The Captive Within (A Prairie Heritage, Book 4) (28 page)

The city of Denver had received days of unusually warm
spring weather, but Denverites knew better than to trust in fickle spring. In
Palmer House, they saw the ominous thunderheads building in the distance, felt
the storm’s approach, and ran throughout the house to close and latch windows.

Breona stared out her bedroom window, eyeing flashes of
lightning as the storm marched toward them. As the clouds built, the daylight
grew dull and dim.

She sighed. Almost a year ago she had run up the front steps
of this house, filled with hope and energy. Today she found herself asking if
she could bear to stay at Palmer House. She had lost so much.

She shook herself sternly.
Ye have a home here, Breona
Byrne, a family. Ye have those as is lovin’ and carin’ fer ye.
And she
loved them so much in return! Rose, Joy, Grant, Marit, Billy, Little Will, Mr.
Wheatley, the girls . . .

For the first time in her life, she loved and was loved so
much. She just hadn’t known that in such love dwell both joys and sorrows. She
was learning how deeply those sorrows could wound.

Ye canna be mournin’ forever what is goon
, she told
herself. But one look at the tidy little bed on the other side of the room from
hers, and the ache for her friend Mei-Xing returned. Would they ever know what
had become of her?

It wasn’t like Breona to stand about idly—it just wasn’t in
her nature. So she chided herself. ’
Tis bein’ th’ coomin’ storm
, was the
weak excuse she offered, but she knew it was her heavy heart that weighed down
her hands and feet.

She decided to watch the play of lightning just a few more
minutes. And then,
no more excuses
.

A motorcar stopped down the street. A man wearing a bowler
slowly emerged and turned to help another passenger out. Through the trees,
Breona caught a glimpse of a slight, dark-haired woman. Her over-large dress
billowed about her as the storm edged closer.

The man, carefully supporting the woman, walked her along
the edge of the street until they paused not far from the gate to Palmer House.
They appeared to be talking, or at least the man was. He removed his hat and
bent toward her in a solicitous manner while the woman leaned on his arm.

Breona watched them idly for a moment and then her gaze
shifted as the wind bowed the tops of the Ponderosa pines clustered out in the
yard. It was high time she got back to her work.

She hesitated and glanced back. The woman, really just a
young girl, stood staring at the front door of the house, while the man ran a
hand through his dark hair, something of frustration in his gesture, something
familiar . . .

Breona opened her window and leaned out, the curtains blowing
wildly about her. The movement caught the eye of the woman standing far below
at the gate. She gazed up and into Breona’s face; the girl’s hand slowly lifted
to acknowledge her.

Breona began to tremble. The girl’s hand dropped to her
side. She bowed her head and turned away. Breona could see the man
remonstrating with the woman as she brushed off his arm and slowly began making
her way toward the parked car.

“Nay,” Breona whispered. “Nay, dinna ye
go . . .”

She slammed the window shut and flew down the stairs into
the entry hall, her leather-soled shoes slapping and clattering on the steps
and on the parquet floor. She fumbled with the locked door, threw it open wide,
and ran across the porch and down the stairs.

Rose, at work in the great room, leapt to her feet. Wind
howled through the front door and into the house. “What is it?” she cried
anxiously.

Breona could not see the woman anymore! “Wait! Wait!
Mei-Xing!” she called into the roaring wind.

She screamed again, “Mei-Xing! Mei-Xing!” as she was running
to the gate. Swinging it wide and heedless of traffic, she ran out into the
street, ran past the man . . .
O’Dell
?

She disregarded him and ran on. Thunder boomed over them.
There. She was not far away, not moving quickly. Breona hastened to her. It
was
Mei-Xing. It was her friend! Her sister! She was . . .

“Mei-Xing!”

Mei-Xing weaved unsteadily on her feet, the wind pulling at
her. “Breona.” The single word was flat, emotionless. Her lips were cracked and
crusted, her face pinched, drawn.

Breona placed an arm about her to steady her. She leaned
close to her ear. “Aye, m’ sweet lass.” She turned Mei-Xing about and began to
slowly lead her back toward the house.

“I can’t . . .” Mei-Xing protested weakly.
But she had no strength to resist.

“Aye, ye can. ’Tis home ye air!”

Rose and Marit saw them from the gate. They began to weep.
As Breona and Mei-Xing drew near, Marit gasped and Rose gripped her arm. “Shush
now,” she whispered.

Mei-Xing saw Rose and her face crumpled. Then she was in
Rose’s arms, sobbing, and Rose was holding her with all the love she had in her
heart.

“You are safe, little one. You are home. We will never let
go of you,” Rose whispered again and again. Breona and Marit simply wrapped
their arms about both Rose and Mei-Xing, holding them close.

Over them the storm broke. Lightning and thunder cracked and
sizzled. It did not move them.

