Mother Lode (16 page)

“I’m sorry, but I—”

“I recall Jorie had something similar and
you cured him with herbs you got from an Indian woman.”

“Who told you that?”

“Why, you did. Or maybe it was the boy. I
don’t mean any offense. I was just wondering if I could buy some of
those herbs from you; they might help Cora.”

“Yes, I could give you some, but—”

“I’d be most grateful. I’ll just follow you
up the hill, and get them now, if that’s all right.”

What was she to do?
If she told him to come in the evening, and he
chatted with Thomas, it might come out that she’d had other
business in the afternoon, and Thomas would wonder what was so
urgent she couldn’t take time to help a friend in need.

“Of course. Yes.”

Inside she was seething that this most
inconvenient complication had arisen. By the time she’d given him
the herbs and explained how to steep them and so on, she’d lost
twenty minutes. And she dare not follow him down the hill; she had
to wait another ten before leaving the house.

When she was finally free to leave, and had
shown some decorum as she rode through town, Catherine raced across
the fields as fast as Falstaff would carry her.

As she crested the hill, Chester was nowhere
to be seen. She rode to the next field and back again. In the
hollow where they’d lain, she could still see the impressions of
their bodies, the flattened grass, laughing back at her.

She waited, not wanting to give up. But
finally she decided she’d been too late and he had not waited for
her. Hot tears stung her cheeks as she started home.

She hadn’t realized she was venting her
anger out loud as she galloped away from the scene. “Damn, damn,
damn!”

She didn’t hear hooves catching up to
her.

“The damned is here to claim his prize.”

She slowed her horse. He hadn’t given up
after all! He was grinning as he gazed on her tear-streaked
face.

“When you weren’t here, I waited. Then I
thought I might have gotten the time wrong, I went back to clean
the place up a bit.”

He drew his horse close to hers, reached
over for her hand.

“Come, I’ve something to show you.”

She was following him again, and Lord knows
where he was leading her this time.

Suddenly he stopped, and pointed to a cabin
on a knoll. “That’s where I live.”

They continued up the
hill. As he helped her dismount he said,
“It’s not much, not what you’re used to, but better than the
field, I hope. More private, anyway.”

He took her hand and led her inside. “I
tried to make it as presentable as possible for my lady.”

She pulled her hand away. “I’m not your
lady!”

“My mistake.” He shoved his hands in his
pockets.

She turned away from him, looked around the
simple dwelling. A bachelor’s one-room cabin in the woods. Well,
what did she expect? He was a surveyor, used to roughing it. Even
in broad day-light it took some adjusting before Catherine could
see into the dark recesses of the room. One tiny window covered
with a yellowed waxed paper admitted only a modicum of light. He
had made a fire in the wood stove in the corner. There was a cot
barely wide enough for one in another corner, and a simple table in
the middle. A makeshift bookcase had been assembled from rough-hewn
planks, the shelves separated by chunks of firewood. To Catherine,
only the books made it homey.

She felt like a character in a D.H. Lawrence
novel. Upset and out of sorts, she said, “Did you build it?”

“No, it was here — some prospector abandoned
it.”

“It has a dirt floor,” was all she could
think to say.

“You don’t have to stay.”

“I didn’t say that!”

Why was it suddenly so unseemly, so awkward
and embarrassing? Why did it feel wrong today where it had not
yesterday? And why couldn’t she say the right things to put them
both at ease?

She stood uncomfortably not knowing whether
to run or stay. Her lip started to quiver, and he took her hands in
his.

“It’s not the cabin,” she blurted. “That’s
not it.”

“I know.”

“What am I doing here?”

“Do you want to leave?”

“No!”

“Let me make you some tea. I don’t have any
milk — hope you can drink it plain.”

She nodded, watched him as he put an old
kettle on the fire.

To put her at ease he started telling her
stories of his youth, as a boy on a farm in Pennsylvania, how his
pa had died when he was nine, and his mother a year later.

