A Lantern in the Window (2 page)

His voice was quiet, but
lethal.

Annie desperately wanted to contradict
him, but couldn’t. The fact was, a great deal of what she’d told
him was a pack of lies. There was no denying it.

“
Some,” she admitted
miserably. “The part about growing up on a farm wasn’t exactly
honest. But the part about me and Bets being hard workers, that’s
the god-honest truth,” she burst out. "We worked from dawn to dusk
in Lazenby’s cotton mill, anybody could tell you we were among the
best. Just give us a chance, and we’ll prove it to you, Mr.
Ferguson, I promise we will.”

"If I’d wanted farmhands, I’d have
hired men.” He looked as though he was about to explode, and Annie
steeled herself.

Bets had been choking back her
coughing, but now it took hold of her with a vengeance and she
doubled over, her face purple.

Annie drew the smaller girl close
against her side and felt Bets’s whole body trembling. The wind had
picked up and the snow was swirling around them.

Annie had been too distraught to even
feel the cold, but now it suddenly thrust icy fingers past the
inadequate barrier of her clothing, and she was miserably aware
that the soles on her boots were worn through in places, letting
the snow in.

"My sister’s sick, Mr. Ferguson. She
caught the grippe on the train, and we’re both freezing cold.
Please, couldn’t we talk this over at some later time?"

Annie knew the moment had come when he
could—probably would—turn his back on them and simply walk away.
She knew he’d be well within his rights to do that very thing,
leaving them to fend for themselves in a snowstorm in the middle of
the wild Canadian west.

Desperation gripped her. If he left
them, what in God’s name would she do? She had little money left;
she knew no one in this barren, savage place. All she’d ever done
was work in the cotton mill, and she was pretty certain there were
no mills within a thousand miles of here.

She was terrified. She trembled with
fear, and her stomach churned. She clutched Bets’s arm so tightly
that the girl cried out.

Ferguson’s eyes held hers for what
seemed an eternity, and with her last vestige of courage, Annie
stared straight back, willing him—begging him, entreating him—to
give her a chance.

Warm in his heavy coat,
utterly furious at being deceived, Noah was suddenly conscious that
the woman and her sister were shivering. He noted that their coats
were thin, and they were poorly dressed for temperatures below
freezing. The ridiculous hat with the bird's nest on it seemed
about to blow away in the wind.

Annie was holding on to it
with one arm and hugging her sister with the other.

The girl coughed again,
hollow and harsh, and the ferocity of it coming from such a skinny
little kid shocked him and added to the impotent anger he felt at
his proxy bride.

The lying little trollop
had saddled him with still another invalid, if the sound of that
cough was any indication. The girl sounded as if she might have
consumption.

The irony of the
situation brought a grim smile. At least he needn't feel guilt any
longer about Zachary.
Annie Tompkins had
far outdone him in duplicity.

Her lies were grounds for
annulling the marriage, he knew that. He need have no qualms about
washing his hands of both her and her ailing sister right there and
then. No court in the land would say different.

But where would he be
then? Noah raged. It would take months to get a response to a new
advertisement, and spring wasn't that far off, with its dawn-
to-dusk clearing and ploughing and planting of hay. There was his
prized herd of cattle to tend to, chores to finish with no time or
energy left at the end of the day to prepare meals and do the
endless tasks a household seemed to require . . . tasks he had no
skill for and despised. And most important of all, worst of all,
there was his father, bedridden, needing constant attention and
care.

He’d already hired two
people in the past six months, one an elderly spinster he’d brought
out from Lethbridge and the other a young Englishman, a drifter.
Both had quit after only one week of dealing with his
father.

It had become all too
obvious to Noah that he urgently needed a wife. Wives didn’t just
quit when things were tough.

But women of any sort were
a rare commodity out here on the Canadian prairies, which was why
he’d finally advertised in the blasted Toronto newspaper in the
first place. And there hadn’t been much choice, when it came down
to it; the only other woman besides Annie who answered his ad had
been the widowed mother of six small children.

