Vows, Page 3

  So he'd built a hospital, magnanimously refusing to confine its relief to his employees only, but making its benefits free to all.

  It was there that Edwin Walcott took his wife after reading the article hoping to find a possible cure for her consumption. The fates had smiled upon them both that day, for while waiting in an anteroom, they had met the great John B himself. It was impossible to meet and discourse with the man and go away unencouraged. Hale and fit, he made a convincing case for clean living, and credited his cure to that single year of fresh air, pure water, and sunshine.

  "Go west!" he'd advised Josephine Walcott. "Go west where the climate is salubrious, where mountain streams are pure as crystal, and the high altitudes purify and strengthen your lungs by making them work harder. Build your house facing south and east, give it plenty of windows, and open them daily. Nightly, too."

  And so they had come. They'd built their house facing not only north and east but west too, and had given it all the windows John B. Stetson recommended. They had added a wraparound porch where Josephine could take the air and sunshine in long drafts, and from which she could watch the sun rise over the Powder River pampas and set behind the majestic Big Horns.

  But what had cured John B. Stetson had failed to cure Josephine Walcott In the eighteen months they'd been here she had only grown weaker. Her body once portly and Rubenesque, had dissipated to a mere ninety-five pounds. Her cough had become so constant it no longer awakened her children at night. And recently bloodstained handkerchiefs had begun appearing in the dirty laundry.

  It was the laundry that concerned Emily as she returned home that June afternoon.

  Climbing the wide porch steps, she glanced over her left shoulder at the sun wondering if there was time enough for things to dry before dusk.

  She entered the parlor and paused despondently, glancing around. Dust. Everywhere dust. And bric-a-brac enough to dizzy a person. Papa had prospered as a Philadelphia liveryman and in spite of Mother's debilitated condition she wanted everyone in Sheridan to know of his success. Being a modern Victorian matron she displayed the proof in her parlor, as had her friends in Philadelphia adapting to the modem decorating principle that more was better.

  Though the room had been designed by Papa to give an impression of space, Mother had done everything to fill it, insisting not only on bringing her piano but on placing it in the popular way with its back to the room instead of to the wall, thereby enabling her to "dress" it. Festooned with a drapery of swagged multicolored China silk edged with gimp and cordball fringe, the huge upright formed the nucleus of the monstrosity Mother called a parlor. Against the piano was shoved a backless divan; upon it was displayed an assortment of fans and framed photographs; beside it a jardiniere of peacock feathers. She had insisted on leaving behind not one item of her life's collection of litter, and had stuffed the room with an eye-boggling clutter of umbrellas, plaster busts, wicker rockers, cushions, coat racks, china cabinets, scarves, piecrust tables, clocks, and gimcracks. The floor was covered with fillings, then Oriental rugs, and then the easychairs hidden by embroidered cushions and Turkish tidies. The lovely bay window, which Papa had installed to let in plenty of light, was nearly obscured by hanging ferns and tassled draperies.

  Perusing it all, Emily sighed. Often she wished Papa would insist on clearing it out and leaving only a wicker chaise and a table or two, but she knew her mother's illness prevailed upon him to let her have her way.

  For Mother was dying.

  They all knew it but nobody said so. If she wanted her fringed piano cover and gimcracks around her while she did, who in this family would deny her?

  Emily collapsed onto the ugly rolled divan, dropped her crossed arms and head onto her knees, and gave in to the depression that hung over this house.

  Oh, Mother, please get well. We need you. Papa needs you. He's so lonely and lost, even though he tries to hide it. He's probably worried sick right now about what will happen with another livery stable starting up right under his nose. He'd never let on to me, but he would to you if you were strong.

  And Frankie—he's only twelve and he needs so much mothering yet. Who'll give it to him if you die? Me, when I still need mothering myself? I need it at this very moment. I wish I could run to you and talk about my fears for Papa, and my hopes of becoming a veterinarian, which I want more than anything I can ever remember, and about Charles and my uncertainties regarding him. I need to know if what I feel is strong enough or if there should be more. Because he's warned me—he's going to ask me again, soon; and what should I say this time?

