Woman of Grace (4 page)

“Oh, come on now.” The ranch owner paused in his work, walked to the side of the buckboard where Devlin stood, and squatted in the bed. “Let’s just spit it out once and for all, then be done with it,” he continued, his voice gone low. “None of us knows Hannah like you do because she’s one of the women you called on at Sadie Fleming’s, isn’t she?”

The blood rushed from Devlin’s face. He should have known he couldn’t keep the full truth from his cousin for long. After a furtive glance around him, he shook his head. “I didn’t say that,” he whispered hoarsely. “All I meant—”

Conor cut him off. “Ella’s going to find out about Hannah sooner or later. Best you tell her sooner, than she find out from someone else later.”

Devlin bit his lip and looked away. “She already knows I paid several calls at Sadie’s. She’s forgiven me, and we’ve put it all behind us.” As he met Conor’s piercing gaze, a heavy ache throbbed in the middle of his chest. “And that’s where I want it to stay. How can it, though, if Ella finds out about Hannah and has her nose rubbed in it each time that girl walks by? Blast it, Conor! Haven’t I hurt Ella enough without telling her about Hannah?

“When will this nightmare be over?” Devlin groaned.

“I don’t know.” With a sigh, Conor leaned back. “Maybe when it’s all out in the open and there are no more secrets or surprises. Have you talked with Hannah about this?”

Devlin gave an incredulous laugh. “Talk to Hannah? Why that would be like falling back in with the devil himself! I’d never give a woman like her a chance to use that to her advantage. And she would. That’s all those kind of women know how to do.”

“I think you’re wrong about her, Devlin. From what Abby tells me, the girl doesn’t sound likely to jeopardize what she’s got here. You aren’t giving either her or Ella a fair shake in this.”

“Well, I sure in tarnation can’t tell Ella right now.” Devlin spun around, turning back to the next bale of hay. There was work to be done. No purpose was served wallowing in his misery. “News like that, on top of everything else she’s had to endure, might be the death of her.”

“Then let Hannah be. It wouldn’t hurt to share a little of the forgiveness
you’ve
received with her. No sense hoarding it all for yourself.”

“Can’t say as how I’m in the mood right now to think very kindly of Hannah, much less feel forgiving.” The big foreman sighed and shook his head. “Maybe it isn’t very honorable, but I can’t help it.”

His cousin nodded. “Well, a man’s got to come to forgiveness in his own time. I sure had to. But just remember. Right now Ella needs Hannah to care for the baby, not to mention do the cooking, cleaning, and help little Mary and Devlin Jr. Abby can’t spend every waking moment with Ella and the children anymore. The two hands you sent to fetch Doc Childress that day of the storm have come down with a fever and chills, and Evan told me just this morning he’s not feeling all that well either. I’m thinking it’s the influenza. Talk has it a mess of folks in Grand View are sick with it.”

Devlin slipped his gloved hands beneath the twine encircling another bale, then heaved it to his shoulder. “Yeah, I heard about the influenza that’s been going around Grand View.” He swung about and tossed the hay into the buckboard. “Talk has it Mary Sue Edgerton nearly died from it, and two of Sadie Fleming’s girls finally did.”

“It’s bad this year. Since Abby’s already been exposed in caring for Wendell and Frank, it’s probably best she stays away from Ella. And that leaves only Hannah to help you. As much as you might hate to admit it, right now she’s the only solution to your problems.”

“Easy for you to say,” Devlin muttered, not feeling at all mollified. “But then your mistakes aren’t thrown in your face every time she walks into your house.”

“Sounds like you shot yourself in the foot one time too many, cousin.” Conor managed a wry grin. “Just hope you’re man enough to take it.”

Devlin’s lips quirked. Leave it to Conor to always point out the obvious, if sometimes painful, truth. “Yeah, I hope so, too. Guess, for Ella and my kids’s sakes, we’ll find out.”

Hannah finished buttoning the lace collar of the fresh nightgown she had just put on Ella. After pulling up the sheet and blankets to cover the other woman, she retrieved the basin of now dirty wash water, washcloth, and towels.

“Is there anything else I can do for you, Ella?” She glanced down at the woman’s pale face. “If not, a nice nap before dinner is in order.”

Ella smiled wanly. “Yes, I am rather tired. Do you think, though, that I might hold Bonnie for a few minutes? My fever’s been gone for two days. I thought I might try to nurse her.”

It had been over a week now since the baby’s birth, and almost as many days since Ella had last tried to nurse. It seemed likely, by now, her milk had all but dried up. Still, Hannah couldn’t blame her for wanting to try. She had given life to the child; she wanted to be the one to nourish and mother her.

“I’ll fetch Bonnie. I nursed her two hours ago.” Hannah shot her a quick smile as she began to walk away. “She’s a greedy little feeder, that one is, though. She just might be hungry again.”

“You’ve been such a blessing to us, Hannah. What would we have done without you?”

Hannah halted, embarrassed and not knowing quite how to respond. “Abby said it’s our Christian duty,” she offered finally, “to help each other in any way we can. I’m trying hard to learn to do that.”

“And you’re learning it well. I’m just thankful I’m here to reap all the benefits.”

Hannah laughed and headed again for the door. “Well, I’m just as thankful to be here, too.”

“Another blessing, I’d say.”

“I suppose so,” she amicably agreed, before walking from the room.

As she reached the kitchen, she found Devlin seated at the kitchen table, working on some ledgers. In spite of their unspoken if temporary truce, Hannah couldn’t help but stiffen defensively. Though he said nothing, she could feel his barely restrained hostility. Only a thin veneer of civility coated the still evident loathing he felt for her.

