The Giver of Stars Page 6

  Bennett rose from his chair. “Actually, I’m—uh—going to meet some of the fellas for a game. I was just waiting for you to come home so I could tell you.” He stood in front of her and she realized he was wearing the white trousers he used for sport. “We’re headed to the playing field over at Johnson.”

  “Oh. Fine, then. I’ll come and watch. I promise I won’t take a minute to scrub up.”

  He rubbed his palm over the top of his head. “It’s kind of a guy thing. The wives don’t really come.”

  “I wouldn’t say anything, Bennett darling, or bother you.”

  “That’s not really the point—”

  “I just would love to see you play. You look so . . . joyful when you play.”

  The way his gaze flickered toward her and away told her she had said too much. They stood in silence for a moment.

  “Like I said. It’s a guy thing.”

  Alice swallowed. “I see. Another time, then.”

  “Sure!” Released, he looked suddenly happy. “A picnic would be great. Maybe we can get some of the other fellows to come too. Pete Schrager? You liked his wife, didn’t you? Patsy’s fun. You and she will become real friends, I know it.”

  “Oh. Yes. I suppose so.”

  They stood awkwardly in front of each other for a moment longer. Then Bennett reached out a hand, and leaned forward as if to kiss her. But this time it was Alice who stepped back. “It’s okay, you really don’t have to. Goodness, I do reek! Awful! How can you bear it?”

  She backed away, then turned and ran up the steps two at a time so that he couldn’t see her eyes had filled with tears.

  * * *

  • • •

  Alice’s days had settled into something of a routine since she had started work. She would rise at 5:30 a.m., wash and dress in the little bathroom along the hall (she was grateful for it, as she had swiftly become aware that half the homes in Baileyville still had “outhouses”—or worse). Bennett slept like someone dead, barely stirring as she pulled on her boots, and she would lean over and kiss his cheek lightly, then tiptoe downstairs. In the kitchen she would retrieve the sandwiches she had made the evening before, grab a couple of the “biscuits” that Annie left out on the sideboard, wrap them in a napkin, and eat them as she walked the half-mile to the library. Some of the faces she passed on her walk had become familiar: farmers on their horse-drawn buggies, lumber lorries making their way toward the huge yards, and the odd miner who had overslept, his lunch pail in his hand. She had begun to nod to the people she recognized—people in Kentucky were so much more civil than they were in England, where you were likely to be viewed with suspicion if you greeted a stranger in too friendly a manner. A couple had started to call out across the road to her: How’s that library going? And she would respond: Oh, quite well, thank you. They always smiled, though sometimes she suspected they spoke to her because they were amused by her accent. Either way it was nice to feel she was becoming part of something.

  Occasionally she would pass Annie walking briskly, head down, on her way to the house—to her shame, she wasn’t sure where the housekeeper lived—and she would wave cheerily, but Annie would simply nod, unsmiling, as if Alice had transgressed some unspoken rule in the employer-employee handbook. Bennett, she knew, would rise only after Annie arrived at the house, woken with coffee on a tray, Annie having already taken the same to Mr. Van Cleve. By the time the two men were dressed, the bacon, eggs and grits would be waiting for them on the dining table, the cutlery set just so. At a quarter to eight they would head off in Mr. Van Cleve’s burgundy Ford convertible sedan, to Hoffman Mining.

  Alice tried not to think too hard about the previous evening. She had once been told by her favorite aunt that the best way to get through life was not to dwell on things so she packed those events into a suitcase, and shoved it to the back of a mental cupboard, just as she had done with numerous suitcases before. There was no point lingering on the fact that Bennett had plainly gone drinking long after his baseball game had ended, returning to pass out on the daybed in the dressing room, from where she heard his convulsive snores until dawn. There was no point thinking too hard about the fact that it had now been more than six months, long enough for her to have to acknowledge that this might not be normal newlywed behavior. Like there was no point in thinking too hard that it was obvious neither of them had a clue how to discuss what was going on. Especially as she wasn’t even sure what was going on. Nothing in her life up to now had given her the vocabulary or the experience. And there was nobody in whom she could confide. Her mother thought conversation about any bodily matters—even the filing of nails—was vulgar.

