Montgomery - Eternity Part 16

Carrie narrowed her eyes at him. He was taking this as a joke. When they were dealing with Josh's brother it had been serious business, but now that her own somewhat difficult brother was here it could be treated like a joke. "He loves his children very much and he loves me and I love him."

Josh smiled at 'Ring. "She has no reason to love me, she just does."

'Ring smiled back. "I have no other but a woman's reason: I think him so, because I think him so.' "

"Exactly," Josh said and seemed extremely pleased with 'Ring. "More of this fine brew, brother-in-law?"

'Ring held his gla.s.s aloft. " 'O thou invisible spirit of wine! If thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil!' "

"What is wrong with you, 'Ring!" Carrie snapped. "Can't you say anything but that awful poetry?"

'Ring gave an exaggerated look of self-pity. " 'She speaks poniards, and every word stabs: if her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the north star.'"

"Stop it!" Carrie said and banged her fist on the table. "What in the world is wrong with you?"

'Ring shook his head a bit, as though to clear it. "I don't know. Ever since I stepped off the stage, every Shakespearian phrase I've ever heard has been running through my head. In the bath I was trying to do all of Hamlet."

"You can do them at home," she said fiercely. "Right now I'd like to spend time with you and my husband and not with some two-bit stage player."

'Ring opened his mouth, looked as though he were going to quote something again, but closed it. Then, with a serious look, he said, "You were telling me about your husband. About the worms, I believe."

"And the weeds," Josh added.

Carrie sat across the table and looked at both of them. She had no idea what was going on, but she felt like getting up and leaving them there alone. They both wore the same smug, self-satisfied look that only men can put on, as though they were superior merely because they had been born men.

Reaching across the table, 'Ring squeezed his sister's hand. "I apologize. I think I have my poetry under control now. Tell me about yourself and what you've been doing."

"I was telling you about Josh. About his farm." For all that she'd said that 'Ring wouldn't care about Josh's farm, the truth was she was a bit worried that 'Ring would find the place a little bit ragged. "And about Josh." Her face lit up. "Josh can read a story aloud as well as Maddie can sing."

'Ring looked at Josh with new respect. "Can you now? That's saying a great deal."

"Who is Maddie?" Josh asked.

"She's 'Ring's wife and to the world she's known as LaReina."

It was Josh's turn to look at 'Ring with respect, for LaReina was one of the world's greatest opera singers. "My congratulations on your choice and on the honor of having such a woman for a wife. I've heard her sing many times. In Paris and Vienna and Rome. I've gone to hear her whenever possible."

"I didn't know you'd been to all of those places," Carrie said, but Josh ignored her.

"Thank you," 'Ring said. "She's a wonderful woman and-" He broke off as his eyes widened. "You can read aloud... You're-"

With one very swift gesture, Josh flung his arm out and knocked 'Ring's wine gla.s.s over, effectively stopping 'Ring from saying what he'd started to. As Carrie was looking at the mess on the table, she missed seeing the way her husband looked at 'Ring with eyes that begged him to say no more.

After Carrie finished trying to mop up the spilled wine, she didn't know what had happened, but she knew that something had. It was as though both men had joined some secret club that excluded her. It was as though, in the s.p.a.ce of a few seconds, they had become the best of friends. For the rest of the long dinner, they talked to each other, only now and then acknowledging Carrie's presence. They talked of all the cities they had seen, plays they had attended, and 'Ring's wife's singing. They talked of people they both knew, of hotels and food and wine.

Carrie sat silent through the meal, ignored and smoldering at the way they treated her: as though she were much too young and untraveled to be of interest to them.

At long last the two men decided it was time to retire. "I shall see both of you tomorrow," 'Ring said. "Shall we say at your farm at noon? The wedding is set for five o'clock. That will give me time to meet these children of yours. Tell me," he said to Josh, "are they anything like you?"

Carrie felt that her brother was asking Josh a question that had a different meaning from what she was hearing.

"They are like me with one exception: They have more talent."

That seemed to amuse 'Ring a great deal.

By the time she and Josh said goodnight to 'Ring, Carrie wasn't speaking to either man.

As Josh took her arm, he was musing over something to himself and didn't seem to realize that Carrie was angry at him. Nor did he seem to notice that she wasn't speaking to him.

"I brought Hiram's wagon," he said. "It's at the stables. I a.s.sume you are going home with me."

