The Endearment (2 page)
The only thing that worried him was the fact that she was Irish. He had heard that the Irish had short tempers. Living where they would, so far from others, with only each other, would turn out to be a fine fix if she proved to be quick to anger. He himself, being Swedish, was an amiable fellow--at least he thought himself so. He did not think his temper was anything to put a woman off, although sometimes, looking in the mirror, he worried about his face doing so. He had told Anna it would not make milk curdle, but the closer he came to meeting her the more he fretted. Yet he knew beyond a doubt she'd love the place.
He thought of his land, much land, so much more than in
Sweden
. He thought of his team of horses, a rare thing here where most had oxen, which cost a full two hundred dollars less than his beautiful Percheron team. He had named them the most American of names--Belle and Bill—in honor of his newly adopted land. He thought of his sod house, which he had cleaned so meticulously today before leaving it, and of the log house already begun. He thought of his grainfields ripening in full sun, which only two short years ago had been solid forest. He thought of his spring, his creek, his pond, his maples, his tamaracks. And even though he set small store by himself or his appearance, Karl Lindstrom thought, yes, I have much to offer a woman. I am a man with plenty.
Yet he dreamed of having more.
He pulled Anna's letters out of his deep pants pocket and studied the script again with great pride, thinking how lucky he was to be getting a woman who was lettered. How many men could claim a thing like that? Here, a man was lucky to have any woman, let alone a lettered one. But his Anna had learned her letters in
Boston
, and so could teach their children some day. Touching the coarse paper upon which she had written, thinking of her hands touching it--those hands he had never seen--and of the children they would one day make together, a lump clotted his throat. Thinking that no more would he have only his animals to talk to, only his own solitary company at mealtime, only his own warmth in the bed at night, he felt his heart beat crazily.
Anna, he thought, my little whiskey-haired Anna. How long I have waited for you!
Anna peered around the backs of the half-breed drivers as long as she dared, before hiding behind them, wiping her palms on her hand-me-down dress and telling James to alert her when he saw what he thought was the store.
"I see it!" James croaked, stretching his neck while Anna tried to shrink lower in the wagon.
"Oh nooo," she moaned under her breath.
"There's someone standing out front!" James said excitedly.
"Is it him? Do you think it's him?" Anna whispered nervously.
"I don't know yet, but he's looking this way."
"James, do I look all right?"
He glanced at her garish, royal blue dress with its ruffled skirt. James didn't much care for it. It revealed too much of her breasts, though she'd done her best to make tucks to draw its bodice protectively closer to decency. But he answered, "You look fine, Anna."
"I wish I had a hat," she said wistfully, touching her flyaway locks, absently smoothing them while her inadequacies loomed ever more obvious.
"Maybe he'll buy you one, He has one. It's a funny little cap like a pie plate with a bill."
"Wh ... what else? What does he ... what does he look like?"
"He's big, but I can't make out much. The sun's in my eyes."
Anna's eyes slid closed. She clasped her hands tightly between her knees and wished she knew how to pray. She rocked forward and backward, then resolutely opened her eyes again and took a deep breath that did nothing whatever to stop the quivering in her stomach.
"Tell me what he looks like as soon as you can make him out better," she whispered. One of the Indian drivers heard the whispering and turned around questioningly. "Just drive!" she said testily, flapping an impatient hand at him, and he faced front again, chuckling.
"I can see now!" James said
excitedly. "He's awful big, and he's wearing a white shirt and dark britches tucked into his boots and -“
"No, his face! What does his face look like!"
"Well, I can't tell from here. Why don't you look for yourself?" Then James, too, sat down so he wouldn't be caught gaping when they pulled in.
At the last minute Anna warned, "Remember, don't say anything about who you are until I have a chance to talk to him. I'll ... I'll try to get him used to me a little bit before he has to get used to you." She dusted at her skirt and gave it a useless fluff, then looked down at her chest and placed a trembling hand there, hoping he would not notice the patch of skin she couldn't quite cover when she'd altered the dress.
James swallowed hard, his youthful Adam's apple looking pronounced in his gangly neck. "Good luck, Anna," he said, but his voice cracked in the way it did so often lately. Those unexpected falsettos usually made the two of them laugh, but neither Anna nor James laughed now.
As the wagon approached, Karl Lindstrom suddenly wondered what to do with his hands. What will she think of these hands, such big, clumsy things? He jammed them into his pockets and felt her letters there, and grabbed onto one of them for dear life. His ears seemed suddenly filled with the sound of his own swallowing. He could see the two drivers clearly now. Behind them bobbed two other heads, and Karl fixed his sights on one of them, trying to make out the color of its hair.
A man, Karl thought, should not appear to be shaking in his big Swedish boots when he comes to meet his woman. What will she think if she sees my fright? She will expect a moose like me to act like I know what I am doing, to be sure of myself. Calm down, Karl! But the trembling in his gut could not be talked away so simply.
The wagon slowed, then stopped. The Indians secured the reins, and Anna heard a deep voice say to them, "You are here in good time. You have had a good trip?" The voice had the faint musicality of a Swedish accent.
"Good enough," one driver answered.
Footsteps came slowly around the rear of the wagon bringing a broad, blond giant of a man. In that first moment she felt like her whole body wanted to smile. There was a boyish hesitation before his mouth dropped open just a little. A big, callused hand moved up in slow motion to doff the little pie-plate hat from his wheat-colored hair. His Adam's apple bobbed once, but still he said nothing, just stood smashing that poor cap into a tight little twist in his two outsized fists, his eyes all the while locked on her face.
