This Side of Heaven Read online

  Then she remembered she didn’t have a bed. And she was reminded, again, that this was not her home. She was here on sufferance only.

  “You’ll eat what’s put before you, and keep your mouth shut in the meanwhile.” Matt’s reproof came as Caroline entered the kitchen. He and Davey met her gaze with identical scowls. Behind them stood John, hands shoved awkwardly into his waistband, and Thomas. All of them looked as wary as Caroline felt. From the sound of it, Robert was talking to Daniel in the front room. Likely they wanted nothing to do with her either.

  “You may all wash up and sit down,” Caroline said curtly. “The meal’s ready.”

  “Wash up!” The aghast words came from Davey, but from the expressions on the faces of the males she could see, every one of them was thinking the same thing.

  She paused in the act of sliding another girdlecake onto the heap already piled on a pewter plate and glared from one appalled face to another.

  “If you want to eat in this kitchen, each and every one of you will wash your hands and face before you sit down. I’ll not serve pigs.”

  Running the back of her hand over her damp forehead, she turned away to spoon more batter onto the sizzling hot girdle. Behind her she sensed the issue of cleanliness hung in the balance. But she meant what she had said: if they tried to eat without washing, she’d throw the food in the fire! And if her behavior didn’t suit them, they could just cast her out for it! She would not let the knowledge that she had nowhere to go bind her into groveling servitude. She had managed under impossible odds before, and if necessary she could again!

  “Davey, John, your aunt is in the right of it. Out back to the pump, both of you. All of you. Thomas, go fetch Robert and Daniel.” Matt’s was the voice of authority, but even so the boys protested.

  “But, Pa …!”

  “You’ll do as you’re told,” he responded, shepherding his sons out the door. Caroline’s spine sagged a little with relief. She’d won that round, without any of the dire consequences she’d been braced for. It would have been fatally easy to say nothing, to let them do as they pleased. Just for tonight, when she was so tired, it would not have hurt for them to sit down in all their dirt to a meal she had prepared. But it was best to start as she meant to continue, she reminded herself, and she was not yet so spineless as to let them treat her with disrespect.

  A moment or so later Thomas, Robert, and Daniel passed through the kitchen and out the door, shooting Caroline sidelong looks as they went. She continued her cooking, ignoring them. When they returned, they were silent as they took their places around the table. Hands and faces were conspicuously clean.

  Caroline turned toward the table with plates heaped with the flat, fragrant girdlecakes. If she felt a tad triumphant, she was careful not to show it.

  “We say grace in this house.” Matt sat at the head of the table, and his words were a clear challenge.

  “Very well,” Caroline answered, setting the plates on the table and folding her hands in front of her. “Please proceed.”

  The menfolk cast furtive glances at one another, then all rose and bowed their heads. Matt made a brief invocation, and then they all sat down again, maintaining the same uneasy silence as before.

  Caroline’s lips tightened as she ladled stew into wooden trenchers and carried them, two at a time, to the table to the accompaniment of deafening silence. When food was set before each of them, along with mugs of water, she served herself and carried her own trencher and mug to the table to join them. Men and boys ate hungrily, but no one spoke or looked up as she drew near. All eyes were on their plates as they shoveled down the food.

  There were benches along both sides of the table, and a large wooden chair at each end. Matt and Daniel occupied the chairs, while David and Thomas filled one bench and John and Robert the other. There was no place for Caroline to sit.

  She stood there, holding her plate and mug, waiting for someone to notice her predicament. But no one did.

  “If you gentlemen don’t mind, I would like to sit down.”

  They looked up at that. Matt frowned, looking around the table.

  “Scoot over, Davey,” he directed.

  “I don’t want her sitting by me!” It was a wail.

  “Do as you’re told, and be quick about it!”

  “ ’Tisn’t fair,” Davey muttered, his expression sullen. But as he caught his father’s eye he obediently moved closer to Thomas, his plate and cup making a scraping noise as he shoved them along the table.

