The Captive Within (A Prairie Heritage, Book 4) (6 page)

The group that gathered in front of the house studied it
with wide eyes. Rose Brownlee Thoresen, however, was studying
them
,
the
courageous band (crazy or misguided, some might insist!) as they sized up the
job ahead.

They all wore old and worn clothing, appropriate for
embarking on an arduous task. They were ready to unpack a wagon load of
bedding, cleaning supplies, cookware and kitchen utensils, and yard and
carpentry tools. But the sight before them gave them pause.

A tall iron fence surrounded the property. Between the
wrought iron gate and the front door lay an obstacle course of downed branches,
dense shrubs, and tangled weeds and bushes. Tree roots lifted the stone walkway
here and there; out-of-control vines covered windows and twined upon the porch.

“Eh!” was Breona’s first remark.

Rose smiled, looked for, and found the gleam in the tough
young woman’s eye. “Breona, you are in charge of the cleaning of this house;
you are our official housekeeper! The men will begin by clearing a path to the
door and making a list of essential repairs and then getting to them. We
ladies, however, are at
your
disposal.” Rose handed her a key.

Breona smiled broadly, her black eyes flashing. “Well then!”

The women of the group—Rose, Joy, Breona, Marit, Mei-Xing,
Gretl, Sarah, Corrine, Maria, Nancy, Flora, and Tabitha—chuckled. The men—Mr.
Wheatley, Billy, and Grant—smiled. No one in their band underestimated the
determination of Breona Byrne once she set her mind to a task.

Breona pushed through the gate, jumped handily over several
branches lying on the walk, dodged the thorny arms of a few bushes, and trotted
victoriously up the wisteria-clogged steps to the front door. On the enormous
covered porch she turned and held up the key triumphantly.

“Fer God an’ ’is glory!” she called loudly to them.

“Hear, hear!” Grant shouted back.

“For God and his glory!” Rose and Joy echoed, catching her
excitement.

The women grinned and forged ahead. As Rose had directed,
the men stayed behind to clear a wide path from the street to the house.

Inside, the women’s excitement and banter tapered off to
silence. The interior of the house was dim and dank. Although it was June, the
skies over Denver were overcast this early morning, providing little natural
light for them to work by. They gathered in the house’s great room and stared
about them in awe and something else, what Rose could only characterize as
trepidation
.

Wallpaper hung in faded tatters from the walls. Heavy drapes
sagged under the weight of thick dust. Fragments of carpets littered the
floors.

Breona asked Marit and Corrine to pull back the draperies
from the windows. “Hev a care,” she warned, but the sound of rending fabric
interrupted her.

“Rotten,” Marit stated flatly.

Breona nodded and gestured at the remaining window hangings.
“We mus’ be takin’ th’m doon.”

The women covered their hair with kerchiefs and then removed
tattered drapes from three windows and piled them in the center of the room.
They coughed and choked as dust filled the air.

“We can’t clean all of this,” Flora blurted. Her words were
tinged with panic. No one responded.

Breona ignored her and pursed her lips. “Aye then. Miss Joy,
will ye please t’ be foindin’ us a burnin’ pit in th’ back?”

Joy nodded. She and Sarah wandered down the dark halls in
search of a door to the back of the house.

Throughout the morning the women removed and burned dozens
of rotted drapes, mildewed curtains, and ragged carpets. Breona set Marit and
Gretl to clean the kitchen and its pantries and assigned Joy and Rose to the
great room and dining room.

Corrine and Nancy tackled the parlor, library, and the
butler’s pantry and office. The rest of the women she assigned to the first
three bedrooms on the second floor.

“’Tis here we’ll be a-sleepin’ t’night,” Breona decided
before they began. Shudders ran down several spines as they viewed the
condition of the rooms and the work before them.

Marit and Gretl found two stoves in the massive kitchen, one
wood-burning, the other gas fueled. Grant had firmly instructed all of them not
to attempt to light any gas appliance until the gas company had inspected the
house’s gas lines and approved each fixture.

After asking the men to supply them with some fire wood, the
two women bent their efforts on cleaning the wood-burning stove and its pipe so
they could get a fire going. An hour later they announced that they had hot
water for cleaning.

