“I have a better idea of how to spend our day, once we have things cleaned up and put away.”
During the six weeks or so of her young marriage, Camellia had cajoled Ben and his two stockmen, whenever available, into moving most of the trucks, boxes, and crates from storage in the barn to the empty spare bedroom upstairs. She wanted, she had explained, to unpack at her leisure, sort through items transported from the St. Louis house, discuss distribution with her sisters, and allocate this and that and the other thing.
As it turned out, this sort of unexpected make-work project could neither have been planned nor chosen more carefully as a distraction.
“Oh, I’d forgotten we had this,” said Molly with pleased surprise, upon unearthing a particular knickknack or objet d’art. “You didn’t tell me you were packing these,” upon discovering a stack o
f table linens. “I thought we were leaving that behind,” upon coming across the collection of gold-framed miniatures.
This was not, of course, the time to make a single comment that might urge Molly to take a few items of particular interest, for her own place, since she had none. For the moment, her place was here, and likely would be for the foreseeable future. Better than Mrs. McKnight’s boarding house; certainly a vast improvement over whatever quarters Quinn Hennessey was currently calling his own.
She was delving head-first into one large trunk, only to emerge disordered as to hair and reddened as to complexion. “You brought my sheet music!”
“Well, certainly. After hauling that grand piano more than five hundred miles, a box of your collected pieces was nothing by comparison. Besides,” Camellia, her own soft upsweep somewhat in disorder, as well, smiled across the room at her sister, “I’m looking forward to hearing you play shortly. Not the grand, naturally—that’s still safely stored in the barn. But on Ben’s old upright, in the parlor. Will you?”
“Yes, I’d like that, Cam. Thank you.” A moment in which to share pure communion of spirit—past joys, and those tempered by the present—then Molly returned to the task underway. “Are you searching for anything in particular in this Aladdin’s treasure trove you have hidden up here?”
“I am, indeed. Perfect for weather such as today, with idle hands,” another smile, this one full of mischief, “being the devil’s workshop.”
“Fancy work,” realized Molly, spying what was being held aloft.
“That’s right. A good time to get back into embroidery, don’t you think? And, perhaps later this winter, some knitting. I’m sure there are ladies in this town who would be happy to teach me. Mayhap even a sewing circle, at church.”
“I don’t see why not. After all, Hannah is determined to get her gardening club up and running.”
It was a peaceful, harmonious home that Ben came back to at dinnertime: so peaceful and harmonious, thanks to his wife’s doing, that sometimes he enjoyed leaving just so he could return. He could smell the steamy aroma of a big pot of soup simmering quietly on the range’s back burner and the yeasty scent of bread fresh from the oven. He could hear the sweet soft notes of some classical concerto being played at the neglected piano. He could see Camellia seated in her favorite chair, busily separating colorful skeins of floss in preparation for whatever needlework lay across her lap.
Despite the gloom and chill of outdoor weather, he couldn’t prevent a broad grin of appreciation for the cozy scene. His house. His domain. His castle. His wife.
Camellia looked up at a slight squeak of the back door’s hinge. “Hello, Ben, dear. I see you’ve brought back a few pounds of street mud with you. Hard going, was it?”
“Well, it sure enough makes a man tired, sloggin’ through all that muck. I won’t be sorry to see some sunny skies again.”
“Um. On that note—it does seem that the force of the rain is letting up, isn’t it? Might Molly and I dare to venture out this afternoon for an excursion?”
“Bless my soul, you never give up hope, do you?” Chuckling, he began to fight his way free of both grubby boots. “Two days at least b’fore things dry out, darlin’, and that’s if we get some heat and wind from now on. Just thank your lucky stars you don’t haveta go out. Notice you haven’t seen the doc or Paul comin’ to visit.”
Over the dinner table he and she discussed the understandable paucity of business at the store this morning, when they might expect delivery of a long-awaited order containing the new dress patterns, and Camellia’s request for a recently published library book entitled “Little Women.” Ben admitted he was looking for a Jules Verne novel, himself, “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,” whose synopsis sounded quite thrilling.
He did mention that he had put off his departure date once again for Manifest, and that his plans for a second Forrester’s were temporarily on hold.
Molly made no comment to this. She kept her head down, as if to avoid confrontation, since this delay was due mostly to her own hasty marriage, and its aftermath.
As she did so often, Camellia saw. Her well-aimed kick under the table at Ben’s shin halted any further discourse for the moment. Startled at first by the blow, then sheepish, Ben slumped both shoulders and tended to his bowl of soup.
By the time he was ready to return to work, the steady fall of rain had slackened to a drizzle. The mud still sucked and impeded progress, and puddles whose depth could not be determined except by sinking down into them stood everywhere. No. Definitely the girls would be homebound at least one more full afternoon.
They had cleaned up the kitchen and returned to their rainy day pursuits when a knock came at the front door.
The sound jolted Camellia enough that she accidentally stabbed her finger with the needle, with the result that a few crimson drops of blood dripped onto her skirt.
“Oh, goldarn it!” It was one of Ben’s favorite mild oaths, and even as the word slipped past her lips she blushed and cast an apologetic glance toward her sister.
Molly, still seated at the piano where her fingers had been roaming idly over the keyboard, chuckled. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell on you. Go on, stop the bleeding before your fancy work is ruined. I’ll see who’s braved the storm to come calling.”
Since the worst of the storm had passed, at least temporarily, getting out and about for the more adventurous males, in their knee-high boots, wasn’t quite so tricky. One such stood on the verandah now, when Molly flung wide the door.
“More flowers,” she announced over her shoulder, in disgust. “Can you believe the absolute brazen audacity of that oaf?”