Buch lesen: «The Courtship»

Chapter One

Dixon Falls, Oregon

1874

“Jane Charlotte, don’t you dare step one foot out that door without straightenin’ your hat! Why, it looks just like a puffball that’s been knocked plumb off center.”

With a sigh, Jane poked one finger against the stiff straw creation she’d clapped on top of her dark hair and felt it shift an inch to the right.

“Now, pull your waist down and tuck it in nice, honey. Y’all can’t go traipsing into town looking like you’ve got no maid to tend you.”

Jane faced her mother, who was reclining on the worn green damask settee, an open copy of Tennyson clutched in her thin fingers. “We have no maid, remember, Mama? We left Odelia at Montclair with Aunt Carrie, and Juno ran off with that sharecropper in Dillon County after the War. We’re on our own out here.”

Her mother’s unblemished ivory forehead wrinkled. “Truth to tell, Ah don’t like to remember, but never you mind. Tuck in your waist, now, honey. And tell your father where you’re goin’ in such a fizz.”

Jane’s throat closed at the mention of her father. Papa was dead and buried in the orchard, and her chest ached every time she thought of it. Mama didn’t want to remember this, either—that they’d laid him to rest three days ago. Some days, Mama fancied herself back in Marion County, sitting on the porch in the shade of the tupelo tree, sipping lemonade.

“I won’t be gone long, Mama.” She bent to kiss the smooth, cool cheek and patted her mother’s hand. “You find a nice poem by Mr. Tennyson to read out loud after our supper, you hear?”

“You speak to your father before you leave, Jane Charlotte. Ah don’t know what he’ll say to your goin’ out unchaperoned….”

Jane bit her bottom lip. Papa’s dead, she wanted to scream. Don’t you understand? He’s gone! But such an outburst would serve no purpose; Mama would forget it within half a minute, and Jane’s throat would hurt for hours from screaming. Her mother refused to accept unpleasantness; she simply pretended it didn’t exist. Maybe she should thank the Lord her mother preferred the past; it kept her from being frightened of the present, and Jane was frightened enough for both of them.

She straightened her spine, smoothed down the folds of the dark blue sateen skirt she had made over from a ball gown of her mother’s, and moved to the front door. The paint around the lock plate was flaking off, revealing the bare wood beneath. It needed fixing.

Everything needed fixing—the house. Their lives. Even herself. It had been ten years since she’d first delved into her mother’s clothes trunk; how much longer could a few outdated ball gowns last? And the house—it had gone to wrack and ruin since her mother’s health began to fail.

“’Bye, Mama. I’ll be home in time to make your tea.”

“Jane Charlotte, tell your father…” The small, clear voice faded as Jane descended the porch steps.

Tell your father. She gritted her teeth. She’d like to tell him a thing or two, like to shout the truth at him: Papa, you dragged us away from everything we knew, everything we loved, and you didn’t take care of us, Mama and me, nor our property, and…and now you up and die and we’re practically starving!

Hush up, now! No well-bred Southern lady rails at a dead parent no matter what they’d done, leastways not in public. And certainly not among Yankees! She marched down the path to the front gate, groaning aloud at the sight of the weed-infested border of sunwithered Sweet William and the overgrown roses massed along the fence. Well, great heavens, she couldn’t keep up the cooking and the cleaning and the pruning and lovingly dribble wash water on the roots like Mama did before she took sick.

Oh, Papa, whatever am I to do? A sick, hard knot formed in her midsection. She didn’t feel like herself anymore. At that, she gave a choked laugh. Be truthful, Jane. For months and months, even before Papa died, she had felt like a fledgling sparrow who’d fallen out of its nest. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t fly back in.

Well, fly you must, ready or no. She swung the gate shut, wincing at the screak of the rusty hinge—one more thing to attend to—and twitched her skirt free of the fencepost. It took all her willpower to steady her breathing. She felt for all the world like David girding himself to meet Goliath.

Only this was worse. She snapped open her mother’s best black silk parasol. At the bottom of their dusty, sun-baked hill lay the town, and there waited The Enemy. Goliath was a Yankee.

She straightened her hat and ordered her feet to carry her forward. I am sorry, Papa, but you left me no choice.

“She’s comin’, Dell! Miz Jane. Walkin’ up the street lookin’ jes’ like a queen.”

Rydell Wilder’s entire world spun to a stop. “You sure about that, Lefty?”

“Dad blame-it, my eyesight’s good as it ever was. Ever since you started this here bank ’stead of ridin’ shotgun for me, you never b’lieve one thing I say. I tell you it’s her.”

Rydell stood up and stared into the old man’s face. Lefty Springer was the only person in the entire world he’d ever confided in. He’d trust the man with his life if it came down to it; after all, Lefty had trusted him with thousands of dollars in payroll shipments from the time he turned sixteen.

Barton Springer—Lefty, to those few who knew how he’d lost his right arm at Shiloh—never spoke a word unless he had to. The old man had been the first customer at the bank Rydell had established in town when he was a week shy of twenty-three, and he was the only patron allowed to use the private side entrance to his office. Rydell waited for the details.

