The Preacher's Daughter (6 page)

“This is a good life,” she said, never forgetting for a moment how fortunate they were.

“I can’t explain what I feel when I look at those youngsters,” Ben said, his voice thick with emotion.

“I know.” He didn’t have to explain. She knew well enough. The differences in their childhoods and those of her children were a universe apart. As far as from where they sat in this room to the outermost star. “The past has to be the past, Ben.”

“It’s where I came from, Ellie.”

“But it’s not who you are.”

“I am who I am because of where I came from.”

“
In spite of
where you came from,” she said. “You’ll never completely move on until you let go.”

“Is that what you’ve done?”

“Yes.”

“But you haven’t forgotten.”

“I can’t erase the past, but I don’t have to punish myself with it.”

“Is that what you think I do? Punish myself?”

“Sometimes.”

There was a light tap on the open door and Lorabeth carried a tray into the room. “I brought your lunch.”

Ben straightened in his chair.

“I’m positively spoiled,” Ellie said, smoothing the covers in an attempt to find a spot on her nearly obliterated lap.

“You deserve it,” Ben told her.

Lorabeth stepped forward to settle the legs of the wooden tray in an easy-to-reach position. She straightened and rubbed a palm against her apron. Her hair hung in a thick braid that draped over her shoulder. “If you haven’t had lunch, I can bring you a sandwich and a glass of milk,” she said to Ben. “You can eat with your sister.”

“Much obliged, Miss Lorrie,” he said, adopting the name the children called her.

At that Ellie observed the becoming color in her helper’s cheeks with growing interest.

Lorabeth flashed an easy smile and hurried out.

Ben noticed a bunch of violets arranged in a tiny milk-glass jar on Ellie’s tray. “She brought you flowers.”

His sister smiled and raised the delicate blooms to her nose. “She’s a godsend.”

He gestured to the food on her tray. “Don’t wait for me.”

A few minutes later Lorabeth arrived with another tray and held it toward him. “Dr. Chaney had two pies delivered with the bread this morning. Would you care for a slice of peach or raisin, Mr. Chaney?”

Her eyes were the warm color of clear honey, and he liked the direct way she looked into his. “Ben,” he replied.

Lorabeth held his gaze, and a flush crept up her cheeks.

“I’ll get a slice later,” he told her. “Thanks.”

He noticed the way her hair shone in the sunlight from the window, then snared his thoughts.

“I’ll take peach,” Ellie said with a smile in her voice.

Lorabeth glanced toward Ellie with an embarrassed nod, then hurried from the room.

He picked up half a sliced beef sandwich, took a bite and caught Ellie looking at him. He chewed before asking, “What?”

She bit into a small shiny red apple with a satisfying crunch. “Nothing.”

Half an hour later, Ellie was ready for a nap. Ben took both trays and carried them down to the kitchen where he found Lorabeth at the table scraping carrots. She laid down the knife and started to rise, but he waved her back down.

“Don’t stop what you’re doin’. I’m going to help myself to a slice of that raisin pie.”

He poured milk from the ice chest on the back porch, then sat down with the full glass and a huge slice of pie.

“Ellie’s going to nap,” he said.

She nodded and continued to scrape carrots.

“I don’t suppose it’s a good week to make headway on those accomplishments of yours,” he said.

She glanced up. “What do you mean?”

“You know, taking the long walks, reading all the books in the library…your train trip.”

She dipped her head and raised one shoulder. “All that sounds foolish when you say it.”

“It’s not foolish,” he disagreed. “I was just thinking that you’re spendin’ all your time looking after Ellie and the children.”

She looked up, her hands falling still. “That’s my job.”

“But your free time,” he mentioned. “Your free time is monopolized this week, as well.”

“Mrs. Chaney needs me, and I’m pleased to be here for her.”

“Maybe I could pick up a few books for you. At the library.”

Her eyes widened in apparent interest.

“It’s probably not as much fun as picking out your own. Caleb has a huge library, too. You could find a number of interesting subjects in there. I read through his books when I lived with them.”

“I don’t know,” she said hesitantly. “I’m not family, and I wouldn’t want to impose.”

“Books are made to be read,” he told her. “Caleb won’t mind if you help yourself, but I’ll mention it to him so you’ll be assured. And I’ll check out a few books until you can get to the library yourself.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why are you doing that for me?”

“I appreciate you taking care of Ellie. And the way you do it is more than just a job,” he said. “You do things from your heart. With kindness.”

He had a moment’s regret for saying something so personal. But the way she looked at him then, with surprise and pleasure, made him feel as though he’d said something important.

“The Bible does say that whatever I do I should do it as unto the Lord,” she replied.

