Still House Pond (18 page)

Manda rushed out of the room and returned with the high-topped, kid-glove spats. Kneeling, she buttoned them over Lilly's patent leather slippers. “There, now you're perfect.”

“You can get a drink of water from the container at the back of your car,” Copper said. “Remember from last year?”

“You turn the spigot and hold a paper cone under it,” Lilly said.

“Don't drink too much,” Manda said, “or you'll spend all your time in the ladies'.”

Copper couldn't think of one more instruction for Lilly. They'd talked about every possible thing from keeping her valise tucked beneath her feet to only sharing a seat with a lady. Mrs. Jasper would make sure the porter on the train knew to watch out for Lilly. She would give him the gratuity Copper had provided. Everything would be fine. Lilly would be in Lexington before bedtime. Much as she'd like to, she couldn't raise Lilly under a bell jar.

Finally finished preening Lilly, Manda poured water over the breakfast dishes.

“I can dry,” Lilly said.

“Oh no, you might spot your dress,” Manda said, shaving a bit of soft soap into the pan. “They won't take a minute.”

“Guess I'll go sit on the porch and watch the world go by,” Lilly said.

Copper poured more tea. She hadn't managed to have more than a sip all morning. “I'll sit with you.”

She had no sooner taken a rocker beside Lilly's than a buckboard pulled into the barnyard. She put the chunky white cup on the porch floor and shaded her eyes.

Mr. Morton jumped down from the seat and hurried across the yard. “Miz Pelfrey, can you come? Something bad's a-happening.” His face was creased with worry.

Copper felt a frisson of disquiet. It was much too soon for Emerald's baby to be born alive.

Manda stepped out the door. “I can see to Lilly. I'll walk her to the coach.”

Copper caught her daughter in a fierce embrace, rocking her in her arms before letting her go.

Lilly squeezed Copper's cheeks between her palms and whispered, “Just remember I'll be back soon.”

“I'll go get my kit, Mr. Morton,” Copper said.

* * *

After her mother left, Lilly stayed in the rocking chair, pulling her white knit gloves off and then putting them back on. This morning was lasting way too long.

Manda came out with a granite bucket. “I'm going to feed the hog. We've still got an hour before we need to leave the house.”

Lilly watched Manda walk around the side of the barn. The pigpen was in the back. Daddy built it there to keep the smell and the flies away from the house. He didn't like for the little kids to go around there. He told Lilly a hog was a dangerous thing, but Lilly liked to visit the pen, where the fat hog rolled in its mud wallow on warm days. She always took an apple or a carrot or some such treat. The hog would sniff the air with his flat pink nose whenever she approached, as if she were the one who smelled bad. Maybe to the pig she did. The porker was the only animal Lilly didn't name. She didn't like to think about what would happen to him when the weather turned hog-killing cold, and they had fresh sausage for breakfast.

Manda came back around the corner of the barn. “I need to check on something. You stay right there. I'll only be a minute.”

Lilly waited for what seemed like hours but, according to the pocket watch pinned to the front of her jacket by a fob, was only a few minutes. She wished Manda would come on. It wouldn't hurt to be early. The porch got hot from the summer sun, so she strolled up and down the yard in the shade of the trees, switching the valise and the wicker hamper from one arm to the other, trying to decide the best way to carry them. Neither was very heavy.

Aunt Alice would have all new outfits ready for her in Lexington. It would be so fun to try them on. Some dresses were sure to match cousin Dodie's. Dodie was a little different. She was as sweet-natured as the kittens, but it took her a while to catch on to things. Lilly didn't mind. She liked Dodie lots.

It was boring just waiting. She'd walk down to the creek and back with her luggage. That would be good practice. She'd have to be really careful, though. Aunt Alice wouldn't like it if she got to her house with sticktights on her skirt tail.

The creek was sparkly where the sun shone on it through the leaves, but the path beside the bank was shady and cool. Lilly swung her bags as she walked along, sure she looked like a well-traveled young lady.

From far away she heard the bark of a dog. She wondered if it was the beagle, though it didn't sound like a beagle's deep bay.

