One Step Enough Page 9

  Della interpreted the glance correctly and pulled Angharad closer. “Are you ready for this?” She cleared her throat. “ ‘Dear Mrs. Davis, I am the principal at Maeser Elementary School, and I can possibly use your help here this summer. Please stop by at your earliest convenience.’ ” She looked at the signature. “ ‘Allen Holyoke.’ My goodness, Amanda. Am I correct in suspecting the fine hand of the Knights in this summons about employment?”

  “Guilty as charged,” Amanda replied serenely, walking them to the carriage block. “What was I to do? The Holyokes came to dinner two nights ago, and I might have mentioned your name.”

  “Might have?” Della teased.

  “Just a casual mention that you were a teacher at Winter Quarters School with impeccable credentials, seeking to start over in Provo.”

  “Between the soup and main course you did all this?”

  Amanda laughed and gave Della a swat to the back of her skirt. “Angharad, you need to see that Della behaves!”

  “Da tells me that too,” the child said, which meant they were all laughing as they left the Knight house.

  “Sister Knight has a candy dish with nonpareils,” Angharad said as they strolled along, in no particular hurry.

  “Any left?”

  “A few,” Angharad said with a laugh. She stopped. “Maeser Elementary? Mam, I know right where that is. Sister Knight said I will be going there in September.”

  “We had better find it then, so I don’t get lost tomorrow.”

  Two long blocks and a short one, and they stood in front of a two-story tan brick building with an impressive arched entrance of darker brick.

  Angharad held her hands up, framing the lettering over the door. “Maeser School. I will learn great things here.”

  “You will learn great things wherever you go, dearest, because you want to,” Della told her. Her heart sore, she thought of her lovely Winter Quarters children, as she stood on a peaceful street where, from the look of things, nothing terrible had ever happened.

  Angharad pointed to the row of windows above the second story. “Is that a half story? What is it for?” she asked, thankfully oblivious to Della’s disquiet.

  Della swallowed down her tears, suddenly wanting Owen beside her to buoy her up, even though she knew the folly of that. Wasn’t he suffering enough?

  “It might be an assembly area,” she said, striving to keep her voice light.

  “When can we find out?”

  “When autumn comes and you start school.”

  She didn’t imagine Angharad’s satisfied sigh. “Do you think my teacher will put spelling words on autumn leaves made of construction paper, like you did, Miss Anders?”

  Della knew she was teasing. “Miss Anders went away and came back as Mrs. Davis, also known as Mam.”

  Angharad put both her hands in Della’s. Her heart seemed to swell, or maybe she had laced her corset too tight that morning.

  “Mam, come closer.”

  Della knelt on the sidewalk beside Owen’s daughter. Angharad transferred her hands to Della’s shoulders and leaned close. “When we did not think Da had survived, you said you would take me to Arizona Territory with you, where you would teach and I would go to school. Did ye … did you really mean that?”

  “With all my heart,” Della assured the serious little girl. “You were never going to be left alone to shift for yourself in the household of strangers.”

  Forehead to forehead now. “Did that happen to you?”

  Funny how one small question could take a woman back twelve years to that time she was a child and alone on a train to Salt Lake City, desperately sad, and with no one to comfort her. “It did happen to me,” she managed, as her eyes filled with tears.

  Angharad touched Della’s cheeks with the end of her pinafore. “You didn’t want that for me.”

  “Never.”

  “Diolch yn fawr iawn,” Angharad whispered back. “Thank you ever so very much.”

  Hand in hand they returned to their house, pleased to see Owen sitting on the front porch, his feet on the railing and hands behind his head, as Della had mentally predicted. He had taken a kitchen chair to the porch and he looked like a man at peace with the world. At least until she came close enough to kiss his cheek and see his old eyes.

  The chair came down on all four legs and he plopped Angharad onto his lap. She sighed and leaned back, in her good place again, as far as Della could tell.

