Firefly (42 page)

"You are free to do as you wish, Julie.  I can't and won't hold you against your will."

It was torment to say those words, when what he really wanted to do was beg her to stay.  He struggled against that stubborn pride, but he knew he did the right thing.  Pleading would only embarrass them both, more so if she turned him down.

She could not throw herself at him, much as she wanted to.  She could not sacrifice that precious self-respect, so desperately won in spite of her confessions.  And yet, she had hope.  That alone was something to hold on to.  The night was somehow brighter.

He touched her chin and tilted it up until her eyes met his.  His kiss was soft, giving and not taking even what she offered.

And then she remembered her mother.

She pulled away from him roughly, clumsily, and turned her back to him.

"Please, Dr. Morgan, my mother needs you.  She...she's not feeling well and sent me to find you right away."

And I can't stand kissing you like this when I know you're still thinking about Amy.  If you want me at all, it's because you think I can take her place, and I can't.  I won't.

Not waiting to see if he followed, Julie squelched through the puddles and the mud back to her house.  Through sheer effort of will, she kept from crying, though her eyes blurred and she saw nothing.

*   *   *

Hans Wallenmund walked up to the door of the Olympia House after leaving Nellie's.  He was wiping the worst of the mud from his boots when he heard the squeal and clang of the cemetery gate.  Though it was difficult to see anything in this darkness shortly before midnight, he discerned first the vague figure of a woman.  He almost thought her an apparition from beyond the grave, for the white of her gown glowed eerily where the darker robe parted to reveal it.  But when she stood in the doorway of her house and the light hit her fully, he knew it was Julie.  Surprised that she would be out at such an hour and in such scant attire, he waited and watched.

Less than five minutes later, his vigil was rewarded.  Del Morgan lazily crossed the muddy street and mounted the Hollstroms' steps.

It was exactly as Hans had expected.  Wilhelm had told him to be careful, to give the girl no opportunity, but Hans had not counted on the physician's rehabilitation over so short a period of time.  And he had believed the man when he said he had no use for women.  Obviously, Morgan had lied.

Hans had nothing better to do than wait.  His evening at Nellie's had been satisfactory, though it had cost him more than usual, and he was in a relaxed mood.  He found a chair on the porch and sat down, then lit a fat cigar.

When Morgan left the Hollstrom house only a few minutes later, Hans jumped to his feet and in seconds had positioned himself at the corner of the hotel where the lane back to the adobe house began.

"Halt,
Herr Doktor
Morgan," he ordered.

Morgan froze, blind in the dark after leaving the well-lit house.  His assailant had given him warning; he would not go further.

"What do you want, Hans?"

"Only that you keep your promise."

"I made you no promises."

"No?  Then you will now.  You will leave Julie alone, or I will kill you.  She is mine, all mine, and no one is going to take her away from me.  If you touch her again, I will see you dead."

Chapter Twenty-four

Katharine took to her bed immediately after Julie went in search of the doctor, and she did not leave it.  When Morgan came, Katharine insisted that Julie remain with them, so that she was never alone with the one man who knew most of her secret.  He prescribed a glass of sherry as a sedative and waited only until Willy, still awake, brought the bottle and Katharine gulped down the required dose.  Without another word to any of them, Morgan left.

In time, Katharine dozed off and Julie got Willy back to bed, where he too was soon snoring.  Then she helped herself to a glass of the wine and eventually fell asleep, still in her soiled nightdress and borrowed robe.  She did not hear her father come home.

But Wilhelm had come home sometime before morning, for he appeared in the kitchen shortly after Julie put water on the stove for Sunday morning coffee.  She prepared his breakfast without a word and he ate it in similar silence before announcing that he would meet her in church.  With no other explanation, he left his dirty dishes on the dining room table and then walked out the front door.

Julie followed him and watched as he crossed the street and strode in the general direction of the hotel and stores, but a sharp cry from Katharine demanded Julie's attention before she saw her father's ultimate destination.

For the first time since she could remember, Julie missed Sunday morning church service.  She sent Willy off by himself with orders to join the McCrorys if Wilhelm couldn't be found, but Julie stayed home at her mother's frantic insistence.

The Katharine of yesterday afternoon who had resembled so much the Katharine of more than nine years ago had once again become the whining, petulant invalid.  She demanded a thousand tiny favors that Julie rushed to satisfy, and always fell a tiny bit short.  The tea Katharine begged for was first too hot, then too cool, then, when it had been warmed again with more hot water, was too weak and had to be brewed from scratch.

After finally drinking a cup of tea that suited her, she decided she felt much better and asked Julie to help her dress for church.

"Don't you think you'd be better off resting, Mama?" Julie asked, "It's unbearably hot out there today."

"But your father will expect us, Julie," Katharine sighed.  "Here, help me out of bed and over to the chair.  I think if I can sit up for a while I'll feel much better."

The exertion, she then claimed, made her thirsty again.  She wanted cold water, which Julie dutifully brought.  Katharine selected a crisp peach-colored muslin dress and actually showed signs of recovering her enthusiasm when Julie got her laced into her stays.  But when she had the dress slipped over her head and was standing at the foot of the bed while Julie did up the row of buttons down the back, Katharine suffered another "attack." Slumping quite to her knees, she complained of a splitting headache, shortness of breath, dizziness, and a host of other ailments.  The dress and corset came off, and Katharine was helped back into bed.

