Cheryl Reavis (21 page)

“I was very upset. He was…concerned. I didn’t want Mary Louise and Lise to find me in such a state—”

“Why were you upset?”

Caroline glanced at Beata and remained silent.

“Why were you upset, Caroline?”

“I am not going to answer that,” she said, and he grabbed her by the arm.

She stared into his eyes, refusing to cower, and he abruptly let her go.

“Why did Eli stand up in church and ask to marry you? I thought he did it as an insult to me—to show everybody that
he
had more charity for Anna’s sister than I did. Why does he write this letter behind my back, Caroline? Why does he send you money?”

“I don’t know!”

“You don’t know?” he repeated incredulously. “I have been a fool where you are concerned—but I am
not
that besotted—no wonder you don’t care if Kader Gerhardt marries Leah. What is he to you?”

“Frederich, this makes no sense—”

“I am done with the Holts! Do you understand? I don’t want you! You take the money and you go to Eli! You let him keep his promise!”

“There was no promise!”

“Enough!” he cried. “I have had enough!”

She stood there trembling, trying not to cry. He picked up the money from the floor and slammed it on the table, adding another bill to the pile from his own pocket.

“You see?” he said, his voice cold and hard. “Never say I don’t leave a woman like you her fee.”

She stared at him, so wounded by the insult that it was all she could do not to turn away. She gave a wavering sigh and shook her head. He believed this thing about her, and she couldn’t change his mind. She had only to look into his eyes to know that. She stood there, willing herself to be strong, trying hard to ignore Beata’s presence in the room.

In one swift motion she picked up the money and flung it back at him. “Take
your fee
and be damned,” she said.

S
he stood at the window and watched him go, striding away from her and their marriage and their night together without even once looking back. And Beata fluttered along behind him, assuring him, no doubt, of how much better off he would be now that he had come to his senses. Even when Caroline could no longer see either of them, she still stood there, her eyes searching along the line of woods for some sign of the army. The anger she felt was surpassed only by the fear she had for his safety. Even now.

How can I be worried about what happens to him?
she thought, but she knew the answer as soon as the question had arisen.

I am being punished still.

And what better retribution could there be for her than for her to truly love Frederich Graeber? In spite of everything she had felt about Germans in general and Frederich in particular, she loved him.

She moved to another window. She could see her own reflection in the wavy glass.

I have no tears. My heart is breaking and I have no tears.

Frederich!

She finally sat down at the kitchen table, and she kept trying to remember what had happened the few times she’d had any society with Eli Graeber. He had been there when
Ann died, but she had been too distraught to even speak to him. There had been that afternoon in the church, of course, and when he’d stood up in the congregation and asked to marry her. The only other time he had spoken to her had been her first night in the Graeber house—when Lise had done the translating.

What had he said then? Don’t be afraid? He had made no promises to her as the letter implied. She knew nothing about a promise.

I don’t understand/

But if he had sent her money those first weeks after she’d married Frederich, in all likelihood she would have used it. She would have taken herself and her ruined reputation and her pregnancy as far away as possible. Why had Eli thought she needed money
now?

She gave a sad smile.

Actually, she did need it—thanks to his cryptic letter, though apparently it was only
she
who found what he had written a mystery. Frederich—and Beata—seemed to understand it perfectly. It fit all their preconceived notions about Caroline Holt.

“I don’t understand,” she said out loud. And there was nobody to explain it, except perhaps Eli, and she didn’t even know where he was, regardless of the letter and the money and the invitation to make her escape.

The memory of Frederich’s face rose in her mind. She had been devastated by his anger, and there was nothing she could do about it. He believed the letter. He believed every aspect of it—that at some point in time she had behaved in such a way as to make Eli think his money and his summons to his side would be welcome.

She closed her eyes at yet another humiliation. Beata had heard every word Frederich said to her. For once she wouldn’t have to make up her sordid tales. And likely she was already running neighbor to neighbor with the news.

Frederich is done with Caroline Holt. He is going to send her back to where she came from.

She looked around in alarm because someone stepped up on the back porch, but she made no effort to go and see. She had heard no horses—not the army then—and not Frederich, who would have barged right in. She was hardly in a state of mind to receive visitors. Perhaps the intruder would go away, she thought. Or perhaps it had already begun—the parade of people coming by to see with their own eyes.the further downfall of the notorious Caroline Holt.

Someone has to tell her to stay away from the decent folk.

Whoever it was knocked loudly. She began to pace the room.