  “Da, I missed you, but not too much because Sister Knight has a candy dish in the parlor,” she said, which made Owen laugh out loud, smack his head and exclaim, “I have been supplanted by lemon drops.”

  “No, Da, nonpareils,” Angharad said, which made him laugh louder. “And Mam has a note from the principal of the school where I will go in September.”

  Owen turned his attention to Della, still bent on humor apparently, which soothed her as nothing else could. “It can’t be a note for misbehavior. She never went to Maeser School.”

  “Da, be serious.”

  “There’s time enough for that.”

  Owen held out his hand to Della and tugged her closer. She kissed the top of his head this time and handed him the note. “That’s good news,” he said, handing it back when he finished. “We’ll both be doing a little bit here and there, it seems. George Bullock still needs someone to put wainscoting in his dining room. He stopped by earlier. Just missed dragging me out of bed by a matter of minutes.”

  “Da, you’ve never slept so late before,” Angharad said. “Are you sick?”

  “My heart’s a little sore,” he told her. She nodded and he held her closer. “Yours too?”

  She nodded again and then brightened. “Da, I have a cinnamon bun from Aunt Mabli. It is for you.”

  She held it out and then shrieked when he growled and snatched it, opening the paper bag to breathe deep and flutter his eyelashes until Della laughed out loud.

  “You are very nearly certifiable,” she told her husband. “I love a maniac.”

  He shrugged and took a bite. “I would almost commit felonies for one of Mabli’s cinnamon buns.”

  “Is that a good thing?” Angharad asked doubtfully.

  “It is to me,” he replied. “Della, if you roll your eyes anymore, they will get stuck.”

  Della blew a kiss to them both and went inside, seeing again with pleasure Mr. Auerbach’s wingback chairs. My first real home, she thought. She looked toward the porch and her husband, wondering if there might be a baby born here, knowing it was probable. She thought of Mari Luoma, heavily pregnant, and on her way to Montana. And from the look of Mary Parmley, William Parmley’s widow, there would be another baby in a few months without a father.

  I can’t be thinking of children with no fathers, she thought. Stop it, she ordered her weary mind. I have a husband and a daughter, and maybe employment, to worry about.

  L

  Dinner was handily taken care of that afternoon with the arrival of the ward Relief Society president bearing a platter of chicken and followed by daughters carrying mashed potatoes, well-peppered white gravy, canned corn, and an apple pie.

  “I can’t imagine you felt like cooking today,” the lady said after introducing herself and four daughters. “Here you are, a new bride.”

  Della thanked her for her kindness, which also included a calendar with Relief Society meetings marked in red, through to the end of the year, and Primary for Angharad. She silently thanked Amanda Knight for sending out ward members to gently fold them into this new congregation of fellow Mormons.

  When she walked Sister Forsyth out to the porch, Owen was chatting with a man about his age who introduced himself as the elders quorum president. Coming up the walk was another young man.

  “We’ll soon need someone to manage the traffic,” Owen said. Della saw the pleasure on his face, reminding her, as if she needed reminding, of the gregarious nature of all sons and daughters of Wales.

  The smile left Owen’s face when the newest arriv
al introduced himself as the ward choirmaster.

  “Of course, we know what singers you Welshmen are,” the man said after he nodded to the Relief Society president and her daughters, who waved to Della and picked their way through the crowded porch. “Can we expect to see you on Sunday after Sacrament Meeting?”

  “Most certainly,” Della told their latest visitor at the same time Owen shook his head and said, “Not for me.”

  “Oh, but …” Della began, until she took another good look at Owen’s face and saw all the pain resurface. “Perhaps not right now, Brother … Brother …”

  “Smart,” the young man said. “I am studying music pedagogy at the Academy.” Obviously not a fellow to surrender without a fight, he leaned closer. “Tenor? Bass?”

  “Second tenor,” Owen said, “but not now. It’s too soon.”

  “After what?”

  “The death of the entire Pleasant Valley Ward Choir men’s section on May 1, except for me,” Owen said. He set Angharad off his lap and went into the house. The young choirmaster stared, open-mouthed, as the door closed.

