Carla Kelly (56 page)

After a hearty bout of useless tears while Mabli was hiding from her in the boardinghouse kitchen, Della let herself into the school and unlocked the door to her room. She lit a kerosene lamp and put it on her desk so she could pretend she had something to do.

Drat that man
, she thought, indignant.
Any woman who loves a miner should have her brain removed and washed.

Out of sorts with everyone, she rested her head on her desk and closed her eyes. “I'm sorry, Heavenly Father,” she murmured. “Forgive me.”

When she felt better and sat up, she saw Owen Davis standing in her open door. Her eyes filled with tears. He didn't say anything. He went to the closet and took out his box of wooden letters. She heard him putting them back, then heard chalk on blackboard instead. She looked away resolutely.

When he finished, he nodded to her and left the classroom. She sat a long moment without turning around, then she sighed.
Time to take my medicine
, she thought.
How bad can it be?

She turned around and read the board, both hands to her mouth. “ ‘I'm not one to court. I only know how to be a husband,’ ” she read, shocked. “ ‘Marry me? Or at least come to the dance with me?’ ”

“You are hopeless,” she said out loud and erased the blackboard. Dusting off her hands, she went into the hall. No one there. She opened the outside door, and there he sat on the steps.

She sat down beside him, not quite close enough to touch him. Neither of them said a word. Gradually, she felt herself leaning slightly in his direction. Gradually his arm went around her waist, which meant that to be comfortable she had to rest her head on his shoulder.

“I'm being childish, and I can't stand myself,” she said finally.

“I'm stubborn and mired in the past,” he said. “Can we bend a little?”

Silence.

“I don't want you in the mine.”

More silence.

“It's what I do best.”

She looked at him then, and he turned to look at her. He was an honorable man, a good father, a churchgoer, a wonderful singer, an excellent woodcarver, and a skilled miner. To take one characteristic meant to take all. He wasn't an apple bin, to pick and choose from; he was the man she loved.

“Can I bend? I honestly don't know,” she told him finally. “Can you?”

“I don't know either.”

“The answer to the first question is no.” She felt his involuntary flinch. “The answer to the second question is yes.”

She stood up then, but he tugged on her dress, and she sat down again. “I'm a very good husband, Della,” he told her, not pleading with her—he would never do that—but not giving up. “I hang up my clothes, I take a bath every day, I treat people kindly, I love my daughter.” He paused a moment, as if considering, then plunged ahead. “I have it on good authority that I am a competent lover.”

She looked away, shy. No man had ever spoken to her like that. “I have no idea what I am.”

He laughed softly. “I have a strong suspicion that you are everything I just said I was.” He gave her neck a little shake. “Ah, well. Up you get. I'm on afternoons for two weeks now. I know you can polka. Practice your waltz, Butterbean. We're going to the dance.”

He stood up and walked away without a backward glance. She waited, listening. In a minute, she heard him singing, “ ‘Nay, speak no ill, a kindly word, can never leave a sting behind,’ ” which made her laugh in spite of herself.

He hadn't asked her if Angharad could stay with them until he was out of the mine each evening, so the child walked home every afternoon with Myfanwy Jones and Mary Evans, her best friends. Miss Clayson stopped by her classroom after school one afternoon, curious to know what had happened.

“I heard you in your classroom on Sunday evening and then I heard someone else, so I stayed away, Della. Now you're so quiet. Can I help?”

Della regarded her principal, who had returned to her own silence in the months after Christmas, but at least not to her distrust and malice, if that's what it was. “Too quiet, eh? I don't know, Lavinia. My miner doesn't seem to be as compliant and fun-loving as Miss Forsyth's mining engineer. I won't be running off before the term ends.”

“I knew that,” Miss Clayson said with a laugh. “If you feel like talking …” She turned to go, then looked back. “I nearly forgot: I'll be getting next year's contracts any day now.”

Della nodded and turned her attention to the letter she was writing to the Phoenix School District. When she finished this one, supplying addresses of references, she mailed it. In the Wasatch Store, Clarence Nix glanced at the address and frowned.

“This had better not be what I think it is,” he said. Word must have circulated about her uncharacteristic foul mood.

“Clarence, just mail it,” she said patiently and handed over two cents. She gave him another penny. “And let me have a peppermint stick, a big one.”

The candy was no remedy for heartache, but she sucked on it all the way home, past the homes that had just been pathetic shacks clinging to the rocky hillside when she first saw them months ago; past the mechanical buildings and the open-sided woodshed that still made her heart beat faster and thank the Lord for. When she came to the little pocket canyon with its trestle marking the Number Four incline, she looked in that direction as she always did when she knew Owen was under the mountain. She felt the muffled rumble more than heard it, knowing some crew was shooting down coal. The rush was on to finish a few smaller contracts before the US Navy contract.

She would have stopped at Mabli's, except that Eeva Koski caught up with her, and linked her arm through Della's.

“What's this I hear?” Eeva asked, keeping her walking toward Finn Town. “Victor Aho tells me Owen is chewing nails and growling. You're quiet and glum. And eating candy!” She nudged Della. “I eat sugar mints when I'm ready to murder Kari.”

Della couldn't help the tears in her eyes. “He proposed, and I just can't marry a miner.”

Eeva steered her into her home and shooed her children outside. She sat Della down. “You can't?” she asked, all kidding gone. “My dear, why not? I know you love him.”

“He won't leave the mine for me. Eeva, my father died in a mine and the next years of my life were horrible beyond description.” She looked away. “That ended when I came here. I dread that it would begin again, with another loss.”

They sat together in silence. Trust Eeva not to give her any glib answers, even though her silence spoke volumes.