Lefty looked at him expectantly, and Rydell chuckled. He didn’t believe for one minute that Miss Jane Charlotte Davis was heading for his bank. Not unless hell was freezing over. But the old man’s sharp blue eyes sparkled, and then his gaze narrowed.

“Got over it, didja?”

“Sure thing, Lefty.” He grinned at the lie. “Another ten years or so and I won’t care about breathing, either.”

“Thought so. Dell, I came to warn ya—she looks like she’s made up her mind to somethin’.”

Rydell shook his head as a queer pain stabbed into his heart. “Jane Davis hasn’t been allowed any kind of life to make up her mind about. Her folks pretty much saw to that. Offhand I’d say she’s just visited the mercantile and is headed toward home.”

“She’s comin’ this way, I tell ya.” The old man twirled one branch of his drooping gray mustache with his left forefinger. “Thought ya might like to be prepared, is all.”

Rydell grasped the older man’s shoulder. “Thanks, Lefty. Buy you a beer later.”

When he was alone, Rydell tipped his chair back, propped his boots on the desk, and closed his eyes.

Jane.

All these years he’d carried her name and the memory of the shy, frightened girl who’d treated him with kindness when he’d chased a group of bullies out of the schoolyard. She was new in town, from the South he gathered from her speech. Maybe fourteen or fifteen, and she looked…different. Her clothes were too fussy for a small town like Dixon Falls, her manners too formal. The other students surrounded her as she walked home, tossing rocks and chanting. “Queen Jane, Queen Jane, she’s got no brain. She’s stuck-up, too, and awful plain.”

The taunt made him mad. They’d bedeviled him, too, but he could fight. Jane could not, so when it came down to it, he’d done it for her. When it was over, she put her small, soft hand on his and whispered two simple words. Thank you.

He’d been fifteen. She didn’t come back to the school; he heard later that her folks taught her at home. Rydell had finished his schooling, rode shotgun for Lefty Springer, and watched from a distance as wide as two oceans while Jane grew up in the big yellow house on Dixon Road.

He’d tried hard to forget her.

Wilder’s Bank sat at the far end of the town of Dixon Falls, an imposing two-story white-painted building, the only structure along the main street that looked strong enough to withstand the winter snows and the hot, dry July wind without the roof sagging and the paint peeling off. Jane hesitated a moment, then stepped onto the board sidewalk.

A silver-dollar-sized spot of sunlight seared her chin. Peering upward, she noted the hole in the faded black parasol and groaned aloud. She could patch it with a scrap of silk from Mama’s trunk. Or she could live with it. What she’d like to do was toss the blasted contraption into the horse trough in front of the Excelsior Hotel, but she knew there wasn’t enough money to purchase another. That sad fact was what brought her into town in the first place.

She would manage with the damaged parasol. She needed something much more important than that, Jane thought with a shudder. And it was waiting inside the bank—her last hope for survival. For the hundredth time in the last three days, she wondered how she could live through the humiliation.

Inside the bank it was mercifully cool and quiet. The gray-painted window shutters were closed against the midday heat. It was, she noted, the only building in town that had shutters. In the dim light she drew in a slow, careful breath and walked resolutely to the counter. The air smelled of lemon oil and tobacco smoke.

The young man behind the iron grill blinked. “Yes, ma’am?”

“I would like to speak with Mr. Wilder, please.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll just step in and see if he’s busy.”

Jane willed her gloved fingers to rest in a ladylike manner atop her reticule while the clerk disappeared through a doorway. What if he’s occupied? What if he wants to see all our family private papers, Papa’s will and the deed to the house? What if he says no?

“Just step this way, ma’am. Mr. Wilder’s always happy to see a pretty lady.”

I’ll just bet he is. Rydell Wilder had a Past, her mother had whispered over the years. Papa had been less subtle. “No background, no breeding, and a damned Yankee besides.”

Clamping her lips tightly shut, she followed the young man in icy silence, listening to her black leather shoes tap-tap on the polished wood floor. When the clerk thrust open a heavy oak door, Jane’s heart jumped.

She couldn’t. She just couldn’t.

But you will. You must. She sucked in a breath so deep her corset pinched and forced her feet through the doorway.

The man behind the desk rose. “Jane,” he said, then caught himself. “Miss Davis.”

“Mr. Wilder.”

“I was sorry to hear about your father.”

Jane steeled herself, stepped toward him and extended her white-gloved hand. Too late she saw the dark smudge on the palm, where she’d laid her hand on the dusty front gate.

He didn’t seem to notice. “It’s been some time since I’ve seen you,” he said, his voice low and oddly tense. “How are you? And your mother?”

“Why, we’re just fine, Mr. Wilder. Thank you for inquiring.”

He hesitated, an alert, almost wary look in his steady gray eyes. Well and no wonder, she thought. Papa never did like him, and made no bones about saying so.

“Please sit down.” He drew up a slat-back oak chair and gestured. Jane noticed the cuffs of his white shirt were rolled back, revealing tanned wrists and forearms sprinkled with dark hair. The sight made her uneasy. The dark jacket that matched his trousers lay on the chair behind the desk.