O’Dell stood aside, his face turned away, trying to school
the tide of emotions sweeping him away. Rain fell, pounding the ground, and
drops streamed their way down his face. He automatically pulled a cigar from
his breast pocket and, as he brought it up to his mouth, surreptitiously swiped
the moisture away.

It took O’Dell a few minutes to navigate the steps up the
front porch. He was tired and sore, having used his injured hip more in the
last two days than the last two months.

Finally he stepped inside the front door of Palmer House,
but held himself back, peering into the great room from the entryway, an
awkward voyeur to Mei-Xing’s homecoming.

Or he
tried
to hold himself back. Mr. Wheatley spied
him and hustled over to pump his hand and pull him into the room. Before long,
Breona, Marit, and Rose took turns embracing and tearfully thanking him for
bringing Mei-Xing home.

As they greeted him they stared askance at the swollen
bruises across his face and the tidy row of stitches above his eye. Noted the
cane and his stiff leg.

“Looks like you tangled with a mountain cat,” Mr. Wheatley
suggested with raised brows.

“I lost,” O’Dell replied, trying to laugh it off, but he
knew already that these people saw through his deflection. They would wait,
some patiently, others not so patiently, for him to speak of his injuries. This
happy moment was not that time.

O’Dell backed unobtrusively into a corner near the door and
leaned against the wall. He looked about him and saw one or two girls he did
not know. They stared at him with wide eyes. He nodded a silent greeting.

Billy had answered Breona’s telephone call to the shop. When
Joy finally understood the garbled words Billy kept shouting, she locked the
doors and threw the closed sign over.

O’Dell was still standing awkwardly apart from the others
when Billy, Sarah, Corrine, and Joy ran into the house. O’Dell turned stiffly
at their entrance, leaning on his cane. The expression on their faces became
concerned when they saw him.

“It will be all right,” O’Dell shrugged. “I will mend. It is
over now, and Mei-Xing is home.”

He shook hands with them in turn and studied Joy for a
moment. Then Billy, Sarah, and Corrine left to greet Mei-Xing, leaving Joy and
O’Dell alone in the corner of the room.

O’Dell glanced around, anxious to change the subject. “Where
is Grant? And Flinty? I haven’t seen them yet.”

Joy shuddered and looked down. “We had . . .
a difficult winter,” she murmured.

O’Dell looked sharply at her then. He had not heard any
news. “Is everything all right?”

Her eyes shifted away. “The influenza.” She swallowed. “We
lost Flinty.”

O’Dell reeled. “Flinty? Flinty!”

Suddenly he had to find a chair and sit. He lowered himself
stiffly into one of the great room’s several overstuffed chairs.

Joy sat across from him, saw his pained disbelief. She added
softly, “You know Flinty was ailing when he came to live with us. He came to us
so we could watch over him. He . . .  he weathered the flu when
it struck, but, but, afterwards his heart just gave out.”

O’Dell sat for several moments without speaking.
Flinty
gone!
Finally he whispered, “I am sorry, Joy, so sorry. I know all of you
will miss Flinty. I surely will.”

He raised his head. “And Grant? Where is he?”

Joy answered more slowly. “He, too, was hit hard by the
influenza and . . . has not yet fully recovered. He tires
easily, so, so when we came home, he went to rest in our cottage.”

She is holding something back
, O’Dell thought, but he
would not press her. “Can I do anything to help?”

She shook her head. “Thank you, no. He has a good doctor.”

Just then Marit appeared. “Miss Joy, Mei-Xing vould like to
speak to you and Miss Rose privately. Vill you come?”

Joy nodded and turned back to O’Dell. He reached across and
took her hand and held it in both of his.

“Joy, I will pray that Grant recovers soon. Nothing is
impossible with God.” He pressed her hand gently before letting it go.

Joy’s eyes swept up to his in surprise. For a long moment
they shared a look.
Something has happened
, Joy realized in
astonishment.
Something has changed.

She swallowed. “What will you do now? Where will you go?”

“Not a good idea for me to be near Denver when Cal Judd
finishes his sentence in a few months.” He laughed and thought for a moment. “I
think I will be going back to Seattle.”

~~**~~

They sequestered themselves in the small parlor. Joy and
Mei-Xing sat next to each other, Joy holding Mei-Xing’s hands. Rose pulled her
chair close and seated herself across from them.

What was obvious to all had not yet been spoken of: Tiny
Mei-Xing was quite large with child. No one had asked, no one had yet alluded
to it.

“I must make a confession to you,” Mei-Xing said, looking
from Rose to Joy soberly. “I have never fully confided in anyone, have never
trusted anyone completely, but now. . . . It is important that I
hold nothing back.”

Rose nodded. Joy squeezed her hands gently.