He took a drink of milk. “What does that mean?”

“I believe it means that each task, no matter how mundane, is a service unto God as long as we’re doing it with pure motives and a right heart. No job is small or unimportant in God’s eyes.” She sliced the carrot lengthwise on the cutting board and placed it in a tin pan.

“Take scraping this carrot,” she went on, holding up another. “It seems like an ordinary task, boring even, and perhaps it is. Some jobs are thankless but necessary. However, these carrots will nourish the Chaney family. The doctor is strengthened to go to work and save lives. Your sister is nourishing the child she carries and gaining strength to bring a new life into this world.

“The children are growing bodies and minds that will accomplish great things one day. Who knows?” Her vibrant expression lit her features. She’d been caught up in her passionate explanation, but she suddenly looked at Ben. “One of them could start a school or a hospital or give birth to a scientist that cures a disease or to a missionary who travels the world. We’re just minuscule parts of an infinite picture.”

Ben recognized all the joy and hope his own life was lacking. He envied her vitality and her optimism. She represented all the things he was starved for, and resentment and longing scared the spit out of him. He would never be that innocent again, never share her idealism. The fact that the inability was through no fault of his own dredged up reservoirs of anger.

Their eyes met for a heart-stopping moment.

No one had ever challenged his self-control as strongly as this woman did simply by being open and expressive. She stood for everything he strove for. And everything he wasn’t.

H
e leaned across the table and plucked a carrot stick from the pan. “I think I’m needin’ one of these. Who knows what’s in store for me this afternoon?”

He bit it with a resounding crunch.

Lorabeth raised one eyebrow as though concerned that he was mocking her.

“You’ve convinced me,” he assured her. “Each task is important.”

He chewed and thought of the various wild animals he’d treated and set free, wondering how his part in their lives affected nature. He didn’t understand people who didn’t feel compassion for animals or their fellow man, but he could understand Lorabeth’s passion for the small tasks she performed every day. Everyone needed to believe they were making a difference in the world, that there was a purpose and a function for their lives beyond just getting through this hour and this day.

“Ellie asked me to come by again later,” he said. His sister never asked much of him, but she wanted him to check on Lorabeth and the children.

“Why is it you don’t come for supper during the week?” Lorabeth asked out of the blue.

He shook his head as he considered her question.

“Ellie asks me. Sometimes I accept. I guess I figure the weeknights are their family time.”

“You
are
family.”

He shrugged.

“I’ll put a few more carrots in the pot.”

Ben wasn’t comfortable spending more time than necessary around Lorabeth, but if Ellie and Caleb needed him, he’d be here.

The rasp of the front doorbell caught their attention, and Lorabeth got up, wiping her hands on her apron. A moment later she returned.

“It’s a man looking for you.”

Ben strode through the hallway to the foyer where Matt Dearborn stood hat in hand, clearly uncomfortable in the Chaneys’ expensively furnished home.

“Matt,” Ben said.

“D’you have time to come by and look at my bay?

Pennie’s bloated and she’s not eating.”

“I’ll come right now,” Ben told him. “My other appointments can wait until later in the afternoon.”

“Much obliged, Doc,” the other man said with a look of relief.

Ben turned to find Lorabeth holding his hat. She extended it toward him.

He thanked her and followed Matt into the sunlight.

Late that afternoon, Ben finished his work at the Iverson ranch where he’d inoculated Pete Iverson’s yearlings and examined a mare with matted eyes. He’d applied salve and left a tube with Pete after showing him how to pull down the mare’s lid and squeeze a line of ointment into its eye once a day.

He mounted Titus and rode into town. The library was already closed as he rode past. He stopped for a few supplies at the mercantile. As a last thought, he asked Hazel Paulson for a couple scoops of jelly beans and tucked the bag into the pocket of his jacket after paying.

Relieved he didn’t have to cook for himself, he rode toward his sister’s, reminding himself this visit was at Ellie’s request. He reined in and tied Titus to the post beside the front gate. The sight of all four youngsters and Flynn sitting in a row on chairs across the front porch brought him up short.

Flynn loped down the stairs, and the others followed.

Buddy Lee followed at their heels, meowing. The children all spoke at once.

“Mama’s having the baby!” Lillith said excitedly.

“Caleb’s been up with Ellie since this afternoon,”

Flynn said.

“Mrs. Connor is here, too,” Nate told him.

“I’m hungwy,” Anna piped up.

“It’s time for dinner,” Ben said, guiding them back toward the house. “I’m hungry, too.”

“Mith Lorrie’th fixing it by herthelf,” Anna replied.

“Why didn’t a couple of you help her?”

“David and me was helping, but she told us to watch Anna,” Lillith replied.