  “I don’t …” Brother Smart began. His eyes widened then. “The mine?”

  Della nodded, wanting to hurry him off the porch and go to her husband, but too polite to say more.

  He appeared to be a fellow with some sensitivity. Brother Smart tried to speak, but couldn’t summon anything equal to the occasion. Della patted his arm.

  “He will be all right. Give him some time,” she said, even as she wondered if she spoke the truth.

  She glanced at Angharad and absorbed all the surprise and distress on her face. “Don’t worry about Da, my love.”

  “He has to sing,” the child said after Brother Smart tipped his hat to them and beat a hasty retreat.

  “I know. Let me see to Da. Would you set the table please?”

  Angharad went into the kitchen without a word. Della peeked into the room, saddened to see the child plump herself down at the table and rest her chin in her hands, her well-ordered world given another jolt.

  What can I do for both of you? Della asked herself. I wish I knew.

  Her heart in her mouth, she knocked softly on their bedroom door. When Owen didn’t answer, she went inside anyway.

  There he sat, facing away from the door on his side of the bed, his head bowed and his shoulders shaking. Her heart crumbling, Della sat beside him. After too long a time to suit her, his arm went around her waist and he pulled her closer.

  “It’s not that I can’t sing,” he managed, tears on his face, the raw hurt evident. “I almost don’t remember why I want to, and that’s nearly criminal.”

  She pulled his head gently down on her shoulder.

  “I don’t really like this Owen I have become,” he said into her neck. “Do you still like him?”

  “I even love him. Singing can wait.”

  “How long?”

  “Until it’s in your heart again, Owen.”

  They sat close together until Angharad tapped on the door and reminded them that dinner was getting cold, and was she the only one who liked chicken?

  Chapter 14

  L

  Early in the morning, Della nestled close to Owen, listening to him breathe his way into sleep again after a most pleasant interlude, relieved to give her dear man some solace. She thought of husbands and wives, grateful to be among that number now.

  Dinner had been so solemn, everyone trying to cheer everyone up and failing. Owen had finally apologized to his ladies and returned to the front porch, where he read through a stack of newspapers from Merthyr Tydfil that Della had used to cushion his few plates and bowls from the Winter Quarters home. Della played checkers with Angharad in the kitchen.

  He had come into the kitchen later that evening and sat down with them. “I’m sorry,” he said simply. “I know that time will smooth things over, but right now …” He shook his head.

  “Da, you can’t not sing forever,” Angharad said, her voice firm.

  He winced at her words. “Right now, I feel as though I could, and that’s an honest answer, dear child.”

  “Time, Da,” Angharad reminded him. “You said so yourself just now, think on.” She glanced at Della and then back at her father. “Would you mind if Mam and I sang in the choir?”

  He smiled at that. Della felt optimism, just a little sprig, struggle to the top of the sorrow in her heart and perch there—exhausted, but there.

  “Mind? Never. Go right ahead.”

  She was a persistent child, the daughter of a father who, months ago, had refused to take no for an answer when Della told him she wouldn’t sing in the abundantly gifted Pleasant Valley Ward choir. “I might need a round note from you, Da. You know, just to make certain I am on key if Mam and I practice here at the house.”

  “I could probably muster a round note on demand,” he said.

  Della felt optimism perk up, wisely careful not to jump up and down. “That sounds fair enough, Owen.”

  “It’ll do for now, you pretty Davis ladies. I do feel like carving, though. Let me show you where I put my tools.”

  He took the kerosene lantern from the table and led them out the back door and into the shed behind the house.

  “Angharad, when you were eating nonpareils out of Sister Knight’s candy dish, I swept out here and discovered a right fine bench.”

  Della looked around in delight. Her husband had found a place for his carving tools. He picked up a partly carved box. “I can finish this by the end of next week,” he said. “Della, what would you think if we went to Salt Lake City to take it to Mr. Auerbach as thanks for the furniture?”