“What did you do?”

“An uncle came to fetch my sister and me and
take us back to Boston. I haven’t always lived like this,” he
motioned to the surroundings. “We had an old Victorian house by the
sea.”

He told her how he loved watching the tall
ships come in, being on the docks to help unload the treasures from
around the world. How he’d hired on to a lobster boat at thirteen,
learned to peg the creatures without being hurt.

Catherine was fascinated with the tales of a
life she’d known nothing of. When the tea was finished, she looked
at him expectantly.

“I’m feeling better now.”

She meant it as an invitation, but he said,
“I want you to go home now, Katie. Come back whenever you
like.”

Embarrassed at being dismissed again, she
nevertheless drank up the kindness in his eyes. Well, that would
have to do. Perhaps he was right.

She had forgotten all about the sweets.

For two days she forced herself not to go.
Let him wonder if she’d ever come. She had been too easy for him.
Offered herself to him as a gift and he’d sent her home,
unopened!

By the third day she could resist no longer.
She crossed the fields at a gallop, but as she neared his cabin,
her uncertainty made her slow down. Again doubts filled her
mind.

She approached quietly. Nevertheless, he
heard, came out to meet her. He helped her from her horse, led her
inside. She could smell something good cooking in his pot.

“Are you hungry?”

“No.”

He smiled, waiting for her to join him. “The
sheets are clean, and the rats only come out at night.”

Tentatively, she walked the few paces to
join him. He took her hand and led her to the bed. She stood
stiffly while he lit a candle.

He raised her head, kissed her forehead, her
chin and both cheeks. Then gently, he started unbuttoning her dress
— awkwardly, as the buttons were too tiny for his large hands.

“Perhaps you’d better do it,” he
apologized.

Could anything else happen to discomfit
her?

She finished undoing the buttons. He slowly
slipped it off her shoulders, and lifted it over her head.

As if he had something precious in his arms,
he brought the gown to his face, breathed deeply of its scent. Then
carefully, he folded it, and laid it on the chair, making certain
it would not touch the floor. At first embarrassed as he gazed at
her, she soon came to realize how much pleasure the sight of her
brought him, and allowed herself to enjoy the moment too.

After drinking her in with his eyes, he
undid the laces of her undergarment. She was pleased he was in no
hurry.

Slowly his eyes shifted from her face to her
breasts. He looked at them a long time before touching them. Then
with one finger he spiraled from the outer edge of each mound to
the nipple.

“Like porcelain,” he whispered. “No.
Alabaster, with little veins running through.”

“I am not made of stone, Chester Bigelow, as
you will discover.”

As he slowly finished undressing her he
treated each garment as though it were a sacred vestment. She had
worn her prettiest pantaloons. He touched the violet ribbons laced
through the ruffles.

“You’re much too fine for these backwoods.
How do you abide it here?”

She shook her head, not wanting to talk.
Catherine felt his urgency grow and matched it with her own. She
must have all of him, feel him envelop her.

“Give me your mouth,” he was saying.

Without hesitation she complied, her body
once again responding to domination, which wanted only to melt into
the folds of this man’s body. Their fugue built to a crescendo of
fire and fury, taking Catherine to places she’d never been. She
rode the arc of this magical world until at last they reached a
satisfying resolution and finale.

Neither was in a hurry to speak. At last he
said, “You are a volcano of passion. I knew you’d be responsive,
but. . .”

“I’ve waited for a long time.”

“I hope you are not spent.”

She glanced at him sideways. “There’s no
fear of that.”

They stopped talking, and enjoyed the quiet.
Only an occasional crackle from the fire and the sound of their
breathing broke the silence.

When she left he said, “Come tomorrow, if
you can.”

She promised she would try.

But Jorie was sick with another of his bad
colds, and Catherine would not leave him. It was almost a week
before she returned to the cabin on the knoll.

He came out to meet her, his questions
pouring out like a fountain.

“I imagined all sorts of things. Next time,
please send a message.”

