“We didn’t wake her up, Daddy. We were quiet as mice,” Maribel declared. “She opened her eyes right away.”
“That’s right,” Louise said. “We only whispered a little.”
He chuckled. “Only loud enough to wake the dead, I’ll bet.”
“They were very quiet,” Edith said defensively. Glancing at the girls, she added, “But really, if you all want to go to the fair as soon as possible, you’ll have to let me get dressed. And I want to take another bath before we go.”
“Aw . . .”
“All right, girls,” their father said. “Git.”
As Maribel and Louise left, Edith dared to add, “You too.”
“Oh, no. I claim special privileges.”
He kicked the door closed as he came in. A naughty thrill skittered through her. He looked very tall. She shrank back against the headboard, trying to be stern and failing.
“What ‘special privileges’?”
“Just a good-morning kiss.” He strove for a light tone, but he had to clear his throat before he spoke. One of his knees sank into the mattress as he reached for her. His hands burned through her thin lawn nightgown, branding her shoulders. Edith braced herself for an onslaught of her senses that would leave her weak and trembling for nameless pleasures.
Yet his kiss was a mere, gentle brush of lips. Edith murmured a vague protest and reached for him when he would have pulled away.
He pushed her hands down. “Not . . . not a good idea.”
“Oh!” Edith hastily caught up the sheet a second time.
Standing up, Jeff said ruefully, “Really not a good idea. Hurry up and take your bath, though.” He let his gaze wander over the rumpled bed linen that imperfectly concealed the outline of her body. Holding up his hands as though to show he had nothing in them, he said again, “No, not a good idea at all.”
After her bath, and wearing her nice gray dress, Edith went down to eat a catch-as-can breakfast. Sam was arranging and rearranging the long stems of his roses in a blue milk-glass vase, muttering to himself.
“They’re beautiful, Sam,” Edith said, caressing an apricot bud. The fragrance was as intoxicating as wine.
“I only hope Fred Grant has aphids and thrip. Did I tell you how he nabbed first prize last year? As underhanded a piece of skullduggery as any train robbery!”
“Yes, you told me.”
“He set his stems down on a slab of brick inside the vase—used one of those thick Wedgewood things from England so the judge couldn’t see through it. They were six inches above everybody else’s blooms. And I ‘spect he put a little red dye in the water to keep the color up.”
Jeff called from the hall, “I’ve got your crate ready, Dad.”
“Well, come here and help me, dang it. You think I can do it with one hand?”
Under a flurry of orders from his father, Jeff lifted the vase as carefully as though it were a sickly baby. Sam danced around and fussed like a worried mother.
Edith trailed behind the men. She couldn’t quite meet Jeff’s eyes. Had he known how she wanted to keep him in bed with her? Had he felt the eagerness of her hands or the way her body had lifted against his?
After Jeff lowered the roses into the crate, he packed it with straw. Edith returned to the kitchen for a broom to sweep out the mess they had made. While Sam fussed some more with his display, letting the straw drift from his good hand over the blossoms one strand at a time, Edith went ahead and swept the porch too. When she was finished, Sam was still at it.
“Come on, Dad. They’ll be all right,” Jeff said.
The girls came in, Louise balancing the box of chicks that she would show at the fair. Maribel looked at her grandfather’s roses and listened to her sister boasting of how she was bound to take first prize. The little girl’s lower lip began to tremble and two perfect crystal tears overflowed her lashes.
“What’s the matter?” Edith asked, crouching beside her.
The words were muffled but the gist was that everybody had something to show at the fair but her. Louise heard and said, “You should have thought of that before.”
“Don’t even got a snake,” Maribel sniffed.
Edith wiped away the tears with her handkerchief. “You should have something to show. What else is there, beside livestock and flowers?”
Jeff stood above the little group. “There’s a prize for cooking or fancy work. There’ll be a display of farm machinery. Usually Roger Randall shows his mineral collection. Oh, and the kids have a pet-judging event.”
“Pets?”
“You know. Dogs, cats, rabbits . . .” He was dazzled by the smile on her face. But it wasn’t for him, it was for Maribel.
“Would you like to show Orpheus?”
The little girl’s eyes shone like river-washed stones. “Could I?”
“That’s not fair,” Louise protested. “He doesn’t belong to her.”