  “Me too, Da?”

  “Absolutely. We travel together.”

  But that was last night. Della closed her eyes now and thanked the Almighty that the man sleeping beside her hadn’t found anyone to suit him until she came into Winter Quarters Canyon, riding the flat car with the Scofield miners heading for their afternoon shift, and wondering if she had lost her mind to teach in a coal camp.

  She turned over to see Owen watching her. She saw the admiration in his eyes, and no sorrow.

  “I astound myself with how pleasant it is to lie here and wonder how Greeks ended up with an abundance of everything,” he said. “Maybe it is the warm Mediterranean air. Your nose, all those curls, your lips. If I think about anything else, I’ll break out in a sweat. Give me an hour to recharge.”

  Della laughed out loud and then put her hand over her mouth, not wanting to wake up Angharad. “At which time, we’ll be up and eating our porridge, and I will be worried about what Mr. Holyoke might have for me this summer.”

  “Alas, it is true,” he said, addressing the ceiling. “I am ever grateful for night.”

  “You’re a bit of a scoundrel,” she teased.

  “Guilty as charged. Would you think me boorish beyond belief if I catch another forty winks while you make said porridge?”

  “I would think you most manly,” she said, willing to be generous to this good fellow she had married.

  “After all, I am thirty-two to your nearly twenty-five. Not decrepit, by any means, but …”

  She kissed him soundly, and he laughed when she leaped off the bed as he grabbed for her.

  “More of that Welsh balderdash I was warned about,” she said from the safety of the door. “See you at breakfast, O Ancient One.”

  The three of them made plans over breakfast, which meant that all of them set out with Della for her interview, Owen to continue on with Angharad to see Mr. Bullock about wainscoting. The plan was to meet at the Knight house, where Angharad hoped there might be more nonpareils in the candy dish.

  As plans frequently did, this one fell apart right away, to everyone’s benefit.

  “We’ll walk you inside,” Owen said as he stared up at Maeser School’s impressive façade. “Do the arches repeat?”

  “We’ll find out,” Della replied, happy to have an escort, especially one with her best interest at heart
.

  Inside the door stood a man who surely had to be Principal Holyoke, by anyone’s deduction. The teachers were already in their classrooms, and he had a magisterial air that reminded Della of Miss Clayson, and also her principal back in Salt Lake’s Westside School.

  “Mr. Holyoke?” she asked, coming forward and putting on what she hoped looked like her brave interview face. “I am Mrs. Davis.”

  She held out her hand first, because that was what etiquette books said to do.

  “And I am Professor Holyoke,” he said, shaking her hand. “This is your husband?”

  “Aye, sir, Owen Davis.” The two men shook hands and Owen indicated Angharad. “My daughter Angharad.”

  “Who should probably be in school,” Mr. Holyoke said from his great height, though kindly.

  “Sir, we finished the term already in Winter Quarters Canyon,” Della explained. “My principal turned in our grades early because …” She couldn’t continue because Angharad made a low sound in her throat.

  “I should have known that,” Mr. Holyoke said, interrupting her. Della heard all the sympathy in his few words. “In that case, Angharad, we look forward to seeing you in September in grade …”

  “Two,” Angharad said. “Mam was my teacher last year.”

  “So Mrs. Knight told me.”

  To Della’s gratification, the tall principal knelt down to be on eye level with his prospective second grader. “Angharad … dear me, I hope I am pronouncing your name correctly.”

  “Close enough, sir,” she said. “We Welsh make allowances.”

  Mr. Holyoke laughed. “And I believe you are also famed for singing and for extreme patience with the less gifted linguistically.”

  Angharad frowned. “That’s a new word for me.”

  “Your former teacher will explain it,” he said, standing up, amusement written all over his face. “As for now, there is a slide and a swing set behind this building you are welcome to try out while I visit with the grownups.”

  “Thank you, sir, but I will take her with me to my job interview,” Owen said.

  “Finding work aboveground, Mr. Davis?”