The Governess's Dilemma
Autore
Pamela Griffin
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18
Chapter 1
1856(near Hillsdale, Michigan)
Myrna stared out the streaked window at the icy particles that swirled past at a frightening speed. She felt as if her own inconstant future mirrored the bleak scene.
Cold. Stark. Perilous and uncertain.
Elizabeth, her young, excitable neighbor until yesterday, had told her with anxious eyes that her life must not be blessed. Elizabeth’s mother, Mrs. Flaherty, suggested that the good Lord might be trying to get her attention. Even the affable grocer, Sean, had given his usual quirk of a smile and dollop of advice—that forces beyond her control were taking her on a not-so-merry adventure—as Myrna dug deep into her reticule for the tight wad of dollars to pay off her store credit. Money gained at a steep price, her peace of mind lost in the trade.
Perhaps they were all correct in their conjectures, she thought with a weary sigh, resting her head against the icy window.
“Uhhnnnh...”
The soft murmur of complaint broke into her dismal thoughts and came from the fragile young girl using Myrna’s skirts as a pillow. Earlier, Sisi had pulled off her coat, though the railcar was hardly warm, and Myrna used it to cover her. Gently she pushed stray tendrils of light brown curls from the child’s damp forehead, finding her skin heated to the touch. She drew her brows together in concern.
Sea-green eyes, a shade lighter than Myrna’s, groggily opened.
“Are we there yet?” Sisi asked with a yawn.
Myrna grinned at the endless question again repeated. “I told you, we won’t be there till the morning. And likely won’t be at our cousin’s till the early evening.”
Myrna didn’t admit she had no idea exactly where their cousin lived, having only an address on a sheet of paper found in her late father’s things. But she didn’t wish to cause Sisi undue alarm. For being all of seven, the child had endured far more fear and uncertainty than many people three times her age.
“Do you think he’ll like us?” Sisi pushed herself up to sit, using Myrna’s legs as leverage. The coat slid from her thin shoulders and fell to the bench.
“I’m sure he’ll love you, my pet. Who could not?” She tweaked Sisi’s nose. This earned her a ghost of a smile, as if Sisi was afraid to let the scrap of happy confidence bloom.
There had been far too many wavering smiles in the past and so many disappointments. It wasn’t fair, not one bit, and Myrna silently vowed to do all she could to make Sisi feel safe again. If she must work from the first glimmer of dawn to past the setting of the sun, she would do it. The prospect of meeting a distant cousin and begging for work and a roof over their heads failed to settle well with her McBride pride. But for Sisi, she would grovel in the dirt if she must.
Again she noted the pinched look on Sisi’s flushed face.
“Are you not feeling well, sweetness?”
“I’m hungry,” Sisi complained, holding her tummy.
Myrna wasn’t surprised. The bread and cheese Mrs. Flaherty gifted them with before their hurried departure had been devoured long hours ago.
Spotting the flowered hat of the lady who earlier had been selling apples from a basket, Myrna fished a penny from her reticule. “Then we must do something about that. I’ll just be a moment,” she reassured before rising from her seat and maneuvering the narrow aisle, heading to the front of the train car.
Almost there, she watched a porter move through the door of the attached car. He made eye contact, giving a polite tug of his cap. The mild boredom in his eyes flashed to alarm at the same time the earsplitting screech of metal grinding against metal filled her ears. Rapidly he swung his head around to look.
Terrified, Myrna grabbed the nearest bench seat before whirling to hurry back to Sisi. The gaslights flickered. A stir of hushed voices lifted in alarm. A woman screamed.
The train car jarred with the horrendous force of impact, followed by a distant explosion. Thrown off her feet, Myrna grabbed for a handhold, catching nothing but air. She cried out Sisi’s name in the moment before her head smacked against something hard, and her mind went black.
* * *
Dalton grabbed the seat before him, unconsciously flinging his free arm sideways in protection against the elderly woman to his left.
The car went dark. Somewhere, a woman screamed, her panicked words lost in the shrieking and weeping that filled the former gaps of nocturnal silence as the car swayed and careened. Dalton lost his hold, thrown to the aisle. Pain ripped through his upper arm. At last the railcar swung to a slow standstill, landing back on all wheels with a thudding crash. The acrid stench of smoke and flame pervaded his nostrils.
