The Bridal Veil (7 page)

Later Letty had remarried, to Robert
Cannon and nothing was the same after
that . . . 

This morning, though, things looked
more hopeful. In her mind, she’d begun to put together a lesson
plan for Rose, focusing on her most pressing problems first—getting
the girl cleaned up and improving her table manners. Why her
grandmother sometimes dressed her in those engulfing ruffles and at
other times let her run around like a little savage was a mystery.
But Emily knew that she would have to first make amends for
snapping at Rose last night.

She looked in her trunk and found a
pink satin hair ribbon that Alyssa had given to her years before.
She still remembered the Christmas morning when she opened the
small package. They’d lived in the big house on Washington
Boulevard then. The family had still been together—Father, at least
the man she’d come to think of as her father, Mother, Alyssa, and
Emily—all secure and safe in a house that had smelled of spice and
pine and beeswax candles. Who could have foreseen what would happen
to all of them? How could she have guessed that she, Emily, the
least promising of the Cannon girls, would be the only one left
fifteen years later?

She looked down at the ribbon again.
It was a special keepsake, but she wanted to give it to Rose as a
peace offering. All girls liked pretty things, even unmannered
tomboys like her.

Searching through her belongings,
Emily found a sheet of creamy vellum, an envelope, and her pen and
ink. She pulled out the chair at the dressing table and wrote a
note:

Dear Rose,

It is my sincere hope that
we can become good friends. This hair ribbon is very dear to me and
I would like you to have it.

Just two lines, but she
agonized over the wording for fifteen minutes. Then she nibbled on
the end of the pen, trying to decide how to sign it. Finally, she
settled for
Emily Cannon
Becker
. It was a bit formal but the
circumstances were so odd, she decided to stick with proprieties.
One couldn’t go wrong with proper form. She slipped the note and
the ribbon into the envelope, wrote Rose’s name on it, and sealed
it.

If her new life here was truly to be a
new start, if she was going to fit in, she decided she would have
to learn to get along with the cranky matriarch downstairs, as
well. Until yesterday she had not known that Cora lived under
Luke’s roof, but there she was, and Emily realized that in order to
reach Rose she must also win over the grandmother. She didn’t even
want to consider what she might have to do to win over the remote,
handsome Luke.

After washing, she put on the black
dress she’d worn at dinner the night before. Then she braided her
hair into a tight coronet and pinned on her mourning brooch.
Cautiously she opened her door and was greeted by the welcome
aromas of baking bread and frying bacon. Her appetite was back
after the disastrous meal last night—surely the bread would taste
good, she hoped. Hurrying down the hall, she slipped her envelope
under Rose’s closed door, then proceeded to the stairs. With a
sense of resolve, she was going back into the lion’s den—her new
home.

She came into the kitchen and found
Cora at the huge black stove. Her calico dress was shapeless except
where her apron cinched the waist. “Good morning, Mrs.
Hayward.”

Cora glanced at her over her shoulder.
“Mrs. Becker.” Emily clenched her back teeth. There was a tone like
curdled milk in Cora’s voice when she addressed her, but Emily
swallowed and put on a smile.

“
It’s good to see a break in
the rain. I wonder if the sun will come out later.”

Cora ignored Emily’s further attempts
at conversation. Finally she asked the question that hovered in her
mind.

“
Where is Luke this
morning?”

“
Out working in the
fields—that’s what farmers do.”

Emily’s head began to ache from the
pressure she exerted on her jaws. “Will Rose come down for
breakfast, do you think?”

That got Cora’s attention.
She turned to look at Emily. “Why? Do you want to
improve
her some more?
The child cried her eyes out for the better part of last night.
She’s still asleep.” The knife in her hand flew as she sliced
potatoes into a skillet.

Emily felt herself flush. What she
wanted was to make amends with the girl, but she decided not to
answer Cora’s sarcasm. “Maybe there’s something I can do to help
with breakfast.”

