The Bridal Veil (26 page)

“
Waiting for what, Cora?”
Not for his change of heart, he hoped. She’d see the next blue moon
before he’d ask her to stay here.

“
For you to drive me home,
of course. Unless you expect me to walk.” She started to push her
chair away from the table.

He sighed. “No, I don’t. I was
planning to take you.” He poured himself a cup of coffee from the
pot she had brewed and sat across from her. He drizzled a measure
of cream and spooned two sugars into the thick black murk of hers
that he’d learned to drink. “Look, I’m sorry about the way this has
all turned out.”

She responded by staying in her seat
and pressing her thin lips into a white crease above her
chin.

He hadn’t expected this to be easy,
and she wasn’t disappointing him. He forged ahead. “I appreciate
all your help over the past three years. You pulled us through a
real hard time—we were the better for your being here.” It was an
exaggeration, but Luke wanted to be big about this. “I’ll keep
helping out around your place. That won’t change. And if you need
anything, just let me know. You’re still Rose’s grandmother and
it’s important that you and she stay close. I know she’ll want to
stop by after school sometimes, and come to see you when school
lets out.”

“
Are you sure Mrs. Becker
won’t mind? After all, she’s taken over now,” she sniped. Last
night, both Rose and Emily had told him about her reaction to
Rose’s drawing. It had only reinforced his decision to send Cora
home.

He bracketed his coffee cup with his
elbows. “What happened yesterday started way before Emily ever got
here. Way before I placed that advertisement for a new
wife.”

She fixed him with her small, hard
blue eyes. “You’re right. It started the day you married
Belinda.”

He drew a deep breath. “Then it should
be over now, shouldn’t it. Belinda is dead and gone.” It sounded
harsh to his own ears, and yet freeing too. It was the first time
he’d been able to state aloud that his first wife had died. It was
as if at this moment, his mourning ended and a new beginning waited
for him.

That left Cora with nothing more to
say. She adjusted her battered straw hat and stood up. “Dead and
gone. Just like that. All right, I’m going too.”

He nodded. “I’ll hitch the team and
bring the wagon around.”

Cora watched him go out the door and
down the steps. He crossed the yard and she waited, her back teeth
snapped together like a bear trap. “But this isn’t over, Luke
Becker,” she murmured. “Not yet.”

~~*~*~*~~

From her bedroom window, Emily watched
as Luke pulled the wagon out into the road. Pink and yellow fingers
of dawn stretched out from the eastern sky, providing enough light
to see the dark silhouettes of the wagon and Luke and Cora. Emily
had remained upstairs, certain that her presence in the kitchen
would not be welcome or appropriate. Maybe with enough time and
healing, the four of them could reach a truce. Right now, though,
there were hard feelings all around.

But Cora’s leaving gave Emily a sense
of a new beginning in so many ways. She stood at her square of
mirror and braided her hair. Then she opened the doors of her
wardrobe and studied one of her day dresses. Her period of mourning
Alyssa was not fulfilled, but she let her hand linger on a lavender
muslin gown with a linen collar and cuffs. It would be cooler and
more practical for household chores than the black crepe. And it
looked better. It wasn’t dirty or streaked with variegated shades
of black.

“
Alyssa, please forgive me,”
she murmured and pulled out the lavender dress. Perhaps those who
were mourned were not as worried about appearances and dictums as
those who did the mourning. Maybe—and this was a revolutionary and
rebellious thought for Emily—maybe in heaven or wherever the souls
of the departed flew to, the complex manmade observations of proper
social conduct seemed as mundane and insignificant as the doings of
microscopic beings seemed to humans.

So in the cool morning light, Emily
dropped the broadcloth over her head, let it slide down her chemise
and her legs, and buttoned the bodice. Then she tied her apron
around her waist and opened her bedroom door.