Rose and Joy set about their task by sweeping dust and
cobwebs from the ceilings, walls, floors, windows, and two fireplaces. After
repeated passes, they still had full dustpans to empty. The tall ceilings were
hardest—Joy stood on a sturdy box and swept the ceiling in sections, the dust
falling on her kerchiefed head and into her eyes. After two full passes, her
arms and shoulders burned and ached.

“We cannot even think to wash the windows until this dust is
tamed,” Rose lamented.

“Perhaps we should wash them and the walls and floors
regardless,” Joy suggested. “It is the only way to tame this dust. No doubt
we’ll have to do so at least twice or three times.”
And again tomorrow
,
she thought with dogged determination.

“You are right. We may as well wash the windows even if they
run with grime,” Rose replied. “We need the light to work by.” She studied the
walls, frowning. “This wallpaper will dissolve when we wash it.”

Joy nodded, her mouth set in a grim line. “I will ask the
men to empty our rubbish bin into the burning pit and keep the fire going.”

The men were not without their challenges. Billy and Grant
chopped and sawed their way through wildly overgrown climber roses and
pyracantha until their arms bled from the thorny branches.

“Marit will not be pleased with the tears in my shirt,”
Billy remarked with a reckless grin. Grant, not having considered Joy’s
reaction to a torn shirt, looked askance when he realized his shirt was
shredded beyond repair.

Mr. Wheatley pulled up his suspenders and went to work hacking
Virginia creeper from the porch posts and wild trumpet vines from the window
casings. His hair stood wildly on end, but he worked with a determined set to
his jaw. What the others cut up and discarded, he doggedly loaded onto a cart
and hauled to the burning pit.

Breona called a break at half
past noon. Hot, grimy, and bedraggled, they washed in the kitchen and then
gathered in what had been the dining room. Gretl and Marit passed out
sandwiches, apple slices, and cups of water. They sat upon blankets and ate in
weary silence.

At the end of 30 minutes, Breona took charge again. “Aye,
’tis a mote o’ work we’ve doon this morn, boot we’re nae doon this day.” She
glanced at Rose. “Kin we b’ doin’ a wee bit o’ dreamin’ afore we begin agin,
Miss Rose, Miss Joy?”

At first Rose didn’t understand what she meant, but Joy
thought she did. “You mean . . . shall we walk through the house
with eyes of faith, Breona? Imagining what it will be when we are done?

“Aye, tha’s th’ ticket!” Breona exclaimed, her eyes alight.

Groaning and rubbing sore muscles, the party arose from the
floor. Joy clapped her hands then opened her arms grandly and walked about the
room. “Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please! I give you
our dining
room
.”

“I would like our dining table to be large enough to seat
our entire family here. On special occasions we will lay a lace cloth, indulge
in dozens of candles, and use our best china.” She giggled. “We don’t have a
table
or
china yet, but I’m using my eyes of faith!” Joy curtsied
prettily and several of the girls giggled.

“This way, please!” Rose ushered them toward the great room.
As they traipsed into it, Joy and Rose were rewarded by appreciative murmurs of
“It is so different!” and “Wonderful!” and “Oh, look at the windows and all the
light they allow in!”

Rose curtsied also and gestured graciously toward the
fireplaces, one at each end of the room. “Ladies and gentlemen, kindly envision
many soft, deep chairs with pillows and footstools for all. Here we will sit of
an evening, warm and cozy by a fire, sipping our tea, and telling of all our
day’s adventures.”

“Oh,” asked Maria softly. “Will someone read wonderful books
to us here?”

“Of course,” Rose replied. She wrapped an arm about Maria’s
waist. “It would be my pleasure to do so. For hours, if you like.”

“What color wallpaper will we have?” Flora asked, utterly
caught up. “Please say it will be pink and cream, with rosebuds and ivy!”

The empty room echoed with laughter and chatter. “Not
pink
,”
someone objected. Flora flushed and started to retort, but Joy laid a calming
hand on her arm.

“Flora, I love the sound of pink rosebuds and ivy. Perhaps
we can find them in the perfect paper for your bedroom.”

Flora brightened at that and the group trooped across the
entry into the parlor to admire the progress there and to speculate on how the
room would look when repainted and papered. The library, however, was a
different story.