“Leave me alone,” she whispered. “Go away and leave me alone!”

The knocking grew louder then abruptly ceased. She waited a moment longer, then made up her mind. She had no choice but to show herself. She hadn’t been run to the ground, and she wouldn’t cower here as if she had.

I have done nothing wrong. Nothing.

She glanced at the money still lying on the kitchen table in a pile beside Eli’s letter.

Never say I don’t leave a woman like you her fee.

Frederich had paid for her favors. There was nothing he could have ever done that would hurt her more than that.

She stood for a moment longer, then went to the window and looked out again. Last night’s snow hadn’t amounted to much after all—just a light dusting over the icy ground. And she had been too happy in her husband’s arms to notice.

Johann Rial stood on the porch in the feeble winter daylight, quietly smoking his pipe.

She gave a heavy sigh. She could ignore him—but it would only postpone the inevitable. Johann thought he had a soul to save, and there would no deterring him from his vocation. She walked to the back door and opened it.

“Come in, Johann,” she said, her voice sounding much more distressed than she would have wanted. She cleared her throat, hoping to subdue the tears that threatened to come after all.

He looked around at her, then knocked the ashes out of his pipe, saying nothing until he entered the house.

“I’ve come to take you home,” he said.

“I am home.”

“No, you are not, and you know it—”

“You’ve wasted a trip, Johann,” she interrupted. “I’m staying here. Did Frederich send you?”

“Caroline, what have you done?” he asked, sidestepping her question.

She closed her eyes and fought down the flood of anger at his assumption of her guilt. When she opened them, he was staring at the money and the letter.

“I want to know what has gone wrong with you and Frederich,” he said, looking at her. He didn’t add the word
now,
but he might as well have.

“Haven’t you heard?” she asked. “I’m leaving my husband and my nieces and running away with Eli Graeber. Of course the small fact that I have no idea where he is and I haven’t spoken to him since the day I married Frederich shouldn’t…” The sarcasm she had always used to protect herself suddenly slid away. Her mouth began to tremble and she abruptly put her face in her hands.

“Caroline, you are overwrought. If you refuse to come with me now, then I’m going to light a fire. This room is freezing. And…we can talk. It has been a very long time since my last meal, so you will forgive me if I also invite myself to sit at your table.”

“There is nothing here to eat,” she said tearfully.

“I’m sure I can find something—where does Avery keep his brandy?” he added when she looked at him.

She had to struggle hard for control before she answered. “In the cellar,” she said. She was so tired suddenly,
and she hadn’t eaten, either. She sat down heavily in the nearest chair, and she put her head down on the kitchen table, hiding her face in her arms, trying to regain her self-control. She could hear Johann moving about—getting wood, opening the door to the stove, lighting kindling and then a candle so he could see to get down the cellar stairs.

After a time, he came back with a jug of plum brandy-plum brandy that Frederich had made—and a handful of withered potatoes. Then he went outside and drew a bucket of water. Every rule of social decorum she had ever learned demanded that she get up and help him, but she simply couldn’t manage it. He scrubbed the potatoes himself and put them into a pot to boil, and only then did he pour both of them a generous helping of the brandy.

“Drink it,” he said, setting her cup down hard enough to slosh the brandy over the sides. He pulled out another chair and sat down across from her.

“I’ve never cared much for spirits—”

“Drink it,” he insisted in a tone very close to his pulpit voice. “All of it. And when you are calm enough, you explain this—this—fiasco to me.”

She gave a short laugh. “Would that I could, Johann,” she said, taking the cup.

“Make an attempt,” he said.

She took a swallow of the brandy—it made her cough— and then another, feeling it burn all the way down. She looked at Johann and tried to force a wavering smile, but the smile died and slid away.

“I want to know what happened, Caroline.”

“Beata brought a letter,” she said tonelessly, because that seemed to be the crux of it all. “From Eli Graeber.”

Johann stared at her across the table. She took another drink from the cup, a long one this time. It burned less going down, but she still wanted to cry.

“What exactly does this letter say?” he asked.

She was dangerously close to crying now, and she picked it up and pushed it in his direction. He smoothed it out and began to read, looking up at her sharply at one part of it.

“You were with Eli in my church?” he asked, his disappointment at even the possibility of such a thing all to obvious.

“I was
in
the church at the same time he was on that particular day. But I was not
with
him,” she said for the second time, fully aware that while she could deny this particular sin, she could not deny that she had been in the schoolroom with Kader.

“This is all of the letter?”