Julie had no time to think--about anything.  She raced from Katharine's bedroom to the kitchen and back again, bringing tea, water, toast, jam, honey, a clean spoon to replace the one Katharine dropped on the floor.  Somehow, between all these mad dashes, Julie managed to cut slices from the ham she had bought yesterday and shred potatoes to fry in the skillet for dinner.  There would be no dessert; she couldn't find time for that.

When Katharine ran out of physical needs, she turned to emotional ones.  She begged Julie to stay with her, even to hold her hand for a while, until Julie insisted that she had to leave to tend the meal.  Katharine gave her just long enough to flip the potatoes over, then she called for further assistance.

Open the window.  Draw the drapes.  An extra pillow.  Comb her hair.  Another cool drink.  Perfume on her throat.  A fresh nightgown.  Close the window.  What was that noise?  Another headache powder.

The frenzy didn't lessen when Wilhelm and Hans, with Willy in tow, returned from church.  In fact, it worsened, for Julie now had three more "patients" demanding her attention.  Willy, unaccustomed to being told to wait, pouted on the stairs and twice tripped Julie as she raced to answer her mother's whined summons.

With dinner on the table at last, Julie hoped her father and Hans would stop expecting her to wait on them.  She had put the food in front of them and could think of nothing else they needed.  She did not bother to serve herself; she knew no one would let her eat.

But Hans quickly consumed all the ham and Wilhelm and Willy both wanted more, so she had to slice additional meat and fry it for them.  Katharine asked for a tray, but then didn't like anything on it.  She decided she wanted more toast.

At three o'clock, precisely three o'clock, Hans and Wilhelm rose from the table.  The once spotless cloth was stained in a hundred places where they had spilled things in trying to pass dishes.  Willy's glass of milk had been tipped over, leaving the cloth stuck to the table.  Julie would have to spend hours repairing the damage to the finish.  She stood in the doorway between kitchen and dining room and stared at the disaster--and the mound of dirty dishes awaiting her.

"We are going out, Julie," her father announced in a tight voice.  "You will stay here and take care of your mama."

When have I ever done anything else?
she sighed mentally.

When, as soon as the adult males had departed, Willy began tormenting Julie even further, she sent him on his way as well.  The sun was out, the mud had nearly dried, and she could not stand him underfoot another second.  She ordered him to find Clancy or someone else and play.  Otherwise he would have to help her with the dishes.

Willy, still wearing his Sunday best clothes, left without another word.

Julie trudged upstairs to fetch the tray from Katharine's room and there found her mother had fallen quite fast asleep.  Breathing a sigh of relief and exhaustion, Julie tiptoed out and mumbled a prayer that at least she would get through the chore of dishes of without interruption.

She did.  And she used the time alone and undisturbed to sort out the thoughts so jumbled since last night.

She knew she had made a terrible mistake.  Overwrought and wrapped in her own insecurities, she hadn't realized that Morgan might have his own fears.  If she had been afraid to make her feelings plain, wasn't it just possible that he hesitated to reveal his as well?  She thought him still in love with his wife and unable to turn to anyone else in the same way; hadn't she, after all, given him every indication that she was going to marry Hans?

It was a hopeless muddle.  She knew, with her hands sunk in hot soapy water, that they had both made the same error.  She now saw Morgan's poetry last night for what it really was:  a painful declaration of his deepest emotions.  And she, fool that she was, had turned away from him.  He had understood her own fears, her unsureness, and had given her the opportunity to make known her feelings without embarrassment to either of them.  In her ignorance and guilty pride, she had rejected him.

Suddenly, that feeling that she had only allowed to exist as a vague sort of hope sprang to full strength.  Scrubbing at the skillet where bits of ham had stuck and burned fast to the cast iron, she let the knowledge flood from her heart through her whole body.  Each pulse beat reminded her that he loved her, just as she loved him.  She could go to him now, unafraid, unhesitant.

*   *   *

The note tacked to the front door of the office said that there had been an emergency and the doctor would be back by evening if possible.  Disappointed, Julie turned away and returned home.  She had already been to the adobe house and found it as empty as the office.

Katharine had slept all the while Julie washed dishes and was still asleep when she left to find Morgan.  Returning from that failed mission, Julie hoped her mother would waken soon, for such a long nap during the day presaged a sleepless night, and Julie didn't want that.  She planned to be well rested before going to the office first thing in the morning and declaring herself as soon as the doctor arrived.  Just the anticipation kept the smile from fading when she entered the unfriendly dimness of her father's house.

But Katharine continued to snore when Julie checked on her.  Perhaps she had taken more sherry to make her sleep, but whatever the cause, Julie knew this rest would keep them both up all night.  That thought in itself was almost enough to dampen her soaring spirits, and when she heard her father and Hans enter the house, the last of her joy fled.  She could tell them nothing, not yet.  Not until she was certain, absolutely positive, about Morgan.