  With her face buried in her arms, Emily thought of Charles. Plain, good, hard-working Charles who had been her playmate since childhood, who'd been so devastated by the news of her leaving Philadelphia that he'd made the monumental decision to come along with her family to the Wyoming Territory and make his start in the world.

  Charles, whom she was so grateful to have at first, living in a new place where there were few other young people her age. Charles, who was becoming insistent about setting a date for their wedding when she wanted instead to learn veterinary medicine first. Charles, to whom she felt betrothed even before she was.

  She sighed, pushed herself up, and went to the kitchen. By virtue of necessity, it was the only room in the house devoid of extraneous decor. It had the best range money could buy, and a real granite sink with an indoor pump. A washroom was located at the back with a coal oil heater, a washing machine with metal gears and an easy-to-manipulate hand agitator, and real wooden wringers with a convenient hand crank.

  Emily took a look at it and turned away in disgust, wishing she could be at the livery barn cleaning stalls.

  Instead, she went upstairs to check on her mother.

  The house was rich by Sheridan standards, not only because Papa doted on his ailing wife, but also because Charles Bliss was a carpenter and had brought along his talent and his blueprints—a great relief to Mother, who'd been so afraid she'd have to live in a peeled-log hut with mice and insects. Instead, she'd been built an elegant frame house of two full stories with large airy rooms, long windows, and an impressive entry hall with an open stairway and spooled railings.

  Mounting that stairway, Emily turned at the top and paused in the doorway of her parents' bedroom—a spacious room with a second doorway giving onto a small railed roof facing south. Papa had insisted that Charles include the veranda so Mother could step out and enjoy fresh air and sunshine whenever she felt the need. But Mother hardly used the veranda anymore. Its door stood open now throwing sunshine across the varnished floor of the room where she lay upon the immense sleigh-design bed in which Emily and Frankie had been born. Upon that bed, Mother looked frailer than ever.

  She had been handsome once, her hair thick and glossy, a rich bay color. She had worn it with as much pomp as she'd worn her bustles, the rich dark skeins twisted up tightly into an impressive figure-eight knot that thrust out in back even as her generous bust had thrust forward in front. Now her hair was lustreless lying in a limp braid, and her bust nearly nonexistent. She wore a faded silk bed jacket instead of the crisp sateens and malines she once had donned. Her skin had taken on an alarming number of wrinkles and had become flacid on her frame. While Emily studied her sleeping mother, Josephine coughed, covering her mouth with the ever-present hanky, a function that had become as involuntary as the cough itself.

  Emily's sad eyes moved to the cot against the side window where her father had taken to sleeping in recent months so as not to disturb his wife—reasoning over which Emily often wondered' since it was most certainly Mother's coughing that disturbed Papa.

  She stood for a moment, wondering things a proper Victorian young lady ought not wonder, things about mothers and fathers and shared beds and when—if ever—that sharing ceased to matter. She had never seen Papa touch Mother in any but the most decorous manner. Even when he came into this room, if she—Emily—were there and Mother was having a bad day, he never kissed her, but only
touched her forehead or her hand briefly. Yet he loved her unquestionably. Emily knew he did. After all, she and Frankie were living proof, weren't they? And Papa was so sad since Mother's illness had worsened. Once, in the middle of the night Emily had discovered him sitting on the front porch with tears running down his face reflecting the moonlight. She had crept back inside without his ever suspecting that she'd discovered his secret grief.

  If a man loved a woman, did he display it in the respectful way Papa displayed it to Mother, or by touching her as Charles had recently begun touching Emily? How had Mother reacted the first time Papa had touched her so? And had he done it before they were married? Emily had difficulty imagining her mother allowing such intimacies even when she'd been healthy, for there was an air of propriety about Josephine Walcott that seemed to shun such possibilities.

  How disrespectful to be thinking such thoughts in the doorway of her parents' bedroom when her mother lay ill and dying, and her father faced not only that sad truth but a business crisis as well.

  "Emily?"

  "Oh, Mother, I'm sorry. Did I wake you?" Emily moved to the bedside taking her mothers frail hand. Josephine smiled, closed her eyes, and rolled her head weakly They all knew she rarely slept soundly anymore but existed in a state of quasi-sleep as tiring as a day of manual labor might be for a healthy person She opened her eyes and tapped the bedding at her hip. More and more often lately she used motions to convey her messages, saving every possible breath.

