The Marriage Bed (14 page)

"Where is it?" he asked quietly, softening his voice when he saw how very embarrassed she was. Married three years and it was still like talking to an innocent.

She went into the bedroom and bent over to pull at the bottom drawer. Much as he like the view of her upturned derriere, he didn't see much point in the charade.

"It's not in there, Liv. Where'd you hide it?" He supposed that she hadn't read it after all, but perhaps she'd tried to stop him from reading it. "It's all right. All I want to do is give it back. There's nothing to be afraid of."

She was still bending over the drawer, feeling through his underwear with her hands in earnest. "Spencer," she said, turning to him with her eyes wide and her eyebrows raised. "It's not here. And I don't have it, and you don't have it."

"Well, then who . . . ?" Spencer asked.

"You don't think . . ." Livvy began, her hand rushing to cover her mouth. "Oh, he wouldn't ..."

"Boys are curious, Liv. That's all. Though he seems a little young."

"It's not just the book, Spencer. What was he doing in our underthings?" She shivered and he ran one hand up and down her arm, then grasped her elbow and helped her up. Even shaken she was graceful, even with worry creasing her brow she was still . . . well . . . The only word that came to his mind was pretty, and that wasn't what he meant. Not at all.

"I'll talk to him," Spencer said. "But boys are just naturally curious about such things." He didn't like the idea of the children rifling through their personal garments any more than she did, but he remembered being a young man with lots of questions and not enough guts to ask them.

"Maybe I should . . . " she began.

"No," he said, cutting her off. "A boy needs to talk to a man."

"I'm sorry, Spencer," she said, looking guiltily at him. "I could ask Remy to talk to Neil, if you don't want to."

"I said I would," he snapped at her, more sharply than he intended. "I'm just surprised it came up so soon. But then, being Bouche's boy, he probably was raised on
Aristotle's Masterpiece
."

She looked at him blankly and he fought to keep a straight face as he remembered leafing through a copy of the book with Remy behind his father's barn. The woodcuts might have been primitive, but to a couple of thirteen-year-old boys hungry for information, it had been a feast for the eyes and enough to provide the boys with more than one good boner. But Neil was only what, ten? What could he know of such things?

"Do you suppose it's in the barn?" she asked about the book. "Should I go look?"

Spencer shook his head. He'd rather the boy returned it on his own than go and take it. Remy could wait a few days. After all, Bess would be away in Milwaukee and Spencer could talk to Neil while the women were away. His nephews had probably had a peek at Napheys's tome themselves. Remy'd understand.

"We'd better get on to the meeting," Spencer said. "You taking that little one with us?"

"Mm-hm," she said, a little pride showing in her smile. Having the children around sure did seem to agree with her, even if it was setting his nerves on edge. "Louisa's off somewheres and Neil said he was going home with Thom-Tom and Philip after school to do their chores, then they were coming over here."

Ah
, Spencer thought—the book.
History repeats itself
. "Chores," he said, trying not to sound too dubious. "Yes, well, Thom-Tom and Philip sure seem to have taken to their cousin."

"Yes," she agreed, too pleased for him to tell her the obvious truth. "Isn't it wonderful?"

"And where'd you say Miss Louisa is?" The girl worried him, such an odd mixture of woman and child, at once trying to be all grown up and failing miserably, and then trying to hide the breasts that were budding on her chest and the hips that were beginning to spread.

"I don't honestly know," she admitted with a slight shrug. "But, like boys, girls have got certain things that they've got to get through at eleven or twelve that aren't easy. I think she's off thinking somewheres."

Spencer had been around for Olivia's growing up, just old enough to know what she was about, but not old enough to have any sympathy for the tag-along sister of a friend who would sit and stare at nothing for hours and then proclaim Maple Stand the dullest place on earth.

"You might want to have a talk with her when you get back," Spencer suggested, but Olivia just gave a jerk of her head as if to remind Spencer that Louisa wanted nothing to do with her. He supposed she was right. Any attempt by Livvy to help Louisa understand what was happening to her could be mistaken for an attempt to replace the girl's mother. "Well, there's time," he said, escorting her from the room as Remy yelled out that it was getting late.

From the way Charlie Zephin and his daughter had been talking, Olivia had just assumed it was all settled. She'd written for appointments, one for herself and one for Bess, with the lady doctor she'd read about in the
Badger State Banner
. She'd counted out the pennies from her butter and egg money and raided the sugar bowl where she kept anything she had left over from the spending money Spencer gave her to run the household.