Struggling to curb his fear, Dalton awkwardly sat up. “Are you all right?” he asked the woman, who lay slumped over on his seat. The whirling snow outside the windows provided a muted glow of light. Where it failed to reach, there remained only thick darkness.
The woman gave an abrupt nod, pushing herself up to sit. “I—I think so. My leg is stuck.”
That area was in shadow. Dalton could barely see the floor or her skirt to view the damage and attempt to extricate her from the wreckage. He found he was able to move, his legs intact and functional, unhampered by debris. But his left arm throbbed with fire and felt useless. Glancing down, he saw a patch of darkness had soaked through his sleeve. Except for feeling as if he’d been in a fistfight and had come out on the losing side, he felt otherwise unscathed. Yet no matter how he tried, he could not release the woman from her predicament using one arm. She moaned.
“I’ll find help.” He shivered as a sudden gust of wind hit him. Windows were broken, the freezing air blowing through both sides. From somewhere he heard a man pray in broken syllables for divine intervention.
Dalton carefully stood to his feet. A powerful wave of dizziness threatened to send him to his knees, but he fought it and moved up the narrow passage. The only porter he’d seen recently had been at the front of the car, and he headed that way.
On either side, passengers worked to free themselves from debris, crying, whispering, taking inventory of their condition. The dark shape of a woman hobbled his way, knocking directly into him. He grabbed her around the waist to stop her when she tried to push past and take him with her in the process.
“Please.” Her husky plea came to him from the shadows concealing her face. “I must find Sisi.” She put an unsteady hand to her head. In the minimal light, he barely made out a dark streak running down one side of her temple to her cheek. “Sisi, where are you, my pet? Why won’t you answer?”
Her voice wavered on a hysterical note and she swayed. Dalton grabbed her by the arms. Her knees gave out and instinctively he brought her close, barely able to hold her up, his injured arm weakened with pain.
“She was sleeping,” the young woman went on in a dazed manner against his overcoat. “In my lap. She was hungry, and—and I left her. I never should have left...” Her limbs went slack again, and Dalton tightened his hold around her slender form.
He was surprised about all this commotion over a pet when people were badly injured and in need of immediate aid. She seemed confused, and he wondered if she even knew what she said.
“Sisi has to be all right. If she’s hurt or—” she let out a pitiful whimper that tore at his heart “—I’ll never forgive myself. She didn’t want to go, but I had no choice.” The woman sobbed and grabbed the lapels of his coat. “You must help me find her!”
“There’s a passenger back there with her leg trapped—”
The woman in his arms clutched his coat more tightly and gave it an angry little shake.
“Don’t you understand? She’s all I have left! She’s so small and fragile—Sisi!” she called again, breaking free from his hold and managing to step past. At once, she stumbled. He let out a soft exclamation and grabbed her again before she could hit the floor. An apple rolled away from her skirts and under a bench.
“You’re wounded, in no shape to search.”
“I have to! She’s somewhere near—”
“You can barely walk—”
“Please—she’s just a child!”
He blinked in startled realization. “Sisi’s a child?” The passengers he’d seen in their car mostly consisted of men along with a handful of women. He hadn’t known children were on board.
“Of course,” she snapped, then grabbed her head and groaned. Pressed against him as she was for support, he could feel her entire body tremble.
“All right,” he said more quietly. “Don’t panic. I’ll find her. What does she look like?”
“Brown hair. Blue dress...”
“Stay here.” He helped her to sit on the nearest empty seat. “Don’t move,” he stressed, concerned that she might faint if she tried.
The pale light of winter coming from outdoors now reached her face, and she looked at him with huge, glazed eyes that did not appear to see him. Clearly she needed help. But Dalton was no physician and could only manage what was within his means.
“Sisi!” he called as he retraced his steps down the aisle, kicking aside another apple that almost tripped him. He looked in every niche and corner, repeating her name. Many passengers were being helped or helping others. The beefy, dark-skinned porter took charge, urging people toward the exit. Dalton told him of his trapped seatmate. The man assured him that he would see to the woman, then attempted to steer Dalton toward the exit with the other passengers.
“Not yet,” he insisted, pulling away. “I must find someone first.”
Glancing outside, he noted with relief that the heavy snowfall had lifted. Landmarks of the countryside could be seen from the long line of windows. They weren’t far from town.
