require is that you do not stop anyone else from learning.”

What could he say to that? Nick shrugged and left the room.

“He’s old for his age,” Lily said in a low voice, her eyes on his sisters, outlining and cutting.

“I recognize me in him,” Jack said. “I had a war to fight, which made me some sort of hero in my own eyes, at least. And you should have seen the admiration on my little brother’s when I got a three-day furlough once! Nick needs to be a hero. I’m open to suggestions.”

He shook his head and followed the boy out the door.

Fothering must have heard the sharp exchange. He stood in the doorway and watched them leave. She joined him.

“What would
you
do?” she asked the butler.

“Perhaps we could arrange for Nick to rescue you from a burning building,” Fothering said with a completely straight face. “Or from Indians, except they seldom cooperate in a meaningful fashion.”

Lily gasped in surprise, then started to laugh. She laughed so hard that she had to sit down. The girls looked at her, great questions in their eyes. When she could speak, she managed to choke out, “Fothering told me a great taradiddle.”

Their questioning expressions turned to puzzlement.

“You don’t have that word here?” she asked.

“Is it French?” Luella asked.

Both Sansever girls shook their heads.

“Taradiddle. Taradiddle. I supposed it would be a great fable,” Lily said, not daring to give the butler more than a glance.

“Fothering never, ever jokes,” Luella assured her. “He doesn’t believe in nonsense.”

Fothering gave his head a sorrowful shake. “Miss Luella, sometimes I am overcome with levity.”

“You are a rascal, Fothering,” Lily whispered. “I wouldn’t have thought it.”

“Only now and then,” he told her, making no attempt to hide his smile this time. “You
will
think of something, my dear Miss Carteret, because you are the teacher.”

Not yet
, she thought.
I don’t even know what I’m doing
. She looked around, then whispered, “Fothering, you are kind to say that. Tell me something.”

“Anything within reason,” he said.

“I have not been able to place your accent, try as I might. Kindly tell me where, in all of England, you are from?”

He looked around too, and there was no mistaking the humor in his eyes. “That part of England which is closest to Cleveland, Ohio.”

She opened her mouth in amazement, but she had the good sense to clap her hand over it to keep from exploding in whoops again, so undignified in an almost-teacher.

“Simple, Miss Carteret: they wanted a butler and I needed a job. I trust my naughty little secret is safe with you?”

“I will be as silent as the grave,” she assured him with all solemnity. Then she spoiled it by asking, “Is Fothering your real name? It does sound butlerish, but now I have to ask.”

He leaned close. “Sam Foster. I was working my way West and ran out of money in Omaha. The Buxtons were advertising for an English butler, and here I am. That was ten years ago.”

“Since we are confiding, I am hoping to get enough money this year to head for greener pastures.”

“And where might that be, miss, if I may ask?” he asked, so proper again.

“I have no idea, but I’ll find it,” she assured him.

The girls were busy. “Jack says Wyoming Territory can change people,” she said. “Did it change you?”

His answer was prompt, so she knew he had considered the matter. “I have a good job and singularly few responsibilities. I suppose I like Wyoming for that.”

“What has it done for Jack?” she asked quietly. He had been on her mind since last night, and it couldn’t hurt to ask.

“He is a good rider and a leader,” Fothering said, after some thought. “I think Wyoming has made him hard and used to being alone.”

“That’s a little sad.”

What will it do to me?
she wondered as the day ended and she stood in the doorway, watching Amelie and Chantal carry the letters to their mother, who would dip them in starch and make them stalwart little soldiers enlisted to fight the war against ignorance.

Luella and Fothering had left after another picnic basket luncheon that Lily strongly suspected Mrs. Buxton had no knowledge of. She also suspected that Fothering did pretty much as he pleased in a household where the lady stayed upstairs and played sick.

All through supper, she thought about Fothering’s assessment of Jack as hard and lonely. Sitting with her father, who seemed to be eating better, she watched the foreman out of the corner of her eye. He sat with his hands, but they were all silent, which made her wonder if that was an American idiosyncrasy. Miss Tilton’s had coached its young ladies in the art of conversation, with emphasis on dinner parties.

With quiet amusement, she remembered the dinner-table rules: only safe subjects such as the weather or certain literary works—never that upstart Browning. When ten minutes were spent in this improving fashion with the diner to one’s left, one looked to the diner to one’s right and began again. It had seemed ridiculous to Lily then, and even more now, as silence reigned.

She could talk to her father of the weather, but what did one say about the constant wind? She had already noted that the food was unvarying: in the evening, soup or stew of pleasing variety, as long as it was beef. Madeleine’s scones—no, biscuits here—were a fluffy delight, and she had discovered a fondness for chokecherry jelly. Hash would follow a day or two of a beef roast, and it was better eaten with ketchup. Nobody complained.