“I’ve been giving him his seeds,” Maribel stated.
Edith bit her lip but didn’t hesitate. “Orpheus is yours, if you want him.”
The embrace of two chubby arms was reward enough for giving up her only friend. “Come on,” Edith said, gathering Maribel up in her arms. “We’ll go get him.”
Chapter 23
“Today’s mostly for the exhibitors to set up,” Jeff said, helping her down when they arrived at Richey’s Meadow. Two big marquees had been erected at either end of the field, while booths and smaller tents created an avenue between them. Narrow banners snapped in the breeze, and concertina music started and stopped as someone tried to catch hold of a tune.
A creek wandered through the wildflowers, bubbling a song. Above the fairground at the far end of the meadow, a gentle hill rose against the sky. Its side was marred by a white scar, from where, once upon a time, the slabs of stone piled at the foot of the hill had fallen. Jeff saw Edith looking that way.
“Just below that mark is the Cave of Mysteries,” he said. “It goes deep, right under all of this, even where we’re standing. We’ll be running tours of it tomorrow. Mostly to keep the kids out of it the rest of the time.”
“Who’s we?”
“Me and some of the other men, Paul for one. I guess he and I know it about as well as anybody, but nobody’s ever explored it all. You run into deep water, for one thing.”
Edith looked up at the white mark of the cave and shivered despite the sunshine. She could imagine the dripping depths of a lightless hell, worse than a dungeon. “How awful,” she said.
“Wait ‘til it’s ninety degrees at noon. You’ll be glad to get into the cave then. As a matter of fact, it’s so cool up there we keep the ice cream in it.”
Sam said, “Quit talking about it. You’re giving me the willies.”
“You won’t be giving tours, I imagine,” Edith said gently.
“You couldn’t pay me to go in there. I don’t even like getting the ice cream down, to tell you the truth.” He glared at his son. “Are you going to stand there gabbing all day, or are you going to help me with this crate?”
Jeff winked at Edith and went around to the back of the wagon to lift the crate out under the faultfinding supervision of his father.
His prediction for the heat came true very shortly. No one seemed to mind, however. The children raced around and played with shrieks of abandon no matter how high the mercury climbed. Outside the livestock tent and looking down the fairway, Edith saw a bright array of parasols, in every shade from white to black with red predominating. She wished she had one, but that was the single item the kind ladies in St. Louis had forgotten.
“Miss Parker?”
Edith turned to see Mrs. Armstrong and Dulcie standing a few feet away. They came over at once. “Isn’t it hot, though? I declare there isn’t a breeze stirring,” Mrs. Armstrong said, patting her forehead with a handkerchief.
“It was a little close in the tent.” The ordure of the cattle combined with the heat had turned her faint. Jeff didn’t seem to be affected by the smell or the temperature. Grouchy, by his heels, seemed delighted by the different smells. Jeff had nodded when she whispered to him about going out, and he went on discussing the merits of Black Angus versus the Shorthorn with a group of men,
“We’re going to get some lemonade at the Methodist tent. Come along,” Dulcie invited. She had a calm, relaxed air about her today, completely different from the wound-up wildness of the day before.
“Thank you,” Edith said, falling into step beside them. “Where’s Gary?”
A blush augmented the heat-induced pink in Dulcie’s cheeks. “He’s entered a whittling display. He’s there now, hovering.”
“You were there yourself,” Mrs. Armstrong said. “You won’t believe it, Miss Parker, but I had to practically drag her away. It seems like only yesterday that carving was too dumb for anyone but hayseeds to trouble with.”
“Mo-other . . .”
As Jeff came to the tent exit, he caught sight of Edith moving off with the Armstrongs. He grinned happily as she stopped to talk to Louise, who had raced by her like a wild creature. More and more, he was growing confident that he’d made the right choice. Edith fit in here. Soon she’d give up her foolish notion about mysterious powers beyond mortal ken and settle down to life with him.
“Hey, Jeff!” Arnie Sloan came trotting up to him, flapping a piece of paper. “I’m awful sorry about this. Seems like a mailbag done fell open while Minnie Grable and me were moving it to the post office. We thought we picked ‘em all up but here was this one under the bench when I swept up the depot this morning.”
“It’s all right, Arnie. These things happen.” Jeff looked at the superscription in the corner.