With the train emptier and with less to obstruct his vision, Dalton spotted a strip of blue cloth from beneath a seat where the outside light hit it. His heart dove to the bottom of his chest at the thought that the child might be crushed. He saw a thin leg in a black stocking move and hurried forward.
“Sisi?”
At a soft whimper, relief washed through him. Despite the fiery ache in his arm, he reached for the child, managing to pull her from beneath a bench seat that had broken in the collision and under which she hid. “It’s all right,” he comforted the tiny girl who powerfully shook in the cradle of his arms. “You’re safe.”
“Where’s Mar-ma?” she whimpered, her voice so soft and groggy he barely understood her. “I want Marma.”
“Are you Sisi?”
She gave a jerky nod. A bad bruise covered her left cheek and eye, and her lip was bleeding. But he didn’t sense anything in her body broken, and she didn’t squirm in great pain as if it was.
“Do you hurt anywhere?”
“My face. And my tummy.”
He saw no blood on her dress and guessed there must be bruises beneath. Carefully he stood with her and made his way toward her mother. The woman had vacated the seat where he’d left her and searched the floor in front of it.
“Madam?”
Unsteadily she turned, grabbing the back of the bench seat for balance. In the dim glow, her face brightened.
“Sisi!” She struggled to stand and reached for the child, hugging her even as Dalton held fast.
“We must get off this train.” Smoke drifted everywhere, but whether it came from inside or outside he had no clue. “Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
The woman followed as he led the way through the darkened interior. They were almost to the exit when she staggered against him.
“Easy,” he gently warned. The porter helped them both step down onto snowy ground that reached almost to his knees. Once they trekked a safe distance away, with the woman clutching the back of his coat for balance, he set the child on her feet, afraid he might drop her. His wounded arm ached dreadfully, unable to handle even her slight weight any longer.
Everywhere, passengers stood huddled or sat in the snow, their faces pale with shock, their eyes haunted. Most looked with horrified wonder and confused disbelief at what was left of the train on which many of them had been sleeping until minutes ago. Dalton also turned to observe the devastation.
At a bend in the track, fire leaped from a railway car, near what was left of the mangled engine. Scattered victims lined the area along the length of what remained of the train. Dalton could barely make out shapes in the distance but could see the disaster well enough to realize another train had collided with them head-on.
“Dear God in heaven help us all,” he heard his elderly seatmate whisper. He silently added to her prayer for help to arrive soon, relieved to see that the porter had made good on his promise to free the woman sitting beside him.
Dalton had never witnessed such massive destruction. Both locomotives were twisted and broken. Railway cars lay on their sides or at odd angles off the tracks, those closest to the crash having received the worst of the impact as fire from the explosions licked up their metal sidings and shimmered in the darkness. Their car and others toward the caboose remained upright, having received less damage.
At the sound of a child softly crying, Dalton looked back at the woman and her daughter.
With the orange glow from the distant fires illuminating her face, the woman appeared younger than he first thought. Too young to have a child Sisi’s age. He placed her at twenty. The child appeared to be a little younger than his niece, who was nine.
Sisi’s glassy eyes turned up to him, as if pleading with him to make her world right again.
“Help should arrive soon,” he reassured her, placing a gentle hand against the child’s head. “The depot isn’t far. They would have received word, and telegraphs will spread the news.” He found it ironic that a few minutes more and he would have safely disembarked from the train.
The vacant look remained in the woman’s eyes.
“You should sit down,” he quietly ordered.
Her gaze lowered to his torn sleeve. “You’re bleeding.”
Dalton looked at his arm. The patch of blood had spread. “It’s nothing. I can manage.”
She put her hands to her blue scarf and hesitated, as if uncertain what to do, then pulled it loose from her neck. Without a word she wrapped the long strip of wool around his upper arm. Her fingers fumbled, but he uttered no complaint, only stared at her face in curiosity, hardly aware of the increased sting.
She glanced up then quickly down again.
“You helped find Sisi,” she offered by way of explanation.
“Your daughter?”
“Sisi is all I have left...” Her words trailed off as she looked back to the wreckage in a daze.
“And your husband? What of him? Was he also on the train?” When she didn’t answer, he insisted, “Do you want me to help look for him among the passengers?”