  “So sit.” Matt returned his attention to his food. Lips tightening, Caroline sat, trying not to notice that Davey crowded as close to Thomas as he could, presumably so that no part of him would suffer her contaminating touch.

  “Is there more?” Thomas sopped his girdlecake in the last of the gravy on his plate, popped it into his mouth, and looked around as though expecting food to appear magically in front of him.

  “In the kettle,” Caroline said, her spoon suspended halfway to her mouth. She had not yet had a chance to take a single bite.

  “ ’Tis good.” Daniel stopped eating long enough to compliment her as Thomas passed her his plate. Like his brothers and nephews, Thomas was blue-eyed and attractive. His fair hair and skin served to disguise his resemblance to the others, but it became apparent when he talked, or moved. Caroline judged him to be the youngest of the foursome, still lanky in the manner of a young man not quite grown into his height. Robert too was more bone than muscle, while Daniel was more solid. Matt, who was the tallest, was also the most muscular. His physique looked both tough and powerful. There was a time when such a physique would have made Caroline’s pulse quicken, but no longer. The girl who would have once responded instinctively to Matt’s sheer masculine appeal was now buried deep within the frozen shell she had erected to keep hurt out.

  “I’ll have some, then—please.” Thomas’s reluctant courtesy earned him the response he sought. Returning her spoon to her plate, its steaming contents untasted, Caroline took his trencher and rose to fill it. When she handed it back to him, he accepted it with a nod and fell to. Sitting again, Caroline began to eat. This time she actually was able to swallow a spoonful before Matt wanted seconds. After that, Caroline managed a few mouthfuls in between trips from table to pot and back again, but not many. It was with a feeling of relief that she realized that at last the pot was empty. Finally she could finish her own meal!

  “I want more.” This was Davey. A slower eater than the rest, he was just polishing off his first plateful.

  “I’m sorry, but it’s all gone.” Caroline took another bite as she spoke. She was still on her original serving, and only halfway through with that. These Mathieson men must have hollow legs to put away such a quantity of food so quickly!

  “No more!” Davey’s face puckered as if he would cry. From all around the table, the five remaining males looked up at her with identical disbelieving expressions.

  “No more?” Uttered in Matt’s deep voice, the words were a careful question.

  “No. No more,” Caroline said firmly, as if she were dealing with a sextet of idiots. Really, didn’t they understand plain English?

  “But I told you that there are six of us, and that we have big appetites.”

  “Except for David, you’ve had three helpings each!” Putting her spoon down again, she stared at Matt indignantly.

  “Aye, and we’ve worked all day, too. Hard, outdoor work, with no nuncheon. We’re men, and we’re hungry. In future you will please remember that.”

  As rebukes go, that one was fairly mild, but still it made Caroline see red.

  “In future I’ll prepare enough for a barnyard full of hogs, as that’s what I seem to be feeding!” She tried to jump to her feet, only to be thwarted as the solidly weighted down bench refused to budge. Fuming, she slid off the end of the bench and stood, fists clenched, glaring at the bunch of them.

  “There’s no need to get angry. We’re all willing to make allowances, considering this
is your first day with us. We’ll fill up on the girdlecakes. There are more girdlecakes?” Matt’s tone was that of a reasonable man dealing with the unreasonable.

  “No. There are not. I made two dozen girdlecakes, and you’ve wolfed down every one!” If there was a hysterical edge to her voice, it was nothing compared to the way she was feeling. She wanted to scream, wanted to curse and stomp her feet. She wanted to grind these unappreciative males to dust! To have worked so hard, for such a reward as this, was infuriating.

  “No more cakes!” This was Davey again, and this time he burst into noisy tears. Staring at him, Caroline felt like crying herself. She was tired, and hungry too, because she hadn’t even had a chance to finish her own meal, and she didn’t have a bed, and the table still had to be cleared and the dishes washed and …

  It was too much. She clamped her lips together, turned on her heel, and walked with careful dignity from the kitchen through the keeping room and out the rear door.

