A Convenient Wife (26 page)

“Win says it's all right,” Kate said from behind her. Ellie turned quickly, her mind switching from one thought to another as she focused on the squirming bundle Kate held.

“Give him to me,” she told Kate, holding out her arms. “I can't wait to get my hands on him. It's been forever since I've held him.”

Kate grinned. “I only hope he doesn't make you wish me home early,” she said. “If he gets hungry before school's out, give him his sugar teat. I've put it in the sack with his diapers. Just dip it in a bit of water and he'll suck on it.” She looked back, almost reluctantly, Ellie thought, as she donned her coat, then wrapped her scarf over her head and around her neck.

“It's getting colder out there. I think it's good that Tyler doesn't have to be hauled around in the wind any more today. Oh, and Win said to tell you he's got enough patients to last the rest of the afternoon. Don't plan on seeing him till suppertime.” With a last wave, Kate opened the back door, and scooted through, quickly pulling it closed behind her.

Ellie turned to the rocking chair and settled herself,
unwrapping the outer blanket from the baby. His tiny fist flailed at the air, and his mouth puckered as the light made him blink. “I thought you might be asleep,” Ellie crooned, lifting him to kiss the downy head. “You precious child.” Her arms held him against her breast and she rested his slight weight against the rise of her abdomen.

The baby protested once, a sluggish nudge of knee or foot pressing against Tyler's backside, and Ellie laughed. “You'd better get along, the two of you. You're going to be friends, right from the start, if I have anything to say about it.” A lullaby she barely remembered came to mind, and she alternately hummed the tune and sang snatches of the lyrics as she rocked Tyler to sleep.

 

It seemed Tyler did not like the wash basket she'd called into use as a bed for him, and Ellie picked him up for the third time, shushing his fretful cries, holding him against her shoulder as she poured water over the potatoes she'd peeled. With one hand, she pushed the kettle to the hottest spot on the stovetop and slapped its lid in place. Surely it was almost time for Kate to be home from school, she thought.

“Hush, little baby,” she sang, her voice rising, finally gaining his attention. He sniffled, and she snatched her handkerchief from her wrapper pocket to dab at the tiny nostrils. Again, he shrieked, and his face turned crimson with his fury. One small fist batted at her chin, and she paused in her lullaby to laugh aloud at his antics. But not for long.

He suckled on that same fist for a moment, his mouth working eagerly, and finding no sustenance there, he screamed anew. “The sugar teat,” Ellie exclaimed, frustrated that she had not thought of it earlier.

Lifting the stack of cloth diapers to the chair, she bent to locate the small pacifier. “Maybe you need changing again,” she told him, muttering the thought aloud. His blanket made a pad atop the table and she placed him there, the sugar teat
forgotten for a moment as she stripped him from a wet diaper and reached for a clean one from the sack.

He kicked and squirmed, wailing mightily, his fists clenched, arms thrashing in the air. The diaper pin between her lips, she brought up the bottom of the triangle to his tummy and matched it with the other two corners.
Finally.
Carefully, she pressed the heavy pin through the flannel and latched it.

“There you go, dumplin',” she told him, bending to brush her lips against his tummy before she pulled his gown down to cover him. The extra small blankets Kate had included to pad his tiny bottom fit between his legs, and Kate looked down. “That doesn't look very comfortable,” she told him, aware that her voice caught his attention.

He frowned intently and his face reddened, and then she heard the unmistakable sound of his diaper being filled again. “Oh, Tyler!” She could barely suppress the groan, as he looked up at her with his wise eyes narrowed, and opened his mouth to yawn.

A hissing from the stove announced that her potatoes had boiled over and she held one hand on the baby's tummy as she reached to tug the pan from the hot spot. It was a long stretch and she held the very end of the handle between her fingers, giving it a jerk to move it to a cooler place on the surface of the stove. Boiling water ran over the side of the pan, the pungent aroma of potatoes combined with the hot stove lid making her wince.

Unpinning the diaper, she wrinkled her nose. “I don't know which smells worse, you or the burned potato water,” she grumbled. “Although I think you win the prize, sweetie.” Both hands filled with dirty diaper, the cloth she used to clean him with and nowhere to deposit either item, she stood erect, her back aching from the strain of bending over the table.

Her hair had come loose from the braid and curled in the steam from the stove. Tendrils hung against her cheeks, and
she blew one from in front of her eyes, and then stood in dismay as Tyler discovered his lungs were in good working order once again.

“Well, drat,” she muttered, just as the kitchen door opened wide and a woman marched into view.