Anna's tongue felt swollen, and her throat wouldn't work right. Her heart was clubbing the bejesus out of the wall of her chest.
"Anna?" he spoke at last, charming her by his old-world pronunciation that made of the word a warmer thing than it had ever been before. "Onnuh?" he questioned again.
"Yes," she finally managed, "I am Anna."
"I am Karl," he said simply, and up went his eyes to her hair. And up went hers, also, to his.
Yellow, she thought, such very yellow hair. All this time she had wondered, imagined. Now here it was, the one thing that had had color in her thoughts of him. But she found her imagination had not done it justice. This was the most magnificent blond hair she had ever beheld on a man. Thick and healthy it was, with a hint of curl at the nape of his neck and around his face where tiny beads of perspiration formed.
Her hair, Karl found, was indeed the color of rich, Irish whiskey, as when the sun glances through it and lights its depths with shafts of sienna. It flew free in scarcely manageable wavelets; there were no Swedish braids in sight.
When his glance went wandering, so did her hand, to touch an unruly lock at her temple. The way Karl was staring, Anna wished once again that she had a hat. Then suddenly her hand dropped down and self-consciously clutched her other as she realized what she'd done, touching her hair as if frightened to have his gaze rove over her.
Once again their eyes met, his the color of the
And so he smiled a little himself, and she tried a shaky one in return. She was afraid to smile as wide as his appearance merited, for he was as handsome a man as she'd ever seen. His nose was perfectly straight, and symmetrical, with fine nostrils like halves of a heart. His cheeks were long, and just concave enough to make him look young and eager. His chin bore a shallow cleft, and his lips - still fallen open as if he too was having difficulty breathing - were beautifully sculptured and bowed up at crest and corners. His skin held the richness of color put there by the sun.
Guiltily, Anna dropped her gaze, realizing how freely she'd allowed her eyes to travel his face.
And Anna thought, no, he would not make milk curdle.
And Karl thought, yes, she is much more than passable.
At last Karl cleared his throat and settled his little cap back on his head. "Come, let me help you down, Anna, but pass me your things first." When he reached, his arm filled his white sleeve as fully as fifty pounds of wheat fills a grainsack.
She turned and reached beyond James who had sat through all that feeling like an eavesdropper--for all they'd hardly spoken to one another. When Anna got to her feet, she found her muscles stiff and unreasonable after the long ride, and feared Karl would find her clumsy and graceless. But he didn't seem to notice the hitch in her hip, only reached up his large hands to help her over the heckboard. His shirt-sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, exposing thick, sturdy forearms. His shoulders, too, filled his shirt until it was taut against his skin. When she braced upon them, she found them like rocks. Effortlessly, he took the distance from her leap, then his two wide hands lingered at her waist.
His hands are so big, she thought, her stomach going light at his touch.
Karl felt how little there was to her, and at closer range his suspicion was confirmed. She was no twenty-five years old!
"It is a very long ride. You must be very tired," he said, noticing that - young or not - she was very tall, indeed. The top of her head came nearly to the tip of his nose.
"Yes," she mumbled, feeling stupid at being unable to think of more to add, but his hands were still on her waist, the warmth of them seeping through and touching her, while he acted like he'd forgotten they were there. Suddenly, he yanked them away.
"Well, tonight you will not have to sleep beneath a wagon. You will be in a warm, safe bed at the mission." Then he thought, fool! She will think that this is all you can think of--bed! First you must show concern for her. "This is the store of Joe Morisette I told you about. If there are things that you need, we can get them here. It is best if we do the trading now because in the morning we will start early for my place."
He turned and walked beside her, watching the tips of her shoes flare her flouncy skirt out. She wore a dress that was not to his liking. It was sheeny, and too bright, with gussets at the breast as if made for an older woman of far fuller figure. It was an odd thing, with too much ruffle and too little chest, ill-suited for a place like
He was suddenly sure she wore it to make herself appear older. She could not be more than eighteen, he guessed, watching her askance as she walked a step ahead of him toward the store. There was a hint of breast camouflaged within the tawdry bodice, but what did he know of such?
She moved through the door ahead of him and he saw her from behind for the first time. There was nothing to her. Oh, she was tall all right, but far too thin for Karl's taste. He thought of the poles upon which his mother's green beans climbed, and decided the only thing this Anna of his needed was a little fattening up.
Morisette looked up as soon as they entered, calling out in a robust French accent, "So, she is here and the bride-groom can stop his nervous pacing and whiskey drinking!"
You have a big mouth, Morisette, Karl thought. But when Anna turned sharply and glanced back at Karl, she found him red to the ears. She'd seen enough whiskey drinkers in
Boston
to last her a lifetime. The last thing she wanted was to be married to one.
Must I deny such a thing to her right here before Morisette? Karl wondered. No, the girl will just have to learn that I am honorable once she has lived with me for a while.
Anna gazed around the store, wondering what he would say if she told him she would like to own a hat. Never had she owned a new hat of her own, and he had asked her if there was anything she needed. But she dared not ask for anything, knowing James still waited outside, thoroughly unnoticed by Karl Lindstrom. A hand at her elbow urged her toward the storekeeper. The swarthy French-Canadian wore a ready smile and a somewhat teasing grin.
"This is Anna, Joe. She is here at last."
"But of course it is Anna. Who else could it be?" Morisette laughed infectiously, flinging his palms wide. "You have had quite a ride up the government road, eh? It is not the best road, but it is not the worst. Wait until you have seen the road to Karl's house, then you will appreciate the one you have just come down. Do you know, young lady, that the newspapers warn women not to come here because the life is so hard?"