[Troublesome Creek 01] - Troublesome Creek (41 page)

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Authors: Jan Watson

BOOK: [Troublesome Creek 01] - Troublesome Creek
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Her father’s cough was worse and sometimes stole his breath, but he insisted on leading her up an unfamiliar holler. In the exact spot where her mother’s body had been found was a little marker—a pile of stones in the shape of a cross. It was neat and clean of weeds or vines as if someone kept it up. “Daniel Pelfrey,” he said, without further explanation.
They walked back down the creek and found a sunny spot to sit and eat. “I should have told you sooner,” he said. “It’s something I’ve wrestled with for a long time.”
“It helps me to know. I always thought I killed her being born.” Daddy took her hand. “I’m sorry.” His hand tightened and he sighed. “There’s more I have to tell you, Daughter.” He took off his old, shapeless, felt hat and drummed it against his knee. “I’m not sure how you’ll take it.”
Copper couldn’t swallow; the bread turned to sawdust in her mouth. She spat it out and sipped cold black coffee from the pint jar they’d brought along, then passed it to him. “Better just tell me straight-out.”
He took a swig and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. She watched him fiddle with the jar lid. He screwed it on and off half a dozen times before it seated itself to his satisfaction. “Aggravating thing’s wore out. I ought to just throw it away.”
“Daddy?”
He looked out over the creek, then cleared his throat. “Your mam’s set on going to Philadelphia, Copper, and I aim to go with her.”
“Philadelphia! Whatever for?”
“There’re schools up there she wants for the boys.” He cleared his throat again, as if he choked on the words. “That friend of hers—Millicent, the one who owns that fancy school—says she’d find us a house.”
“But, Daddy . . .”
He turned his strong, true gaze on her. “It’s pretty much settled, Copper. Your mam fears for Daniel if we stay here. He’s not sturdy like you and Willy.”
Copper’s face flushed as her anger flared. “How could she ask that of you? How could she dare ask you to leave here?”
“I asked it of her near seventeen years ago, Daughter.”
“That’s different,” she sputtered.
“How so?”
“’Cause, Daddy, there’s not another place like this.”
“Don’t I know it. But it’s her turn, I figure.”
Copper wondered at the tenderness that filled his voice. Could he love Mam like she loved Simon? How strange to think that that could be after all this time. “What about your work?” she asked, unable to keep the anger from her voice. “What would you do there?”
He squinted and set his hat back on his head. “She wants to teach. And me? I’ll find a coal bank somewhere.”
“What about me?”
“Well, honey, we figured to hog-tie you and throw you in the back of the wagon. But, now—”
“You mean Dr. Corbett?” she asked with resignation.
“It clouds things, doesn’t it?”
“It sure does, Daddy. It sure clouds things.”
He stood and stretched and scratched about in the dirt with his walking stick. “You don’t have to marry, you know. I’m not quite ready to give you up.”
“Daddy?” A thought had just occurred to her. A thought that could set her free. “What if I stayed on here . . . by myself? After you and Mam leave?”
The look he gave her held no surprise. “This hardscrabble farm is yours if you want it, but what will you do with Doc Corbett? I don’t see him giving up on you very easy.”
“I don’t mean forever—maybe just a couple of years until I know for sure what I want. Everything’s happening so fast it makes my head spin.” Scattering her bread for the birds, she secured the poke around the half-empty coffee jar. “I’m afraid if I don’t take my time I might live to regret it.”
“Well, there’s truth in that old saw ‘Marry in haste, repent in leisure.’ If Simon really loves you—and I trust he does—then he’ll wait.” He studied her face. “I’ve not known many folks I thought could handle any situation the good Lord throws their way as well as you, Daughter.”
She stretched to kiss his cheek. “I love you, Daddy.”
“I love you too, sunshine,” he choked. “I love you too.”
CHAPTER 28
 
December came with a light dusting of snow and a cutting wind so cold it rattled teeth and caused the backs of eyes to ache. Nobody ventured far without a layer of wraps, from crocheted mufflers over red noses to double stockings over numbed feet. Still, Copper couldn’t resist stomping on each glass-skimmed puddle on the way to the barn, just to hear the ice crack.
Molly didn’t seem to mind the weather; she was stabled at night with an extra rasher of feed. She greeted Copper with a soft
moo
when the barn door opened. Copper scratched her behind the ears, and Molly swung her head in cow contentment, hay sticking out of the corners of her mouth.
Copper leaned her head against the cow’s warm side and stripped the dangling teats. The swish of milk against the side of the tin bucket was a comfort. Her heart never felt so sore, her emotions still battling within her.
Dr. Corbett was coming for Christmas. She wished he wouldn’t. Her memory of their time together was beginning to fade, and she found it tolerable to think of never seeing him again. She could stay on Troublesome Creek alone after Mam and Daddy left. Handling the farm wouldn’t be hard. All she’d need was one hired man. Even with John gone there were plenty of near-grown Pelfreys at hand, and Henry Thomas was always looking for money.
“How could I leave you, Molly?” she asked the sleeping cow. “How could I—?” Her voice caught on a clot of tears. She was so tired of crying. Finished, she stood.
The little milk stool tumbled over and Molly awoke. She looked at Copper with her soulful brown eyes as if to say, “I agree. How could you?”
Copper toted the half-full pail to the springhouse and poured the fresh milk into the separator. Mam wanted cream for candy and for the caramel icing she’d top her Christmas jam cake with. After pouring the blue-John into a crock, she stirred the watery milk with a ladle.
Funny thing to call milk: blue-John,
she mused.
Looks like I feel, like my blood has turned to water, like the fullness of life has been skimmed off.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out the thick cream-colored envelope that had come in the mail just yesterday. Dr. Corbett had a beautiful hand. The ink flowed pretty as you please scripting her name,
Miss Laura Grace Brown
, across the front.
She had written him only once, every other word an inkblot, what with Willy or Daniel interrupting her every minute and Paw-paw jostling her elbow, begging for a piece of biscuit. Besides, she didn’t know what to write. Words that usually came so easily to her jumbled up on the page, but she’d carried the missive to the post office anyway, feeling like she was playing grown-up.
She smoothed the sharply creased stationery against her skirt.
“Dearest,”
she read,
“I can hardly wait until you are in my arms again. My days are bereft and my nights an agony of longing.”
She stopped to fan her face with the paper. Her resolve to live without him melted like butter in July and threw her into confusion once again. What she needed was time, more time to come to her own conclusions. She’d write him once more and ask him to wait until spring to visit, and she’d ask him to not write to her and tell him that if he did she’d leave the envelopes sealed.
She busied herself scraping the rich yellow cream into a crock. She felt better, lighter, her mind clear for the first time in months.
 
