The Endless Forest
Page 94
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Martha was safe on Hidden Wolf for the moment, but where was Callie on this Sunday morning? She should not be expected to deal with her stepmother or the boy, not yet. It occurred to Elizabeth then that Ethan was still outside because he meant to intercept Callie before she could walk into this situation.
Elizabeth had known Jemima for a very long time. When she first started teaching school Jemima had been in her class. Not a dull child, by any means, but dark of spirit and view of the world, distrustful, and above all other things, ruthless. Even as a very young girl she had not hesitated to take what she needed for herself and never cared about the repercussions. She had manipulated Isaiah Kuick into a sham marriage, and after he died and her plans were thwarted, she had stewed in her anger in the old mill house. How Martha had survived that household and remained sweet-natured, that Elizabeth would never really understand. It made no sense for a child to take after a parent it had never known, but Martha was most like Liam Kirby. It ran contrary to Elizabeth’s own theories about personality and heredity. All of which she would have to reexamine anyway, given the revelations of the last day.
As much as Jemima had been disliked in the years after her first husband died, people had recognized how hard things were for her, a widow woman with a young child, no way to earn a living beyond taking in laundry and leasing out the millworks for a fraction of its value. Then she had married Nicholas Wilde under circumstances that people were still talking about and would continue to talk about for years to come. On occasion Elizabeth heard parts of these conversations in the trading post.
Poor out-of-her-head Dolly, wandering around in a fog since she gave birth but still, didn’t nobody have the right to let the woman walk into a blizzard barefoot, and wan’t that exactly what Jemima had done? No sir, there wan’t any excuse for that, and if you was to look at it real close, why, you’d have to agree that it was most likely Jemima who had clunked Cookie over the head and tipped her over the rail of the old bridge into the lake. Because Cookie would never have let Dolly wander away in the first place, everybody knew that. And all that because Jemima set her sights on poor Nicholas. And then Nicholas running off and getting himself killed. Of course Callie was odd after all that bad fortune come down on her, wouldn’t you be too?
Elizabeth never participated in these discussions. There was nothing to be gained. And now here was Jemima come back to the place where she started.
She was saying, “If you can refund the money we sent to hold the rooms, we will seek accommodations elsewhere.”
As if they stood in the lobby of a hotel in Manhattan or London. Her voice and tone and modulation, all so changed that it was hard to credit. She had made herself over into—what, exactly? It was Jemima; of that there was no doubt. She had never been beautiful, but as a younger woman she had been comely, with glossy brown hair and regular features. She might have been pretty if she ever truly smiled, but she had been consumed by dissatisfaction and anger for all of her life, and those things showed as clear as tattoos on her face. But something had changed.
“I can’t give you a room I don’t have,” Becca was saying. “Since the flood I’m full up, and those folks have got nowhere else to go until their homes are livable again.”
Charlie said, “And we don’t have the money neither. You could take your meals here and we’ll give you a bill of credit for the rest.”
Even Charlie LeBlanc knew how silly that offer sounded, because the color rose right up to his bald head and he started fiddling with the buttons on his shirt.
“You could just go back to where you came from.” Jane Cunningham spoke up clear and loud from the back of the room. “Get in that fancy buggy of yours and go.”
Missy O’Brien pushed past Elizabeth. “I’m surprised you have the nerve to show your face here, you murder—”
There was a quick movement as the man beside Jemima turned. The look on his face was so cold that Missy swallowed hard and took a step back.
He said, “Let me give you fair warning, Mrs.—” He waited until Missy croaked her name.
“Mrs. O’Brien, then. If you finish that sentence and accuse my wife of crimes she did not commit, I will sue you in a court of law for libel.”
His tone was perfectly reasonable, and his tone utterly serious. Missy was nothing if not courageous, and she tilted up her chin at him in a way that put Elizabeth in mind of an affronted and overfed cat.
“And your name, sir?”
“Hamish Focht.”
“Mr. Focht,” Missy said, her voice wobbling ever so slightly. “I know a thing or two about the law myself, and I’m not the only one in Paradise who does.”
There was a short silence, and then Jemima said, “We must find a solution to this problem, Charlie. We are here to conduct important business and we will not leave until we have done so.”
A small hand touched Elizabeth’s arm and she turned. Becca’s two youngest girls, twins, were so alike that she couldn’t be sure if this was Maggie or Kate. Whoever it was, she crooked her finger toward the hall. Elizabeth caught Nathaniel’s eye and he nodded.
Out of the room the girl said, “I’ve got a message from Callie. She cleared out her room and she’s gone off. She’ll stay out of the way until Jemima’s gone.”
Elizabeth tried to make sense of it. “She saw them arrive?”