“I suppose. I didn’t see any more pages.”

“Was Eli the father of your child or not?” he asked bluntly.

“Not,
Johann,” she said. “I’ve never said more than ten words to Eli Graeber in my life—and those few he could barely understand. But Frederich thinks—”

“I know what Frederich thinks.”

“Then suppose you tell me.”

“He thinks that you and Eli have made a fool of him. He thinks Eli is the one who made you pregnant. He thinks that Eli, in a fit of conscience, tried to do the right thing and marry you, but he was afraid to go against the marriage pledge. So he ran off and left you here—but now he’s had second thoughts. Now he wants to take care of you just as he promised. And he’s sent you the money to come to him.”

Yes, she thought. She could see how Frederich’s logical German mind could arrive at that conclusion—anyone would for that matter. The only problem was than none of it was true, and Frederich hadn’t trusted her enough to even listen.

“He thinks all of that and you want me to go back to his house?” she asked.

“There are the children. I trust you aren’t going to abandon them to Beata. You did give Frederich your word to—”

“He isn’t going to let me keep my word, Johann.”

“Caroline, you don’t know whether he will or—”

“Is the army still about?” she interrupted.

“They’ve left the Graeber house, but where they’ve gone I couldn’t say.”

“And where is Frederich?”

“Trying to make some sense of this. He is very angry, Caroline.”

“He is not the only one who is angry! I haven’t done anything wrong. It wasn’t Eli. It was never Eli. Frederich has known for a long time who…” She had to stop to keep from crying. She looked at Johann sadly. “I don’t know what to do.”

The fire was burning hot now. The iron stove began to pop and strain with the heat. She got up to close the damper.

“You need to talk to Frederich before he goes—or is taken. If they catch him, I think they’ll send him to the prison in town. It is a terrible place, Caroline. You have to talk to him now. You
have
to if you are ever going to sort this out.”

“You don’t know how disinclined he was to listen.”

“He is not a cruel man, Caroline,” he said when she sat down again. “I remember that you once thought so—after Ann died.”

“Yes. It has taken me a long time to get past his treatment of her that day. She was so young when he married her.”

“She was what we call the
Backfisch—
young—yes, but of age. She wanted the marriage. You know that. Frederich was her first infatuation, her
Schwarmerei.
And I must tell you that what you saw the day she died, you didn’t understand—”

“What I saw was his indifference. He wanted a son—she wasn’t well enough to have any more children—but he didn’t care about that. He didn’t care if it killed her.”

“You are very wrong.”

“I was
there,
Johann.”

“Yes, you were there. But you still didn’t know the truth.”

“What truth?”

“The truth I’m going to tell you now. I had thought that it wasn’t my place to speak about it, that people would be hurt unnecessarily—that
you
would be hurt, Caroline. But there is too much at stake here. Frederich’s children need the both of you—”

“Johann, please! Just tell me what it is or go away!”

“All right. There is a reason why Frederich is compelled to believe that letter.”

“Reason,” she repeated. “And the ‘reason’ is also the ‘truth’?”

“It is,” he said, ignoring her resurrected sarcasm. “Eli never wanted to come to this country—any more than Frederich had before him—and his efforts to learn how to live here and to do his part for the family were halfhearted at best. To say that Eli Graeber was unreliable would be an understatement—perhaps you did know about that part of it. Eli made it very clear that he was no farmer and he had no intention of becoming one. It didn’t matter to him that he owned half the land or that Frederich needed his help. It only mattered that his father had forced him to come to a place he didn’t want to go. But whether his resentment of Frederich and his father is what caused him to do what he did, or whether it came out of loneliness or some other genuine emotion, I can’t say. I only know the end result. Your sister died when she miscarried her child—but the baby that killed her was not Frederich’s—”

“That’s not true! I don’t believe you!” she cried. “Ann would never have—”

“The baby was Eli’s, Caroline.”

“I don’t believe you!” she said again. She stood up, but there was no place she could go to get away from Johann’s revelation.
Ann and Eli? Never!

“Yes, well, there is a great deal of disbelief floating around this day,” Johann said. “But for whatever reason—revenge on his part or human weakness on hers—Eli and Ann
were
lovers, Caroline. The day she died—before you arrived—I heard her confession. And without Frederich’s knowledge or permission, I arranged for her to see Eli alone. The promise Eli mentions in this letter I believe was made then. I believe his promise was to her, not to you. I think he promised to take care of the three most important people in the world to her should they ever need it—Mary Louise and Lise—and you.”