Her first stop was Luke’s room. She
hesitated a moment, just as she had the one other time that she’d
put her hand on his doorknob. She drew a breath and lifted her
chin. Regardless of the arrangement between them, she was the lady
of the house now that Cora had left, and with the title came
responsibilities and obligations. One of those responsibilities
included making beds. So with a sense of belonging and purpose, she
turned the knob and walked in. But to her surprise, the bed was
already made.

“
Well, for heaven’s sake—”
she muttered to herself.

She plumped the pillows and
straightened the already-tidy quilt, feeling a little deflated. She
tried to imagine sharing this room with him, but it was so small
and austere, it didn’t look as if a woman had ever occupied it. It
was as plain and unadorned as always. This time, though, she
noticed that Belinda’s vanity set was gone. Only the wedding
photograph remained and it was turned, as if someone had pushed it
aside while reaching for something else.

She left the room and went down the
hall to Rose’s bedroom. Opening the door a crack, she saw that the
girl still slept. Her dark head was barely visible in the nest of
bedding. Poor thing, Emily thought. She’d lost her grandmother and
her pet on the same day. Emily wasn’t even sure if Cora had
bothered to tell her goodbye. She hoped she had.

Emily proceeded downstairs and got
breakfast started. She had to hunt for a while to find everything
she needed since Cora had never let her do much in the kitchen.
Finally she had a bowl, flour, salt, baking powder, and milk
assembled on the table to make pancakes, then realized she would
need eggs.

And that would mean a trip to the
henhouse.

In Chicago, even when the
Cannons had been forced to live in rented rooms, street vendors
came by selling eggs, butter, and milk. Or she could buy eggs from
one of the families that kept chickens in their backyards. Now the
chickens were in
her
backyard and she was scared to death of them. At least she was
afraid of the hens. Her memory of that day in the henhouse—the
stifling odor, the sharp beaks and claws, the flapping wings—was
acute, like a nightmare she’d suffered only hours earlier. Every
few minutes, she glanced out the window, looking for Luke and the
wagon. Perhaps he wouldn’t mind taking over the task of gathering
eggs for her. After all, he’d scolded her for even going out there
that day.

Cora is the only one who
knows how to handle that mean old biddy.

Then she remembered how she’d resented
being talked to as if she were a child. If she was going to do a
proper job of running this house, she would have to manage the bad
and the good. Luke had enough to do out in the fields. She wasn’t
afraid of hard work, and sometimes that meant doing dirty work. She
knew full well that life consisted of more than just tea parties
and nicely-appointed dining tables, something Alyssa had never
really had to learn, at least not for a long time. Yes, she’d been
aware of their reduced circumstances, and had stood on the sidewalk
and wept the day they left the house on Washington Boulevard. And
Charles Walker had eventually called off his engagement to Alyssa
when he realized that the Cannons had tumbled from their social
position. But she had stayed home and taken care of their father
while Emily had gone to work and supported them. In fairness to her
sister, Emily didn’t suppose that had been an easy chore,
especially toward the end of Father’s life.

She eyed the egg basket on its shelf
next to the back door. To cook breakfast she would need eggs, and
she would go get them, by heaven. She snatched the basket from the
shelf and marched out the door and down the backstairs, full of
grand resolve.

The grass and wild flowers that grew
on each side of the wide path to the barn bore crystals of dew that
sparkled in the early morning sun. Looking out across the plowed
fields, she noted long, arrow-straight rows of new green plants,
all well-tended, almost lovingly so. How did Luke make those rows
so straight? she wondered. What landmark did he use as a guide? It
seemed like an amazing accomplishment for someone working with the
simple tools of a plow and a pair of horses.

The pastoral hush of the morning was
an unexpected balm to her spirit. The house and the outbuildings
were in good repair, and Luke put food on the table every night.
Yes, he took a drink now and then, but his life had been hard and
lonely, from what Emily could tell. He loved his daughter with a
sometimes befuddled but fatherly devotion that she wished she had
known in her youth. What, then, had Cora found so lacking in him?
she wondered. She’d have thought that a mother would be proud, even
relieved, to have such a son-in-law. But Cora’s bitterness seemed
to reach to the very core of her heart, like a tooth rotten to the
roots.