  Alice took a breath. No. Better to focus on the road ahead, the long, arduous day, with its books and its ledger entries, its horses and its lush green forests. Better not to think too hard about anything, but to ride long and hard, to focus diligently on her new task, on memorizing routes, jotting down addresses and names and sorting books so that by the time she returned home it was all she could do to stay awake long enough to eat dinner, take a long soak in the tub and, finally, fall fast asleep.

  It was a routine, she acknowledged, that seemed to suit them both.

  * * *

  • • •

  She’s here,” said Frederick Guisler, passing her on her way in. He tipped his hat, his eyes crinkling.

  “Who?” She put down her lunch pail, and peered toward the window at the back.

  “Miss Isabelle.” He picked up his jacket and headed for the door. “Lord knows, I doubt she’ll be riding the Kentucky Derby any time soon. There’s coffee brewing out back, Mrs. Van Cleve. I brought you some cream, given that’s how you seem to prefer it.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Mr. Guisler. I have to say I can’t drink it stewed black, like Margery. She can pretty much stand a spoon in hers.”

  “Call me Fred. And, well, Margery does things her own way, as you know.” He nodded as he closed the door.

  Alice tied a handkerchief around her neck to protect it from the sun and poured a mug of coffee, then walked around to the back where the horses were tethered in a small paddock. There she could see Margery bent double, holding Isabelle Brady’s knee as the younger girl clutched the saddle of a solid-looking bay horse. He stood immobile, his jaw working in a leisurely manner around a clump of grass, as if he had been there for some time.

  “You’ve got to spring a little, Miss Isabelle,” Margery was saying, through gritted teeth. “If you can’t put your shoe in the stirrup then you’re going to have to bounce your way up. Just one, two, three, and hup!”

  Nothing moved.

  “Bounce!”

  “I don’t bounce,” said Isabelle, crossly. “I’m not made of India rubber.”

  “Just lean into me, then one, two, three, and spring your leg over. Come on. I’ve got you.”

  Margery had a firm grip on Isabelle’s braced leg. But the girl seemed incapable of springing. Margery glanced up and noticed Alice. Her expression was deliberately blank.

  “It’s no good,” the girl said, straightening. “I can’t do it. And it’s pointless to keep trying.”

  “Well, it’s a heck of a long walk up those mountains, so you’re gonna have to work out how to get on him somehow.” Surreptitiously, Margery rubbed at the small of her back.

  “I told Mother this was a bad idea. But she wouldn’t listen.” Isabelle saw Alice and that seemed to make her even crosser. She flushed, and the horse shifted. She yelped as it nearly stood on her foot, and stumbled in her effort to get out of the way. “Oh, you stupid animal!”

  “Well, that’s a little rude,” Margery said. “Don’t listen, Patch.”

  “I can’t get up. I don’t have the strength. This whole thing is ridiculous. I don’t know why my mother won’t listen to me. Why can’t I just stay in the cabin?”

  “Because we need you out there del
ivering books.”

  It was then that Alice noticed the tears in the corners of Isabelle Brady’s eyes, as if this were not just a tantrum but something that sprang from real anguish. The girl turned away, brushing at her face with a pale hand. Margery had seen them too—they exchanged a brief, awkward look. Margery rubbed at her elbows to get the dust from her shirt. Alice sipped her coffee. The sound of Patch’s chewing, regular and oblivious, was the only thing that broke the silence.

  “Isabelle? Can I ask you a question?” said Alice, after a moment. “If you’re sitting, or only walking short distances, do you need to wear the brace?”

  There was a sudden silence, as if the word had been verboten.

  “What do you mean?”