“I'd say you've let things get out of hand, young woman,” her guest said, peering at Ellie through spectacles that rode the end of her nose.

Ellie gawked. Torn between depositing the soiled diaper and rag on the floor, and tossing them in the stove, she could only allow her gaze to sweep over the middle-aged woman who faced her. A finely made traveling suit looked to have been tailored by hand, and a dark feather swept elegantly across the top of her hat. With dainty gestures, she tugged her gloves from her hands, working at each finger, while the reticule hanging from her arm swung in rhythm with her movements.

“I beg your pardon,” Ellie said, her voice rasping. She cleared her throat and tried again. “May I help you? Are you lost?”

“I don't believe so. Not if this is the home of Dr. Winston Gray.” She looked around the kitchen and her sniff was audible. “Are you the housekeeper?”

“No, I'm his wife,” Ellie said sharply. “Who are you?” And at just that moment, Tyler's naked male apparatus sprayed like a veritable fountain. Ellie dodged, and the woman lifted a diaper from the stack and covered the source with a swift movement. Then she stood erect once more and allowed her eyes to take Ellie's full measure.

“I, my good woman,” she said majestically, “am Winston's mother.”

“Y
ou're Win's mother.” As a statement of fact, it left Ellie feeling less than capable of sounding the least bit intelligent. And when the elegant lady in front of her only nodded her head, then took a long look around the kitchen, Ellie was certain she'd awakened in the middle of a bad dream.

The soiled diaper in her left hand and the equally dirty rag in her right precluded any attempt to shake the woman's hand in greeting. And the half-naked baby in the middle of the kitchen table needed tending in the very worst way.

“Well, shoot,” Ellie muttered, and then summoned her most welcoming smile. “Would you mind keeping your eye on Tyler while I get rid of his mess?” Not allowing Mrs. Gray the time to summon up a refusal, Ellie turned away, snatching up a remnant of brown paper, left over from her latest delivery from Tess Dillard. She wrapped the offending diaper and rag, then stashed it next to the back door, where it could be taken outdoors and rinsed in a bucket of water when Kate arrived.

Shooting a glance at Win's mother, she turned toward the sink, seeking to hide the hot wash of embarrassment erupting in crimson cheeks and watering eyes. What a way to meet this specimen of Saint Louis society, with the kitchen filled
to the ceiling with the stench of scorched potato water and the equally noxious odor of a dirty diaper.

She scrubbed her hands with a dab of the soap leavings she kept beneath the sink, rinsing well beneath the pump, and then snatched at a handy towel. Her hands still damp, she headed awkwardly toward the table, reaching for the back of a chair to balance herself. Tyler was awake and alert, peering up at Mathilda Gray with his wise gaze focused on her face, his mouth working at one fist, while the other waved energetically in the air.

“I'll just put on a clean diaper,” Ellie said, her head bent to conceal the incipient tears she attempted to blink away. Her fingers trembled as she lifted Tyler's legs and slid a clean flannel beneath his narrow behind. The damp cloth Mrs. Gray had put in place, Ellie used to wipe his round belly and the creases where moisture had accumulated. And then she repeated the diapering process, pinning him neatly inside the last clean triangle Kate had provided for her use.

“You seem to have had a considerable amount of practice at that,” Mrs. Gray said, her voice suggesting that Ellie might have done at least one thing right during the past few minutes.

“Not a lot,” Ellie admitted. “This is the first time I've had Tyler all to myself. But I've certainly used up a stack of diapers in a short while.”

“And, who, may I ask,” Mrs. Gray said, in her cultured voice that grated on Ellie's ears, “is the mother of this child?” The woman was straight as a pine tree, her shoulders squared, her head erect, and Ellie felt doomed as those sharp, green eyes took her measure.

“He belongs to our next-door neighbor. Kate is the schoolteacher.”

“A schoolteacher, with a child?” Mrs. Gray asked, as if the idea of such a thing were out of the question. “She is allowed to teach?”

Ellie felt her own backbone stiffen at the insinuation that Kate was not fit to be in a schoolroom. “Yes, of course,” she said firmly. “The town council realized that Kate is too good a teacher to keep her at home just because she's had a baby.”

Mrs. Gray leveled a superior look at Ellie, issuing a statement she apparently believed in firmly. “A woman belongs in the home, where she can fulfill her obligations and spend her time on the duties of a wife and mother.”

And wasn't that about as straitlaced an observation as anyone had ever spouted, Ellie thought. “Well, Kate feels she belongs in the schoolroom, and that's where she is.”

“And she considers you a fitting substitute, allowing you to care for her child?”