It seemed he was well and
truly stuck with her. Lies or not, he urgently needed this woman
he’d married. At the very least, he’d have to postpone judgment for
a few days, perhaps a week.

With great reluctance, he
decided he’d take her and her sister out to the ranch, and if the
situation proved truly intolerable, he’d buy them a train ticket
back to the city.

His voice was harsh. “Get
inside the depot and get yourselves warm while I bring the horse
and wagon around. The station master’ll give you hot coffee. Is
that your luggage over there?" He pointed down the platform, where
a single tin trunk and several carpetbags were all that was left of
the pile unloaded from the baggage car.

At Annie’s timid nod, he
turned on his heel and made his way past the depot and down the
street to the livery stable, cursing himself for being a
softhearted fool.

Afterwards, Annie had only
fragmented memories of the long, snowy ride to the
homestead.

He'd been thoughtful
enough—in the back of the wagon, he'd made a cozy nest for them
from heavy buffalo robes he'd brought along, placing their trunk so
it blocked some of the wind. He’d lifted Bets as if she were as
light as a snowflake and plunked her into the wagon.

Annie grabbed her long
skirts and started clambering in by herself, but suddenly his hands
grasped her waist, and she too was lifted, none too gently, up and
over the backboard. He said not a single word. She stowed her hat
safely beside her and snuggled down beside her sister amidst the
smoky, wild smelling fur robes. The wagon tilted as he climbed up
on the seat and clucked to the horse.

Annie peeked out as they
lumbered through the small frontier town, past a building that said
Post Office, then a two-story log building with a sign proclaiming
“Lansdowne Hotel.” The rest of the town was made up of a few frame
houses, numerous shacks, and even a dozen tents. They crossed a
narrow steel bridge that spanned a river almost covered in ice and
finally set off across an expanse of frozen prairie.

For a while, Annie worried
about Indians. She knew that the red-coated Mounted Policemen had
brought law and order to this barren land several years ago, but
she didn’t see any around here.

She didn’t see any Indians
either, so after a while she worried instead about how Noah
Ferguson knew which direction to take. The whole flat, bleak
landscape looked exactly the same to her in every direction, cold
and gray and empty, dreary beyond measure. She’d never imagined
this much space with so little in it. She realized after a time
that he was more or less following the path of the frozen
river.

Slowly, despite the cold
wind and the snow whirling around them, Annie’s body grew warm
beneath the heavy covering. The fatigue of the long train journey
coupled with intense relief at not being deserted at the depot
combined to make her sleepy.

Bets had already cuddled
close beside her beneath the heavy robe. She was sound asleep, and
at last Annie too put her head under the covering, pulling it over
the two of them until only a small space remained for fresh
air.

It was dark inside. It
smelled strange, but it was like being safe in a warm cave with a
storm raging outside. She slept, an uneasy sleep interrupted by the
sound of the wind, the jingle of the harness, and the occasional
word of encouragement spoken by Ferguson to his horse.

His voice and the fierce,
joyful barking of a dog startled her awake. "Hello there, old
Jake,” she heard him say. "Good dog, good boy.”

She stuck her head out,
shocked to discover how dark it had become. The snow seemed to
have

stopped, but the air was
frigid.

The wagon was still
moving, but past Noah's shoulder Annie could see a substantial log
house directly ahead with light in the windows, and the dark
outlines of numerous other buildings scattered nearby. The dog,
large and black, was barking madly and running alongside the
wagon.

"Quiet, Jake, good dog.”
At Noah’s order, the dog stopped barking, running close beside them
with his tail wagging hard.

Bets, too, was awake now.
Eyes still heavy with fever, she peered around and then took
Annie’s mittened hand in her own and squeezed it. Annie gave her a
reassuring smile.