Now here were her friends and neighbors arguing over whether the railroad surveyor should be invited at all. He had to be. How else could she manage to go to Milwaukee to see Dr. Sarah Roberts? And if she didn't see Dr. Roberts, how would she know if there was even a glimmer of hope for her to give Spencer a child?

". . . because a train means noise and smoke and no-accounts and everyone knows that it costs a barrel of apples to ship a barrel of apples, that's why," she heard her husband say.

"It'll bring in business and you can't fight progress, Mr. Williamson. It's nearly the twentieth century and you're living in the eighteenth." Charlie Zephin's usually smiling face was grim.

"I read where there was an accident in Gilmour, Montana, just last month and four people were hurt. Why, it seems to me that nearly every week there's the report of another one—"

"They were tramps," someone said. "They don't count."

"Didn't you hear about the collision in Hudson? Six killed and two hurt not two hundred miles from here, and it was only last week."

"It's the way of the future and Maple Stand can't afford to be left behind."

"Well, I vote no," Spencer said, rising to his feet.

"I can't see that having Mr. Makeridge come and take a look could cause any harm," Olivia said, coming to a stand next to her husband.

The room quieted.

"Sit down," Spencer said. "You can't vote for the railroad, so just look after that little one you were so anxious to get hold of."

"Are you telling me that I don't have a say in this?" Livvy asked, checking on Josie and seeing that the child was just fine and happy eating the cookies she had brought for her. With her hands on her hips, she was joined by several other women who stood and turned to face her husband, the same expectant looks on their faces that she supposed was on her own. "Because more than a few of these ladies own along with their husbands the land that the railroad just might be interested in buying. Some, like Mrs. Trencher there, own it whole. So if the ladies aren't going to be allowed to vote along with the men, same as—"

"I didn't say
they
can't vote," Spencer said and then lowered his voice to a loud whisper. "I said
you
can't vote. Unless you want to vote against the railroad along with me. Otherwise we just cancel each other out and there's not a damn reason for us to be here."

"Well, there may not be a reason for you to be here," she said, leaving out the profanity that came so easily to her husband's lips, "but there is for me. I've got an interest in two pieces of land here, and I suspect that while Mr. Makeridge isn't gonna be interested in either one, I've got as much right as the next man, maybe more, to hear what he has to say."

"Makeridge?" Spencer said. "Who the . . ." Olivia glared at him and he watched his words. "Who is this Makeridge? And how do you know him?"

"Mr. Makeridge," Emma Zephin said, taking the podium and clearing her voice, "is the surveyor for the Ahnapee and Western Railroad. Actually, his title is civil engineer."

A buzz went around the room, especially amongst the ladies when they noticed Emma's new hairdo, a sort of puffed-out bun like the ones that artist C. D. Gibson was drawing. At least, Livvy suspected that was the look Emma was trying for. She wondered how her own hair would look done that way. Better than Emma's, she hoped.

"What ya got on your head there, Miss Zephin?" someone asked, and a few men, Spencer included, guffawed.

Livvy came down hard on his instep. "She's not deaf," Livvy whispered at him.

"No," he agreed. ''Just ugly."

Emma ignored the question about her hair. "Mr. Makeridge," she continued, "is a fine upstanding gentlemen of excellent breeding. He has brown hair with a wave above one eyebrow and eyes the color of the sky in June."

"Regardless," Olivia said loudly, trying to prevent Emma from embarrassing herself further, "there's no stopping the man if he wants to come, and perhaps we can turn his visit to our advantage."

She hoped someone else in favor of the railroad would take up the gauntlet, since she had no idea what to say next.
I have to go to Milwaukee because I want a baby of my own
didn't seem a useful follow up.

"And maybe if we don't invite him, don't make cheese of him, then he'll go someplace else that will, and we'll be rid of the whole problem before it even starts," Spencer said. He was speaking to the whole crowd, but when he finished he glared at Livvy.

"That's my point," Mr. Zephin said. "If we don't court him, someone else will . . ."

"Looks like Miss Emma's the one looking to court him," somebody said.

"We have corresponded," Emma said proudly, her nose in the air.

"Corresponded," Spencer said softly so that only the few people around him could hear. "That explains it. Man's buying a pig in a poke. Seems to me it's our duty to protect him."

"I'd like to see that railroad engineer come and buy Sacotte Farm right out from under my Bess's weary legs," Remy said, taking Olivia by surprise. "Sell him the whole thing from Dan to Beersheba to get Bess off that farm and into some cushy little house in town with no steps and no chores but to sit and churn the butter for her heavenly biscuits."

