71 Love Comes West Page 6

  Danny had watched the dog eat at first ravenously as if he was afraid that the food would vanish before he could consume it, then more slowly until his bowl was empty.

  Then he stood wagging his tail and licking Danny’s hand as if to express his gratitude and Roberta knew that it would be impossible for her to leave them to their fate.

  She therefore decided that until Clint Dulaine’s return she would feel it her responsibility to take her aunt’s place in Danny’s life.

  She soon learnt that it was going to be very difficult, because, as soon as the Minister returned, the atmosphere in the house changed from one of happiness into one of fear.

  Danny seemed to shrink into himself as the large man came up the steps onto the veranda and Roberta thought that the Minister seemed to be looking around as if to find something wrong that he could complain about.

  Mrs. Ski had, however, left everything spotlessly clean and in its proper place.

  Roberta knew as she stood cooking a delicious meal that the aroma of it was making the Minister sniff suspiciously as he entered the kitchen.

  “What are you cooking?” he demanded. “If it is something expensive, I’ll not pay for it!”

  “The chicken was cheap today,” Roberta replied, “and I think you will enjoy this one made with a sauce that I learnt in France.”

  She thought the Minister was going to say that that was the last thing he wanted to eat, but he was greedy and she knew by the expression on his face that what he could smell cooking was making him feel hungry.

  As if he had to be unpleasant to somebody, he looked at Danny and enquired,

  “Has that child behaved himself today? Has he been polite to you?”

  “He has been very sweet and very helpful,” Roberta said firmly. “He has washed his hands ready for supper and so if you are going to do the same, you had better hurry or the chicken will be overcooked.”

  The Minister looked at her as if he could hardly believe what he was hearing.

  Five minutes later they were all seated round the table.

  Roberta, however, had learnt her lesson from the night before and this time she carved the chicken in the kitchen and gave half of it to the Minister before she divided what was left between Danny and herself.

  He did not say anything, but she had the feeling that in the case of a joint of meat the Minister would insist on his right to do the carving.

  But for the moment he was engaged in enjoying not only the chicken but the excellent salad that went with it, the potatoes she had fried until they were golden brown and the hot biscuits, light as thistledown.

  They were not very different from the scones her father had enjoyed when she had the right ingredients to cook them and, as he had always said,

  “No one, unless they have Scottish blood in their veins, can bake a really good scone.”

  The Minister paid her no compliments, but he ate everything that was put in front of him, including the light lemon soufflé which followed with a chocolate sauce and, only when Danny had gone happily off to bed, did he say to Roberta,

  “Now, Miss Worth, we had better get down to ‘brass tacks’. You’re a good cook, I’m not denying that, but I am a poor man and I cannot afford fancy meals.”

  “But you enjoy them!”

  “A Minister can only spend what he can afford.”

  “As I am a very good housekeeper,” Roberta said quietly, “let’s wait until the end of the week. Then I will tell you what I have spent and, if it is too much, then I must try to do better.”

  She knew as she spoke that the Minister was calculating that what he was saving, as he thought, on Mrs. Ski’s services, he could spend on food.

  At the same time his meanness made him say,

  “I’m not spending what I’ve not got and it’s a mistake for the boy to think that he can eat like a horse when he’s living on my charity.”

  “He is very small,” Roberta said, “and I feel sure that Mr. Dulaine, when he returns, will recompense you for his keep.”

  “If he returns!” the Minister answered. “The last time I heard of him he was high up in the Rocky Mountains. If you ask me, the man’s insane!”

  Roberta was still for a moment.

  Then she asked,

  “Are you saying that you think he will not come back?”

  “Why should he?” the Minister replied. “I’ve taken his place and he’s not turning me out!”

  There was no answer to this and Roberta suddenly felt as if she had been caught in a trap.

  Then she told herself sensibly that there was no point in coming to any quick decisions.

  At the same time she had no wish to spend the rest of her life, or many years of it, in Blue River.

  She expected when she went to Church on Sunday that people would look at her with curiosity, but she was not prepared for the welcome she received from almost every woman in the congregation.

  The Minister read the Service in what Roberta felt was a hard unsympathetic voice and when it came to the sermon it was a tirade against sin, in which he described with what she thought with relish, the punishments sinners would receive after they were dead.

  When the Service was over and Roberta started to walk down the aisle with Danny, she was besieged by people wishing to shake her hand and to tell her how fond they had been of her aunt.

  She was also asked many questions as to why she had come such a long way to visit her relative, how long she intended to stay and if it had been a great shock to realise that her aunt was dead.

  As she left the Church and started to walk back to The Haven, she received dozens of invitations to ‘drop in for a cup of coffee’ and what she knew would be a long interrogation about herself.

  She had worn the plainest clothes she had with her, but, as the gown and the short jacket that went over it had been bought in Paris, she certainly looked very different from every other woman in Blue River.

