Angel In The Saloon (Brides of Glory Gulch) (12 page)

Amelia spent the day downstairs in the Saloon chatting
with her Aunt and the two saloon girls who were on duty. Occasionally, she was
introduced to a client and conversed with them for awhile. The men understood
that she was a lady and treated her respectfully. The conversations were
certainly not stimulating, but were interesting enough to pass the time.

Late in the afternoon, she retreated into the upstairs
parlor to read one of her Braille books she had brought with her from Georgia. These
were very expensive and she only owned a few of them. Even though she had them
pretty well memorized, she read them every chance she could just to stay
abreast of her reading skills.

Reclining against one end of the couch with a small
quilt around her shoulders, her feet were comfortably wrapped in the layers of
her petticoats drawn up beside her.

Corrin appeared shortly with a tray containing a bowl
of hot vegetable soup, some bread and butter from the bakery, and a pot of
freshly brewed tea. After depositing the tray on Amelia’s lap, she started a
fire in the fireplace to take the chill out of the air.

“Thank you, Aunt Corrin. You’re so sweet. I love you.”

“I . . . love you too, sweetie.”

Amelia smiled. She knew the words were difficult for
her aunt to say, but she’d said them. As her aunt headed back downstairs,
Amelia burrowed in with such a warm feeling, not from the soup or the fire, but
from her heart burning with a sense of being where she belonged. And it felt
good. Soon she was bathed inside and out in warmth and couldn’t keep her eyelids
open any longer and yielded herself to a nap.

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Amelia wasn’t sure how long she’d been asleep. Drinking
some of the room-temperature tea, she settled in to begin reading, unsure if
the gray gloom of the day had given way to the dismal darkness of the night.
One thing was certain, though; the cold rain still beat unremittingly against
the window pane.

She detected footsteps in the hallway outside. They
weren’t her Aunt’s dainty steps. Then a knock at the door. “Come in,” she
called.

“Hello,” Paul said as he opened the door. “Corrin told
me you’ve been up here alone for some time, and I thought you might like some
company.”

“Good evening, Paul. Yes, I would enjoy your company. Please,
come in and sit down. I hope you don’t mind if I just stay where I am. I’m so
lazy today that I just don’t want to move.”

“No, I don’t mind at all. You look so comfortable---and
pretty the way the firelight is dancing upon your hair and face.”

“Why Paul Strupel, that was poetic. Do you like
poetry?”

“Sure.” He made himself comfortable on the couch
beside her.

“That’s what I’ve been reading. Would you like to hear
some?”

“I’d like that. Is that one of those new Braille
books?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Show me how it works.”

She sat upright, and he moved closer.

 “Give me your hand.”

When he did, she separated his index finger and with
her left hand, identified the letter ‘a’. Then she placed his finger over the ‘a’
and told him what the letter was. She demonstrated several more letters, and
then helped him identify a short word.

“This is more difficult than I had imagined.” He
withdrew his hand and placed it on the back of the couch. “I admire you for
being able to read Braille.”

“Shall I continue?”

“Sure.”

Amelia read the beautiful words by moving her fingers
across the pages. She was aware that Paul kept his hand on the back of the
couch. Amelia’s whole body was tingly from having him so near. It became difficult
for her to concentrate on reading.

There came another knock at the door, and Jeremiah
Cowan enthusiastically entered without waiting to be invited in. “Well, hello
there. Corrin told me you would be here. What are you doing?”

“Shouldn’t you be out chopping a tree or something?” Paul
said with a note of sarcasm in his voice.

“Too wet,” Jeremiah said. “This kind of storm slows us
down too much, and it’s too dangerous to move the logs in this mud. So after
almost two days of this, I’m temporarily out of business. But, of course, you
already knew that, didn’t you, Strupel?” Amelia heard him stoke the fire. “So I
thought I’d come to town to keep Amelia company. But if you want me to head
back up the mountain, I guess I will. Just let me warm myself up a bit before I
catch a cold or something.”