Carrie's first thought was to tell him that she was staying at her shop in town, but she wanted to see the children again, and she wanted to tell them that she was staying in Eternity after all. She might never speak to their father again, but she was going to marry him tomorrow-if his wife gave him a divorce, that is.

Josh went to the stables, got the wagon, helped her onto the seat, then talked to her all the way home. He told her what a fine fellow her brother was, how educated, how wise, how cultured.

"I guess that's because he knows all the people you know, has been to all the places you have been. Places that I didn't even know you'd seen." Carrie's voice rang with sarcasm.

Josh didn't seem to hear her derision, but kept on talking about 'Ring and what a great guy he was. A man's man. "A man like him can handle a horse, a gun, a line of Shakespeare, and a woman all at once."

At that particular line, Carrie said she thought she was going to throw up.

"Is it the baby?" Josh asked, concerned, starting to halt the horses.

"No, it's you."Smiling, he flicked the reins of the horses.Before going to Josh's house, they stopped at Hiram's big, st.u.r.dy, perfectly clean, perfectly dull farmhouse-not a flower in sight-to pick up the children. Carrie stayed on the wagon while Josh went in to get them, carrying a sleeping Dallas in his arms, a drowsy Tem following. Carrie took Dallas, and Tem climbed onto the seat, snuggling against Carrie.

"Are you going to stay or leave?" Tem asked, yawning.

"Stay," Carrie answered.

Tem nodded as though to acknowledge that this was the latest decision, but that it might change in the next minute. At home Josh took the children up the ladder to the loft, then came back down to the first floor. Yawning, he walked to the bedroom.

Carrie met him at the door. "What are you doing?"

"Going to bed."

"Not in this room, you're not," she said firmly.

Josh sighed. "Carrie, love, this is ridiculous. I'm tired and I don't want to have to share that tiny bed with Dallas. Have pity on me."

"You are not spending the night with me. You and I aren't married. In fact, legally, you are married to another woman. If you and I slept together, we'd be committing adultery."

"But I was married to her before when we spent the night together."

"But then I didn't know anything."

Moving closer to her, the sleepy look left his eyes, and his voice lowered to a silky tone of seduction. "Carrie, my love, I just want a place to sleep. You can't deny a man that, can you?"

"Are you tired from raising worms all day or from talking to my brother and ignoring me all evening?"

"Carrie, honey," he said, pleading and reaching out to caress her cheek.

"Don't you touch me!" she said and slammed the bedroom door in his face.

Upstairs, when Josh climbed in the narrow bed with his daughter, Dallas sleepily said, "I told you Carrie wanted the big bed by herself."

The next morning Carrie was sound asleep when Josh allowed the children in the room to wake her up. But instead of jumping on the bed as they usually did, they climbed in with her and Choo-choo, and soon all of them were sleeping together in a heap.

Josh stood in the doorway drinking a cup of the world's worst coffee and looked at his family with love-well, maybe he didn't love the dog, but even that creature was growing on him.

Last night at dinner, contrary to what Carrie thought, he had been very aware of her anger. He probably shouldn't have indulged himself so, but her jealousy had felt so very good. He'd had women jealous when he'd given his attention to others, but those women had meant nothing to him. Those women had not loved him, not loved the man, but had loved who they thought he was. Several women in his past had tried to get to Josh through his children, but his children were very astute: They had universally hated all the women.

But now, looking at Carrie and the kids, not being able to tell where one person began and the other ended, he knew how very much he loved her. And she was right: He and his children needed her.

He smiled at the lot of them. Everything was going to be all right now. He knew it. All he had to do was deal with Nora, and then he'd be free.

As though thinking of her conjured her, Choo-choo jumped out from under the covers and began to bark frantically. Outside was the sound of an approaching carriage, and as Josh turned toward the front door, he grimaced. It couldn't be Nora already, could it?

At Choo-choo's bark, Carrie came awake slowly, and for the first few moments she wasn't sure where she was.

Tem raised his head. "Who's that?" They could hear the carriage as it stopped in front of the house; a man was yelling at the horses.

"I hope it isn't Uncle Hiram," Dallas said. "We'll tell him Carrie is here, and he'll be afraid and run away."

Laughing, Carrie began to tickle the child, while Tem went outside, but came back in seconds, his face pale. "It's Mother," he whispered.