“Miners are strange creatures,” Eeva said finally. “There's something called the lure of the mine. It seems to draw those men who like pitting themselves against impossible odds. Women don't do that. We nurture and try to avoid impossible odds.” She chuckled. “It's a wonder there are any children in the world, considering how different we are.”

Della nodded. She sat with her friend until she finished her peppermint stick, then rose quietly and left Finn Town.

Choir practice Tuesday night was equally subdued. The voices were as wonderful as usual, even though both Richard and Owen were in the mine. Will Pugh gave her a handful of letters.

“Questions about Eisteddfod,” he told her. “See? We did need a secretary.”

“Thanks, Will. I'll answer them.”

He frowned, obviously not content with her quiet acceptance.

The singing calmed her, as it always did. By the end of the hour, she was smiling again, even when Martha Evans, with a merry expression, suggested they sing “Nay, Speak No Ill,” followed by “Kind Words Are Sweet Tones.”

“I especially like the chorus,” Martha said. “You know, where we sing
in perfect harmony
, Della. ‘Let us oft speak kind words to each other, kind words are sweet tones of the heart.’ ”

“You are all hopeless!” Della scolded, with a fair imitation of her usual asperity that earned her relieved smiles, except for Martha Evans, who was not even slightly fooled.

The library was still solace, which made her think about writing a letter to the Phoenix library, assuming anyone read in Arizona and there
was
a library.

She brushed through the next Sunday, sitting in her usual place in the choir next to Owen. She stood just far enough away from him to avoid his hand, which reached for her hand once or twice, then gave up. She had no similar defense against Angharad's frown and her drooping shoulders, which told her too much about the silence at the Davis residence.

“Miss Anders, I miss you,” Angharad said after church as they walked home together, Owen walking behind with the Evanses. Mabli was in front again with William Goode, which gave Della the only lift to her heart. Angharad tugged on her hand. “Da isn't even carving.”

“Oh, my dear,” Della whispered. She pressed her fingers against the bridge of her nose. “He'll be all right. You will too.”

“Will you?”

Angharad came to the library with the Evanses on Wednesday night, returning a book and wondering what to read next. Della steered her to Grimms’ Fairy Tales. “It'll take some effort on your part, but your da will know the bigger words.” She leaned closer. “Tell you what—you can check this one out for three weeks.”

“You can
do
that?” Angharad asked, her eyes wide.

“Only for my best friends.” She kissed Angharad and set the stamp for three weeks.

“Thank you, miss.” Angharad handed her a folded piece of paper. “For you. Maybe you forgot how much you need one.”

She waited until Angharad left with the Evanses to open the paper. It was a red dragon, paw raised, defiant. She looked closer. Angharad had drawn the dragon with tears in its eyes.

The end of the week couldn't have come soon enough to suit Della. She closed her door with a sigh that even Israel Bowman heard as he locked his own door.

“Della, Della, he's an unhappy fella,” he said.

“Not you too! There is a vast conspiracy in this canyon full of busybodies!” she told him, exasperated.

He backed away, holding up both hands. “Steady now. Maybe I should talk to Owen. I discovered last year that if I do whatever Blanche wants, I'm a happy man. G'day, dearie. You'll figure it out. I'm off to Provo, as usual.” He kissed her cheek in passing.

There wasn't a letter in sight from Arizona when she checked at the Wasatch Store. “It's been two weeks since I wrote to that school district,” she grumbled. “Clarence, what is the matter with the US Postal Service?”

“Not a thing, Miss Anders.” He handed her a folded note. “There's this. Don't look so suspicious! It's from Dr. Isgreen. He just dropped it by.”

I am getting tired of myself
, she thought as she opened the note. She read the note, hoping he wasn't going to cry off and leave her to pout and sulk alone. “Dear Della, I'm in a rush tomorrow. Could you just meet me at the restaurant? Doctor duties, you know. EI.”

She did know, glad she still had a friend in the canyon. The weather was pleasingly warm, so she wore the green silk shirtwaist Aunt Amanda had sent from Provo for no particular reason. It went quite well with her brown skirt. She piled her curls on top of her head in a style found in this month's
McCall's Magazine
, frowned at the effect, and reverted to a simple braid down her back.

The solitary walk suited her mood, but nothing prepared her for the sight of Owen Davis seated at Emil Isgreen's usual corner table. She went to the table and stood there.

“He s-s-sent me a note. Something about doctor duties,” she stammered. Owen wore a new white shirt and one of Angharad's Thanksgiving cravats. His hair was slicked back and he looked wonderful. “You are
not
a doctor duty.”

“Beg to differ, Butterbean. I went to his office before my shift yesterday and told him to put a stethoscope to my heart. It worried him, so he gave up dinner. Sit down, please.”

She sat, nodding to the waiter when he handed her a menu.

“Angharad told me the food is wonderful here,” he said, when the silence grew. “Della, please smile.”

“It's kind of hard,” she told him simply. “I've lost to the mine. I could fight another woman, but I can't fight a mine.”

“Do you love me?”

It was a good question; she hadn't thought he would be so bold to ask it in a restaurant. Did she love him? Even the thought of a summer away from him was impossible to fathom; he was talking about years, with an eternity thrown in on the side.

“I always will, Owen.”

She ordered a bowl of soup she didn't want, and Owen ordered dinner. Drat the man for sitting there brooding and looking so handsome. The Welsh must be the most aggravating, duplicitous, infuriating band of Celts in all of known history.

“You won't take that scary step and marry me?”

She shook her head. “I told you I would never marry a miner. Aren't you listening?” She couldn't help her flash of anger.

He ignored it. “I'm listening. You're still sitting here, so I won't give up. It can end right here, Della. Just say the word.”

She teared up again, distressed with herself. He made it worse by handing her a handkerchief smelling of soap and coal.