“And how discreet would that be? I must say
I hadn’t a notion you’d be so concerned, Chester Bigelow.”

She walked to the stove and sniffed the
contents of the pot.

He came up behind her and swept her up in
his arms. “Now you’re funning with me, lass.”

“It’s good for you to worry, don’t you
think?”

“No.” He dumped her on the cot, and
proceeded to undress her. “I’ve waited all week for you.”

This time there was no slow examination of
her clothes or her body. He got her out of them as fast as he
could, pushed his own off with careless urgency, and took his place
beside her.

“Not so fast, Mr. Bigelow. I think I should
have a look at you, as you did me. Let me see. Here we have quite a
bit of golden hair upon your chest. Damp, too. I would love to see
it glisten in the sunlight, Chester, could we go outside so I can
study you?”

“Lass, you are asking for it.”

They laughed and he raised her head and
kissed her lips hard. He nibbled her lips so many times, she
finally protested.

“You’re hurting me.”

“That’s for being so cheeky.”

He pulled her head away from him and looked
into her eyes.

“I’ve a good mind to spank you.”

Since she offered no protest, but dared him
to with her look, he turned her over and started paddling her with
his hand. Her squeals were for naught. When he’d given her a half a
dozen slaps he turned her back.

She half expected him to apologize for this
impetuous behavior, but he did not.

Instead he said, “You deserved that. You are
a wild mare in need of taming.”

“Do you truly think I’m wild?”

“I do.”

“And you would tame me?”

He laughed. “If I thought a few spankings
would do that, I wouldn’t lift a finger to you.”

Catherine tried to carry on at home as
normally as possible. Now that school was out, she spent as much
time as she could with Jorie in the mornings. They did the shopping
together, and as always, Catherine was quick to see opportunities
to further his education. A ground wasps’ nest or a tree splitting
a rock — whatever she noticed, they discussed. Soon it was Jorie
who was pointing these things out to her.

Occasionally she brought him with her to
meet Chester, and the three of them would take a picnic lunch
somewhere. Catherine simply explained that Chester was a friend.
Often Jorie would bring a book to read.

“What do you have there today, lad?” Chester
asked.

“
The History of Wolves in North America
.”

“Doesn’t look like a child’s book. How old
are you?”

“Almost eight, sir.”

Catherine smiled. “Jorie has quite an
affinity for wolves.”

“Did you know, sir, that the wolf mates only
once, for life? Just like people.”

Catherine could not meet her lover’s
eyes.

She continued to see Chester as often as she
could throughout the summer. Sometimes she was consumed by guilt
and went out of her way to be nice to Thomas, and other times she
felt such a loathing for her husband she could barely endure his
presence. He showed no interest in her affairs, nor did he share
his private life with her. Often he would leave early in the
evening and come in late. Occasionally, he didn’t come home at
all.

Catherine reasoned that if he could lead a
private life and explain nothing to her, she could do the same.
Still, she was careful to be home by six when it was time for
Helena to leave. Thomas usually came home shortly after.

“Is your husband suspicious?” Chester
asked.

“I don’t think so. Perhaps he suspects, and
doesn’t care. Maybe he’s afraid if he starts questioning me, I’ll
question him, so better to leave it alone.”

“I wouldn’t count on that.”

“I’m meant to think he’s at his grown son’s
or over with Alice and Walter, but for all I know he’s carrying on
with that Redson woman.”

“Would that bother you?”

Catherine frowned. “Not if he were
discreet.”

“Even if he is seeing
someone, do not make the mistake of thinking he would abide
your
infidelity.”

“Oh! It’s all so unfair! If he no longer
finds me desirable, he should let me go where I am
appreciated.”

“Ah, if only it were that simple.”

“Do you think I’m horrid?”

His face transformed into a mischievous
grin. “Terrible.” Then he sobered. “I am hardly the one to give you
an objective answer.”

“Will you be upset if I tell you that last
night he came to me?”

“Yes?”