Page 45 of Mail-Order Lady

Clara stepped back and returned the cloth to the washstand. “I’ll clean the basin and bring it back. Anything else I can get you?” She’d grab more clean cloths too.

“A slice of bread.” Some of the rasp left Kate’s voice, but her eyes remained closed.

When Clara came back a few minutes later, Kate’s breathing had turned to a steady rise and fall of her shoulders. Her very thin shoulders. She’d lost so much flesh in these weeks of illness. She had to keep food down soon.

Mandie said the doctor came weekly to check on her, and had said the worst of this illness would likely pass soon.

After leaving the items, she slipped back out of the room. Thankfully, Kate didn’t show signs of stirring. Maybe she could better help by working on furnishings for Kate and Thomas’s cabin.

The men had made progress on the structure while she, Robert, and Bea traveled to Fort Benton. A bit more work on the roof, and it would be fully dried in. Soon enough, the place would be ready for furniture, curtains, bedding, blankets…so many things would be needed to create the home Kate had been dreaming of.

She headed downstairs to find the other women.

Bea was in the kitchen, kneading bread dough on the table in a steady rhythm. She looked up when Clara entered, and her expression softened before she looked back down at her work. “How is she?”

“Sleeping.” Clara leaned against the doorframe. “She cast up what little she ate this morning and is exhausted now.”

Bea’s brow furrowed as she focused on the dough. “Poor child.”

“Bea.” She crossed to the table. “I want to do something useful. For Kate. For their cabin.” She smoothed her hand along the table edge. “Can you think of something I can work on now?”

Bea glanced up, and that same softness crossed her face again. “There are things stored in the attic.” She pressed the heel of her hand into the dough. “Old furniture. Bed frames. Bits and pieces the boys’ father shipped over from England and never used. Some of it might suit.”

Clara straightened. “Can we look?”

Bea turned the dough once, then covered it with a cloth and wiped her hands on her apron. “Come then.”

The attic steps were narrow and steep, tucked behind a door at the end of the upstairs hall. Bea went first with a lamp, and Clara followed close behind, one hand on the wall where the banister gave out halfway up.

The space above opened wider than she’d expected. The low rafters ran the full length of the house, and sunlight drifted through two small windows at either end. Dust and cedar scented the air, along with smells far mustier.

Shapes hulked under cloth covers. A stack of frames leaned against the far wall. Crates. Trunks with iron fittings, the leather straps gone stiff.

“Over here.” Bea moved toward the nearer end, lifting the edge of a blanket to peer beneath it.

Clara followed. Under the first cover stood two chairs—high-backed, with carved arms. The wood needed polishing, but the chairs would suit well around a dining table.

Bea was eyeing a form farther down, so Clara moved to see it.

A bed frame leaned against the wall. Iron, painted black, with a simple scroll at the head. Not elaborate, but well-made. And the perfect size for Thomas and Kate.

She swallowed down the tiny pang that rose up in her throat. This was the first time her room wouldn’t be down the hall from Kate’s. She would be next door, though, so they’d see each other all the time. Kate would have her own family of course. Things would be different. They already were different. But different didn’t have to mean worse.

“That one could work.” Bea tilted her head a little, studying it. “The mattress ticking will need to be re-stuffed. But the frame is good iron.”

“Kate will love this.” She forced a smile. A real smile. She could already picture it in the cabin bedroom—the log walls, morning light coming through a curtained window, Kate’s quilts spread across a freshly-stuffed mattress.

Bea made a sound of agreement and moved farther down the attic, peeking under cloth covers as she went.

Clara followed and had to step around a low trunk. The cedar smell grew stronger near the far wall, where a row of crates sat stacked two high. Someone had arranged them with care, long ago.

Three paintings leaned against them, and Clara crouched to examine each.

The first was a landscape. English, by the look of it. A wooded valley with a stream running through it.

“Pretty,” she said.

Bea nodded. “His Grace bought that one in London, many years ago.”