After Christmas, the weather turned damp and bleak. It had warmed just enough to allow a chilly rain to seep into every nook and cranny of the cabin with its persistent gray drizzle. Everything in the house felt clammy, and it was impossible to dry a wash. Days after the laundry was done, overalls and flannel shirts still hung on a line stretched across the kitchen.
Willy dragged the sled up on the porch in hopes that the rain would turn to snow. Daddy said he doubted it. He said it was the kind of weather that turned mean, causing sleet instead.
Everything felt mean to Copper, who sat at the kitchen window in her cotton slip, her hands cupped around a mug of strong, hot tea, an old quilt draped across her shoulders. The fire roared in the fireplace, but its warmth couldn’t seem to make its way across the floor to where she sat, her feet drawn up under her.
“Laura Grace,” Mam said around a mouthful of straight pins, “let’s try this one more time.”
Copper moaned but threw off her quilt and went to suffer yet another fitting. She raised her arms, and Mam settled a bodice of blue-and-green-plaid bouclé around her.
“Turn,” Mam said. “Stop. There’s the problem—this needs single bust darts.” She pinched the material under Copper’s arm. “You see how it pulls with two?”
No, Copper didn’t see. She shrugged out of the garment and handed it to her mother, who ripped out the offending darts with the skill of a surgeon.
“One can’t always trust the pattern,” Mam instructed. “A poor fit will always show.”
“Mam,” Copper replied, “why are you wearying yourself so? I may not even need all these dresses you insist on sewing.”
Mam settled herself at the Singer, positioned in front of a window to take advantage of the light. “On the other hand, you might. I’ll not have you going off to Lexington with nothing but common clothing. Stop moping about and cut the braid for the trim. No, not that piece—it’s for the jacket. Use the navy.”
Copper could barely hear Mam’s reply above the whirring of the sewing machine. She took up the yellow tape and measured a length of navy blue braid. The pattern showed the trim extending from underneath the arm to the hem of the walking-length skirt. Mam said walking-length was the newest style. Copper picked up the epaulets that were already finished, fashioned to make her shoulders look wider, which in turn would make her waist look slimmer. Mam had
tsk-tsk
ed to measure Copper’s waist at twenty-two inches and had sighed mightily when she slipped the tape around her bust, pulling a little tighter each time.
Copper held the epaulets to her shoulders and walked to the mirror. “Well, la-di-da,” she said to her reflection. “Molly will love this.”
Mam stopped pedaling. “Put your quilt back on. Your father’s coming up the walk with the mail.”
Daddy opened the door. A draft sailed up Copper’s bare legs and made her shiver.
“What’s going on in here?” He peered underneath a piece of laundry. A long johns’ trapdoor hung in his face, sending Willy into paroxysms of laughter. “Don’t we have enough clothes hanging about without you making more, Grace?”
“Daddy? Daddy!” Daniel tried to get his father’s attention.
“What’s that, Son?” Daddy said from behind the union suit.
“Daddy, you’ve got underpants in your face.”
“Nah, surely not. That wouldn’t be seemly.” He walked farther into the room, and the long johns came with him, stretching the line to near breaking.
“Will, if you dirty those clothes, you’ll do the next wash,” Mam said, her back to him, pedaling away again.
“These are dry anyway. Come here, you two rascals, and take these down. Mind the clothespins. I don’t hanker whittling more.”
“We could whittle them, Daddy,” Willy replied. “If you’d let us have back the knives Doc Simon sent us for Christmas.”
Daniel nodded.
“When I can trust you not to carve your initials on a church pew again—that’s when you’ll see those pocketknives, Son.”
“But, Daddy, I found yours—W. B. 1848—on the back of the pulpit.” Willy pulled hard on a pair of pants. The wooden pin securing one leg to the line popped off, shot straight up, and came down like a fallen arrow, straight on the bald spot atop Daddy’s head.
Willy guffawed. Daniel giggled. Daddy’s face turned red as he rubbed his scalp. Copper secured the quilt she wore with the errant pin, then started taking down the laundry.
“Leave that to these two ruffians,” Daddy said. “They can take ’em down and fold ’em too. Here . . . I brought you something.” He pulled a stack of mail from his coat pocket and handed a familiar-looking, cream-colored envelope to Copper.

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