  It was twilight, near to total dark. Stars were beginning to appear overhead. A quarter moon floated on the edge of the sky, its light obscured by blowing clouds. The sounds of chirping insects and croaking frogs filled the air. From somewhere in the distance came a mournful howl.

  The howl was what did it. Nothing ever howled like that in England. Shivering as the cold night air blew through her thin dress, Caroline walked as far as the fence that edged the barnyard. Placing her hand on top of the gate, she laid her forehead on her hand.

  Then she cried.

  9

  Despite the lightness of his tread, Caroline was aware of Matt’s approach even with her back turned. There was something, a sixth sense, that told her he was there.

  Straightening, she angrily dashed the tears from her cheeks, glad for the covering darkness that, she hoped, hid her weakness. The very last thing in the world she wanted was pity, from him or anyone else.

  “Thank the Lord you’ve stopped sniveling. I can’t abide women who weep.”

  At that unfeeling statement her spine stiffened into ramrod erectness. Fists clenching at her sides, she pivoted to face him.

  “I am not weeping! I never weep!”

  The night enveloped him as it did her, making it difficult to read his expression. She was aware of the height and breadth of him as he stood perhaps half a dozen paces from her, of the whiteness of his shirt, of his musky male scent, but the details of his appearance were hidden from her. As, she hoped, the details of hers were from him.

  “All women weep like watering pots, hoping for sympathy. I’ll not tolerate it in my household.”

  Caroline took a deep breath. “You,” she said with forced calm, “have obviously had very limited experience with women.”

  “I was wed for thirteen years.”

  “Are you saying that Elizabeth was a watering pot? I don’t wonder at it, having met you and your sons and brothers.”

  “You know nothing about me or my family.”

  “Believe me, I know as much about you and your family as I care to know. I’m leaving in the morning. There must be something, some work I can do, in the town.”

  “You’re not leaving.” The quite surety of that statement took Caroline aback.

  “I most certainly am! You can’t stop me! You’re every one of you filthy, rude, and unappreciative, and that’s being kind! I’d rather work as a—as a—as anything I can find rather than slave away for the lot of you!”

  “Strong words, but I’m afraid the choice isn’t yours to make.”

  “Of course the choice is mine! What do you mean, the choice isn’t mine?”

  “You forget that I paid for your passage. You are legally indebted to me. You can work the amount off informally, as a member of the family, or we can go to the magistrate and make it official. I’ve no objection to taking you on as a bound girl.”

  “A bound girl!”

  “I’m sure Tobias would be willing to testify as to your indebtedness.”

  “You wouldn’t do such a thing!”

  “I would—if you force me to it.” He was silent as disbelief and outrage combined to stun her into silence as well. When he spoke again, some of the grimness had left his voice. “But I’d rather you didn’t make it necessary. ’Twould be best for all concerned if we could try to come to some mutually agreeable accommodation. I admit, when I was first presented with you and your—ah—difficulties, I was not best pleased. But now I see that the situation might well offer real benefits for all of us. You need a home. We need a woman’s touch around here. In particular, my boys need mothering. You are their aunt. Who better than you to take on the task?”

  “If you want a mother for your sons, why don’t you simply remarry?” Resentment sharpened her voice.

  “I’ve no wish to wed again. Ever.” There was a cold finality to his tone that told her that he meant what he said.

  “I’m a thief and a liar of the Royalist persuasion, remember? Surely you don’t want the likes of me corrupting your innocent children?”

  “I’ve no fear that you’ll teach them to steal or to lie,” he said. Then, just as Caroline was recovering from her surprise at the apparent compliment, he added, “Their morals are too firmly ingrained for that. Besides, they’ve a healthy fear of my wrath. As for your Royalist leanings, ’tis apparent that they were learned at your father’s knee, and thus are not entirely your fault. We shall simply have to relearn you.”

  “You may try!”

  “We just might succeed.”

  “Not very likely!”