“Hope it isn’t anything important—I mean, you know, like somebody dying or something.” Arnie lifted up on his toes to look at the envelope through his rimless cheaters.
“Mighty pretty handwriting. I’ve been studying up on handwriting, you might say. Got a book on it. This feller says you can tell everythin’ ‘bout a person by the way they write. Now that big O there, that means a generous nature. And the way she crosses her T—it is a woman, ain’t it? S. Carstairs. You can always tell when it’s a woman.”
Jeff stuck the letter in his coat pocket. “Thanks again, Arnie. See you later.”
“Sure thing. Don’t know how I come to overlook...”
This must be the letter Sabrina had said she’d sent him. Obviously, Arnie didn’t believe in sweeping the station too often. Jeff thought about ripping it up unread, but his curiosity got the better of him. Stopping off the main fairway, he opened the letter.
What he read there sent him hotfoot after Edith. She’d been right about Sabrina and the waiter. They were deeply in love, hoping to marry and move West. Then Sabrina inserted a sly request for money, hinting that she’d never trouble her old “friends” again. Jeff vowed to send her a hundred dollars just for proving that Edith really could tell lovers at a glance.
But when he reached the Methodist tent, he found only Mrs. Armstrong and Dulcie at one of the little tables by the entrance.
“Edith? She went to take some lemonade and cookies to Maribel. Louise went too.” Mrs. Armstrong studied Jeff’s face. “Are you feeling all right? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Where did they think they’d find Maribel?”
“Over at the little tent next to the livestock. Where the kids are keeping their pets until the judging tomorrow.”
As Jeff raced off with his long-legged stride, Grouchy lolloping alongside, Dulcie turned to her mother and said, “What a strange family!”
There seemed to be a lot more people on the fairway now than even a few minutes ago. Jeff careened off heavyset women, tripped over children who appeared out of nowhere to run between his legs, and brushed past men he’d known for years without a greeting. But when he bumped into his father and put him aside without apology, he found his arm gripped.
“Hold on, son. Gol-durn it! Isn’t it bad enough Sullivan got in a few licks without you adding to ‘em?”
“Sorry, Dad. I’m looking for Edith.”
“I saw her a few minutes ago, but I don’t think she heard me call. She was heading . . .” He jerked his thumb toward the hill. “Figure somebody shanghaied her into handing out the ice cream. Better her than me.”
Jeff ignored the sharp tug on his coat skirt and Louise saying, “Daddy . . .”
“How long ago did you see her, Dad?”
“I don’t know. Five, maybe ten minutes.
I’m
looking for Vera Albans. Have you . . . ?”
“Just a minute, Louise.”
“But Daddy . . . Miss Edith said . . .”
“I have to say, son, you look like you’ve got a real burr under your saddle. What’s up?”
“Nothing, but I have to find Edith. I was wrong . . . about something important . . . and I think I owe it to her to say so.”
“Daddy, please!”
“What is it, Louise? You want some doughnuts or something?”
“No, Daddy. Miss Edith said I should find you and tell you Mr. Sullivan’s taking Maribel to the cave.”
Out of breath and overheated from the climb, Edith hesitated an instant at the gaping mouth of the cave. She felt the cold air it exhaled like the slithering touch of a snake over her skin. A lantern, unlit, sat on one of the dripping boxes of ice cream just inside the entrance. Edith picked it up, the oil swishing inside the bell.
A bobbing light ahead in the sloping darkness showed her how far ahead Sullivan had gotten. Like an echo, Maribel’s light voice floated back to her. Though the words were indistinct, the tone was happy. She had no fear of the man who held her by the hand, though his replies were monosyllabic at best.
Edith hurried over the threshold between the sanded entrance and the hard stone of the cave, her breath still short and rasping dryly in her throat. She mustn’t let the others’ light get too far ahead. Already the dark was closing in. A few feet beyond the entrance, all the daylight was swallowed up.
Like in a nightmare, Edith hurried on, but always the light bobbed too far ahead to catch. She began to feel that something was behind her, breathing down her neck. Glancing behind her at the entrance, the lighted space seemed infinitely tiny and remote. The sight brought her no comfort. Suddenly she understood Sam’s fear of underground places.
When she turned to go on, the lantern’s glow had vanished. She stopped as though she’d run into a wall, the dark like a muffling curtain all around her.