By the time Augusta noticed Hattie starting to wilt, the child’s thick hair had mostly dried into heavy waves and tight, flyaway ringlets. A fiery nimbus outlined its thick mass when the lowering sun poured through the window. Hattie’s shoulders had developed a droop, her arms hung limp at her sides, and for the first time since Augusta gave her the doll, Lillian wasn’t carefully cradled in Hattie’s arms or clasped to her chest. Instead, the doll dangled from the girl’s hand, swinging gently with the slight sway of Hattie’s body.
Even as Augusta watched, the child’s eyes slid shut, then blinked open, her head nodding wearily. Clad only in her new ready-made white chemise and drawers, she looked like a vulnerable little soldier as she struggled to stay awake on the slipper chair where they’d bid her stand for her fitting.
Augusta promptly concluded the arrangements. Hattie had been measured to within an inch of her life, and the adults had pored over the pattern books, discussing fabrics and trim as they went. She saw no need to prolong the session when the child was so obviously exhausted. Helping Hattie down from the chair, she urged her to sit as Mirabel showed the dressmaker out.
Picking up the silver-backed brush, Augusta pulled it through Hattie’s thick hair. She spent several minutes enjoying the unaccustomed chore, before braiding the girl’s hair into a thick plait that fell to Hattie’s waist. Next, she tucked Hattie into a new batiste nightgown. She offered tooth powder and a brush, and when Hattie returned from performing her ablutions, Augusta had turned back the covers on the bed. She patted the mattress. “Come to bed, child.”
Yawning, Hattie stumbled across the room. “Am I going to sleep in here?” she asked, then tumbled onto the high mattress without awaiting an answer.
“Yes, dear. This is your room.” Augusta pulled the covers over Hattie’s shoulders and smoothed an errant tendril of bright hair back into the braid.
“It’s real pretty.” Hattie yawned again and her eyes drifted closed. Then her eyes flew open and she jerked up onto one elbow. “Where’s Lillian?” As quickly as the question was posed, the child subsided. “Oh. She’s here.” She pulled the doll from under the covers and tucked it into the crook of her arm. “Thanks, Aunt Augusta.” Her fan of lowered lashes flickered against her pale cheeks, and she sleepily raised a hand to rub at her nose. “For the room,” she murmured around a yawn, “’n’ for Lillian.”
Augusta smiled down at the young girl in the bed. She had a feeling she was very much going to enjoy having Hattie Taylor live with her. Very much indeed. “You’re welcome, dear. Good night.”
There was no answer. Hattie was already sound asleep.
4
Doc Fielding’s house
WEDNESDAY, JULY 5, 1899
Jake sat in the Fielding parlor and wondered how much longer Jane-Ellen would make him wait. He shifted in restless irritation. His dad had taught him to work hard from the time Jake was knee-high to a grasshopper, so idleness wasn’t his long suit.
Up until moments ago, he’d at least had Jane-Ellen’s father to keep him company. Doc was a blunt-spoken, down-to-earth man, and Jake liked him. They’d enjoyed a comfortable conversation before the Fieldings’ housekeeper stuck her head in the room to inform the doctor his services were needed on a ranch outside of town. Doc had poured Jake a stiff shot of whiskey, given him a conspiratorial wink, assured him Jane-Ellen wouldn’t be very much longer, and excused himself.
Gazing into his whiskey, Jake absently noted it was the same color as Hattie’s eyes. The thought made him smile. For pure entertainment value, thinking about the newest member of the Murdock household beat hell out of checking his timepiece every two minutes, impatiently awaiting Jane-Ellen’s appearance. In the eight weeks since her arrival, Hattie had made her presence felt in every corner of the house. Not a small accomplishment, considering children were supposed to be seen but not heard.
It was quickly evident no one had bothered to inform Hattie that silence was golden. She talked all the time. Her curiosity was boundless and she had questions about every aspect of the new life she’d been thrust into. Jake had overheard Mirabel just the other day, discussing Hattie with his mother.
“I have never,” Mirabel grumbled, “heard a body use the word ‘why’ so often! Why is it so green here, when it wasn’t in Nevada? Why do I do something that way—why not do it this way instead? Heavens, she even wanted to know why the crocheted pieces on chairs’ headrests and arms are called tidies. Who but her would think to ask?”
“I know,” Augusta had agreed wearily. “The gardener threatened to quit if she doesn’t stop badgering him for details about every plant in the yard. I also found her trailing Ethel around while the poor girl was trying to finish dusting so she could leave for the day. Hattie wanted to know everything about Ethel’s nine brothers and sisters.”
Jake grinned into his whiskey glass. You never knew when or where Hattie would pop up, Lillian in hand. But you could be sure she’d be found engaging her latest quarry in conversation, endlessly interrogating the poor sod or espousing opinions of her own. He, too, had come under her conversational guns. But unlike a good many adults, he enjoyed it.
Since Augusta removed the womenfolk to the ranch the day after Hattie arrived in Mattawa, he hadn’t spent as much time with her as his mother and Mirabel. With his schedule, there wasn’t time to make the trip from town to ranch and back during the workweek—not without getting up before the crack of dawn to get to the office, then coming back home late in the evening. But during his weekend exposure to Hattie, he found her extremely interesting.
The girl was one of a kind, her personality no doubt a result of the unique circumstances that allowed her to run wild before arriving in Mattawa. Or perhaps her outspokenness stemmed from the fact that she didn’t harbor a shy bone in her sturdy little body. Whatever the reason, she was pretty damned adaptable; you had to admire that. Her life to date couldn’t have been easy.
All the myriad rules governing proper behavior were obviously new to Hattie and, clearly, to her way of thinking, often incomprehensible. He didn’t doubt for a moment that she could be a trial for his mother, for she was a volatile little package. He’d heard her shouting with rage one minute and laughing uproariously the next. It was exactly that behavior, truth to tell, he found so fascinating. The things that set off other girls, reducing them to tears, seemed to elicit a different response entirely from Hattie.
Jake had never seen her cry. He’d heard her respond with anger or laugh something off with an unexpectedly timed sense of humor. But he’d never seen her blubber or lament. Even the day when her cursing finally caused Mirabel to follow through on the threatened mouth washing, Hattie hadn’t shed a tear. She had come up spitting out soap and screaming at the top of her lungs. And if her eyes had glittered, it sure as hell hadn’t been with tears. She was a stubborn little cuss, but he’d noticed she didn’t let it carry her to the point of idiocy. Since the mouth-washing episode, Jake hadn’t heard the infamous swear word pass her lips. He’d heard her whisper, “Hell’s bells,” a couple times, but Mirabel must not feel as strongly about that combination. Well, either that or Hattie had yet to use it anywhere near her.