The River Rose (37 page)

Clint stood up very slowly, for he was stiff from kneeling by Marvel's bed for so long. He kept his eyes fixed on her face in wonder, and started backing up towards the door. He stumbled against something, and looked down. Leo had been hiding underneath the dining room table all night, and was now standing at the door, big silly dog's grin on his face, tongue lolling, his tail making his crazy figure-eight circles. Clint wrenched open the door and rushed out into the hall and again almost fell, over Vince's outstretched legs. He was sitting against the wall, Roberty's head was on his lap, and he was asleep. Ezra and Dr. Eames were sitting Indian-style, with a Bible opened between them. All of them jumped up when Clint appeared.

"Dr. Eames? Come quick! I think she's all right!" Clint said urgently.

Eames hurried into the room to sit on Marvel's bed. Jeanne stood up to make room for him, her tired face lit up like a happy child's. Eames smoothed Marvel's hair back from her forehead and rested his hand lightly on it. "Hi, Marvel. Feeling better, are you?"

She nodded and moved her mouth, but Eames realized she was too weak to talk. "Shh, don't worry about talking yet. I just want you to suck on some ice chips right now. Later we'll try some water, and maybe even some apple cider. But for now, just let the ice melt in your mouth. And if you feel like you can sleep, you just go right ahead and go to sleep, okay? You don't have to stay awake and entertain us."

He put an ice chip in her mouth and waited. She thirstily licked her lips and he gave her another one. She made a small contented smacking sound, and her eyes fluttered and closed.

He stood up and grinned at Clint and Jeanne. "This little girl is healed! Even her eyes don't show any sign of jaundice! Praise God, it's a miracle!"

Smiling at Clint, Jeanne said, "I think God performed more than one miracle last night. And I must tell you, gentlemen, if Marvel were awake, she would tell us that it's time for a thank-you prayer."

"It's past time," Clint said. "And I want to be first."

The next week was actually very busy for all of them. Marvel recovered slowly, but as the days wore on she regained much of her strength and also gained weight and color in her cheeks. Jeanne was with her every minute, and now she found that she could sew again. While Marvel had been sick Jeanne hadn't been able to do anything at all. She liked sewing, and she was an expert seamstress. By the end of the week she had made Marvel a new dress of pink muslin with a red rose print, and a pinafore.

Marvel said little about being so gravely ill, and finally Jeanne asked her, "Darling, do you remember being so sick?"

She answered cheerfully, "I 'member some things. I 'member when I felt so bad, and I kept throwing up, and all I could have was chips of ice, and then rice flummery."

"But after that," Jeanne pressed her. "After the rice flummery, do you remember anything about that night?"

A dreamy look came into Marvel's eyes, and she wrapped her arms around her dolls and held them close. "I 'member feeling better after the rice flummery, and going to sleep that night. Then I had a dream. I dreamed I was in this nice, pretty place, sitting under a tree. There was a river, but it wasn't the Mississippi River or the Arkansas River, it was real blue and sparkly and it went fast and made a nice sound. And I was hot, and I thought I would get in the river, 'cause it looked like it would be cool. And then Jesus said, "Not now, Little Girl.' He called me
Little Girl
like you and Mr. Clint."

"You—you saw Jesus?" Jeanne asked in a half-whisper.

Marvel shrugged. "No, I just knew He was there somewhere. Then He told me that this was where I needed to rest for a while. So I laid down, and the grass was thick and soft and cool, and I went to sleep. It was funny, going to sleep in a dream, when I knew I was already asleep. But I didn't think about that being funny then. I was just tired, and I went to sleep. When I woke up I saw you and Mr. Clint. And Leo, under the table."

The men, along with men and boys from the Eames families, rebuilt the gazebo. Jacob Eames had told them, "We've had the lumber for the gazebo for two years now, but somehow we just never got around to building it." It was larger and the gingerbread trim was more ornate than before. They painted it a glowing white and Roberty painted the trim
Helena Rose
red. Clint and Ezra made a sign, with the Eames' permission, that read:
Marvel's Rest.
They mounted it over the gazebo doorway opening, which faced the river. After that, over time, instead of the Widow Eames' Landing, the landmark became known as Marvel's Landing.

Just after dinner on Saturday afternoon, six days after Marvel's miraculous healing, she yawned like a newborn kitten. "Gunness! I'm sleepy again. It seems like all I do is sleep and eat."

"That's your job right now, little girl," Jeanne said, smoothing Marvel's hair. They had washed it for the first time this morning, and her fine sandy hair with blonde highlights seemed thicker and healthier than it was before she had gotten sick. "I have to admit that I'm sleepy too. Why don't we take a nap together?"

They laid down and both went right to sleep. When Jeanne woke up, she could tell by the light that she had slept for a couple of hours. She was sleeping almost as much as Marvel was, recovering from her own ordeal. She carefully crawled out of bed, leaving Marvel still sleeping soundly. Jeanne splashed her face with mint water and went to look out the window at the men working on the gazebo.

Her gaze went first to Clint. He was standing talking to Jacob Eames, and his younger brother Isaac, the brother that had unsuccessfully competed for Jeanne's attentions when they were children. Clint pointed up the hill, and the brothers nodded.