  Her bonnet too, although she had taken off the flowers and feathers that decorated it, portrayed a Parisian chic that nothing could alter.

  She could understand how in such a small place she would be a topic of conversation for a good deal more than the proverbial nine days.

  Roberta thought that the Minister resented that his parishioners had been interested in her and therefore was more disagreeable than usual.

  Once again he expressed the hope as their supper ended that she had not been extravagant and pointed out that it was the first time that there had been cream on his table and as he was not a millionaire it had better be the last.

  Because he was so surly and disagreeable Roberta knew that Danny was trembling and he had even made the food lose its taste.

  “My mother always said, Minister,” she remarked, “that if anyone was cross or unhappy at mealtimes they would suffer from indigestion. I am sure that, with your heart problem, you ought to be very careful not to upset yourself and try to forget all controversial subjects until you have finished eating.”

  The Minister looked at her in astonishment.

  Then he asked,

  “Are you teaching me, young woman, how to behave?”

  Roberta gave him a little smile.

  “I was only thinking of what might happen in Blue River if they were left without a Minister.”

  She knew that he wanted to forbid her to talk to him in such a manner, but, since the mere thought of his heart frightened him, he put his hand on his chest.

  He drank down a cup of coffee almost at a gulp as if to prevent himself from expressing the anger he was undoubtedly feeling.

  When she went upstairs to say goodnight to Danny, he said,

  “You are very brave, Aunt Roberta. You are not frightened of Mr. Minister like me and Columbus.”

  “There is no need to be frightened of him.”

  “But I am frightened!” Danny protested. “He beat me every day until you came and I am still very very afraid that he will find Columbus.”

  “I will pr
otect you and Columbus,” Roberta promised.

  She spoke more prophetically than she knew.

  It was at the end of the week and while Danny was at school, she had accepted the invitation of a woman who lived a few doors away who said she wanted to talk to her about her aunt.

  She had been entertained with coffee in the garden and her hostess had regaled her with a mass of anecdotes about her aunt and Clint Dulaine.

  “They were a fine-looking couple together,” she said, “and it was obvious how happy they were, even though your aunt was an Englishwoman.”

  Roberta laughed.

  “Are not Englishwomen supposed to be happy?”

  “Not living the sort of life Mrs. Dulaine endured when she first came to America!”

  “Tell me about it,” Roberta begged.

  “Well, a preacher is a preacher,” was the answer, “and while Clint preached and walked and walked and preached, your aunt went with him and the people who met them said they were just like lovebirds and as happy as the day was long.”

  “I like to hear that,” Roberta smiled. “I often wondered if my aunt ever regretted having run away from her home, from everything that was conventional and, of course, by those standards, very grand.”

  She then went on to describe what Worth Park was like and how the life her aunt had lived there had been much the same as that which her father had found so boring.

  “Now that Mrs. Dulaine is dead, will you be going back?” Roberta was asked.

  It was a question she had asked herself almost every night this last week.

  It was something she knew that she ought to do, but it was difficult to know how she could take Danny with her, and if, even though he disliked him, the Minister would let him go.

  It was a question that she had been too nervous to broach so far and, walking back to The Haven, she thought that when the moment was propitious she could perhaps find out if the Minister would really be pleased to be rid of Danny.

  She walked up the steps of the veranda and then as if what had happened a week ago was repeating itself, she heard Danny screaming in terror.

  She pushed upon the door and ran towards the kitchen.

  As she went into it, she saw Danny, not as she had expected being beaten, but was standing at the far end across the corner, his arms outstretched, screaming at the top of his voice.

  “No! You shan’t kill him – you shan’t!”

  Cowering behind him, trying to make himself as small a possible was Columbus and standing in front of them with a shotgun in his hand was the Minister.

  His face was crimson with rage as he pointed the gun at Danny shouting at the top of his voice,

  “Get out of my way! I told you if you brought that dog into the house I would shoot him and that is what I intend to do!”

  Roberta did not hesitate.

  She rushed forward, throwing herself against the Minister, caught hold of the shotgun with both hands and turned it upwards.

  “You will not shoot that dog!” she shouted. “I will not allow you to do so.”

  “How dare you interfere with me!” the Minister roared. “I will shoot that dog and the boy too, if you don’t get out of my way!”

  “You are mad!” Roberta retorted.

  As she spoke, with both hands on the gun, she tried to drag it away from him.

  He struggled with her and must have pulled the trigger as he did so, for there was a loud explosion.

  The gunshot hit the ceiling and the plaster fell down on Danny’s head, which, although it did not hurt him, made him scream in terror.

  Then, so suddenly that Roberta almost fell backwards, the Minister loosened his hold on the gun and put his hand up to his throat.

  He gave a strange gurgle that was unlike any sound Roberta had ever heard before and collapsed onto the floor.

  He was a big man and he fell slowly.

  When finally his whole body was down, he made that strange horrifying sound again before there was complete silence.