"And would you like to give a third of that money to Bouche so he can never be heard from again? And another third to your sister who'd probably give it to the first needy child who crossed her path?" Spencer asked.

"It's my opinion that Waylon, that is, Mr. Makeridge, could be persuaded to route the spur right through Maple Stand," Emma said.

"Sounds like he's willin' to run his railroad right through your"—a raucous voice said before having the air knocked out of him—"town, ma'am. Run that railroad right through our town."

There were a lot of snickers and hoots, and Olivia figured that whoever it was that made the comment had some thoughts not fit for mixed company.

"I call for a vote," Charlie Zephin said, pushing his daughter away from the podium and pounding on it for order. "All those in favor of letting Mr. Makeridge come to Maple Stand and have a look-see, stand over here on my left. Those that don't even wanna see what the man might be offering, who want to see Maple Stand passed by and left to dry up and turn to dust and Wow away, stand to my right."

In the end, he looked like a preacher ready for the benediction, his hands raised right and left like he was offering a blessing. Spencer wrapped his fingers around Livvy's arm, but she shook him off, carrying Josie with her and moving along with the group that was embracing the future and all its potential.

She stood looking at her husband defiantly as he glared back at her. Not that her one vote would have mattered, since had the election been conducted on a boat it would surely have capsized. Less than a handful of people stood with Spencer, clinging to the past and to keeping things the way they were.

Livvy wished that some of those people standing by her side now could come home with her and face Spencer later. She didn't relish doing it alone.

Chapter Ten

Well, she was gussied up, all right. All ready to go to the big city. Studying her, he wondered if he'd ever seen the suit she was wearing before. It was a pearl gray and hugged her waist tightly, spreading wider and wider to accommodate her bosom and hips. He hardly knew the woman who stood with the feathered hat by their bedroom door. But the expectant look in her eye was familiar enough. She looked so hopeful anyone would have thought she was the one with the doctor's appointment instead of Bess. But that was Livvy, caring more about others than herself.

"You got a lotta faith in this Dr. Roberts, don't you?" he asked. "Think she'll be able to help Bess?"

She looked startled at his words, then gave him a small shrug, the feathers on her hat shaking even after her head had stopped. "We have to try, at least," she said. "I mean, if there is some way, I surely wouldn't want to have missed it because we live in Maple Stand and not Milwaukee."

"No," he agreed, not sure what it was she was talking about. "But don't you think if Bess could just lose some of that extra weight, she'd be all right? Maybe this trip isn't really necessary, Liv."

"Supper is in the icebox. Louisa knows how to heat it up. She's staying home from school to watch after Josie, but I told Neil he's to go." She pulled on her gloves. They matched her traveling outfit perfectly.

"I don't see what one doctor's gonna tell her that another can't. Doc LeMense has been practicing since I was a boy. Don't you think he knows what's what?" She smoothed her skirt and the light shone off it like sunshine off a frozen field. He looked away. "I'm not so sure you have to go, at all."

"Neil will take care of the stock and there'll be enough left over from supper to take care of tomorrow's dinner. There are two loaves in the oven that'll be ready in about twenty minutes or so." She raised her voice and yelled, "Louisa, you won't forget about that bread now, will you?"

A grunt came from the direction of Louisa's room. They both took it as an affirmation.

"You sure this trip is good for Bess? Maybe it's not a good idea for her to be making such a long trip. Have you thought of that?"

Her eyes widened and she focused her attention on him instead of her traveling clothes, which to his mind were already perfect and didn't require any of the fussing she was doing.

"Why, Spencer, I'd swear you didn't want me to go."

Nothing was further from the truth. He couldn't wait for her to go. In fact, he wished she'd gone last night. Preferably before the damn meeting. "Livvy, you'd never swear," he said, avoiding answering her. "You got the extra money I gave you?" He took the satchel she had left by the bedroom and placed it by the door.

"For the third time," she said, "yes. Don't worry so. I was on my own a long time before I married you, remember? I've been to Milwaukee before, and it's not so big and fearsome."

"A town where the only street without a beer garden is filled with women who . . ." He didn't know how to put what the women did into words that were suitable for Livvy's ears, and he didn't like it when she seemed amused by his discomfort.

"I've been around beer all my life, Spencer. And I hardly think the women will be any threat to me. Why ever are you so worried?"

"I'm not worried," he said. He noticed a hangnail on his thumb and began to pick at it.

"Good," she said, a note of finality in her voice.

"Yeah," he agreed. He bit at the skin by his nail and felt it rip away from his finger painfully.

