Bittersweet

The dishes were done and Sarah sat in a quiet corner, the lamp turned up, reading The Old Curiosity Shop. Inside the cover, Mr. Utterback had written: Imogene-not his best, but haunting nonetheless. Sarah ran her fingertip over Imogene’s name and her eyes unfocused for a moment, looking beyond the walls of the room. Her reverie was disturbed by the staccato click of heels on the bare floor.

“Mrs. Ebbitt?”

Sarah closed the book. “Miss Wells. Won’t you sit down?” The girl plopped comfortably into the chair next to hers as the invitation was voiced. She was pleasant-faced and young, and Sarah smiled at her despite the irritations at di

Lucy sighed deeply and rested her cheek on her hand. “He’s so alone!” She smiled sadly at Karl’s angular form as he leaned on the mantel, deep in conversation with Coby. He tipped his head back and laughed at something Coby said. “And so unhappy. Just listen.” Her voice was fraught with secret understanding.

Sarah studied the lanky form, the broad face and flat cheeks bronzed by sun and firelight, the fine lines around the eyes made deep by the desert climate. “Karl seems happy enough to me,” she replied.

“I know. To most people.” Lucy shook her head knowingly, and Sarah hid a smile.

Karl, unaware that he was the object of so much speculation, said good night all around, stopping to take his leave of Sarah and Lucy on his way out.

“Take an armload of kindling with you,” Sarah said. “It’s going to be cold tonight.”

“I have enough to last. I told Coby to take one of the beds upstairs for tonight; we can get him set up in the barn tomorrow. Sleep well, Sarah, you’ve done a good day’s work today. I think Coby will be a good man to have with us.” His eyes rested on hers for a moment, and Lucy fluffed in her chair until he turned to her. “Good night, Miss Wells.” He bowed, a handsome Old World bow. Sarah pursed her lips and looked at him from under lowered brows, but he didn’t repent, even to a wink, and left Lucy Wells in a twitter.

Sarah was the only one who saw the girl slip out after him, and she went back to her book.

Later, Mrs. Wells, deeming it past bedtime, came looking for her daughter. “I believe she stepped out for…air,” Sarah said dryly.

Mrs. Wells rolled her eyes heavenward and clucked her tongue. “For Lud’s sake. Is she bothering Mr. Saunders? That vixen’ll send me early to my grave. See these gray hairs? That one give them to me, every one. She gets passions like other girls get headaches, and every one of them’s a matter of life and death. Not six weeks ago she saw a flyer about a traveling lady preacher and took it as a sign from God. Drove us crazy for a week, reading tracts to us morning, noon, and night.”

Lucy had followed Karl to the barn and waited outside the tackroom, gathering her courage. A candle burned behind the curtain and she could hear him laying a fire in the stove. Resolutely she rapped on the door. “I’ve come,” she said when Karl opened it.

“So I see.” They stared at each other.

She looked past him into the dimly lit room. It was clean and bare, his few belongings arranged on top of a battered leather trunk in a far corner: a faded photograph of a middle-aged woman standing beside a short pillar with a vase filled with flowers on it; a wallet of cracked leather folded beside the picture; a silver chain with a nugget of silver. Several changes of clothes hung from pegs on the far side of the room, and there was a bookcase under the single window, filled with books brought in from the house. The floor and walls were whitewashed and scrubbed spotless. Lucy rubbed her upper arms. “It’s cold,” she hinted.

“You’d better go back to the house.”

“Can’t I come in?”

“No.”

Stumped, she paused. Clearly this was not the scene she had envisioned. She stepped close to him and, catching up his hand, folded it to her breast. “I know you aren’t happy,” she whispered. “I understand. I’ve understood you from the moment I saw you.”

Karl tried gently to extricate himself from her grasp. “You are a very nice young lady-” he began.

“You refused to go in swimming with Pa, though it must’ve been a hundred, so you could be with me. You did!”

“I can’t swim,” Karl said patiently. “I visited with your mother and sister as well.”

She dismissed that with a toss of her head. Karl held her away from him and looked into her face. “Lucy,” he said kindly, “you’re a lovely girl-a young woman-and I hope you are grown-up enough to forgive me for my behavior toward you; it wasn’t all that it should have been. You tickled the vanity of an old fool, is all. You are very young and there are things you won’t understand for many years. I’m very happy here, happy with things the way they are. Go on back to the house.”

“Her.” Lucy got right to the point.

“Yes. Sarah.”

“I don’t believe you! If it were true, you’d marry her.”

“Lucy!” A stern voice sounded in the darkness.

“It’s Ma,” the girl said breathlessly. “I have to go.” Quickly she pecked a chaste kiss on Karl’s cheek and turned to run to the house.

Mrs. Wells emerged into the glow of Karl’s single candle. “I thought I’d find you bothering Mr. Saunders.” She took her daughter firmly in hand. “I’m sorry about all this, Mr. Saunders. Last week it was a lieutenant in the cavalry. And all she ever saw of him was his picture in the newspaper. It doesn’t take much when you’ve cotton between your ears instead of brains.” She gave Lucy a shake. “I’ve had about enough of you for one day.” Still lecturing, Mrs. Wells marched her eldest back to the house.

In the morning Lucy would not come down to breakfast, but pleaded illness. “She’s faking so she can stay and make eyes at Mr. Saunders,” the second Wells daughter declared.

“That’s enough out of you, miss,” her mother chided, but it was plain she was of the same opinion. Only Mr. Wells entertained any real anxiety over Lucy’s health. By the end of breakfast, Lucy had still not made an appearance and her mother was begi

The freighters were long gone, Coby and a sheepish-looking Karl had excused themselves to start the day’s work, and Sarah was brushing the crumbs from the tablecloth, when Mrs. Wells growled, “That’s it,” and rose abruptly from the table. “I’ve no time for this.”

“Mother, maybe she’s really sick.” Mr. Wells reached out to stop his wife, and she shot him a withering glance.

“This nonsense is as much your doing as hers, Lo

“There’s going to be a scene,” Mr. Wells moaned, “and she’ll make herself sick if she’s not already. My little Lucy’s a strong-willed girl.”

“So’s your big Lucy,” his wife snapped.

Sarah looked up from her work. She hesitated for a moment, then spoke. “If it wouldn’t be interfering, I could talk to her,” she ventured. “I think I could help.”

“Fine by me.” Mrs. Wells sat down to finish her coffee.

Lucy was not in bed. She knelt by a window in her dressing gown, resting her elbows on the sill, watching two tiny figures on horseback out in the sage. Sarah slipped through the curtain without being heard, and sat down on the girl’s unmade bed. “Hello, Lucy, can we talk?”

Within half an hour, Miss Wells was dressed and downstairs, putting her overnight things in the wagon.

Coby and Karl rode in as the Wellses said their good-byes to Sarah. They dismounted to wish them well in Oregon and see them on their way. Lucy laid her hand on Karl’s arm and looked deep into his eyes. “Mrs. Ebbitt is very good,” she said, “and you are very brave.” With a good and brave smile, she let her father hand her into the wagon.