  Oh, I’ve done it again, thought Alice. But she was too far in now. “That leg brace. I mean, if we took it off, and your boots, you could wear—um—normal riding boots. You could mount on the other side of Patch here, using the other leg. And maybe just drop the books by the gates instead of climbing on and off, like we do. Or maybe if the walk isn’t too far it wouldn’t matter?”

  Isabelle frowned. “But I—I don’t take off the brace. I’m supposed to wear it all day.”

  Margery frowned, thinking. “You ain’t gonna be standing, though, right?”

  “Well. No,” Isabelle said.

  “You want me to see if we got some other boots?” Margery asked.

  “You want me to wear another person’s boots?” said Isabelle, dubiously.

  “Only till your ma buys you a fancy pair from Lexington.”

  “What size are you? I have a spare pair,” said Alice.

  “But even if I get on, my . . . Well, one leg is . . . It’s shorter. I won’t be balanced,” said Isabelle.

  Margery grinned. “That’s why we got adjustable stirrup leathers. Most people round here ride half crooked anyway, drunk or no.”

  Perhaps it was because Alice was British and had addressed Isabelle in the same clipped tones that she addressed the Van Cleves when she wanted something, or perhaps it was the novelty of being told she didn’t have to wear a brace, but an hour later Isabelle Brady sat astride Patch, her knuckles white as she gripped the reins, her body rigid with fear. “You’re not going to go fast, are you?” she said, her voice tremulous. “I really don’t want to go fast.”

  “You coming, Alice? Reckon this is a good day for us to head round the town, schoolhouse and all. Long as we can keep Patch here from falling asleep we’ll have a fine day. You okay, girls? Off we go.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Isabelle said almost nothing for the first hour of their ride. Alice, who rode behind her, heard the occasional squeal as Patch coughed, or moved his head. Margery would lean back in her saddle and call something encouraging. But it took a good four miles before Alice could see that Isabelle had allowed herself to breathe normally, and even then she looked furious and unhappy, her eyes glittering with tears, even though they barely broke out of a slumberous walk.

  For all they had achieved in getting her onto a horse, Alice could not see how on earth this was going to work. The girl didn’t want to be there. She couldn’t walk without a brace. She clearly didn’t like horses. For all they knew she didn’t even like books. Alice wondered whether she would turn up the following day, and when she occasionally met Margery’s eye, she knew she was wondering the same. She missed the way they normally rode together, the easy silences, the way she felt as if she were learning something with Margery’s every casual utterance. She missed the exhilarating gallops up the flatter tracks, yelling encouragement at each other on wheeling horses as they worked out ways to traverse rivers, fences, and the satisfaction as they jumped a flint-strewn gap. Perhaps it would be easier if the girl weren’t so sullen: her mood seemed to cast a pall over the morning, and even the glorious sunshine and soft breeze couldn’t alleviate it. In all likelihood we’ll be back to normal tomorrow, Alice told herself, and was reassured by the thought.

  It was almost nine thirty by the time they stopped at the school, a small weather-boarded one-room building not unlike the library. Outside there was a small grassy area worn half bare from constant use, and a bench underneath a tree. Some children sat outside cross-legged, bent over slates, while inside others were repeating times tables in a frayed chorus.

  “I’ll wait out here,” Isabelle said.

  “No, you won’t,” Margery said. “You come on into the yard. You don’t have to get off the horse if you don’t want to. Mrs. Beidecker? You in there?”

  A woman appeared at the open door, followed by a clamor of children.

  As Isabelle, her face mutinous, followed them into the yard, Margery dismounted and introduced the two of them to the schoolteacher, a young woman with neatly coiled blonde hair and a German accent, who, Margery explained afterward, was the daughter of one of the overseers at the mine. “They got people from all over the world up there,” she said. “Every tongue you can imagine. Mrs. Beidecker here speaks four languages.”