Ben could imagine how much help David and Lillith had been.

He pointed to the swing in the side yard. “Why don’t you girls swing while I go check on your dinner?”

Lillith and Anna ran down the stairs. Flynn accompanied Ben into the house. “How long does this baby stuff take?” Flynn asked with a furrow between his brows. “I don’t remember it taking this long when Anna was born.”

“I don’t think there’s a hard-and-fast rule,” Ben told him.

He found Lorabeth in the overly-warm kitchen, strands of her honey-colored hair stuck to the back of her neck.

She glanced up from the bowl of potatoes she was mashing and gave him a quick smile. “Hello, Benjamin.”

He opened the back door and the ceiling-high window to let in some air. Buddy Lee immediately shot inside, and Ben spent five minutes getting the cat out from under a cupboard and back out. “How are you faring?” he asked Lorabeth.

“Things got a little chaotic this afternoon. I ran an errand for Dr. Chaney and ended up getting supper started late.”

“Flynn and I will help.”

A look of relief crossed her features, but she said, “That’s not necessary.”

“Probably not, but we’re helpin’ anyhow. What can we do?”

“You can take the roast out of that pan and slice it. I didn’t get the potatoes peeled in time to cook them with the meat, so I boiled them. The children like them better mashed, anyway. Flynn, will you please set plates around the table in the dining room? It will be cooler in there. Ask the boys to wash their hands and help you with silverware and napkins.”

Ben removed the lid from the roasting pan, and the savory aroma of beef and browned carrots made his stomach growl. He found a large fork to lift the roast from the pan to a platter and sliced. A small piece fell to the side and he tasted the tender meat. “You’re no stranger to a kitchen. This is perfect.”

“I’ve been cooking since I was old enough to fire up a stove. What about you? You seem to know what you’re doing.”

“I’ve helped Ellie a time or two.”

She moved beside him to spoon the carrots into a bowl. “Were you young when your mother died?”

Ben simply nodded.

“But your father had already passed away by then?”

Ben never lied. And he detested avoiding a question. He glanced to see if Flynn had returned, but his brother was still in the dining room. “Never had a father.”

Of course
everyone
had a father. It just sounded worse to say he didn’t know who his was.

She took the pan from him, placed it on the stove, and stirred flour into the drippings. Ben couldn’t help noticing her efficient yet graceful movements. She wore a plain brown skirt and a white shirtwaist with her sleeves rolled back to her elbows. “Would you mind watching this for a moment? Just keep stirring.”

He took over the gravy while Lorabeth scraped a heaping mound of mashed potatoes into a serving bowl and made a well for a dollop of butter.

“Have you seen Ellie or spoken with Caleb?”

She nodded. “Her back was hurting something fierce when she woke up from her nap this afternoon. Caleb came around two to check on her. That was when he said it wasn’t going to be long before the baby was born. I stayed with her while he went and canceled the rest of his appointments.

“She asked me to get the children from school, and once they were home and she’d seen and hugged them all, she told them to busy themselves. That was when Dr. Chaney sent me to get Mrs. Connor.”

Sophie Connor was a friend of Ellie’s. She’d been a Harvey Girl at the Arcade Hotel and restaurant before meeting and marrying the city marshal. Sophie had a couple children of her own. “Sophie’s been down for water and tea a few times.”

Lorabeth gave the gravy a final stir and used her apron to protect her hands from the hot handles as she poured the steaming liquid from the pan into a serving bowl. She reached for a ladle on a wall hook.

Ben unwrapped two loaves of bread and sliced both, stacking the slices on a plate.

“The carrots and green beans are warming back here,” she said, taking bowls from the back of the stove.

Ben picked up the platter and followed her into the dining room. The boys had done a pretty decent job of setting the table.

“Nate, will you call your sisters now, please?” she asked. “I’ll go let Dr. Chaney and Mrs. Connor know that the food is ready and see if they want to eat.”

Ben nodded and watched her head for the stairs, the braid swinging across her back.

The children were subdued as they took their seats around the table. Their parents’ chairs were glaringly empty. Ben and Flynn served portions and cut meat into bites for the young ones.

Ben didn’t give Lillith any green beans.

Lorabeth returned.

The kids looked at her and then at Ben. “Who’s gonna say grace?”

Lorabeth asked a blessing for their meal and included a petition for Ellie’s comfort and the baby’s health.

Ben didn’t look up, but the confident words of her softly-spoken prayer stayed with him throughout the meal.

Caleb arrived a few minutes later, his shirtsleeves rolled up and a look of preoccupation on his face.

“Mama’s doing just fine,” he told his children.

“When’s the baby gonna come?” Lillith asked.