“We don’t mind your company at all.” Amelia was
grateful for the interruption which had caused Paul to withdraw his hand from
behind her. But she knew he was anything but thrilled at Jeremiah’s presence.

“This is quite cozy, Strupel,” Jeremiah said. It
sounded like he sat on the floor by the fire. “With the fire being the only
source of light, you know a true gentleman wouldn’t even consider taking
advantage of a young lady by sitting so close to her in a dimly-lit
room---unchaperoned.”

“Taking advantage of her!” Pal bolted to his feet. “Amelia
is blind and sits in dark rooms all the time. As long as I can see where I’m
going, it’s not a big issue.”

“That doesn’t matter. It’s the principal of the
situation that counts. And it sure didn’t look like you were planning on going
anywhere. Except maybe with your hands.”

“I can’t believe you’d even think that, Cowan!” Anger
surged through Paul’s voice. “Is that why you came here tonight? To insult me?”

“Gentlemen! Please, stop!”

“There Cowan. You’ve upset Amelia.”

“I thought you Christians were supposed to behave more
honorably than that.” Jeremiah got to his feet

“I should have known you’d bring that into this. Well,
I don’t have to justify myself to you. We were simply having a nice time
reading when you barged in---
uninvited
I might add.”

“I think I know what’s happening here,” Jeremiah said.
“You’re jealous because Amelia’s going to the dance with me Saturday night, so
this is an attempt to try to change her mind about it. Right, Strupel?”

“Jealous of you? I can’t believe you’d be so immature
as to think---”

“That’s it!”Amelia jumped to her feet, her book
crashing to the floor as she spoke loudly and sternly. “I’ve had enough of your
quarreling. I’m appalled at this behavior coming from full-grown men. Why, I’ve
seen children behave better than this. And I refuse to become an object of contention,
a trinket for you two to argue over.” She picked up her cane and maneuvered
around them to the door and opened it. Her face was tight and flushed. “I’m
afraid I’m going to have to ask both of you to please leave.”

The men were obviously caught off guard at her
discomposure.

“I’m sorry, Amelia---”

“It’s too late for your apologies, Jeremiah,” Amelia
interrupted. “You’ve managed to ruin the evening. So please, just leave.” She
gestured toward the open door. He headed toward the door and stopped directly
in front of her.

“I really am sorry and embarrassed for my behavior,
Amelia.”

“I may forgive you later, but I just don’t feel like
it right now.”

“What about Saturday night?”

“Well, fortunately for you, my temper usually fades
quickly, so let’s just leave Saturday as it is. That is, if you’ve learned to
control yourself by then and will promise to behave like a gentleman.”

“I will. You can count on that,” he said and then
headed out the door.

“I’m sorry too, Amelia.” Paul stepped toward her and
put his hand on her shoulder.

“I’m particularly disappointed in you.” She brushed off
his hand. “You should know better than to let him get to you like that. I’ll
never understand what it is between you two that causes such behavior, but I
don’t like it and I won’t stand for it.”

“You want me to leave too?”

“Please.”

Without any further words, Paul took his leave and
Amelia was left alone at the door, flustered and disappointed at the unpleasant
incident that was imposed upon her by two people she cared about.

She went to her room and packed for the coming trip,
hurling articles of clothing into her valise with exasperation. When she had
finished, she went to bed with a headache and without saying her nightly
prayers.

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Amelia awoke the next morning with anticipation of the
shopping trip with her Aunt, but with regrets for the harsh words she had
spoken the night before. She immediately knelt and asked God’s forgiveness for
her anger and for treating her gentlemen guests so poorly.

When finished, she repacked her clothes more neatly,
and then decided to take a quick towel bath, realizing that there would be no
hot water prepared at this time of the day. She collected her toiletries and
headed for the bath.

When Amelia opened the door to her room, she heard the
sound of something being pushed across the hallway floor. She poked and prodded
with her cane until it alighted upon something. Placing her cane in the hand
that was carrying her clothes, she bent over and felt for the object. It was a
box wrapped in paper with a ribbon tied around it. What was this on the top? It
was dry and crumbly and she had crushed them before she realized they had been
dried flowers.