“
I’ve been getting along
just fine all these years without help.” The potatoes sizzled in
the hot grease. “You can go set in the parlor until you’re
called.”

Genuine anger flared to life in
Emily’s chest. After years of respectful students, she was
unprepared for Cora Hayward’s barefaced rudeness. No one back home
would have spoken to her so. She could rise above it, though, she
told herself. She had to, no matter how she longed to make a reply
that would pin back Cora’s ears. Something about Rose touched her
heart. She wanted to help the girl, and she’d promised Luke that
she would. To do that, she felt she had to win Cora’s approval. She
tried again. Deliberately misunderstanding the dismissal, she said,
“Mrs. Hayward, you don’t need to treat me like a guest. I could set
the table, or slice bread, or spoon out the—”

Cora turned. “You want to help? All
right.” She grabbed a handled basket from a shelf beside the door.
“Go out to the henhouse and gather the eggs. Mind that you don’t
break them.”

“
Henhouse,” Emily repeated.
She didn’t know a blasted thing about gathering eggs but she’d be
horsewhipped before she’d admit it. How hard could it be? Hens sat
on them, and all she had to do was search under their feathers.
Probably.

“
That’s it out there.” Cora
went to the window and waved in the general direction of the barn,
indicating a low, weathered building attached to it. “Go on now.
And be sure to close the coop gate behind you so the other chickens
don’t get out.”

Emily went to the door, struggling
with an outrage that was alien to her, but one that made her want
to twist off the knob when she gripped it. As she went down the
porch steps, she felt Cora’s eyes on her.

~~*~*~*~~

Damn this rocky soil, Luke thought as
he stood in the side yard, trying to pry a rock out of the disk
harrow. No matter how many stones he pulled out of the earth, there
were always more. Some of them were as big as steamer trunks and
had to be hauled out with the horse team. This one was small, maybe
the size of a cabbage, but it was wedged in there as tight as a
shotgun groom between the bride’s parents. If he’d been paying
attention, instead of thinking about Emily, he might have seen it
before he ran over it. He didn’t know who he wanted to swear
at—himself, Emily, or the rock. With a chisel and hammer, he beat
on the offending stone, making sparks fly, but the thing wouldn’t
budge.

Stopping for a moment, he dragged his
sleeve across his sweating forehead and considered the situation.
Suddenly, he heard a tremendous ruckus coming from the henhouse. By
God, if the weasel had come back again— He dropped the tools and
ran toward the squat building, splashing through puddles,
determined to wring the varmint’s neck with his bare hands if he
could catch it. But just as he reached the henhouse, he heard a
decidedly feminine squeal that was neither chicken nor
weasel.

He yanked open the door and found
Emily pinned against the back wall by the oldest biddy in the
flock. The squawking bird leaped at her in a confusion of wings,
claws, and beak. Emily did her best to cover her face, but the
backs of her hands were scratched and bleeding. The rest of the
hens were in an uproar, all flapping around and screeching, and
raising a storm of feathers and straw. Cora’s egg basket lay on the
floor with broken eggs running out in a river of yolks and
whites.

“
Ma’am!” Luke batted the hen
out of the way and grabbed Emily’s arm. “Come on.” He snapped up
the basket and pulled her outside, slamming the door on the
henhouse. She stood, swaying slightly, with dirt and chicken
droppings streaking her black dress. Feathers dotted her hair and
skirts. “Are you all right?”

She nodded once, or at least he
thought she did. The movement was so faint, he thought she might
just be trembling. She sure looked dazed. “Thank you for rescuing
me. I-I didn’t know what to do.”

“
What the hell were you
doing in there?” Even his own breath was short.

Stray locks of hair hung on either
side of her face, and all the color had drained from her cheeks. “I
c-came out to gather eggs for breakfast,” she said, her voice
quavering. “That one chicken, she was like a creature possessed.
She attacked me and—and— It must have been something I did, but I
don’t know what.”