The wagon stopped. Noah
jumped down and came around, lifting first Annie and then Bets to
the snowy ground.

“Go ahead in,” he
instructed. “Tell Gladys Hopkins I’ll take her home right
away.”

Stiff from the hours in
the wagon, Annie staggered up the steps and across the porch to the
door, Bets’s hand tight in her own. It was thrown open before she
could decide whether to knock. Inside was a small, round woman with
a neat brown bun on the top of her head, prominent blue eyes, and a
wide, welcoming smile. She looked perhaps a dozen years older than
Annie. The room behind her was warm and smelled of food
cooking.

"Well, so here you are.
Welcome to you." Already wrapping herself in a black coat and
holding a red checkered shawl, the woman closed the door behind
them with a bang. “No sense heatin’ the world, I always say. I'm
Gladys Hopkins, we're Noah's neighbors west of here. So you’re the
new Mrs. Ferguson. Noah already said your name was Annie." Her
bright eyes were kind and curious. “And who might you be, dearie?”
She smiled at Bets.

"This is Betsy Tompkins,
my sister,” Annie supplied hurriedly. “Pleased to meet you, Mrs.
Hopkins.”

“You call me Gladys, I'll
call you Annie. We’re gonna be friends. Goodness knows we’re the
only white women this side of the Hat. Sorry I have to hurry off
like this, but it’s fixin’ to storm, and I got a husband and a
daughter waitin’ on their supper. I left soup and fresh bread on
the warmer over there fer you.”

She gestured to the
cookstove against the wall and then tied the red wool scarf over
her hair. She leaned close to Annie, whispering in her ear, “The
old man in there’s had his supper. Didn’t eat enough to keep a
sparrow alive. He’s in a right fair temper, same as always these
days. Don’t you let him get the best of you now,
dearie.”

At that moment, the door
opened and Noah came in with the tin trunk.

Gladys jumped back and
said in a loud, guilty voice, “I’ll come visitin’ soon as the
weather allows. Hope you settle in fine, Annie. My stars, would you
look at this snow? Bye-bye, now, Betsy.” She went out quickly,
closing the door behind her.

Noah thumped the trunk on
the floor, returning a moment later with the carpetbags and her
hat, which he dumped unceremoniously on top of the
trunk.

“Make yourselves right at
home," he said, and Annie flushed, recognizing sarcasm when she
heard it. “It’ll take me at least three hours to get back, and
then, madam, I’d say you have some explaining to do.”

Before Annie could begin
to think of a response, the door slammed shut behind him and she
and Bets were alone. She closed her eyes for a moment and breathed
a sigh of relief. At least she’d have time to gather her wits about
her before she had to face him again. He was downright
formidable.

For a few moments, they
busied themselves with taking off their coats and shawls and boots.
They hung their things on the pegs by the door, then stood side by
side, looking wide-eyed around the large, pleasant room, each
silently comparing it with the small, cramped space they’d shared
in the city.

Noah Ferguson had written
that he wasn’t well off, but to Annie, this looked like a grand
house indeed.

The area was softly lit by
a coal-oil lamp that had roses on the glass shade. The lamp was set
on a crocheted doily on a high dresser beneath a window.

The room, a very large
combination kitchen and living room, had a huge iron cook stove
presiding at one end and a wood heater at the other. Both were
giving off waves of comforting warmth, and Annie and Bets moved
hesitantly to stand by the heater and warm themselves.

There was a square wooden
table and four chairs near the cook stove, and a horsehair sofa and
a rocking chair at the opposite end of the room where a narrow
staircase led to another floor. There were several cross-stitched
pillows on the sofa, and a border of hand-embroidered roses trimmed
the white fabric of the curtains at the window. The wooden floor
had several braided rag rugs, and there was floral wallpaper on the
walls. An ornate clock sat on a shelf specially made for it. Also
on the walls were several pictures clipped from magazines and
carefully mounted on cardboard.