Dropping her clothes to the ground, she picked up the
parcel and untied the ribbon, retrieving the wooden box from inside as the
wrappings and what was left of the flowers dropped to the floor. Opening the
box, she felt inside and found straw surrounding the contents and pushed it
aside until she found the object it contained and immediately recognized it.

Retreating back to her room, Amelia left her clothes
and the wrappings on the floor in the doorway, sat on the bed, and carefully
extracted the precious music box. Holding it lovingly in her hands, tears
formed in the corners of her eyes. She fingered the entire porcelain lady and
locating the brass key at the bottom of the base, wound it carefully. As the
music played and the miniature lady twirled and danced in her lap, she
swallowed hard.

“I forgive you, Paul. Please forgive me.”

“Amelia, it’s time to go. The stage master won’t wait
any longer.” Corrin probably saw the downhearted look on her niece’s face. “I
don’t think he’s coming today, Honey.”

Amelia sighed loudly and boarded the stage with her
Aunt’s help. She had hoped Paul would see her off so that she could thank him
for the wonderful gift and ask his forgiveness for her behavior. Now it would
just have to wait until Friday.

“Haw!” The stagecoach driver yelled loudly to the team
and tugged the reins. The stage jerked and began its four and a half hour
journey to Glenwood Springs. Corrin and Amelia were the only two on this
portion of the trip, which allotted them plenty of time to talk.

“Aunt Corrin, why do Paul and Jeremiah fight with each
other the way they do? Have they always acted this way?”

“Well, sweetie, it may be hard for you to believe, but
almost twenty years ago, those two were vying for another young woman’s heart,
similar to the way they are now battling it out over you. Of course, they were
much younger then, and it was actually worse than it is now.

“But I think I should begin before that. You see,
about twenty-two years ago, I fell in love with a tall, handsome, young,
Southern gentleman named Alister Jackson.”

“My father?” Amelia gasped. “You were in love with my
father?”

“Yes, Dear. And we were engaged to be married. But
there was something I hadn’t told him. When I was a young woman, around fifteen
years old, I got a disease that almost killed me. The doctors never were able
to identify it, but the disease settled in parts of my body and did lots of
damage. The doctor told me that one of the results was that I couldn’t bear any
children.”

“Oh, Aunt Corrin. I’m sorry.” Amelia took her Aunt’s
hand in hers, not sure if she were trying to comfort Corrin or brace herself
for the rest of the story. Her mother had never even hinted that her father had
loved someone before her, especially her sister.

“Until then, that had been all Alister could talk
about; he wanted children. It was only two weeks before our wedding when I
finally got up the nerve to tell him that I couldn’t give him a baby.”

“What did he say?”

“Well, he said that it didn’t matter. He said our love
was strong enough to stand without children, but I knew he was crushed.” Corrin
paused and sighed.

“What happened?” Amelia couldn’t handle the silence.

“The day before the wedding, he eloped with my sister,
Grace.”

Amelia’s heart thumped hard inside her chest. Corrin
couldn’t possibly know the full extent of what she had just revealed to her
suspecting heart.

“He took her back to his precious Georgia to live. I
guess I never did forgive either of them. Grace tried writing me, but I just
sent her letters back unopened. Then they stopped coming altogether and we
drifted apart.” She looked touched Amelia’s cheek and put her arm around her. “Now
you can understand why I didn’t want you here, sweetie. You reminded me of the
loneliness in my life and everything I had tried to forget, but never forgave. You
forced me to look straight into the eyes of my past and deal with the pain I
left there. But, I think I finally forgave Alister and Grace last week. And now
I’ve been given a chance to live a whole new life. I’ve got my very own
daughter to love and take care of. If only I had read her letters, I would have
known about your father’s death. I hope you believe me when I tell you that I
would have tried to help you and Grace.”