Ellie reached up to brush back the wayward tress of hair that insisted on blurring her vision. “She probably thought I needed practice,” she said quietly. And for the first time, she wondered how she would cope when her own child filled her arms. She'd certainly made a botch of things over the past fifteen minutes or so.

The fact that Win's mother put her at a disadvantage was the only shred of hope she could find right now in the awkward silence that settled over her kitchen. Overly warm, tremendously clumsy and more ill at ease than she'd ever been in her life, she felt the heat from the cookstove overwhelm her suddenly, and she pulled a chair from beneath the table. She plopped down in it, pulling the baby, blanket and all, toward her, where she could wrap him securely in his lightweight swaddling cloth, and ready him for Kate's arrival.

Her hands seemed inefficient as she tucked him together, and she concentrated on bundling him as Kate had presented him to her just three hours earlier. Had it only been three hours? Tyler's fist was wet, the sleeve of his gown drenched where he'd suckled in vain over the past few minutes, and as Ellie's hand brushed his cheek, he turned to her fingers, his mouth open, seeking nourishment.

“I don't have anything for you, sweetie,” she whispered, watching in abject horror as his lips attempted to fasten on her knuckle and he discovered that she offered nothing to assuage his hunger. His eyes squinted shut and he howled, a mighty blast that brought Mrs. Gray into action.

She stepped neatly to Ellie's side and issued her next barrage. “I don't know what your neighbor was thinking of, allowing you to tend the child. There's a perfectly good sugar teat going to waste while that child is raising the roof.” Snatching it up, she went to the sink, pumped once and held the cloth-wrapped object under the flow of water for just a fraction of a second, long enough to dampen its surface. Then with purposeful movements, she stalked back to the table and deposited it into Tyler's open mouth.

He clamped down on it, his jaws working as he sought what little nourishment it offered. Eyes blinking, he concentrated mightily, and with a flourish, Mrs. Gray swooped him from the table to hold him in both hands.

It was at that moment that Kate opened the door and backed into the kitchen, carrying a casserole dish in both hands. “Ethel waved me over from her door and told me to bring this to you, Ellie,” she said. A dish towel in each gloved hand, she placed the pottery container on the buffet and turned to face Mathilda Gray.

“Ma'am?” Never at a loss for words, Kate appeared speechless, her gaze moving from Mrs. Gray's face to the bundle she held on outstretched hands.

“I assume this is your child?” Mathilda asked.

“Yes, of course,” Kate answered hastily, reaching to take Tyler. “Oh, did he get hungry?” she asked. “I see you had to give him his doo-doo.”

“Doo-doo?”
Mathilda made the term sound somehow obscene, Ellie thought.

Kate's reddened cheeks flushed even more. “My mother
used to call it that,” she explained. And then she bent her head to the child she held. “Are you starving to death, angel?”

Ellie's eyes closed in relief. Kate's arrival couldn't have come at a better time, as far as she was concerned. Cleaning up the mess in her kitchen was imperative, and with the baby in safe hands, Ellie was free to tend to that chore. “Sit down here and feed him,” she offered, motioning to the rocking chair. “I'll sort things out.”

“Introduce me to your visitor,” Kate said blithely, seating herself and opening her coat. Her gloves on the floor, her scarf flung back, she was well on her way to providing Tyler with his meal.

“Kate, this is Win's mother. Mrs. Gray, I'd like you to meet Kate Kincaid, my neighbor. Her husband is the town sheriff, and Kate teaches at the school here in town.”

“Yes,” Mathilda said, looking at Kate through her spectacles. “So you said.”

“I didn't know you were coming to visit.” Kate looked up with a cheerful smile, deftly ignoring Ellie's discomfort. “I imagine Ellie was surprised.”

You have no idea.
Ellie turned away, listening as Mathilda gave a recital of her trip. Even the mundane details she listed sounded of great importance as she paraded the trials of travel before Kate's hearing.

“I took the train to Butte, a nasty experience, I must say. I assume they assign the most aged cars to any area west of civilization. Then a stagecoach to Whitehorn. The driver was uncouth, the other passengers riffraff of the lowest sort.” She paused, as if she considered those lowly beings she had been forced to travel with, and shook her head, a slight shiver causing her mouth to pucker. “I must say the accommodations were not up to the standards I'm accustomed to. But then, when one attempts to travel on the frontier, I suppose one must be willing to make concessions.”

“By all means,” Kate replied dryly. “I well remember my
arrival in Whitehorn. I managed to interrupt a bank robbery, and when the bandits attempted to confiscate the stagecoach for their getaway, I ended up in the middle of the road, sitting flat on my fanny in the dirt.”