He took her slender elbow and steered
her toward a rough, weather-bleached bench that leaned against the
barn wall. “Here, sit down.” He put the basket at her feet and
stood in front of her, ready to bawl her out for straying into
danger. God, he’d known her less than twenty-four hours, and she’d
already caused more trouble than he usually had in a week. “Cora is
the only one who knows how to handle that mean old biddy. She
should have stopped you from coming out here.” He put one foot next
to her on the bench and leaned his arm on his knee.

Emily gazed at the backs of her
scratched hands, which shook mightily. “I asked her to let me help
with breakfast and she gave me the basket. She said not to break
the eggs, and I dropped them—”

“
You mean she sent you?” A
hazy suspicion began to take shape in Luke’s mind but he backed
away from it, as he often did when he thought of Cora’s
machinations. If he pondered it too long, he’d end up having to
talk to her about this stunt she’d pulled on Emily. And that would
turn into another disagreement.

She reached into her pocket and dabbed
at her hands and face with a black-edged handkerchief. He could see
that she struggled for dignity, but damn, it was a pretty long
reach when a person was bleeding and spotted with chicken shit.
Then she looked up at him, her spring-green eyes vivid with a fear
that he could almost feel himself. “Yes, I wanted to be useful. I’m
capable, I can help. After last night and everything that went
wrong . . . ”

And kept going wrong, as far as Luke
could tell. He rubbed the back of his tense neck. “Look, you go
inside and get cleaned up. Don’t worry about helping.” He started
to walk away.

“
Mr. Becker,
wait.”

He turned and waited.

“
I-I was hoping to talk to
you about Rose’s education. I know she needs guidance, but I’d like
to know if you have something specific in mind. I’ve formulated a
basic plan.”

He glanced at the harrow, idle in the
yard, the rock still jammed in its workings. Daylight didn’t wait
for anyone, and he had another five acres to plow. “We can worry
about that later, too. For the time being, just stay out of
trouble. Can you make it back to the house? ”

She gave him a chilly look, plucked up
the gooey egg basket, and rose from the bench, her movements still
shaky. “Yes, thank you, Mr. Becker. I shall manage well
enough.”

With her back straight and her chin
lifted, she glided regally across the yard and toward the back
porch as if she were the lady of the manor.

~~*~*~*~~

“
Well, Mrs. Becker, where
are those eggs?” Cora stood at the table, stirring what looked like
pancake batter. Her gaze took in Emily’s dishevelment, and Emily
knew by the twitch of her mouth the woman was trying not to laugh.
She also realized that this was exactly the result Cora had been
expecting. Rose sat at the table, dressed in boys’s overalls, her
hair barely brushed, eating a bowl of mush. She stared at Emily
with her jaw agape, as if she’d never seen her before.

“
I’m very sorry, Mrs.
Hayward, there will be no eggs today.” Emily left the slime-covered
basket on the kitchen table and walked toward the stairs, bent on
reaching the privacy of her room to survey the damage done by the
hen. In the stairwell, she heard muffled snorts that gave way to
braying laughter coming from the kitchen. Oh, Cora had enjoyed a
fine joke at her expense, hadn’t she? Though Emily had been the
butt of people’s thoughtlessness and sniggering during her life,
their cruelty never ceased to amaze her. Did they believe the
victims of their pranks and comments had no feelings? Or did they
simply not care?

In her own room, Emily sat on the
brocade-covered bench at the dressing table and looked into the
foot-square mirror mounted over it. Oh, God, it was worse than
she’d realized outside, and Luke had seen her like this. Her hair
could be neatened and her face washed, but the damage to her dress
was another matter. Smeared with chicken muck, dirt, and feathers,
she wasn’t sure if she would be able to get it clean. Crepe didn’t
wash well. She had only one other black dress besides her traveling
suit, and four more months of mourning to satisfy. She’d have to
mix up a batch of Japanese cleaning cream and hope for the
best.

Going to the washstand, she washed her
face, and once the blood had been rinsed off, she was glad to see
that the scratches on her hands were only superficial. Then she
noticed the pink ribbon.