  “Not much that happens in life is very likely, I’ve found. Take your arrival, for example. I spent the better part of the afternoon pondering it, and finally decided that you just might be a gift from Providence. According to the Scripture, the Lord works in mysterious ways.” There was a glint of humor in his voice. “In your case, I would say, very mysterious.”

  “Thank you.” Her response was icy.

  “Come, I was but teasing you.” He paused a moment to study what he could see of her expression through the darkness. When he spoke again, his voice had altered so that it sounded almost coaxing. “Tonight is the first time in a long while that we’ve come in to a clean house and a cooked supper. It felt good to have a woman in the kitchen, even at your insistence that we wash up. It struck me then that you can offer something my boys need, something I can’t give them: a woman’s kind of caring.”

  “Well.” Though she was loath to admit it even to herself, the picture he painted of six males hungering for a woman’s gentling touch softened her. They needed her, that was what he was telling her. As she realized that, she also realized that what he was offering her was balm for her sore and weary heart: the home and family she had recognized only that afternoon that she craved. “I’m not averse to doing what I can for my nephews, but I’ll not be treated with disrespect, mind, nor ordered about like a maidservant.”

  “We’ll treat you with all honor, I promise you, though in return I trust you’ll not enact us a tragedy over every misspoken word or unthinking deed. We’ve been on our own for a long time, and it may be that our manners are a trifle rougher than they should be. As a case in point, what was said tonight was not meant to hurt your feelings, The food was good; in fact, ’twas as tasty a meal as I’ve eaten since I don’t remember when.”

  “I enjoy cooking.” Caroline cautiously lowered her guard a degree more. His cajolery was having the effect he intended. She realized that he was using soft words to get what he wanted from her, but she responded nonetheless. Almost greedily she contemplated taking them all in hand.

  “Well, then, as we enjoy eating, you are clearly heaven-sent.”

  He smiled at her then, a slow, crooked grin that was illuminated as the moon slid out from behind a cloud. It eased something inside her that had been wound up tight since her father died. Until that moment she had not thought that he could smile. It made him look younger, far younger than she had imagined he could be, and almost dazzlingly handsome. Once,
oh, once, how he would have appealed to her!

  “How old are you?” The question popped into her head, and from there to her mouth, without volition. As soon as she uttered it, Caroline blushed to her hairline. Once again she was thankful for the darkness. His age was none of her business, and her question implied an interest in him that she certainly did not feel!

  The smile died. His eyes narrowed, and a measure of distance entered his voice as he replied. “Thirty-two.”

  “But Elizabeth is—would have been …” His answer surprised her so much that she couldn’t let the topic go.

  “She was three years older than I.”

  “You must have been only seventeen when you wed her and left England!”

  “Did she not tell you that, in the letters she was forever writing you and your father?”

  There was an undertone to his voice that she did not understand. Was it bitterness, or hurt, or anger, or some combination of all three? Or was it simply annoyance at her questions?

  “To tell you the truth, she rarely mentioned you.” As soon as she said it, Caroline realized how tactless the remark was.

  “Or, I’ll wager, the boys.” There was no mistaking the bitterness this time.

  “No.” It surprised Caroline to realize that this was so. Such an omission had never struck her as strange before, but then before today she had never met her sister’s family and had had no notion of them as living, breathing human beings. How any woman could have failed to brag about two sturdy sons and a swooningly handsome husband was puzzling. But Elizabeth’s letters, which had come frequently at first and then grown increasingly rare with the passing years, had been mostly concerned with the scenic beauty of the New World and how different it was from the old. Caroline frowned as she realized how truly devoid of personal information her sister’s correspondence had been. She had never mentioned Matt’s—or Mr. Mathieson’s, as Elizabeth had always very properly referred to him—age, or his remarkable handsomeness, or his limp. She had written nothing of his brothers who had made their home with them, and little of the circumstances in which she lived. Occasionally Elizabeth had made vague reference to her children, but she had never written anything that would convey the vigorous reality of those two vital little boys. How could she have made so little of those things that were surely essential to her life? If there was an answer to that, Caroline couldn’t at the moment find it.