For a few moments Jeanne was lost in her womanly admiration of Clint Hardin. He was not classically handsome, for his features were too rugged and his hair, shining almost blue-black in the summer sun, was coarse and couldn't be styled in waves and curls as was the fashion. He was so tall he stood heads above most men, and so muscular as to make them look weak and effeminate. He had gotten more sun this week, and his skin seemed to glow a golden bronze. Jeanne's heart beat a little faster, and she felt a treacherous warmth spreading throughout her body.
He is absolutely gorgeous! And he doesn't even seem to know it!

With a jolt that shocked her to her very soul, Jeanne suddenly realized that she didn't just admire Clint's looks. She was deeply, helplessly in love with him. She drew in a sharp breath and for a few moments she felt lightheaded. When the dizziness passed she watched him again, with new eyes.
I love him . . . for how long? How'd that happen?
she thought with a half-hysterical giggle. Cautiously she looked back at Marvel, and was relieved that she still slept soundly. Jeanne definitely needed time to think, to absorb this horrible-wonderful love for Clint that she had so abruptly come to know. Realizing it had been something like being hit on the head with a club, and also like it used to be when she swam, taking a deep breath and diving underwater to swim in the perfect silence, surrounded and cradled by cool, clean spring water.

I don't know when, or how . . . over the past months we've become such good friends, and I thought that was all that I wanted from him.

But then Jeanne discovered that somehow during that time she had come to love him. She had slowly been pushing George Masters away, withdrawing more and more from him. Her thoughts had been filled with Clint Hardin, and she had wanted to be with him, not George. Clint was always fun to be with, he wasn't a moody man. He was filled with energy and worked hard. He was witty, he was interesting, and he had an active mind that made him interested in practically any subject that came his way. And he was the most charming man Jeanne had ever met.

Now her heart plummeted as she watched him. That was why she had deliberately fought hard to keep from acknowledging to herself that she was in love with him. Jeanne thought that probably every woman to whom he paid the least attention fell in love with him. He wasn't a predator, Jeanne knew that for certain. She had had a lot of experience with seducers in her four years at the Gayoso, and Clint Hardin was not one of those. He didn't have to be, she was sure. She knew Clint now. She knew that women seduced him, not the other way around.

And here she was, another in a long line of silly women to fall for his manly looks and irresistible charm.

No, be honest! I'm not just infatuated with him, I know him, I know that he's a kind, honest man, and I am in love with him. Even if he didn't look like he does, even if he had no charm, I would still love him. I love the man, not the trappings.

Jeanne must have known how much she loved him and depended on him the night Marvel almost died. She didn't want Dr. Eames or anyone else with her. She wanted Clint, and he was right there for her and Marvel. Even though she had been horribly cruel to him, he had forgiven her and had been a pillar of strength for her. She had instinctively known that he loved her and Marvel.

Jeanne sighed deeply, and would have become depressed from the hurt she felt; but instead she prayed.
Blessed Father God, help me to be strong. I know that Clint loves me and Marvel as if we were his own family. I treasure his friendship, his care for us. Help me never to let him know that I love him as a woman loves a man. I know he doesn't feel that way about me, and I don't want to threaten our relationship in any way. Help me to be strong, and kind, and forgiving, and help me never to feel jealousy when he finds the woman he truly loves. I know that he will always be our faithful friend, and I thank You for him.

AFTER A JOLLY SUPPER
—
ACTUALLY
,
a picnic on the dock—Jeanne sat down at her desk to write a letter. It was, she thought, the most difficult letter she had ever written, and it took her four hours before she was at least satisfied with it. The letter was to George Masters. When she finally finished she was so tired she thought about crawling into bed and passing out.

But then she thought
, I really have been wandering somewhere out of this world for the past two weeks! Just how am I going to mail this letter? And what about the mail we had picked up . . . forever ago, it seems like.
She stood up, slightly panicked, but then she thought of the empty cargo bays. Someone had picked up their load of stoves, obviously, and Jeanne knew that Clint would have sent the mail on. But Jeanne had to get this letter to George, it was the only honorable thing she could do, under the circumstances. She went to find Clint, and Ezra told her he was out on the dock.

The night was milky-warm, the starlight bright. The waning moon was high in the sky, its reflection waving on the slow current. He was sitting at the end of the dock with a bucket beside him. As Jeanne went to him she saw him reach into the bucket and throw something out into the river. It made a soft
plop
.

"Hello, Clint," she said softly.

It startled him, and he jerked around and then smiled. "Hi. Want to join me? I'm stoning the moon reflection. It's funny how it kinda breaks up into pieces when I hit it head on."

Jeanne sat beside him. "You just can't sit still, can you?"

"I'm not so good at that, no. Ezra says I'm worse than Roberty, always fiddle-faddlin' around and gittin' inter somewhat. And then he told me to get out of his galley, someone else would have to teach me how to make rice flummery." Marvel had asked for the cold, creamy pudding over and over again. Ezra had gone up to the Eames house and demanded that Widow Eames teach him how to make it.

Jeanne chuckled. "He's right, you know. You are always inter somewhat. Anyway, apparently I have just today come back into my right mind, and I remembered that we are on a boat and that this boat hauls cargo. What happened with the stoves? And the mail?"

"When we first put up the yellow quarantine flags, the next boat that came by stopped to see if they could help." He looked amused. "It was the
One-Eyed Jack
. Maybe you've seen it."

"I have. And I believe their crew is called the One Eyes. Just like my crew is called the Petticoats. I would apologize for that, but personally I'd rather be called a petticoat than a one-eye."