She marched to the sink nonetheless, emptied the basin, rinsed it, and set it aside to dry. Then, after washing her hands, she strode to the wooden cradle set near the cookstove and picked up a sleepy Bonnie.

“Where are you going with my daughter?”

Hannah stiffened. Whatever was wrong now? she wondered. “Ella wants to hold her for a few minutes, before she takes a nap.”

He glared at her briefly, then tugged at his mustache and resumed his scribbling in the ledger. “Good. It’s about time Bonnie got to know her mother.”

Rather than waste more of it with me?
Hannah silently finished Devlin’s sentence for him. She bit the inside of her lip, then chewed on it in frustration. Would nothing she did matter to him? Was there any restitution she could
ever
make that would wipe the slate clean? But then, why should she even care?

“I agree,” Hannah forced herself to reply. She cuddled Bonnie closer and inhaled deeply of the baby’s sweet scent, then straightened. “Well, if you don’t mind, I’ve got an eager mother waiting to see her child.”

Never once looking back up, Devlin made a dismissing motion with his hand. “I just wanted to make it clear who her real mother is.”

“Oh, you did, Mr. MacKay,” Hannah said through gritted teeth as she walked from the kitchen. “You most certainly did.”

The next week passed in a crazy, frantic haze of activity. Three more hands came down with the influenza, as did Conor’s ten-year-old daughter, Beth. Save for the most minimal of maintenance duties, such as feeding and watering the livestock, work at Culdee Creek virtually ground to a halt. Those not stricken were called into caring for those who were.

Though Ella improved a bit each day, her condition was still too precarious to risk her catching the dreaded influenza. Devlin—one of the few still healthy workers—tried to do his part by limiting contact with his wife, even going so far as to bed down at night in the kitchen. As much as she could Hannah also tried, for Ella’s sake, to avoid Culdee Creek’s other residents—Evan included. Though she wrote him a short, daily note to cheer him up as he recovered from his own bout of influenza, his return missives made it clear he missed her sorely.

For Hannah, time not required preparing meals, washing clothes, and caring for the children was spent talking with and reading to Ella in her and Devlin’s bedroom. She helped the other woman when she needed it and played games with Jackson and Ella’s two older children when she didn’t. From time to time, the confined quarters became too close, and Hannah would bundle up Devlin Jr. and Mary to play outside in the snow.

She also continued to nurse Bonnie, for Ella’s milk had indeed dried up. Each time the infant was finally sated, however, Hannah quickly changed her, then laid her in her mother’s arms. It was a time Hannah came to cherish. The two women talked of many things. As the days passed, the cordial relationship that had been slowly developing over the past year grew into a deeper trust and friendship.

“You know,” Ella said one particularly overcast, windy day as she rested in her bed with Bonnie sleeping contentedly at her side, “I used to think she’d have my red hair, but now I’m not so sure. It’s already”—she fingered the fuzzy thatch on her daughter’s head—“much darker than mine.”

Hannah glanced up from the embroidery work she was applying to a hand-stitched, lace-edged table runner. She leaned forward in the rocker she had pulled up close to Ella’s bed and studied Bonnie’s hair. “Yes, it is darker, but I still see glints of red. Perhaps she’ll have auburn hair.”

Ella smiled. “That’d be nice. A pleasing combination, at long last, of Devlin’s and my hair colors after my carrot-topped son and brown-haired little Mary.”

“They’ll make a pretty trio, won’t they,” Hannah observed, “all lined up and ready for school?”

“Yes, they will.”

The conversation eased then into a comfortable silence. Hannah resumed her careful stitching. The rose and ivy motif was filling in nicely. She was quite pleased with the various shades of vermilion she had chosen for the flowers. Combined with the vibrant blooms, the rich emerald and forest green threads of the ivy leaves made a striking contrast against the ivory linen cloth.

“You’ve really a talent with the needle,” Ella commented from beside her. “I’ve never seen such even, delicate stitches, or such a flair for design and color.”

Hannah could feel the heat rise in her cheeks. She still found it hard to accept, much less believe, a compliment. “I learned from a true artist,” she replied finally. “My dear friend, Hu Yung, taught me how to sew. It passed the long hours after we were both finally free from our night’s work, filling the day with a semblance of refinement and beauty.

“Or at least so it seemed to us.” Hannah smiled in sad remembrance. “We were deluding ourselves, of course, but at least it helped us endure the nightmares to come each night. We always had each other and our beautiful sewing to look forward to on the morrow.”

“What happened to Hu Yung? Did she, too, finally escape?”

Hannah looked down. At the memories that had been so carefully stored in the deep recesses of her heart, tears swelled. “In a sense, yes, she did. Hu Yung fell in love with a young miner who promised to come back and marry her once he struck it rich. Some months later, though, she got word he’d died in an avalanche. After that all the hope seemed to drain from her. She soon took an overdose of morphine, killing herself.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that.” Ella touched Hannah’s arm. “She deserved better.”

“Yes. Yes, she did.” Hannah brushed away the tears that had flooded her eyes. Hu Yung
had
deserved better. Better from life, and better from a friend. A true friend would’ve known the right thing to say and do to comfort her, to prevent her from taking her life. But she hadn’t, Hannah thought, the old, guilty sense of failure rising to engulf her anew.

“She was sold into the brothels, too, you know. Not as early as I was,” Hannah hastened to add, forcing her morose thoughts back to the present, “but forced into it nonetheless. A Chinese man from San Francisco returned to his village in China, wooed and wed her, then brought her back to San Francisco, promising her a better life. One day, though, he informed her he would be going on a long trip, and asked if she’d sign an agreement to stay with a friend of his. Only as she was being dragged into a brothel did Hu Yung realize she’d signed her own bill of sale.”