"And you can talk to Neil while I'm gone," she whispered and added, "about
you know
."

As if he didn't know what she meant. He was dreading it already. Talking about the birds and the bees to a boy Neil's age gave him the willies.

"Spencer?" She was looking at him expectantly.

"I will, Olivia. I said I would, didn't I?" This was going to be a great couple of days. Now instead of just thinking about having his ashes hauled, he could talk about it—to a ten-year-old. Instead of the torture of sleeping next to his lilac scented wife, he would be sleeping alone. And the girls. They hadn't taken to him all that well. Louisa acted like he had an unpleasant odor, keeping six feet away from him whenever she could, and Josie still seemed to think parts of him were designed for teething, especially when he tried to take her down from wherever she managed to climb.

"Poor Spencer," Olivia said sympathetically. "I know none of this is what you had planned."

Before he could even reflect on the truth of her statement, she threw open the door and waved.

"They're here," she announced. "Louisa, Josie? Come let me say good-bye before I leave."

Neil came running from the barn, trying not to spill the milk he had coaxed from Miss Lily as he hurried. Olivia ruffled his hair and gave him a kiss on his cheek and told him to be good to his Uncle Spencer. Then she turned and looked for the girls who were emerging from the bedroom.

Louisa came slowly forward, a piece of her lip caught between her teeth and the baby in her arms.

"Don't look so worried," Olivia said, cupping the girl's chin. "Your uncle isn't so hard to please. You'll do fine."

The lip quivered, but Louisa gave her a slight nod and clung more tightly to her sister.

"And you," Olivia said, poking Josie in her belly and making her laugh. "No tricks while I'm gone. You mind your sister and Uncle Spencer and stay out of trouble, you hear me?"

The little hellion was all big innocent eyes as she kissed her Aunt Livvy good-bye.

And then it was his turn. She stood awkwardly in front of him, waiting for him to tell her to have a good trip and that he would miss her. He knew that. The children were watching him expectantly. He knew that, too. Lord, the last time he'd had a private moment was beyond his remembering. He removed his glasses and cleaned them with his handkerchief, making sure that every last speck was gone.

Then he picked up her suitcase and carried it to Zephin's ridiculously fancy surrey. "You better go."

She hurried after him, reminding the children of this and that on her way, as if she were a real mother, and then allowing him to help her into the carriage. He exchanged quick pleasantries with Bess, wishing her a successful trip, and shook Charlie Zephin's hand.

"Don't you worry none," Charlie reassured him. "I'll take good care of your missus."

Inside his chest, his heart was hammering against his ribs as he watched his wife settle herself. Words fought to leave his lips, but he held them back by biting down on his tongue. It wasn't as if he really wanted to tell her he would miss her. It was just that it was expected of him. And he'd be damned if he'd be forced into saying what he didn't mean just to make her and the children happy.

"Well, bye, Spencer," Bess said cheerily.

And he wasn't about to say it for Bess, either.

"That it then?" Charlie said, as if it were required of a husband to say such things to a wife.

Well, hanged if he would. "Yup, that's it."

Everyone stared at him, waiting.

"Spencer?" Livvy asked quietly. "Was there something else?"

"No," he bit out, annoyed by all the prompting. "You can go any time now."

"Not unless you let go of that harness." Charlie laughed, pointing at the leather strap clutched in Spencer's hand.

Spencer let go of it as if it were suddenly burning him and slapped the horse on the rump.

It wasn't until the wagon was nearly out of sight that he finally uttered the words aloud.

"Have a safe trip, Livvy-love."

"She can't hear you now," Neil said softly.

When he turned to hurry the boy for school, all three of the children were gone.

The day was one revelation after another, none of them welcome. Senses he hadn't used since Kirsten and the children had lived in his house suddenly came back to haunt him like their ghosts. For example, he learned that he could still tell someone was gone from the house without even being in it. He could simply feel Livvy wasn't there even from the most distant of their fields.

Then he found that he could be sure two children were in the house, only to find when he returned for his dinner that they weren't there at all. On the kitchen table had been a note assuring him they would be back.

He'd returned to the fields, not having any idea where to begin looking for the girls, and spent the better part of an hour trying to convince himself there was nothing to worry about.

Wrong again.

When they'd finally turned up, Louisa's face had been streaked with tears and her eyes rimmed with red. And it was clear that he was the last person she wanted to discuss her problems with.

Which had only served to remind him that he had a matter to discuss with Neil.