She wished he would put it on. Rydell Wilder was tall and lean and good-looking, even if he was a Yankee. His mouth, especially. Unsmiling as it was, the lips were well-formed. She remembered from school days that he rarely smiled. His mouth had seemed thin, pressed into a hard line. Well, he had been struggling then, she reminded herself.

As she was now, she admitted with an inward sigh. How time altered things.

He settled himself into the chair behind the desk. “What can I do for you, Miss Davis?”

“I—” Her throat closed.

“Yes?”

“You know…about my father’s death.” It was as far as she could get at the moment. She worked to keep her breathing steady.

“I do know. And I am sorry, as I said.”

Honey, not vinegar, she reminded herself. To catch a fly, a Southern woman uses charm and lightheartedness. She tried to smile at him.

“Mr. Wilder, my father—through no fault of his own, mind you—left us with some…er…obligations.”

“Debts, you mean.” The bank owner’s voice was gentle but firm.

“Why, yes, I suppose you could call them that.”

Do not prevaricate, Jane. It is beneath you. Papa owed everyone in town, from the liveryman to the mercantile owner. She’d found the notes in the box of private papers in the chiffonier. Even Mama didn’t know about them. She’d rather die than admit their existence to a Yankee. But…

“Oh, all right, debts.”

“How much?”

“Over two hundred dollars.”

His dark eyebrows rose. “Are there assets?”

Jane’s stomach clenched. “Just the house. Papa built it when he came out West after the War to work for Uncle Junius on the newspaper. Since Uncle passed on a year ago, well, the house…” She swallowed hard. “It’s in need of some few repairs, but it’s all we have now.”

Rydell leaned forward, folding his hands on the desk. “And?”

And. Jane stared at his hands. The long, tanned fingers sent a jolt of awareness into her belly. His hands had held guns, had handled gold. His hands, she had heard her mother whisper, had touched women. Many women.

She wrenched her gaze away, studied the wall behind his dark head. “Well, Mr. Wilder, I have come to a decision. A very difficult decision, you see, because…” Her voice faltered.

“I can imagine,” he said quietly. “This must be hell—uh, hard for you.”

With all her heart she wished he hadn’t said that. The very last thing she wanted was understanding. It stripped her pride away, left her exposed. Vulnerable.

But, in for a penny, in for a pound.

“I have decided to establish a business in Dixon Falls. A dressmaking shop. I am quite a capable seamstress, you see….” She made another attempt at a smile, but tears stung under her lids. All these years she had dreamed of going back to Montclair, imagined how it would be when they lived again with Aunt Carrie. Odelia would help with Mama, and they would plan picnics and a ball in the summertime. To think that now she had to beg like a common…a common laborer.

Oh, God, can this really be happening? I am sitting here in Rydell Wilder’s bank at noon on the hottest day yet this July, asking—begging!—for money?

“How old are you, Jane?”

His voice was low and quiet, but the question sliced through her muddled thoughts. She stiffened. “How old…? Not ‘How much do you need?’ or ‘How do you intend to proceed?’ but ‘How old am I’? Why on God’s green earth would you want to know that?”

“I know how much you’ll need,” he said. His mouth quirked toward a smile. “And how you intend to proceed; you’ll roll up those lacy sleeves and go to work. What I need to know is what my risk is.”

“Your risk? What about my risk? I am prepared to offer our home as collateral.”

“I don’t want your home. As you said, it’s in disrepair, and besides…”

Every nerve in her body jangled into excruciating attention. “I am twenty-six years old,” she blurted. “If you don’t want the house, what do you want?”

He did smile then, a slow, sensuous curving of the lips, and a light flickered deep in the cool gray eyes. He paused, assessing her with an odd mixture of amusement and pain. “I want to make you a deal.”

“What kind of deal?” Her voice sounded tight.

Rydell waited a full minute before answering her. She would never know how many years he had thought about such a moment, a time when Jane would again turn to him for help. His chest felt like a horse had ridden over it.

He’d wanted Jane for so long he couldn’t remember a time when seeing her didn’t make him ache. He knew about the debts her father had incurred, about the state of their house. At least a dozen times he’d planned to go to her, in spite of her father’s disapproval, and offer a proposal of marriage.

“I’ll lend you three hundred dollars, enough to pay off your father’s…obligations, rent you a store, and get you started in business.”

Jane sat bolt upright. “You will? Just like that?” She narrowed her eyes. “With no collateral?”

Rydell smiled. “A deal, as I said.”

That she wanted to be independent surprised him. He had to admit he admired her for wanting to try setting up her own business, but the truth was he wouldn’t give a moldy flapjack for her chances of success. She was a lady with a capital L, refined manners, soft voice, gentility.

He’d always admired that, too. Oh, Lordy, she was so close to being his he couldn’t think straight. He was facing the biggest gamble of his life.

“If you succeed in your business venture,” Rydell said carefully, “you simply repay the loan.”

Jane stared at him. “And if I can’t?”

Rydell took a deep breath and tried to keep his voice steady. “Well, here’s the deal. I’m going to hold you yourself as collateral.”

“Me?” Jane echoed. “What happens if I fail?”

He sent her a quick look, his eyes unreadable. “If you fail, you marry me.”