  Roberta stood looking at him, the gun in her hands, feeling that what had happened could not be true but just a figment of her imagination.

  Then Danny crept to her side and looked up to ask,

  “Have you – shot him?”

  “No,” Roberta replied. “I think he has had a – heart attack.”

  Her voice sounded as if it came from a long distance away, then, as the gun felt heavy, she put it down on the kitchen table.

  Slowly, because she was frightened, she knelt down beside the Minister and knew as she did so that he was dead.

  She had seen too many people dying in Africa not to recognise the signs and there was no need for her to feel his heart or his pulse to know that he had stopped breathing.

  His condition, which she had thought he had exaggerated, had finally killed him.

  She rose to her feet and as she did so Danny flung his arms around her waist and hid his face in her skirt.

  “It’s – all right, darling,” Roberta said unsteadily.

  Danny only held her tighter and she realised that he was crying.

  “If he is – dead,” he said. “They’ll take me – away. Mr. Minister said if anything –happened to him they would – take me to the – orphanage.”

  As he spoke, Roberta knew that this was very likely true.

  It flashed through her mind that, as she was only just nineteen, it was very unlikely that the authorities would think her a suitable Guardian for Danny, even if she said that she would take him to England with her.

  It was then, almost as if her father was advising and directing her, that she knew that if she was to save Danny she would have to take him away at once, before anybody was aware of what had happened.

  Afterwards she was quite certain that with his facility for organisation it was her father who had helped her.

  She picked up the gun, removed the empty cartridge case and returned it to its place in the passage. She brushed up the pieces of plaster that had fallen from the ceiling, hoping that nobody would look up and see the mark and suspect what had happened.

  Then she told Danny to change into his best clothes and put his other things away for her to pack on the bed.

  “Take Columbus up to your bedroom and stay there,” she said, “until I come to fetch you.”

  He looked at her, the tears on his cheeks making him look very much the same as he had the first day she had seen him.

  “You will not go – away without – me?” he asked.

  “Of course not,” she answered. “We are going to go away together, Danny, where nobody will find us and no one will ask questions about how the Minister died.”

  “He was – going to – kill Columbus,” Danny said, a tremble in his voice.

  “I know,” Roberta agreed, “but he cannot do that now and you don’t wish to stay here now knowing where you should go or who you should be with.”

  As if he knew that this was the most crucial question of all, Danny said,

  “I want to be – with you – Aunt Roberta.”

  “I have promised to look after you,” Roberta replied, “but we have to be very clever and very quick, so do as I say and go to your room.”

  He did so and Roberta went to the Minister’s study.

  She opened several drawers of the desk before she found what she was seeking, which was Danny’s birth certificate.

  In the envelope with it was a wedding ring, which she guessed had belonged to his mother and had been taken from her finger before she was buried.

  As she looked at it, she had a sudden idea.

  She slipped the ring onto the third finger of her left hand and found that, although it was a little tight, it fitted her.

  Then she opened Danny’s birth certificate.

  He had been born to a Mr. and Mrs. Boscombe in New Orleans on the 3rd September 1878, his name was Daniel, but there was no address.

  Putting the birth certificate into her pocket she closed the drawer and then opened the
others.

  She found nothing there that concerned her aunt or her husband, so she shut them up again and went to her own room.

  It was difficult to decide what she should take with her and what she should leave behind.

  Finally she packed what the Americans called a ‘grip’, which was a very light case that could hold a number of her thinnest gowns and underclothes without making it too heavy for her to carry.

  It was sad to leave behind so many of the pretty clothes that her father had bought her in Paris.

  But she had a feeling that they were now not only too small but also because they had been so long in Africa many of them were too young for her, especially in what she had decided should be her new role.

  When she had packed and had put on the gown she considered most suitable for travelling, she went into Danny’s bedroom.

  He was sitting on his bed cuddling Columbus and she realised from the way he looked at her that he was still shocked and also very frightened at what was happening.

  She sat down beside him and patted Columbus before she said,

  “Now, darling, I want you to listen to me very carefully. We are going away and I do not yet know exactly where we are going. But, because I want to look after you, as I promised I would do, and Columbus, I am going to pretend that I am your mother, your real mother.”

  “My mother who was – killed in the – railroad accident?” Danny asked.

  “That is right,” Roberta agreed. “I have your birth certificate, which tells me how old you are and, because I am afraid people might try to take you away from me and say that because I am unmarried I am not a fit person to look after you, I want you to call me ‘Mama,’ and make everybody who meets us believe that I am your real mother.”

  There was silence for a moment and then Danny smiled.

  “I’d like you to be my Mama,” he said. “I love you – Aunt Roberta!”

  “And I love you, darling,” Roberta said, “but unless we are not to get into a lot of trouble, we have to be very clever.”

  She thought that Danny understood and added,

  “This is an adventure, but a secret one. Do you understand?”

  “I will say you are my Mama,” Danny said, “and Columbus would say so too, if he could speak.”