“I loved Su-Chong from the time I was a little girl,”
Mei-Xing whispered, “and he said he loved me. Our families were very close and
hoped we would marry. It was what both of us wanted, also.” Rose handed
Mei-Xing her hanky and Mei-Xing wiped her eyes.

“I would have been so happy to marry Su-Chong!” she quietly
sobbed. “But I discovered by accident that his family was very corrupt—they
sold drugs and did with young Chinese girls the very thing Morgan and Banner
did with us! Worse, Su-Chong worked for his father in all these evil
businesses.

“Oh, how my heart broke when I knew he was not the honorable
man I had believed him to be! I could not marry him then, but I was afraid to
tell my father why. I knew it would crush him. He and Wei Lin Chen, Su-Chong’s
father, had been friends for many years.

“So I simply told Su-Chong I would not marry him. No one
understood, and my father was so disappointed, my mother so very angry with me.
She would not even look at me any longer.

“I decided then that I
must
tell my father why I had
refused Su-Chong—but Wei Chen’s family warned me . . .” she
broke down again. “They, they
threatened
my father’s life! Oh, Miss
Rose, what was I to do?

“After I refused Su-Chong, he begged me many times to change
my mind. When I would not, he became angry, almost violent. In a rage, he left Seattle.
I think I knew then that something was not right with him. He is an only child,
you see. His mother had indulged and spoiled him. He was not accustomed to
being denied anything he wished for.

“No one knew where Su-Chong had gone. For more than a year
no one heard from him. All during that year, Su-Chong’s mother, Fang-Hua,
blamed me.”

Here Mei-Xing shuddered. “Fang-Hua is a spiteful woman. She
began to publicly scorn and humiliate me—I became such a great shame to my
family that I could no longer be seen in public with them.” She bowed her head
and sobs racked her body until Rose and Joy became alarmed.

“Mei-Xing, Mei-Xing, you must stop.” Rose stroked her head
and her back. “Please, little one. For the baby. You must not harm the baby.”

“Ohhhh,
the baby
!” Mei-Xing was nearly hysterical
now. “Oh, what will I do?”

“Shhh, shhh,” Rose soothed. “Come now. You are trying to
make a clean breast of everything. We do not judge you, Mei-Xing. We will hear
you out, and God will provide the answers.”

After a few minutes Mei-Xing was able to take up her story
again. “Su-Chong has a cousin, Bao. His mother was Wei Lin Chen’s sister. Bao
told me he understood how lonely I must have felt, how hopeless.” Mei-Xing’s
eyes focused far away, and Rose and Joy could tell she was remembering.

“He told me of a wonderful, childless Chinese couple here in
Denver. They wanted a daughter, he told me. They would take me in and treat
me as their own, he said. My leaving would remove the continual shame from my
parents, and I would have a new life. He bought me a ticket and after dark he
took me to the station.”

The skin down Joy’s arms prickled. She looked at her mother;
they had heard the same horrible tale from Minister Liáng.

Mei-Xing stared and her voice took on a mechanical tone.
“Instead of a loving couple,
Darrow
met me when the train reached Denver. You know . . . what happened.”

She turned to Joy, dazed. “It was Fang-Hua’s doing. When
Su-Chong returned home, she told him I was dead, but she was behind Bao’s
deceit. She hated me that much, you see.

“When, when you took me in, you showed me real love and
taught me forgiveness. I forgave Bao and Fang-Hua . . . and
Jesus forgave me! Oh, Miss Rose, Miss Joy, I was so content here with you.

“You see, like Su-Chong, I, too, was raised in a privileged
home—waited on, pampered, educated. I never lifted a finger in my life until
you taught me the satisfaction of working hard with my hands and the joy of
real family bonds. I learned to cook and to clean and to take care of others
because I loved them.

“Then one night I came home from Mrs. Palmer’s, and Su-Chong
was waiting for me on the front porch. I don’t remember what he did to me, but
I awoke in a bedroom. The windows in the room were bricked up! I could hear
nothing from the outside. When I tried to open the door, it was locked. After a
while, Su-Chong opened it.”

She told Rose and Joy how Su-Chong had been wounded, how she
had nursed him until he recovered, how he had asked to know how she had ended
up in Corinth. How she had first refused but had finally given in and told him
how she had been tricked and forced into slavery. How he had then held her
gently and comforted her . . .

Rose and Joy glanced at each other, their thoughts running
along the same lines.

“I know,” Mei-Xing said sadly. “I know what you are thinking
and you are right. I should never have spoken to him of such intimate things. I
think—no,
I know
—that the Lord was warning me, but
I . . . ignored his warnings, again and again.”

Her voice dropped. “I have had to come to terms with how
deceitful my heart can be. I confess now that I told Su-Chong those things
because I desired his love and comfort so badly.”