The boy came dawdling up the lane after school humming a tune and watching the clouds as if the mysteries of the universe were written in the sky. He dropped his books on the front porch and bustled out to the field without even stopping in the house for a glass of cold milk.

"Aren't you hungry, boy?" he asked the scrawny child. "You don't start eating more, a good summer storm'll just blow you clear to Michigan."

"I could wait," the child said, pointing to the darkening sky that Spencer had somehow failed to notice. "Looks like rain, doesn't it?" he asked.

"Better get the horses in," Spencer agreed.

"Yessir," the runt said, and raced ahead to open the barn door before Spencer and Curly George arrived.

Spencer showed him how to unharness the horse and handed him the tin of Colgate's Black Harness Soap. Without wasting words, he dipped in a rag and showed him the proper way to apply the paste and rub it in.

When he was sure that Neil wouldn't wreck the leather beyond repair, he made a tentative stab at talking to the boy.

"School okay?" he asked.

"I guess," the boy answered.

There was a minute or two of silence.

"Any nice girls in your class?"

"Girls?"

"Yeah," Spencer said. "You know, those pretty things with the hair bows and petticoats."

"Ugh," Neil replied. "The ones who don't want to carry their own books and who you can't hit, but they can sock you fine if they want to?"

Spencer couldn't help laughing. "Those are the ones. Any pretty ones in your class?"

"Never thought about it," Neil said, obviously considering it now.

"Anybody special?"

"Nah," he said after considerable thought.

"Oh." They worked on the leads and bridles, and fell into a rhythm, Neil working the soap well into the leather and Spencer doing the polishing.

"Boy," Spencer said as they sat side by side. "It's not easy for a kid to be away from his father while he's growing up."

"I suppose," the child said, a slight quiver in his voice.

"You miss your pa?"

The boy shook his head solemnly. Spencer wasn't sure whether he was so sad because he did miss Bouche and felt he'd be offending his uncle by admitting it, or just the thought of his father had turned him suddenly serious. Either way, Spencer thought it best to stay off the subject of Bouche.

"Well, I just wanted you to know that I'm pretty good at answering a boy's questions, having been one myself and all."

"Okay," the child said, working the devil out of the leather in his hands.

"So if you've got any questions," he prompted, "go on and ask 'em."

"Well," Neil began. "There is something."

Spencer steeled himself.

"That harrow machine? How do you suppose they knew how far apart to put those teeth? I mean, they're just the right distance for the planting, aren't they? How'd they—"

"They're what you call adjustable," Spencer answered. "Now what I really meant about being able to ask me questions, was, well . . . You might want to know some more personal, just between boy type things, and the girls are nowhere around, Aunt Liv's all the way in Milwaukee . . . You want to ask me something that only boys might talk about?"

Neil thought for a while. Spencer knew he was thinking because he was chewing hard on the inside of his cheek. Finally, he said, "Well, I didn't think girls had much of an interest in farming."

"No, I suppose they don't," he agreed.

"So, could I ask you another question about farming?"

Spencer couldn't help sighing. At this rate their discussion would take all night and they'd never get to the book.

"I'd kinda like to confine this discussion to stuff boys wanna talk about when girls aren't around."

Neil looked at him as if he were some kind of degenerate. He was beginning to feel like one.

"I mean since Aunt Liv's away, and all."

"I guess you don't get to talk to boys much," Neil said. He seemed to be considering whether to continue the discussion. "Okay," he said reluctantly. "I guess we could talk about that kind of stuff. If you want to."

"I want to," Spencer said.

There was silence again. It lasted until a clap of thunder roared over the barn and the first drops of rain began to fall hard on the roof.

He kept thinking of the girls in the house in the storm and his impatience got the better of him. "Ask me your damn questions, boy," he said, then wanted to bite his own tongue. "I mean, there must be things you want to know. About boys and girls, I mean."

Neil had stopped working and was staring at him. "What about boys and girls?"

"Okay," he tried again. "What about where babies come from. You want to know about that?"

Neil looked horrified. "No!" he said, putting up his hands. "I know all about that."

"You do?"

Neil nodded, the sickened look still covering his face. "Mama swallowed a watermelon seed and it grew in her belly until it was so big that it hurt to get it out and she screamed and screamed and when she finally, you know, got it out''— he pointed to his behind with his eyes shut and his nose squinched up—"she traded it for Josie."

Spencer covered his mouth with his hand. Finally he managed to say "I see. And is that all you want to know about it?"

"Do I have to know more?" the child asked with so much fear that Spencer found himself putting his arm around the boy's back and hugging him gently before rising and stretching.