  "No," Emily replied. "I'm dirty. I've been helping Papa in the barn. And besides, I have some things to do downstairs. Can I get you anything?"

  Josephine answered with a desultory wag of her head.

  "If I can, just ring the bell." A small brass handbell had rolled down along the ridge of bedding below Josephine's knee, and Emily retrieved it and put it near her palm.

  "Thank—" A spasm of coughing interrupted and Emily escaped the room feeling guilty for having brought it on and for preferring even washing clothes to watching her mother suffer.

  It took the better part of an hour to heat the water, and a lot of knuckle-work to remove the bloodstains. Emily was still at it when Frankie came home with two black spotted trout gill-strung on a forked stick.

  "Look what I got, Emily!"

  He was the prettiest boy Emily had ever seen—she'd often said Frankie got the looks in their family-with long-lashed blue eyes, twin dimples, a beautiful mouth, and a head of dark hair that was going to make plenty of female fingers itch to touch it within a very few years. Once he'd lost the last of his baby teeth he'd grown a set of the most remarkably large and perfect ones. They never failed to startle Emily, for though they were the only part of him that had attained their mature size, they brought with them the promise of complete maturity in the very near future. His limbs were stretching already, and if the length of his toes was any indication, Frankie would soon gain the height of their mother, who topped Papa by a good two inches.

  Emily felt bad for Frankie. He was still only twelve, but with Mother so sick, the last of his boyhood was being robbed of the happy abandon he deserved. It wasn't fair; but then this trial wasn't fair to any of them, least of all Mother, was it? They had to pitch in and handle the housework the best they could, like it or not. So Emily steeled herself against the appeal she knew was forthcoming as she admired Frankie's catch.

  "Mmm … nice fish. Who's going to clean them?

  "Me and Earl. Where's Papa?"

  "Still at the livery."

  "I gotta go show him!"

  "Wait a minute!"

  "But Earl's waiting!" Frankie halted impatiently, his face skewing as he realized his mistake in stopping by the kitchen.

  "You promised to be home by three to help me."

  "I didn't have any watch."

  "You can see the sun, can't you?"

  "I couldn't." His eyes widened to best advantage. "Honestly, I couldn't, Emily. We were down by the big cottonwoods in the empty lot behind Stroth's place and I couldn't see the sun behind the trees!"

  She pitied the poor girl who tried to tie this one down. Dressed in a straw hat, wearing neither shirt nor shoes beneath his overalls, with his wide eyes shining and his lips open in feigned innocence, Frankie presented a charming picture, one Emily had difficulty resisting. Still, she tried.

  "Here." She released the agitator lever on the washing machine. "Your turn. My arm is ready to fall off."

  "But I want to take my fish uptown and show Papa. And besides, Earl's waiting and soon as we show Papa we're gonna come straight back here and clean these so you can fry them for supper. Please, Emily … pleeeease?"

  She let him go because when she was twelve she had not had to wash clothes at four o'clock on a warm summer afternoon. Without his help, the washing took longer than she'd planned, and she was just finishing up when Papa came home for supper True to his word, Frankie had cleaned the trout, and tonight he and

  Papa took over the cooking while Emily put the washroom in order and stacked the wet laundry to wait till morning.

  Papa's cooking left room for improvement. The potatoes were mushy; the trout was a little too brown; the coffee boiled over; and the biscuits stuck to the pan. But worst of all, Mother was absent from the table. Edwin took a tray up to her but returned to catch Emily's eye across the room and give a sad shake of his head. The empty chair cast a pall over the meal, as usual, but Emily tried to brighten it.

  "From now on, I'll do the cooking and you can clean up the washroom," she chided.

  "We'll do as we've been doing," Edwin returned. "We'll get along just fine."

  But when his eyes met those of his daughter she caught a momentary hint of despair such as she'd witnessed in his private midnight session on the porch. As quickly as it appeared, Edwin hid it and lurched to his feet, reaching for dishes to carry to the sink.

  "We'd better clean up. Charles said he'd be stopping by later tonight."