“A most illustrious beginning to your career, I'm sure,” Mathilda said stiffly.

“I don't know about that,” Kate told her cheerfully, “but it did get me a husband.”

“Indeed?” Ellie had not known eyebrows could climb so high, and decided that Win's mother was most adept at that particular talent. “I take it,” Mathilda added with a note of disdain coloring her words, “that the sheriff took pity on you?”

Ellie bristled on Kate's behalf. “I'm sure there was no pity involved,” she said quickly. “James Kincaid was a fortunate man to find someone like Kate.”

“Well,” Kate drawled, glancing down at Tyler, “I'm not sure I was the most glamorous creature he'd ever seen up to that point in his life. But he did tell me it was his first glimpse at my knees that convinced him to marry me.”

Mathilda apparently decided that remark did not merit her attention, and she began a slow perusal of the kitchen as Ellie stifled a burst of nervous laughter in her dish towel. And then she looked at Kate, willing her to continue with the conversation. Lifting her shoulders in a helpless shrug, Kate grinned, and bent low over Tyler, murmuring softly, one foot keeping the rocker in motion.

“If I'd known you were on your way,” Ellie said pleasantly, “I'd have been better prepared.” She scrubbed at the oilcloth that covered the kitchen table, determined that no trace of Tyler, his blanket or any scent of dirty diaper should remain there. Her next project was the diaper she'd left bundled by the back door.

Kate apparently was alert to the movement around her for she spoke up quickly. “Just leave that be, Ellie. I'll take it
home with me and let it soak on the back stoop while I cook supper.”

So much for that escape route, Ellie thought glumly. She was not to get a reprieve of any sort from the relentless stare of Mathilda Gray, and she could only wish fervently for Win to appear from his office. And with that, she felt a jolt of inspiration.

“I'll just run down to Win's office and let him know you're here,” she said brightly, dropping the dishcloth on the sink board.

“I doubt he would appreciate being interrupted while he is doing whatever he does in his
office,
” Mathilda said. “Has he found any
customers
in this godforsaken part of the country?”

Ellie felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. “He prefers to call them
patients,
” she said quietly, wondering how soon they could ship the woman back to Saint Louis. How Win had ever been birthed by this highfalutin female was beyond her.

“If he'd gone into law or banking, he'd have dealt with clients who were of his social stature,” Mathilda said curtly. “He was raised to be a gentleman.”

“He
still is
a gentleman,” Ellie replied. “His reputation is above reproach, ma'am.”

“Oh? Then why did it take him so long to marry you? Or wasn't he the one who got you in the family way?” The look was frosty, and Ellie felt chilled by icy-green eyes that held more than a trace of dislike.

“No, he wasn't,” she said. “I would have thought Win's uncle would have given you the particulars,” Ellie said quietly. “Or didn't you see him after he was here?”

“He arrived in Saint Louis the very day before I left. I didn't speak with him, although he did manage time to talk to Winston's father. Geoffrey seemed to think we'd be pleased to welcome you to the family,” she said, her mouth twisting
as though the idea were making her ill. “Given your denial of Win as your child's father, I don't think that is remotely possible.”

“Maybe not,” Ellie agreed. “And I guess that's your choice to make. But Win's uncle didn't seem to be angry about it. Maybe he thought Win had good reason for what he did.”

She edged toward the hallway door. “I'll just go and check on Win.” The knob in her hand, she sent a pleading look in Kate's direction. “Tell Mrs. Gray about the school, why don't you, Kate?”

The knob turned readily and Ellie was in the hallway, leaning against the wall, her breath catching in her throat. She'd never been exposed to such blatant prejudice in her life. Maybe the woman felt she had just cause, considering the circumstances, but she ought to at least listen to Win's story first.

Social stature.
Whatever those words were supposed to mean, they didn't describe anything much that Win was interested in. If there was ever a true gentleman on the face of this earth, Winston Gray was his name, and she'd defy anyone, including the creature from Saint Louis to say any different.

“Ellie?” Win stood before her, his hands resting on her shoulders, and she realized her eyes were squeezed tightly shut, her fingers were pressed tightly against her mouth, and her heart was beating at a furious pace within her breast. “What's wrong, sweetheart? Are you feeling sick? Do you have pain?”

He looked down at a tapestry valise that sat on a chair near the staircase. “Whose is that?” His words were taut with suspicion, and he looked toward the closed kitchen door. “Ellie, is someone here?”