The Buxtons had their own cook. Lily decided to ask Fothering what the menu in the big house was like. Fothering neé Sam Foster, that is. The thought made her smile.

“Something amuses you, Lily?” her father asked.

Lily looked at her father with real delight. Rather than keep his head down over his plate, he had asked her question.

“I was just thinking how strange it is to have a butler in Wyoming.”

Clarence Carteret nodded and gave a dry little chuckle, as if he was unused to amusement any more. “Do you know, I have been trying to place his accent, but it escapes me.”

She yearned to be able to tell her father about the butler’s naughty little secret, but she had promised. “I have wondered too. Should we ask him someday?”

“When I feel better.”

It was his usual answer to any of her questions, but at least he had spoken.

She had stored up her conversation for their house, when she tried to keep her father from the bottle. She had already exhausted her commentary about the two photographs that Jack Sinclair had returned to her. She could talk about cutting the alphabets from brown wrapping paper. And then what? This shell of a man was her father, and she didn’t know what to do with him.

To her relief, someone knocked on the door and she recognized the knock this time: three firm raps. Jack Sinclair wanted another chapter of
Ivanhoe
.

She opened the door and laughed when he held up a steaming cup of coffee. “Last cup of the night. Lily, I’m no tea drinker.”

He set down the cup and pulled out a packet wrapped in waxed paper. “I should’ve left this with you today when we brought the wood.” He opened the packet and pulled out a little sliver of wood soaked in something that made her nose wrinkle.

“Splinters soaked in coal oil,” he explained. “When you lay the fire in the morning, put this underneath your kindling and light it with a match.” He rewrapped the packet and laid it on the table.

“I’ve never started a fire,” she said. “Papa does it here in the house.”

“Don’t look so serious, Lily! I can teach the teacher a few things. You won’t need a fire for a month or so. There’s time.”

He just stood there then and glanced toward the bookshelf, waiting for her to ask him to sit down, waiting for another chapter, but too polite to ask. It was a nicety she hadn’t suspected.

“Have a seat, sir,” she told him. “I was just planning to read to Papa.”

He made himself comfortable on the settee, and Lily opened to the next chapter. Since Papa had chosen the rocking chair, she sat next to Jack.

Chapter eight was the joust between the Disinherited Knight and a host of others. Halfway through, Jack put his hand across the page. “They’re tough on horses,” he said, then took his hand away. “But don’t stop reading.”

When she finished the chapter, Jack objected. “You really can’t stop there, you know,” he said. “Another chapter?”

To Lily’s chagrin, her father whimpered at Jack’s question. “I really need to go to bed,” he said, his voice plaintive. His little apology was worse. “You know . . . you know how early morning comes around here. G’night.”

When Clarence veered off toward the lean-to, Jack got up and pointed him to his bedroom door, opening it and standing there until she could see her father sitting on his bed within easy reach of his bottle. She closed her eyes in shame.

Jack sat down again. “Lily, someone a whole lot wiser than I am told me that everyone is mostly trying to do his best. Or her best, I suppose.”

“That’s his best?” she asked, incredulous.

“Could be. Read another chapter.” He smiled at her and nudged her shoulder. “C’mon. You know you want to. Chapter nine.” He put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes, perfectly ready to head back to the jousting field.

“That’s enough for one night,” she said when the chapter ended. “Don’t argue.”

He gave her a “who, me?” look, but reached for his coat. And then he was all business again. “Given any thought to Amelie’s predicament?”

“Certainly,” she replied, all business too. “I’ll ask Madeleine if adjourning school from eleven to one is enough time for the girls to help with the main meal.”

“That’ll rile Mrs. Buxton,” he said, putting on his Stetson.

“I’ll tell her that Luella will get that eleven to twelve hour with me, all by herself. It’s what she wants, anyway.”

“Sounds like a plan, Lily. You’re getting good at plans.”

He opened the door and his head went back in surprise. Alarmed, Lily wondered what had happened.

“My goodness, it’s snowing,” she said as she moved closer to stand beside him. “Look how big and beautiful the flakes are!”

She heard the breath go out of him in a big sigh. “Lily, it’s only the middle of September.”

She reached out her hand. The snow fell so softly, so lightly, like petals. Already, the ugliness of the ranch was disappearing under a light blanket of white. “It is pretty, and it’ll melt tomorrow, won’t it?”

“It had better,” he said, his voice grim.

She could tell he was agitated, so he must not have realized what he was doing then. That’s the only way Lily could account for his hand on her shoulder. She doubted he wanted comfort, because she knew he was a hard man. His hand felt more like protection to her. She may have been the smallest, most unimportant cog in the machinery of the Bar Dot—heavens, Chantal and Amelie were more useful than she was—but it was as though the foreman had added her to his list of responsibilities.

She looked at the snow with new eyes, then at Jack’s face. His jaw was set and he frowned.