  Charles stopped by most nights. He had a house of his own, but it was undeniably lonely for him living in it by himself. It was natural for him to want to be with the Walcotts, having known them all his life, and having come to Wyoming at the same time as they. Since their relocation in Sheridan he had come to be a dear friend to Edwin in spite of the difference in their ages. And Mama had always shown a distinct affection for him, having known him since he was a boy. Charles, she often reiterated, came from a staunch religious upbringing, knew the value of hard work, and would someday make a dedicated husband for Emily. As for Frankie—well, Frankie absolutely idolized Charles.

  Charles arrived in time to help wipe dishes. Whenever he arrived lately, it seemed there was something he could help with, and he always did so gladly. Emily had grown tired of hearing her father say, "That Charles, he sure knows what work is." Of course Charles knew what work was—didn't they all?

  After dishes Frankie talked Charles into a game of dominoes. They all retired to the parlor where the two set up their pieces while Emily watched and Edwin smoked a last pipe before going upstairs to read to his wife.

  "I suppose you met the new man in town," Charles said to nobody in particular.

  "We've got his horses at the livery," Edwin responded.

  "What new man?" Frankie inquired.

  "His name is Jeffcoat. Tom Jeffcoat," Charles answered, placing a five on a five.

  "So you've met him, too?" Edwin inquired.

  "Yes. Loucks sent him over, told him I was a carpenter."

  "He wants to hire you, of course," Edwin ventured.

  Charles glanced up. His eyes met Edwin's, and Emily witnessed the ambivalence in his glance.

  "Yes, he does."

  "Well, if his money is green, you'd better say yes."

  "Do you know what he's building, Edwin?"

  "A livery stable, he tells me."

  "He told you?"

  "As Emily pointed out, it'd be hard to hide a livery stable once it starts going up."

  "Emily met him, too?" Charles's eyes veer
ed to her as she leaned over Frankie's shoulder, studying his domino selection.

  "I'm sorry to say I did," she replied coolly, without once raising her eyes to Charles's.

  "Oh?"

  She picked up one of Frankie's dominoes and played it while answering. "First he called me 'young fellow,' then tried to give me advice about how to take care of Sergeant's cracked hoof. I didn't appreciate either one."

  Edwin chuckled, holding the pipestem at the corner of his mouth. "I can vouch for that. She was whetting the edge of her tongue on him when I walked in and saved a week's worth of business she had just sent packing."

  "Papa!" Emily spouted irritably. "You don't have to tell everything!"

  "Emily did that?" Frankie put in, losing interest in the game, grinning with wonder at his sister.

  "Now, Emily, we have no secrets from Charles."

  Which, in Emily's opinion, was one of the reasons she couldn't generate any romantic gust for him. It felt as if she'd already lived with him for the last two years, he was here so much. She gave up playing Frankie's dominoes and plopped down on the divan.

  "I hope you spit in his eye, Charles!" she said pugnaciously.

  "Now, Emily, be sensible. How could Charles do that?" her father chided.

  "I did it, didn't I?" she challenged.

  To Emily's surprise Charles said, "As a matter of fact, I rather liked him."

  "Liked him!" Emily exclaimed. "Charles, how could you!"

  "Emily, you seem to forget Charles has a business to run!" Edwin's tone grew sharper, then mellowed as he turned to Charles. "Whatever she says, you know I wouldn't hold it against you if you worked for Jeffcoat."

  "He wants to see my blueprint collection, too. After the livery barn he intends to put up a house."

  "So he said. And it could mean a tidy profit for you, Charles."

  "Maybe so, but I don't like working for your competition."

  Edwin took a puff on his pipe, found it dead, fished a horseshoe nail from his shirt pocket, and began scraping out the dottle into an ashtray. "Charles, I'm not your father," he began after a thoughtful silence, "but I think I know what he'd say if he were here to advise you at this moment. He'd say this is one of those occasions where you have to be a businessman first and a friend second. As for me, I'll respect you as much for making a prudent business decision as I will for being loyal, so tell Jeffcoat yes. It's what you came here for, isn't it? Because you thought the town would prosper, and you, too, along with it? Well, you can't do that by turning down paying customers."