Maggie—now Elizabeth saw the small letter M embroidered on her bodice—nodded eagerly. Clearly she was enjoying her part in the drama. “It wasn’t five minutes before she had her things tied up into an old pillow slip and off she went.”
Elizabeth had known Jemima for a very long time. When she first started teaching school Jemima had been in her class. Not a dull child, by any means, but dark of spirit and view of the world, distrustful, and above all other things, ruthless. Even as a very young girl she had not hesitated to take what she needed for herself and never cared about the repercussions. She had manipulated Isaiah Kuick into a sham marriage, and after he died and her plans were thwarted, she had stewed in her anger in the old mill house. How Martha had survived that household and remained sweet-natured, that Elizabeth would never really understand. It made no sense for a child to take after a parent it had never known, but Martha was most like Liam Kirby. It ran contrary to Elizabeth’s own theories about personality and heredity. All of which she would have to reexamine anyway, given the revelations of the last day.
As much as Jemima had been disliked in the years after her first husband died, people had recognized how hard things were for her, a widow woman with a young child, no way to earn a living beyond taking in laundry and leasing out the millworks for a fraction of its value. Then she had married Nicholas Wilde under circumstances that people were still talking about and would continue to talk about for years to come. On occasion Elizabeth heard parts of these conversations in the trading post.
Poor out-of-her-head Dolly, wandering around in a fog since she gave birth but still, didn’t nobody have the right to let the woman walk into a blizzard barefoot, and wan’t that exactly what Jemima had done? No sir, there wan’t any excuse for that, and if you was to look at it real close, why, you’d have to agree that it was most likely Jemima who had clunked Cookie over the head and tipped her over the rail of the old bridge into the lake. Because Cookie would never have let Dolly wander away in the first place, everybody knew that. And all that because Jemima set her sights on poor Nicholas. And then Nicholas running off and getting himself killed. Of course Callie was odd after all that bad fortune come down on her, wouldn’t you be too?
Elizabeth never participated in these discussions. There was nothing to be gained. And now here was Jemima come back to the place where she started.
She was saying, “If you can refund the money we sent to hold the rooms, we will seek accommodations elsewhere.”
As if they stood in the lobby of a hotel in Manhattan or London. Her voice and tone and modulation, all so changed that it was hard to credit. She had made herself over into—what, exactly? It was Jemima; of that there was no doubt. She had never been beautiful, but as a younger woman she had been comely, with glossy brown hair and regular features. She might have been pretty if she ever truly smiled, but she had been consumed by dissatisfaction and anger for all of her life, and those things showed as clear as tattoos on her face. But something had changed.
“I can’t give you a room I don’t have,” Becca was saying. “Since the flood I’m full up, and those folks have got nowhere else to go until their homes are livable again.”
Charlie said, “And we don’t have the money neither. You could take your meals here and we’ll give you a bill of credit for the rest.”
Even Charlie LeBlanc knew how silly that offer sounded, because the color rose right up to his bald head and he started fiddling with the buttons on his shirt.
“You could just go back to where you came from.” Jane Cunningham spoke up clear and loud from the back of the room. “Get in that fancy buggy of yours and go.”
Missy O’Brien pushed past Elizabeth. “I’m surprised you have the nerve to show your face here, you murder—”
There was a quick movement as the man beside Jemima turned. The look on his face was so cold that Missy swallowed hard and took a step back.
He said, “Let me give you fair warning, Mrs.—” He waited until Missy croaked her name.
“Mrs. O’Brien, then. If you finish that sentence and accuse my wife of crimes she did not commit, I will sue you in a court of law for libel.”
His tone was perfectly reasonable, and his tone utterly serious. Missy was nothing if not courageous, and she tilted up her chin at him in a way that put Elizabeth in mind of an affronted and overfed cat.
“And your name, sir?”
“Hamish Focht.”
“Mr. Focht,” Missy said, her voice wobbling ever so slightly. “I know a thing or two about the law myself, and I’m not the only one in Paradise who does.”
There was a short silence, and then Jemima said, “We must find a solution to this problem, Charlie. We are here to conduct important business and we will not leave until we have done so.”
A small hand touched Elizabeth’s arm and she turned. Becca’s two youngest girls, twins, were so alike that she couldn’t be sure if this was Maggie or Kate. Whoever it was, she crooked her finger toward the hall. Elizabeth caught Nathaniel’s eye and he nodded.
Out of the room the girl said, “I’ve got a message from Callie. She cleared out her room and she’s gone off. She’ll stay out of the way until Jemima’s gone.”
Elizabeth tried to make sense of it. “She saw them arrive?”
Maggie—now Elizabeth saw the small letter M embroidered on her bodice—nodded eagerly. Clearly she was enjoying her part in the drama. “It wasn’t five minutes before she had her things tied up into an old pillow slip and off she went.”