Carrie sat up straight in bed. She had thought of this woman as Josh's wife, but not as the children's mother. Would they be so glad to see her that they'd forget about her, Carrie? Carrie chastised herself for even thinking such a terrible thought. This woman was the children's mother, and of course they loved her.

"Go on, go see her," Carrie urged.

But Dallas sat down on Carrie's lap, while Tem stayed by the door.

At that moment the front door to the house burst open, and even though Carrie couldn't see the woman, she could feel her presence, for the woman's spirit seemed to fill the little house.

"Where are they?" she called. "Where are my darling babies?"

Before Carrie could say anything, before she could tell Tem to close the bedroom door so the woman wouldn't see her sitting in bed with her hair mussed and wearing only a nightgown, Nora swept into the room.

She was large. She was tall and big boned and had a dramatically colored face: white skin, dark eyes, red lips, black hair. She wore an expensive dress of black and red brocade, her waist corseted down to what Carrie's practiced eye knew was no more than twenty inches. Above her waist was a bosom that most women would have given a few, or more, years of their lives to possess. Josh had said that his wife wasn't exactly pretty. No, this woman wasn't pretty. What she was, was beautiful. Stunning. A woman to make men stop in their tracks. A woman to inspire poems and songs written about her.

As Carrie was staring at this woman in speechless wonder, Tem had moved closer to her, and she put her arm around him as she hugged Dallas on her lap. For once, even Choo-choo was quiet.

"My goodness, what a very... domestic scene. Tell me, Josh, do all your new... ladies sleep with you and our children?"

Carrie wanted to defend herself, but what could she say, that she was this woman's husband's wife?

The children just looked at their mother silently.

"Come, darlings, and give your mother a kiss."

Obediently, silently, the children went to their mother. Bending, Nora allowed each child in turn to kiss her lovely cheek. But she didn't hug the children or touch them in any other way.

"And who is your little friend?" Nora asked Tem, nodding to Carrie.

"She's our new... I mean she and Papa are married."

"Are they? How very interesting." Turning, she looked at Josh who was standing behind her. "Darling, it looks as though you have two wives. I may not know a great deal about the law, but I don't think that's legal."

"Perhaps we should allow Carrie to get dressed," Josh said as he led his beautiful, ravishing, divine wife from the room.

Carrie dressed in her riding clothes, and when she was ready, she went into the parlor. Josh and his wife were sitting at the table, heads bent close together.

Pulling away, Nora looked Carrie up and down in appraisal. "Aren't you the cutest little thing? She's darling, Josh, wherever did you find her?"

"In the tadpole pond," Carrie said through her teeth and started toward the front door.

Josh caught her, held her arms to her sides, and led her back to the table. Still holding her, he pushed her onto the chair. "Tem!" he snapped. "Get Carrie some coffee."

When he'd placed the coffee before Carrie, Josh said, "Carrie, my love, my one and only love, I'd like you to meet Nora."

"Your wife," Carrie said flatly and tried to get up, but Josh held her shoulders.

"Why Joshua, darling, I do believe the little thing is angry at you. You did tell her about me, didn't you?"

"And how could I have accurately described you?" Josh's voice dripped acid.

Nora seemed to take that as a compliment as she gave a suggestive little laugh. "Of course you couldn't describe me, darling, but many men have tried." She turned back to Carrie. "She looks awfully small to be on the stage."

"She isn't on the stage," Josh snapped. "She's a wife and mother and nothing else."

"How very... interesting," Nora said, making no doubt as to what she thought of Carrie's life's work.

"I can run a shop," Carrie snapped, because Josh made her sound as though she stood over a laundry tub all day and hadn't a thought except how clean her floors were.

"A shop?" Nora said, one eyebrow raised.

"She buys dresses," Josh supplied, again making Carrie sound insignificant.

Carrie started to get up, but Josh held her down.

"Nora, just give me the paper to sign and get out of here. There's nothing here for you."

At that Nora began to cry rather prettily into a lace handkerchief.

"Josh, how could you be so unkind to me? I only came as an excuse to see my children once more. I miss them so much. I miss the sound of their footsteps in the night. I even miss the way Dallas used to wake up with bad dreams. I miss their voices. I miss-" She was crying too hard to go on.

In spite of herself, Carrie stretched her hand across the table to take Nora's. Carrie had known the children only a short time, but she thought she'd die if she had to leave them. What must this woman be feeling to have her children taken from her? And why had Josh done something so cruel to a woman he'd once loved?

Josh caught Carrie's hand before she could touch Nora.