Turning back, she started for home. Manda would be looking for her. She heard the dog again. It was yelping now. Its cry was pitiful to her ears. What if it was the beagle? What if it was caught in a trap? She had to go and see. If she hurried, there was still plenty of time.

The frantic sound of an animal in distress pulled her farther and farther along. She was out of breath when she got to the rock fence that separated the Pelfreys' property from the Stills'. She needed to go back or else she would miss the coach. She wished the dog would stop! Just stop! But it didn't.

For a minute she thought of all she would miss—the train ride, the chocolate ice cream, and the circus clowns. Really, though, she had no choice. Leaving her valise and the wicker hamper on top of the wall, she climbed over the rocks and went to find the dog.

18

The slop oozed over the edge of the bucket and plopped with thick drops into the wooden trough. Grunting, the nasty pig snuffed up the leftovers like it was his last supper. Manda hated this part of her job. She'd just as soon let the hog starve as stand here with the stink of the pen rising up around her like a vile perfume. Her earlier sunny mood took a dark turn.

She couldn't figure why things happened as they did. Why wasn't it her wearing a new outfit, waiting to catch a coach to the city? It was not that she minded helping Lilly. She actually liked the kid. But when would it ever be her turn?

If Manda stopped to think about it, and she often did, she was the one who'd paid the piper. Only stood to reason she should be the one to dance. Here Lilly had a life of ease with a mother who adored her and a father, even though he was a step, who saw to her every need. While Manda's own father hardly knew she existed and her stepmother ignored her needs, as indifferent as a lazy sow flopping on its piglet.

Manda slapped at a horsefly. The day was turning hot. At least it wasn't Tuesday. She wouldn't sweat buckets while she ironed the Pelfreys' clothes, and thankfully nobody occupied the sickroom, so there wouldn't be extra chores. Often whole families turned up for meals whenever a relative was laid up there. Manda thought they were taking advantage, but Miz Copper was too kind to notice. Like that Abe Sizemore, Tillie's no-account. That man could eat the leg off a mule and have the saddle for dessert. Manda had been glad to be shut of them.

Her emotions churned like the mud the pig rolled in. Stupid thing—happy to be living off the leavings of others. She couldn't quite get a grip on what was making her so tired of her station in life. She'd never really minded until recently.

She thought of Sunday last and what she remembered of Brother Jasper's sermon.
“Every man received his reward according to his labor.”
Well, she did the work. Now where was her reward? She'd had a bellyful of waiting.

It seemed to her that she always got the short end of the stick. As a girl, growing up in a house where nobody looked ahead and where manna was hard to come by—no matter what her father preached—Manda learned to make do or do without. Too often it was do without. By rights she should be living in hog heaven by now.

Manda was determined not to wind up settling like Dance or Cara, who was so befuddled by love she didn't know what she was missing. Lost in thought, Manda crossed her arms on the top pole of the pigpen and rested her head. She jumped back and brushed at her sleeves when the hog rustled over and started rooting on the other side of the fence. Looking up, he leered at her while mud mixed with cornmeal slid down his snout. A cloud of gnats rose like mist from his black-and-white hide.

If she could have her dream come true like the lovely Rose Feathergay, it would be thus: She and the middling man, newly married, would travel by coach and then by train to Eddyville, where Darcy would greet them with open arms. For the journey, Manda would wear a purple taffeta calling suit adorned with beaded crystal swirls.

She would work with Darcy in her dress shop and he would . . . well, he would play his music, of course. In no time they would be wealthy and have a genuine brick two-story house. She could see it now: Mr. and Mrs. Whoever? She guessed she'd better ask him his name! They would be pillars of the community, solid as the white columns holding up the roof of their porch. Then Manda could forget about tar-paper shacks and thin walls layered with sheets of newsprint that failed its duty to keep out a cold winter's wind. In the last house she lived in before her mother died, you could see the ground through the cracks in the floor. At least there was a floor. They all thought they'd come up in the world to park their chairs on wood.

All Manda could count on during her childhood was a passel of mouths for her mother to feed. At least that proved her father was good for something. No wonder women got old before their time.