She sighed and wiped tears from her eyes. “He held me and
kissed me and for one single moment I let myself remember what it was like
before I knew who he really was, before I broke our engagement—just one single
moment! Then we, we just, just . . . You know what we did.”

Joy started to say something, but Mei-Xing said softly,
“Please. I must finish.”

She straightened resolutely. “Once we began, I was powerless
to stop it. But after a few weeks, I could tell Su-Chong was becoming restless.
He wanted to leave, but if he released me, I would be a threat to him.

“I could tell he was thinking of just . . .
leaving me to die locked in that room. For some reason, he could not bring
himself to do so.

“Oh, I knew I had sinned! I called on the Lord and confessed
my sins to him. Yet for a long while it seemed as though he was far away and
did not answer. I felt such guilt and shame.”

Her voice sank to a whisper. “And I began to suspect that I
was with child.”

“All along Su-Chong had gone out in the night to steal food
for us. Then he began drinking. When he drank up all the alcohol in the
apartment, he began stealing that, too.

“He would drink every day. When he drank he brooded and
became angry and, and, I think, more irrational. I tried to stay quiet and out
of Su-Chong’s way as his drinking increased. As much as he would allow, I would
stay in my room.

“Other times when he drank he would look at me and I knew
that look. I knew what he was thinking. He would come into my room at night
and—”

The girl began to cry again. “He grew to hate me, but still
forced himself on me again and again. Even though he came to my bed many times
in the next weeks, he despised me. He called me a whore—he said if a hundred
men had used me, he was defiling himself with me—but then he would take me
again.

“It was when he said I was a whore—that I would always be a
whore!—that I remembered, Miss Rose! I remembered what you said that morning
when you told us about Bethy Ann. And then—at last!—Jesus spoke to me!
Come
unto me
, he said!
Come unto me, you who are weary and heavy burdened
.

Mei-Xing bowed her head and wept, so weak she had not even
the strength to cover her face. “I surrendered my guilt. I was not afraid to
die then.”

“But now, Mei-Xing?” Joy asked in a hushed voice.

“Now what shall I do?” Her anguish pierced Joy’s heart. “I
did not die, and now I must live! I am not afraid for myself, but I will have a
child and I am not married. My child will have no father and my shame will
follow
him
all his life . . .”

Joy shook her head slowly. “There is no shame in you,
Mei-Xing. You know that Jesus has already forgiven you. You said so yourself.”

“But the baby . . .”

“You are not alone in this world, Mei-Xing,” Rose replied.
“You will have your baby here, and you will not raise him or her alone.”

“No. Not alone,” Joy quietly agreed, a tiny smile tugging at
the corner of her mouth.

Something in Joy’s tone caused Rose to turn. Just then a
commotion in the entry way interrupted them.

“Where is she? Move out of my way, now. I
will
see
her!”

Mei-Xing, Joy, and Rose looked at each other. Mei-Xing, her
eyes wide with dread, whispered, “Mrs. Palmer!”

The door flew open. Breona scurried aside to allow Martha
Palmer entrance. The little woman, out of breath, hobbled in as quickly as she
could manage.

Rose and Joy stood up, Rose happily greeting her. “Mrs.
Palmer!” Mei-Xing slowly rose to her feet, swaying unsteadily.

“Where is the dear girl? I—” Martha Palmer ignored Joy and
Rose and reached for Mei-Xing. “Oh, my dear! Oh, thank ye, Lord!” she said
breathlessly, grasping Mei-Xing’s hand to steady herself.

Martha Palmer lifted her face to study Mei-Xing. She took in
the sunken eyes and cracked, peeling lips.

“Are you all right, missy?” her voice was low and gentle,
warm and healing.

Mei-Xing, tears standing in her eyes, could not look at the
old woman. “Yes, ma’am. I believe I will be. Thank you.”

Martha Palmer could not miss Mei-Xing’s averted gaze. She
frowned. Then she glanced down . . . and froze. She said nothing
for a long moment.

Slowly she lifted her fragile, gnarled hand from Mei-Xing’s.
She gently placed it on Mei-Xing’s swollen belly.

“Yes, you will be all right,” she said firmly. “Both of you
will be all right. I promise.”

—

Lord, Palmer House was aglow in celebration today as our
lost lamb, Mei-Xing, came home! That she brings her unborn child with her is a
surprise and challenge none of us expected. Even so, we will welcome this
child, Lord, and willingly provide the love and support Mei-Xing and her baby
need.

Father, you have proven yourself faithful in so many
ways. You tell us that your thoughts toward us are of peace and not of evil,
that when we call on you, you will hearken. Your word and your faithfulness
give me such great hopes for the future!

We still have much to do for you, Lord. Yes, I know that
as we press forward we will encounter obstacles and challenges. Nevertheless,
our trust and our strength are in you.

By your grace we will not falter.

~~**~~