  The teacher, who professed herself delighted to see them, brought the entire class of forty-odd children out to say hello to the women, pet the horses and ask questions. Margery pulled from her saddlebag a selection of children’s books that had arrived earlier that week, explaining the plot of each as she handed them out. The children jostled for them, their heads bent low as they sat to examine them in groups on the grass. One, apparently unafraid of the mule, stepped into Margery’s stirrup and peered into her empty bag in case she might have missed one.

  “Miss? Miss? Do you have more of the books?” A gap-toothed girl, her hair in twin plaits, gazed up at Alice.

  “Not this week,” she said. “But I promise we’ll bring more next week.”

  “Can you bring me a comic book? My sister read a comic book and it was awful good. It had pirates and a princess and everything.”

  “I’ll do my best,” said Alice.

  “You talk like a princess,” the girl said shyly.

  “Well, you look like a princess,” said Alice, and the girl giggled and ran away.

  Two boys, around eight years old, sauntered past Alice to Isabelle, who was waiting near the gate. They asked her name, which she gave them, unsmiling, in a one-word answer.

  “He your horse, Miss?”

  “No,” said Isabelle.

  “You got a horse?”

  “No. I don’t much care for them.” She scowled, but the boys didn’t appear to notice.

  “What’s his name?”

  Isabelle hesitated. “Patch,” she said eventually, casting a glance behind her as if bracing herself to be told she was wrong.

  One boy told the other animatedly about his uncle’s horse that could apparently leap a fire truck without breaking a sweat, and the other said he had once ridden a real-life unicorn at the County Fair, and it had had a horn and everything. Then, having stroked Patch’s whiskery nose for a few minutes, they appeared to lose interest, and with a wave at Isabelle, they wandered off to where their classmates were looking at books.

  “Isn’t this lovely, children?” Mrs. Beidecker called. “These fine ladies will be bringing us new books every week! So we have to make sure we look after them, don’t bend the spines and, William Bryant, that we do not throw them at our sisters. Even if they do poke us in the eye. We will see you next week, ladies! Much obliged to you!”

  The children waved cheerfully, their voices rising in a crescendo of good-byes, and when Alice looked back some minutes later, there were still a few pale faces peering out, waving enthusiastically through the windows. Alice watched as Isabelle gazed after them and noted that the girl was half smiling; it was a slow, wistful thing, and hardly joyful, but it was a smile nonetheless.

  * * *

  • • •

  They rode away in silence, into the mountains, following the narrow trails that bordered th
e creek and staying in single file, Margery deliberately keeping the pace steady in front. Occasionally she would call and point at landmarks, perhaps in the hope that Isabelle would be distracted or finally express some enthusiasm.

  “Yes, yes,” said Isabelle, dismissively. “That’s Handmaiden’s Rock. I know.”

  Margery twisted in her saddle. “You know Handmaiden’s Rock?”

  “Father used to make me walk with him in the mountains when I first recovered from the polio. Hours every day. He reckoned that if I used my legs enough I would level up.”

  They stopped in a clearing. Margery dismounted, pulling a water bottle and some apples from her saddle pack, passing them out, then taking a swig from the bottle. “It didn’t work then,” she said, nodding toward Isabelle’s leg. “The walking thing.”

  Isabelle’s eyes widened. “Nothing is going to work,” she said. “I’m a cripple.”

  “Nah. You ain’t.” Margery rubbed an apple on her jacket. “If you were, you couldn’t walk and you couldn’t ride. You can clearly do both, even if you are a little one-ways.” Margery offered the water to Alice, who drank thirstily, then passed it to Isabelle, who shook her head.

  “You must be thirsty,” Alice protested.

  Isabelle’s mouth tightened. Margery regarded her steadily. Finally, she reached out with a handkerchief, rubbed the neck of the water bottle, then handed it to Isabelle, with only the faintest eye-roll at Alice.

  Isabelle raised it to her lips, closing her eyes as she drank. She handed back the bottle, pulled a small lace handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her forehead. “It is awfully warm today,” she conceded.