Oh, she was full of woe today. She didn't even like her own company. Better get to the well and pump some water to wash out the bucket, or the slick rim of slop would set like glue and she'd have to chip it out.

Manda turned from the pen—what a place to daydream—and started around the barn. The hog made a funny high-pitched sound—somewhere between a squeal and a whistle. Silly thing was probably strangled. It ate like a pig after all. This particular hog had a penchant for choking, which meant she'd have to take a board and thunk him between the shoulder blades to restore his breath. She didn't have time for this. She was not about to let Lilly miss the coach.

A more musical note stopped her in her tracks. When she looked back, the middling man was sitting neat as a pin atop the rail fence as if her dreams had conjured him up. The pig nosed an apple core around the trough.

She laughed with delight. “What are you doing here?”

“Me? Why, I come to visit my girl.”

“How did you know I where I was?”

He looked at her through hooded eyes and laughed. “I been watching you. You and everybody else in this house. I don't miss nothing.”

She stood clutching the handle of the slop bucket with both hands as if it were a bouquet of flowers. What she wouldn't give for the purple taffeta dress right now. “Can you wait for me? I have to walk Lilly to the coach.”

“Surely,” he wheedled, “you can spare me ten minutes.”

“Just let me tell her—don't leave. Promise?”

He crossed his arms over his chest, hooked his heels in a lower rail, and leaned back as if he were sitting at a banquet table and not on the top rail of a pigpen. “Baby, I'm yours.”

Manda put the bucket in the shade at the side of the barn and waved to Lilly. “I need to check on something. You stay right there. I'll only be a minute.”

Right across from the pigpen was a narrow back door to the barn. With fumbling fingers she unlatched it, and he followed her in. Dust motes danced in the scant light let in by the few windows. A freshly cut stack of timothy hay sweetly scented the air. The double front doors were closed. She was glad Lilly couldn't see her. The animals had been let out to pasture, so all the stalls were empty. The only witness to their tryst might be the barn cat.

Without preliminary, he caught her upper arms with a viselike grip and drew her to him. His lips were hard and demanding. Hers responded, soft and yielding. They stood for long minutes in the middle of the barn kissing—such kissing. The kisses seemed to draw the very lifeblood from her bones. She thought she might fall in a puddle of yearning at his feet. She couldn't get close enough, and it seemed neither could he.

The world outside dissolved like so much sugar stirred into water. His lips were at her throat. She was spellbound. With one quick and fluid motion he lifted her by the waist, swung her up, and set her on the feed box. Suddenly frightened, she edged away until her back was against the barn siding. Forcefully, he pulled her toward him.

The splintered grain of the feed box scratched the back of her legs. Her arms ached where he pinned them across her chest with his muscular forearm. He grew insistent. Her mind screamed—
Run!
She twisted in his grasp like a fish on the line. “Stop! No!”

He backhanded her. Her head bounced against the barn siding with the thump of an overripe melon. “Tease,” he said with his mouth against her ear. “Like it rough, do you?” Then he hit her so hard she saw stars. When her lip split, she could taste her own blood.

With an effort she freed one hand and gouged his eye. He yelped and stepped back. It was her chance. The only one she might get. She scrambled off the bin, falling to her hands and knees. Finding her footing, she backed up to the hay, never taking her eyes off the man. He laughed but not in mirth. With a dip of her knees, she reached down to grab the tool she knew was at the base of the haystack.

He advanced with a look in his eyes that scarred her soul. She wondered if he meant to kill her. She swept the air with the pitchfork like a blind man with a cane. He put up his hands, palms out, still laughing that crazy-man's laugh. Manda's heart pumped pure fear through her body. She'd been entertaining the devil.

“Help me, Lord,” she prayed aloud.

He took a step forward, his arms still surrendered. “Who're you talking to? Ain't nobody here but us. Come on, baby. You've been asking for it.”

Manda screwed up her courage and struck out. She could feel the pitchfork make contact before it slipped from her sweaty hands. With trepidation she looked out the slits of her swollen eyes and saw him falter.