Beauty for Ashes (8 page)

“Sounds spooky.” He paused. “What made you mad enough to up and leave home?”

“I can’t talk about it now. I’m too upset.”

A headache was forming behind her eyes. Carrie massaged her temples. “I don’t mean to be so cross. I’m tired. And that woman downstairs . . .”

“Jealous of her?” he teased.

“Of course not. Why should I be? She’s beautiful, no question. But the way she flirted with you and called me ‘honey’ and the fact that she knows how to deal cards makes me wonder what kind of person she is. Did you notice that she took pains not to tell us her name?”

“Well, it’ll come out soon enough with you living under the same roof.” He squeezed both her hands. “I ought to get back to the shop. Those books that came in today won’t sort themselves.”

“Thank you for helping me. I’m sorry Mr. Rutledge left the job to you.”

Nate nodded. “I hope you won’t regret leaving the farm. But if it’s too awful here, you can always go home.”

Together they walked down the creaking wooden staircase and to the door. Carrie peered onto the empty street. Apparently Mr. Rutledge had driven away without even saying good-bye. She thanked Nate again and watched him leave.

“All settled?” the woman asked when Carrie returned to the parlor.

“As settled as I can be until Mrs. Whitcomb arrives to give me a key.”

The woman fished a key from her bodice and pressed it into Carrie’s hand. “Use mine. They’re all the same. A fact I discovered last week when I came home late and went into poor Mrs. Athison’s room by mistake. Was she ever surprised.”

She laughed, her green eyes dancing, and Carrie found herself laughing too. The woman was so charming that it was hard not to like her, despite the fact that she was a terrible flirt and perhaps too flamboyant to be completely respectable.

The door opened, and two women of about Carrie’s age came in arm and arm, pink-cheeked and laughing. One of them hurried across the room and handed the woman a small package. “For you, Rosaleen, for getting me out that jam last night.”

So that was her name. Rosaleen.

“That’s real sweet of you, honey, but really, you didn’t have to. I’m glad I came along when I did.” Rosaleen turned to Carrie. “Lucy was coming home from Mrs. Grayson’s last night, and a couple of men from the sawmill started giving her a hard time.”

“They were drunk.” Lucy removed her hat and shook out her hair. “Scared me half to death. Rosaleen here told them in no uncertain terms to leave me alone. Thank goodness they listened.”

“It saddens me to think that sort of thing happens in our little town,” Lucy’s companion said. “Hickory Ridge has always been a decent kind of place.” She bobbed her head at Carrie. “I’m Rachel Ryan. You must be Carrie. Mrs. Whitcomb said you’d asked last week about renting a room, but she wasn’t sure if you really meant to.”

“I
wasn’t
sure, until this morning.” Carrie smiled at the women. “I’m happy to meet you.”

“Likewise.” Lucy tossed her hat onto the sofa in the parlor and unbuttoned her jacket. “I’m exhausted. If anyone ever asks you to look after a passel of kids, Carrie, run as fast as you can in the opposite direction. It’s the most thankless task on this green earth.”

“Lucy looks after the widow Grayson’s children,” Rachel said. “Seven of them in all, and every last one of them younger than six.”

“Twin boys were put on earth to make death seem more attractive.” Lucy flopped onto the sofa beside her hat. “I swear if I have to haul them out of the river one more time, I will lose what little mind I have left.”

“At least your situation is temporary.” Rachel patted her companion’s shoulder. “Just think. This time next year, you’ll be married and on your way to Montana.”

“I can’t wait. Blue skies, mountains, and nobody for a hundred miles except for my Jake and me.” Lucy grinned. “And nary a Grayson in sight.”

The pendulum clock on the wall behind the desk emitted six soft chimes. Rosaleen set down her deck of cards. “I don’t know about y’all, but I am about to perish. I say we raid the kitchen and forget about Mrs. W. It seems like she’s gone for good.”

“She’ll be back,” Rachel said. “I owe her for two weeks’ rent.”

“Any news from Sam?” Rosaleen asked.

Together the four women walked down the long hallway and into the kitchen.

