“I’ll get my things out of the washroom,” he said. “And clear out that top drawer. Unless you think you can squeeze most of what you have there into it.”
She shook her head. “No, there are immutable laws of physical science that apply here.”
“You’re talking about the conservation of matter.”
Jane nodded slowly. “I am.”
“You can’t fit a pig through a straw without turning her into sausage first.”
“Yes, I suppose.” There was no mistaking his grin now.
“How about I just move my things, like I said.”
“That would be fine. Thank you.”
Morgan opened the drawer, scooped out the contents, and held them against his chest with one arm. He returned to the washroom, collected his clothes with his free hand, and then padded out barefoot.
Jane could hear him moving around in the bedroom next door. They were engaged in similar activities, folding, smoothing, hanging, sorting. She suspected she completed her tasks with more care, but when she finished before he did, she wondered if she had been mistaken.
When she entered the washroom, Jane discovered that Morgan had set out a towel, washcloth, and sponge. The basin was empty, and she realized he must have tossed the water he used out the small window. She poured fresh cold water into the bowl before she stripped down to her shift. It felt as if she washed away a week’s worth of grit, when in reality she had bathed only that morning in a tub at the Pennyroyal with hot and cold running water. Less than twenty-four hours had passed, and she was already reflecting fondly on that memory. She thought she probably should not mention it, even in passing. It was quite possibly the sort of thing that would have Morgan questioning his decision to marry her.
She thought he probably already was, perhaps from the exact moment they had finished exchanging vows. He had not kissed her. He had avoided it in fact. When Pastor Robbins had given him leave to do so, Morgan had done nothing. She had covered the awkward moment by leaning into him and pressing her cheek against his, and for then it was enough.
It was not enough now, but when she stepped back into the bedroom and saw that Morgan had not returned to say goodnight, she counted it as a blessing that she was familiar making peace with disappointment.
CHAPTER 5
Morgan lay on his back in bed, head cradled in his hands. His stare alternated between the ceiling and the starlight beyond the window. Light from the bedside lamp flickered. He wondered if Jane had fallen asleep yet. She should have. It had been over an hour since he’d left, and in his estimation she had been ready to fold then. He wished he could say the same for himself.
What the hell had he been thinking? He did not know a damn thing about women, so why in God’s name had he concluded it was a good idea to marry one? He should have stood behind a mule and taken a kick to the head. He would either be dead or so dumb that the idea of marriage would have been knocked clean out of his mind. Now he was just out of his mind, and he had a woman lying in a bed in the room right next to his to prove it.
Mrs. Sterling had pulled him aside at the hotel and suggested that he just leave Jane be tonight, that she would be one taut nerve, fatigued, and fearful, and it would be a kindness to let her breathe some before he exercised his conjugal rights. Thinking back on it, Morgan wished he had pressed Ida Mae to be clearer. For instance, should he have included Jane in the decision to sleep apart? Given her an opportunity to tell him that she would have welcomed, or at least tolerated, him in bed? When he had cleared the dresser top, she had suggested they share that space. Maybe if he had asked her, she would have been similarly inclined about the bed.
And if she had been, would he have taken her up on it? It was true he had some experience with women, but that did not mean he knew them. He recalled Jane’s words. I understand that you’ve had opportunity to beget. He wondered what Jane would have thought if he told her his opportunities had been limited to a few whores, two of whom he paid for a poke, and one who took him upstairs because she felt sorry for him. There was another woman: the one who claimed him first, taught him about a woman’s body and fed his soul. She was seductress, siren, a young boy’s savior. Or so he had thought for a time. And how could he have known differently when she laid waste to his mind and made herself everything to him in and out of bed? Even now, after so many years had passed, it was easier to think of her as a witch than a whore, but he no longer harbored any doubt that she was the latter.
Morgan had an urge to go to Jane and no idea what he would say to her. If nothing occurred to him when he got to her room, he would have to invent some reason for being there. Just thinking about it seemed like too much trouble.
It bothered him that he had not kissed her. He should have done that. At the wedding ceremony, the witnesses accounted for his reluctance. Maybe if it had only been only the minister, Mrs. Robbins, and Ida Mae, Morgan thought he would have taken the opportunity presented to him, but with Walt, Ted, Cobb, Buster, and Buster’s mother all looking on, he felt as if he and Jane had become an attraction in a sideshow. The problem was, that excuse did not hold up very well when he considered that he had not even tried to kiss her once they were alone.
The night had been ripe for it. There was a moment riding back to Morning Star that he thought she might not bolt if he angled his mouth to hers, but the moment came and went as he was plotting it. He had been accused before of thinking too hard and too long, but mostly that had kept him out of trouble. Mostly. He wasn’t sure if this was one of those times.
He thought about those few moments when he had helped Jane put her hat up. He had stood right behind her, laid his palm on her shoulder. His thumb could have made a pass against her neck. He could have turned her, kept her there against the wardrobe, his arms on either side of her. Maybe she would not have felt trapped. Maybe she would have felt embraced. It was hard to know when he had thought all of it and done none of it.
Morgan threw off the covers and sat up in bed. He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hands and then swung his legs over the side. He needed to get out of this room, this house. He needed open sky and space that stretched beyond his fingertips. He reached for his pants and began to dress. He was going for a walk, maybe a ride, but he was going.
Mrs. Sterling might just as well have been talking about him tonight. He was a single stretched nerve, exhausted to the point of restlessness, and about as scared of his wife as any husband had the right to be.
God. What a mess.
Jane was up before it was light. Her sense from things Morgan had told her was that if she waited for the rooster to announce morning, she had already slept too long. She washed, plaited her hair, put on a robe over her shift, and went to find the privy. It was so dark she walked into the smokehouse first. When she found the outhouse, she knew it.
Returning to the house, she lit a lamp and set it on the kitchen table. Her first order of business was to become familiar with this area, in particular the cast-iron cookstove. In her experience, a cookstove either possessed a personality or was simply possessed. She had worked with both types and found the former infinitely preferable to the latter.
Hands on her hips, Jane faced the cookstove and stared it down. “You will not get the best of me,” she whispered. “You will not belch smoke, throw ash, heat unevenly, or burn my biscuits. Know that and we will get along just fine.”
Jane picked up a blue-and-white checked towel lying beside the sink and wrapped it around her waist before she opened the firebox. It was empty. No kindling had been set for the next fire. Before she did anything else, Jane put covers on the stovetop, closed the front and back dampers, and opened the oven damper. She turned the moveable iron grate in the firebox so the ashes fell into the receiver below it. After giving it a shake for good measure, she flipped it over, and then removed the covers from the top. Everything she needed to start the fire was there in a large tin box beside the china cupboard. She imagined that in the future it would be her responsibility to make certain that the box was filled.
Jane covered the grate with pieces of paper that she tore and twisted in the center and left fanned at the ends. She then covered these with small sticks, mostly pine, and made certain the wood reached the ends of the firebox. She took care with this, arranging it so air would be admitted. Over the kindling, she placed pieces of harder wood and added two small shovelfuls of coal from the scuttle. She replaced the covers, opened the closed dampers, and chose a match from the box on the table. She blinked as the phosphorus and sulfur flared. Her nose twitched at the unpleasant odor, but she bent and set the lighted match under the grate. She wondered if men at the dawn of time had had any more sense of accomplishment than she did creating this fire.