“When he’s ready,” Caleb replied. “It won’t be long now.”

“Maybe you should go back,” David said with a frown of concern.

“Mrs. Connor is with her, and it will be a little while longer.” He glanced at Lorabeth. “I’ll send Sophie down to eat once I’ve finished.”

“I saved some broth from the meat,” Lorabeth told him. “When Mrs. Chaney is up to it, I’ll take her a tray.”

“That was a good idea. Very thoughtful, thanks.”

Lorabeth nodded.

Caleb ate and left the table. It wasn’t long until Sophie joined them. The pretty dark-haired woman was smiling and cheerful, assuring everyone that Ellie was indeed doing well.

Lorabeth asked Flynn to heat water and then she and Nate stacked the plates and washed pans and dishes. Ben and David dried while Lorabeth wiped the table and counters.

Nate and David had school assignments, so she settled them at the clean kitchen table. Minutes later she was pointing over David’s shoulder to show him a step he’d missed.

Without missing a beat, she took cigar boxes from a shelf and set the girls to drawing and cutting.

Ben sat beside Lillith and pointed to a row of paper figures. “What’s this you’re makin’?”

“Miss Lorrie helps us draw pretty dresses for our paper dolls,” Lillith told him. “She looks at the clothes in the catalog and then makes ours just like them.”

“I never did things like this as a girl,” Lorabeth told Ben with a sheepish shrug. “It’s fun.”

Ben knew all about missing out on things as a child, but he couldn’t figure out how Lorabeth fit the picture. She had a respectable family, a concerned father, and lived in a nice home right here in Newton.

She had certainly stepped up and handled things for his sister’s family this past week, and she’d knocked herself out to make sure the children’s routines weren’t upset. His admiration grew by leaps and bounds each time he was around her. She put her energy and talent to good use, and he acknowledged that.

Ben remembered the treats in his jacket pocket and excused himself to go get the bag. When he returned, he found a glass bowl in the cupboard and poured in the brightly colored candies. He set it on the kitchen table. “Each take five the first time to keep it fair,” he told them. “And they can’t all be the same color.”

Anna stuck out her lower lip, but he’d done this before. “Others like red, too,” he admonished, keeping his voice cheerful.

She looked up and tilted her lips into a cherubic smile, and all was well.

The candy made the rounds with each Chaney selecting five jelly beans until the bowl came to Lorabeth. She held it as though she’d been given a stolen diamond. Her wide tawny eyes looked to Ben in surprise. “They’re for the children.”

“Don’t you like them?”

“I think so. A friend of my mama’s gave me some a long time ago.”

“Well, choose yours,” he said with an encouraging nod.

Lorabeth carefully selected five and passed them on. She bit into the first one, and her broad smile gave him an odd hitch in his chest. She appeared every bit as childishly delighted with his surprise as Lillith and Anna.

Flynn came to the doorway and asked Ben if he’d read over an assignment for errors, so Ben gave Lorabeth a glance and headed for Caleb’s den.

After watching him go, Lorabeth ran her tongue across her teeth to glean every last sugary bite. When the dish came to her again, she took five more candies and tucked them into her apron pocket for later.

Dr. Chaney entered the room and asked her for a cup of broth. She handed him a napkin along with the steaming cup. Preoccupied, he returned to his wife.

Lorabeth lit the lamps and lanterns and went upstairs to lay out the children’s nightclothes and turn down their beds. Soft voices could be heard from behind her employers’ closed door. The whole mystery of Ellie’s pregnancy and this process of giving birth fascinated Lorabeth. All she knew about how babies were conceived she’d read in the Bible. “Caleb had ‘known’ Ellie” was vague and mysterious. All that metaphorical stuff about does and lilies in the Song of Solomon made it sound lyrical and lovely. The unknown was bewildering and alluring at the same time.

She escorted the girls to the outhouse and then washed their hands and faces in the wash room behind the kitchen.

“I want Ben to tuck me in,” Lillith told her.

She sent them upstairs with a warning not to disturb their parents and sought out Benjamin. He and Flynn were seated in comfortable leather chairs in the doctor’s handsomely furnished wood-paneled library.

“The girls asked for you,” she said to Benjamin.

He stood easily, coming to his full impressive height. “Best indulge the little darlin’s so they’ll get to sleep.”

“Are you set for tomorrow, Flynn?” she asked. Almost a full-grown man, Flynn was a student, as well. She’d never known anyone so cheerful or easy to please.

“I’m fine, Miss Lorrie,” he told her with a grin.

She followed Benjamin from the room, and he paused at the foot of the stairs for her to go ahead of him. She was reminded of the day she’d brought her things and he’d carried them to her room.