Rachel shook her head. “No good news, anyhow. His letter last week said there might be a job for him in North Carolina. He says jobs are so scarce we can’t afford to be choosy, but I don’t know. North Carolina’s such a long ways from Mama and them.”

Rosaleen nodded. “Homesickness is a bad affliction, but eventually you get over it.”

She rolled up her sleeves, took a stack of plates from the pantry, and peered into the icebox. “Looks like there’s some cheese and some leftover beans . . . and some pie.”

“What kind?” Lucy rummaged in a drawer for forks and set them onto the table with a clatter.

“Hard to tell.” Lifting the pie pan from the icebox, Rosaleen set it on the table and bent to take a whiff. “I’d say it’s the remainder of last Sunday’s cherry pie, but that’s only a guess.”

“Tell me again why we put up with this horrible food.” Rachel plopped onto her chair.

“Because it’s cheap.” Rosaleen scraped the shriveled pie pieces into a pail beside the door. Taking a heavy black pot from a shelf above the stove, she dumped the bowl of beans into it and stoked the fire. When the beans were hot and bubbling, the women made a meal of them along with wedges of cheese and hunks of cold cornbread.

“Somebody ought to go upstairs and get the Provost sisters,” Rachel said, “but I am too tired to move.”

“They hardly ever eat,” Lucy told Carrie. “I don’t see how they stay alive.”

“Jasper Pruitt at the mercantile gives them candy every time they go in there,” Rachel said. “That’s how. No wonder they’re never hungry for beans and corn pone.”

Carrie stole a glance at her surroundings. A chipped cookie jar and a couple of worn cookery books sat on a shelf beneath the one grimy window. A couple of earthenware pitchers lined up next to the water pump. A metal washtub beside the door held wood for the cook stove. An open cupboard door revealed an assortment of pots and bowls, plates, and cooking utensils.

She pushed away her half-empty bowl of beans. They were too salty by half and gritty to boot. Despite her misgivings about the hotel, she looked forward to putting decent meals onto Mrs. Whitcomb’s table.

The front door opened and slammed shut, then the hotel proprietress stuck her head into the kitchen. “Carrie. So you decided to make the move, I see. You got a little something to eat?”

“Very little,” Lucy grumbled. “Beans and corn pone again.”

“The pie was ruined,” Rachel said. “It’s a wonder we don’t die of the epizootics from eating rotten food.”

The proprietress ignored that remark and beamed at Carrie. “Sorry I wasn’t here when you arrived. I had business at the bank, and it took longer than I expected. Did you get settled in all right?”

“I gave her room seven,” Rosaleen said. “The one with the fewest rats and the fewest leaks in the roof.”

“And the best bed,” Lucy said. “I should have moved in there when I had the chance.”

“Too late now.” Rachel rose from the table and set her bowl on the counter. “I’m going up to my room.”

“Me too,” Lucy said. “Tomorrow is another exciting day with the Grayson gang.”

“And I need my beauty sleep.” Rosaleen cleared the table and set a kettle of water on to heat. She hauled the dishpan from the cupboard and set it on the table. “As soon as I finish these dishes.” She shrugged. “At least the extra money comes in handy.”

“But I thought—” Carrie frowned.

Mrs. Whitcomb sat down heavily. “When you asked me after church last week about moving here, I wasn’t sure you were serious.”

“I wanted to stay at the farm, but in the end, I couldn’t. We talked about my working for you, and—”

“I’m nearly broke, Carrie. I expected Mr. Gilman to approve another loan. I was there all afternoon, jawing about it, but he won’t budge.”

The kettle whistled. Rosaleen pumped some water into the dishpan, then added the boiling water. The plates clattered against the metal as she scrubbed them with a faded blue rag.

“Hard times seem to go on and on,” Mrs. Whitcomb said, “and for the life of me I do not know where it all will end or what’s to become of any of us.” She patted Carrie’s hand. “Don’t worry, I promised you a place to stay, and I intend to live up to it. We’ll manage somehow.”

Carrie climbed the stairs to her room and sat on the creaky bed. What would become of her indeed? Only last month, her life had been unfolding in its predictable pattern. Now her world had tilted beyond recognition.

