Ada stood on the train platform, waiting for her husband’s private train cars to be hitched to the train itself. Just a few short days ago, she had occupied this same spot, waiting for Aunt Pearl and an unknown future. Now she was waiting to go to St. Louis, to collect the stepdaughter she’d never met. An unlikely honeymoon, but one completely in keeping with their arrangement.
She glanced down at the pocket watch on her lavender lace lapel. She had changed to half-mourning after her first day in the Burnett home and not just because her sudden matrimony should, at least to outsiders, seem like a cause for celebration. No, it was merely that her frocks in shades of purple and gray were made of lighter fabrics for summer wear and thus more practical for life out on the prairie.
“Well, don’t you look pretty as a picture,” a female voice crowed behind her.
Ada jumped and whirled around. “Aunt Pearl,” she gasped. She was not really ready to see her aunt yet. A large part of her was still angry at being traded as casually as a mule, even though she admitted it was a practical solution to her problems.
Some of her hesitation must have shown on her face, for Aunt Pearl held up her gloved hands in protest. “Now, now, I’m not here for a lecture, Ada. I just wanted to say goodbye and God be with you. Lord knows that poor child has been through enough already. It will be such a wonderful thing for her to be home with her daddy.”
Sudden nervousness flooded Ada’s being. She wasn’t ready for this. She was not prepared to be this great a part of a stranger’s life. What if she couldn’t measure up? She glanced down at her burned wrist and bandaged hand, recalling accident after accident she’d had in the past few days. Sugar in the saltshaker. Baking soda in the bread instead of baking powder. So much starch in Jack’s shirts that they stood up by themselves. One broken item after another. True, there were two maids to do the work, but she insisted on helping. The only problem was, her attempts to assist met with constant catastrophes. If she was this big a failure at being a wife, how much more of one could she possibly be as a mother?
“Aunt Pearl, I can’t do this,” she cried. It was a relief to voice her fears aloud. “I know it’s part of the bargain that I make sure the house is clean and presentable, but it isn’t ready for a child. I’ve been working with his maids, but they are used to slacking because Jack won’t raise a fuss. It’s been his bachelor headquarters for years. I don’t know how to take on this role. I’m not ready to be anyone’s mother.” She held up her hand. “I can’t even take care of myself.” She was angry at Pearl, to be sure, but Pearl was family. She could show a little weakness to her own flesh and blood.
“Don’t take on so, child. You’ve done more in a few days than most women could do in a year. Besides, remember what I told you. It’s time for you to grow in faith. This is a good chance to see the hand of God in your life.” Her aunt gave her a hearty slap on the back. “Now, I heard you hired Cathy. Do you need more servants than that? Has Cathy started yet?”
“Yes, and yes.” Ada gazed at her aunt in wonder. “How did you know I had hired anyone?”
Pearl laughed, and the ruby earrings she wore bobbed against her cheeks. “Ada, you need to know something about life in Winchester Falls. It’s not like living in New York, where all you need to worry about is Mrs. Astor’s Four Hundred. Here, you have four hundred people in all, including every single family and every single servant. Word gets around. We’ve got no one else to gossip about.”
Ada was no stranger to tittle-tattle. The Four Hundred her aunt spoke of so lightly had begun cutting her out as soon as her father’s scandal had broken. After enduring the petty slights of her former friends for weeks, a complete change had seemed in order. That was, after all, how she’d decided that making a clean break and starting life anew in Texas was the only sensible course of action open to her.
Yet here she was, failing already.
“Listen, Aunt Pearl,” she added hastily, “I need your assistance. The house is improving, but I’m afraid, now that I’m leaving, it will fall right back into chaos. I can’t bring Laura home to a dusty, musty house. Would you help me to make sure the servants are doing the work? I can send telegrams at every stop.”
“Why sure,” Aunt Pearl replied. She gave Ada a searching look. “Are you so desperate for help that you would ask anyone right now? Or am I forgiven?”
Ada stiffened. Blood had to be thicker than all the problems in the world. “I don’t know what to say, Aunt Pearl. I mean, I’m angry still that I was pressured into marrying Jack Burnett, but I don’t hate you. I could never hate you.”
“That’s good enough for me.” The older woman wrapped Ada in a tight hug.
“Hey, Pearl,” Jack called, making his way up the station platform. “Did you come to see us off?”
“I sure did.” Pearl broke free from Ada and gave Jack the same tight embrace she had given Ada. They really must think of each other as family. How very odd. “Take care of my gal, there, Jack. And bring Laura home to me safely. I don’t think I’ve seen her since she was knee-high to a june bug.”
Ada stood slightly apart from them, watching her aunt. Funny, Aunt Pearl had been raised in the same family as Father. She went to an elite boarding school and women’s college. She had made her debut at the age of sixteen. But when she married R. H. Colgan, it was as though all those years of polish and breeding fell away. Here she was, using outlandish phrases and hugging them all like children. Father never embraced his daughters and certainly never used hyperbole or exaggeration.
Was Texas responsible for Aunt Pearl’s roughened character?
Would Ada be the same way in twenty years?
What an appalling thought.
Jack offered Ada his arm and, with a final wave to Aunt Pearl, Ada followed him down the platform and to their waiting car. Then he helped her make her way up the steps. The pressure of his arm was both familiar and strangely exhilarating. She must be more nervous than she thought. She certainly wasn’t developing any kind of silly, girlish feelings for Jack Burnett, for that would never do. She was a strong and sensible suffragist.
As she entered the car, Ada looked around in awe. Not that she hadn’t seen grand living spaces before, but a private train car so luxuriously appointed rather took her breath away. The ceiling was padded with sky-blue satin, and heavy velvet draperies shut out the blazing morning sun. Brass and crystal lamps glowed invitingly on graceful mahogany tables.
She sank onto a leather armchair and placed her feet up on a deep blue hassock. “This is lovely. I had no idea you owned such a fine thing. When you said private cars, I thought for sure you meant something in which you hauled cattle at one time or another.” Teasing Jack seemed to be the only way to get along with him. In the brief time she had known him, she realized one thing about Jack Burnett. If things got too serious, he would simply leave for hours at a time.
He took off his hat and cast it into a nearby chair. “Nope. When I was first married, I commissioned this. We’ve got a separate sleeper car, too, with bedrooms for each member of the family. I wanted for us all to travel in comfort. We didn’t use it much, though.” He frowned deeply, as he usually did when speaking about his first wife.
She didn’t know what to say. When he went silent like that, he would usually stalk off. There was no way he could do that on board a train. So they had to find a way to be polite in each other’s company for the duration of the journey. How long would she have to strain at being civil?
“When will we reach St. Louis?” she asked, stripping off her gloves and laying them beside her on the table. She had been living with him now for days, but she had her own room and he rarely stayed for long in the house. The close proximity forced upon them by the car made even small gestures like removing her gloves seem somehow more intimate. Perhaps the sudden rush of heat to her cheeks could be blamed on Texas weather.
“In about a day and a half.” His handsome face had settled into a brooding expression.