The Endless Forest
Page 38

The sound of a window being thrown open made them both look in the direction of the Red Dog. Callie Wilde was leaning out, and she did not look happy.
“Daniel Bonner, you help her up right this minute and don’t take no for an answer.” And then: “Martha! Come on in here, girl; you’ll catch your death.”
Daniel held out his hand. It was a big hand that was stained with ink and dirt too, callused and hard. Martha grabbed with one muddy glove, and he pulled her up and onto her feet. She wobbled for a moment and then her balance came back.
“Your bonnet?”
She looked around herself and shrugged. “Lost, I fear.”
“Well, one good thing came out of this little adventure, then.”
She was about to protest the idea that her bonnet was not worth saving when Uz Brodie came around the corner on his old mule, and Martha let out a resigned sigh. By noon everybody in Paradise would hear all about Martha Kirby standing in the crossroads, mud-covered, bare-headed, and half barefoot. Holding on to Daniel Bonner’s hand.
“Maybe he didn’t recognize me,” she muttered, taking her hand back with a jerk.
“If that makes you feel better,” Daniel said.
Martha stomped along beside him, as lopsided as she was mortified.
“I’m sorry we have got to do this in the kitchen,” Becca LeBlanc told Martha. They were standing between a screen and the cooking hearth, she and Becca and Callie, all of them peeling off layer after layer of mud-caked linen and cotton and wool.
Martha hadn’t imagined her visit with Callie this way; the whole situation was so absurd, she had trouble not laughing aloud.
Becca said, “Lift up your foot so I can get this skirt off you.”
“I really could manage on my own,” Martha protested, and Becca put her hands on her hips and pursed her mouth.
Martha lifted her foot. Becca was so lean and wiry that she seemed to have no bosom or hips at all. Mostly she was a cheerful sort, as anyone married to Charlie LeBlanc would have to be.
“I know this is embarrassing,” Becca said. “If I had a room free you’d have some privacy, but with the flood and all, every room I got to let is spoken for.”
“My goodness,” Martha said. “Please don’t apologize. This is very kind of you, and I appreciate your help.”
Alice LeBlanc poured another bucket of hot water into the hip bath and wiped her forehead with the back of her wrist. She said, “Talk is cheap.”
Callie jumped on her before Martha had even drawn a breath.
“Well now, Alice, maybe you can tell me. Has Martha here ever run up a debt she couldn’t settle? I’m asking because you talk like you know her to be somebody who doesn’t pull her own weight. One thing I know for certain, and that is that Martha could outwork you hobbled and half starved. But I guess you must have had some bad experience with her, some reason to talk to her like that, so rude and disrespectful.”
In her confusion, Martha turned to Becca, ready to offer payment for the use of the tub and the towels, but Becca wasn’t even looking at her.
“Alice,” Becca said. “Your mouth is hanging open. Close it. The next thing I want to hear is you apologizing to Martha here. You’ll apologize; otherwise, you and me, we’ll have a private conversation in the washhouse. I don’t care how old you are, I won’t tolerate such rude behavior. As for you, Martha—” She paused to take a breath.
“I am glad to see you back here in Paradise, and I hope you’ll stay, though I’d understand if you didn’t, what with the welcome you’re getting.” She glared at her daughter. “I know you got some bad memories, but I’m a great believer in starting over fresh, and I think you could be happy here, I really do. Now Alice,” she turned back to her daughter. “You got something you want to say?”
The girl stood there with her arms crossed and her face turned to the wall. Her whole body trembled with anger.
“Alice!”
“I apologize if I was rude.” She spoke to the wall.
Becca flapped her apron. “Do you want me to take my hand to your backside?”
Alice turned to face them and Martha was shocked to see that she was trembling with anger. She couldn’t imagine why Alice LeBlanc would hate her so sincerely.
“I am sorry that I was rude to Martha. I shouldn’t have said what I said. But I can think it, and I do think it, and you can switch me to Albany and back again, Ma, but that’s the truth. Why did she have to come back here when—”
“Ah.” Callie’s smile could be frightening, and it was focused on Alice. “It’s that way, is it?”
The high color in Alice’s cheeks drained away just that easily. She turned and walked so quickly from the kitchen that she was almost running.
Becca was looking at Callie. “What do you mean, it’s that way? What way? Alice may be testy at times but she’s always been a good girl.”
“Good girls fall in love just like bad ones,” Callie said.
“Who is she supposed to be in love with?” Becca demanded. “Has she been making eyes at that Yarnell boy?”
Martha said, “And what does that have to do with me? Why is she so mad at me?”
Callie’s small, narrow face turned to her. There was a sadness there, and a good amount of resignation.
“It’s about Daniel. He’s a rare prize, and more than a few girls have set their caps for him. Nobody’s happy about you coming back and grabbing him for yourself.”