As she approached the sun-bleached
henhouse, some of her resolve evaporated. The coop chickens didn’t
pay her much attention, but those laying
hens . . . God, those hens. She stood before
the door, the basket handle on her forearm.

She squared her shoulders,
determined to establish her dominance over the situation. “I’m
coming in now!” she announced, and then felt rather foolish. She
opened the door and a rush of warm, nasty odor washed over her. The
chickens peered at her with their black-bead eyes and made
distrustful clucking noises as they moved their heads in jerky
motions. “I know I’m a stranger to you,” she went on in her best
schoolmistress voice, “but
I
am in charge now and we will become
acquainted.”

Luke had pulled the wagon up to the
back porch, figuring he’d give Rose a ride into town after seeing
Cora back to her own home. It had been a tense, stiff trip, and the
mile to her place had seemed more like five.

He knew that Rose would be unhappy
about the last twenty-four hours. He couldn’t change or fix things,
and he didn’t even know what he would say to his girl to make her
feel better. But he had to try. He hoped that some gem of wisdom
would come to him between now and then. He hopped down from the
wagon seat and had one foot on the bottom step when he heard a
feminine voice coming from the henhouse. Curiosity turned him
toward the source of the sound.

“ 
. . . got off to a bad start, but I’ll be
collecting your eggs every morning from now on and there will be no
more nonsense about it. That’s just the way things are going to be.
I won’t tolerate rude behavior or disrespect. Any of you who give
me an unreasonable amount of trouble, well, she’ll find herself in
my skillet one Sunday afternoon. And I’m not joking.”

Luke rounded the weathered henhouse
and crept to the open door where he saw Emily, her spine straight,
her shoulders back, addressing the ten chickens inside as if she
were holding class. Her hair hung down the center of her back in a
single yellow braid, and damn but if she wasn’t wearing a dress
that wasn’t black. It was the color of lilacs, he thought, some
kind of pale violet shade. He was so completely enchanted by the
sight and sound of her that he managed to keep from laughing at her
technique of chicken-taming. She sounded so stern, he half expected
the chickens to step up and lay their eggs in the basket for
her.

“
All right, then, I believe
I’ve made myself clear,” she said, and stepped deeper into the
structure. Luke heard some flapping and squawking, and Emily’s
sharp replies, but eventually she emerged wearing a triumphant
expression. The morning sun made her skin glow like fresh
cream.

“
Oh! Luke, I didn’t know you
were back. Look!” She held out the basket for inspection. “I did
it. I got the eggs away from those cranky birds.”

He couldn’t keep his chuckle to
himself any longer. It felt good to laugh a little after the last
day or so. He came closer and looked into her basket. A clutch of
eggs sat inside, all unbroken. “Yes, you did. What about the old
biddy?”

Emily pursed her lips. “She didn’t
have any to give.” The subject of the hen apparently reminded both
of them of Cora. “Cora is settled in her own home?”

His smile faded and he shrugged.
“Well, she’s there, anyway. We didn’t talk much on the way. I
promised her that I’d help out around her place whenever she needs
it. And I told her that Rose understands she can go there anytime
she likes. I wouldn’t stop her from doing that.”

Emily nodded and sighed. “Maybe it’s
all for the best. I’m just sorry that the situation became so,
well, unpleasant.”

He laughed again. Still the
expert at the understatement, he noticed. With all the shouting,
arguing, and recriminations thrown around the day before, the
description hardly fit. “No, ma’am. Working in the rain is
unpleasant
, slipping on a
cow flop or drinking burned coffee is
unpleasant
. Yesterday was flat-out
hell.”

She gave him a wry smile and didn’t
comment on his language. “I would be inclined to agree.”

They turned and headed back to the
house, and almost without thinking, Luke put his hand on the small
of Emily’s back.