Nancy, her strawberry hair and translucent skin covered in
fine dust, gestured toward the book shelves—two walls of them, floor to
ceiling. “Breona, all these books are ruined.”

She then pointed to the several stacks of books sitting on
the floor, their edges furred in fine mold. The stench of mildew permeated the
room. Where the carpets had been pulled, the wood floors bore evidence to water
damage.

Missing window panes were boarded over, but the damage was
evident. The group grew serious at the prospect of burning so many books—books
that would cost a small fortune to ever replace!

“Sunlight, strong sunlight moight be th’ savin’ o’ th’m,”
Breona muttered. But to all of them, the reek of mold was overpowering and the
likelihood of saving the hundreds—perhaps a thousand!—volumes seemed remote.

“What should we do?” Nancy asked. Rose was pleased that she
looked to Breona for her guidance.

“I’ll be askin’ Billy t’ open t’ room t’ th’ air an’ then
fittin’ new glass,” Breona replied, a little distracted by the enormity of the
problem.

Next they toured the butler’s pantry with its wine case and
walls of empty shelves, slots, drawers. Adjacent was a modest room with a
single, high window, the former butler’s quarters. The room was snug and dry,
and Nancy and Corrine had cleaned it thoroughly.

“Why, this is a perfect bedroom for our Mr. Wheatley, is it
not?” Joy asked. They unanimously echoed Joy’s sentiments. Mr. Wheatley, with a
happy air of possession, examined the built-in drawers and small wardrobe.

Up the wide staircase they trudged. They explored the second
floor, counting the bedrooms, bathrooms, linen closets, staircases, and
passages. They admired rounded rooms, odd angled rooms, and projecting windows
with wide views of the grounds. They did so while studiously ignoring water
stains, mold, crumbling plaster, and mouse droppings.

Up the next flight of stairs they wandered onto the third
floor where they discovered three unique turret rooms, each with high ceilings
and three other rooms more regular in size. Through a passage to the back of
the house they encountered a row of small servant quarters.

The tiny rooms were built into the angled pitch of one of
the house’s roofs. Their dormer windows protruded from the roof, each window
with its own peaked roof.

Finally they discovered a quaint set of wooden steps, only
six of them, leading to a locked door.

“This must lead to the attic,” Grant suggested. “Odd that
the door is locked. I will see about finding a key.”

They spent an hour touring the house and “dreaming” as
Breona had put it. Rose and Joy agreed that it had been well worth the time as
the happy possibilities they envisioned grew larger—at least for a few
minutes—than the tasks ahead of them.

At the bottom of the wide staircase, Joy hugged Breona
tightly. The men were already heading outside and the women returning to their
chores. “You are brilliant, my dear friend,” she said sincerely.

“Nay,” she replied softly. “Did no’ th’ Lord say t’ Abraham,
‘lift up yer eyes an’
look’
? An’ what e’re Abraham was seein’, th’ Lord
was givin’ t’ him.”

She cast an eye up the staircase to the floors above. “These
bairns mus’ b’
lookin’
t’ what th’ Lord will be givin’ th’m, I’m
thinkin’.”

At half past five the mingled scents of baking bread and
beef simmering in thick gravy began to waft through the house. At six the
household gathered in the dining room again.

Grant and Billy brought in a pair of sawhorses and placed
three long planks across them. Then they carried in several benches Billy and
Mr. Wheatley had knocked together from scraps they found in the carriage house.

Tabitha and Nancy washed down the planks and laid clean
sheets upon them. Marit placed two kerosene lamps on their makeshift dining
table as they gathered gratefully for a hot meal.

They ate voraciously, but made little conversation. No one
had the energy. Rose found herself nodding off over her plate and jerked awake
in chagrin, but no one had noticed. They were, all of them, exhausted beyond
measure.

Breona set them to cleaning up and arranging bedrolls soon
after. The girls followed Breona’s instructions mechanically; no one objected
when she suggested they turn in as soon as the beds were ready.

Breona split the girls between three bedrooms and Rose
joined them, their few blankets poor padding against the hardwood floors. Mr.
Wheatley chose the butler’s quarters, Grant and Joy the parlor, and Billy and Marit
bedded down in the great room.

The night was difficult for most of them, and the next
morning was brutal. Aching, short on sleep, and cranky, many tempers were
short, and the day began badly.