A huge brown roach crawled over her shoe. Carrie shuddered. She regretted her own impulsiveness. It was terribly ungrateful of her to have run off without even saying good-bye to Henry, but this morning’s argument with Mary had been so contentious that she could not abide another minute in that house.

She rose and unpacked her suitcase. Nate was wrong. No matter how bad things got at the Verandah, she would not go back to the farm.

She’d made her bed, as Granny Bell used to say. Now she’d have to lie in it.

FIVE

“You’re sure you’ve done the right thing, Carrie?” Nate led her through the maze of books, papers, and shipping crates to his desk at the rear of the bookshop. He motioned her to the seat beside the window, lowered himself into his chair, and took up his pipe. His gray cat, India, hopped onto the desk to greet Carrie before settling into her favorite spot on the windowsill. “Moving off your brother’s place . . . I don’t know. It seems awful drastic to me.”

“I had no choice. Mary made it impossible for me have a moment’s peace. Her boys are undisciplined and rude, and she took over the house and ordered me around as if I were nothing more than hired help. She’s imperious and, I hate to say it, lazy. She doesn’t know how to run a farmhouse and has no intention of learning. And she’d argue with a signpost.”

He nodded. “I had a few disagreements with Mary when she ran the telegraph office. She isn’t the most pleasant sort, is she?”

Carrie snorted. “About as pleasant as an eyeful of cinders. For the life of me, I don’t understand why Henry chose her.”

“Don’t fault your brother for taking a chance on happiness.” He gazed out the window, his mind clearly a million miles away. “A man gets to be a certain age, and he sees his life slipping away. All his hopes going by the wayside. To salvage something of his dream, he quits looking for perfection and settles for something more attainable.”

For some reason, she found his words irksome. “And is that what I represent to you? Something attainable?”

“You know better than that. As far as I’m concerned, you’re about as perfect as a woman can get. Smart, sweet-natured, and pretty too. Why, just looking at you is like being outside on the finest summer’s day.” He smiled. “Except that you are more lovely and more temperate.”

Carrie blushed, her irritation forgotten. “You’ve been reading those poetry books again.”

“Guilty.” He puffed his pipe to get it going. Behind his gold-rimmed spectacles, his gray eyes were serious and kind. “I’m sure it wasn’t easy getting along with Mary. Every woman wants to feel in charge of her own home, I reckon. What does Henry have to say about all this?”

“He’s caught in the middle, trying to keep the peace among all of us. I hated making him feel guilty for wanting the same things I want—a home, a family. And aside from all the other indignities, they were going to move my things into a cramped room in the attic so her children could have my room. It’s the only place I’ve lived since Frank died.”

“A long time.”

“Yes.” India vaulted into her lap, and she stroked the cat’s soft hair. “Maybe Mary’s right. Maybe I’m too old and set in my ways.”

His eyes twinkled. “Not too set in your ways to marry me, I hope.”

“We’ve been over all that.”

“That we have, my girl. I’m sure I don’t know why you keep putting me off.” He waved his hand around the cluttered shop that smelled faintly of musty books, ink, and pipe tobacco. “Just think. All this could be yours. What woman wouldn’t jump at the chance?”

Carrie smiled. It was an old dance between them, this dithering about their future. Would Nate actually go through with a wedding if one day she dropped her objections and said yes? He was, after all, nearly forty and, like her, set in his ways. Perhaps the notion of marriage was more attractive than the reality of it.

“You know how deeply fond I am of you and how much I enjoy this shop,” she said. “But I want to be sure that marriage is the right thing for both of us.”

Smoke curled from Nate’s pipe and drifted toward the pressed-tin ceiling. “I can appreciate that, but we’re neither one getting any younger. I want a wife and children before I’m too old to appreciate ’em.”

He made it sound as if any woman capable of fulfilling his wishes would do. A pang shot through her. She cared for Nate; at times she convinced herself she loved him. Certainly she admired his intelligence, his kindness, his gentle humor. He would be a wonderful father. The children of Hickory Ridge adored him. He always had time to read a story or show them a sleight-of-hand trick that left them gaping in wonder and clamoring to know how it was done. She could imagine a life with him, a life of quiet contentment. Maybe that was the best she could hope for now. And yet . . .