Her eyes slowly flicked up to his. From the sluggish droop of her lids and the blank look she continued to give him, more noticeable up close and with more light, he worried that her injury was far more serious than he had first thought. Head wounds could be severe. Fatal. Blood smeared her auburn hair and pallid skin. She put her hand to her cheek to wipe some away and he noticed the dull flash of a wedding ring.
He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the remainder of blood from her face, then lightly blotted it from her temple. His entire kerchief grew red and he frowned.
“Best to hold it there,” he instructed.
“No one but Sisi and I were traveling,” she said after a moment, as if just remembering his earlier question.
When she remained immobile, he lifted her hand to the wadded kerchief and placed her palm over the cloth. “Keep pressure on it to stop the bleeding. You need to sit down.”
She did not resist as he helped her to the frozen ground.
A perfunctory glance at his gold pocket watch showed it was broken, the hands still pointing near midnight. It could have been minutes since the crash; it could have been hours.
At last, the bobbing light of a lantern appeared over a distant hill and a wagon rolled into view. First one, then others came. Dalton blew on his hands, rubbing them together for futile warmth as he waited and watched several citizens of Hillsdale bring blankets and first aid to the survivors. The seriously injured were placed in wagon beds to be taken to town.
“Mr. Freed, sir?”
Taking his concerned gaze off the young woman who held tightly to the girl, Dalton turned at the welcome sound of a familiar voice.
“Jonas.” He clapped a hand to his servant’s shoulder. “I cannot tell you how g-good it is to see you.” The prolonged cold made his lips stiff and speech difficult.
“Your mother received word of your arrival and sent me to fetch you. It’s lucky I made it to the depot before the storm grew bad.”
“And quite f-fortuitous that it has now seemed to pass.”
“Yes.” The short, balding man stared at the wreckage and the fires in disbelief. “Such a terrible tragedy.”
“Indeed.”
“I’m happy to see you’re well, sir. When I heard news of two trains colliding and saw the glow in the sky, I had no idea what to expect. And, well, sir, I also wish to offer my condolences...about your brother.”
“Thank you, Jonas.”
Dalton had no wish to speak of the terrible misfortune that had forced his return to Eagle’s Landing. One tragedy was enough to deal with at a time.
The snow began to fall again, light but steady. He wished for no more than to reach home before a second storm could hit, have his arm tended to and fall into a warm, soft bed.
“The carriage?”
“Just around the bend, sir.”
Dalton studied the wooded area. More citizens had arrived to help, but the survivors in need of aid and shelter far outnumbered volunteers. Additional help would likely follow, but the young woman sitting in snow past her hips needed prompt medical attention. Others appeared to be more badly injured than his two charges, as he’d come to consider the woman and her child, and there was no telling how long it would be before either one received aid. They would do better to rely on Genevieve and her remedial tonics than to wait for Dr. Clark or any of his associates. And there certainly was room for two more in his carriage.
“Come with me.” He crouched down and placed a gentle hand on the woman’s shoulder. Her eyes remained dull and unresponsive. “I will see to it th-that you and Sisi receive the care you need. My driver is h-here to take us to my family estate.”
To his surprise she snatched her arm from his grasp. “No.”
“No?” He shook his head in bewilderment.
“Sisi and I will stay with th-the others and wait for help.”
“You might have a very long wait.” He waved a hand to include their frozen surroundings and the multitude of the wounded. “I can offer help now. Su-surely it is best to remove yourselves from these elements straightaway and f-find a warm fire? Your daughter has no coat.” He motioned to the shivering child in her woolen dress.
“My daughter...” The woman blinked then seemed to notice the girl’s lack of outerwear for the first time. She winced. “I’ll find a blanket.” Instead, she fumbled with the buttons of her own coat, but her fingers shook too much to be effective.
She had bound and knotted her scarf tightly around his sleeve or Dalton would remove his long coat for the sake of the child. “This is utter foolishness,” he said in frustration. “Of c-course you’ll come with me. I have servants to provide aid, and you plainly need it.”
He picked up the child for the second time that night and began trudging through the snow, knowing her mother would follow. The stinging cold made his wound numb and made it easier to manage the slight burden. At least Sisi gave no protest.
He heard the awkward shushing of her mother’s steps behind him.
“Put her down!”
Dalton turned in surprise at the ferocity in her tone. Witnessing the sudden irrational fear in her flashing eyes, he did as told. Did she think after having done all in his power to help them that he would now cause harm?
The idea provoked his impatience and fueled his irritation.
“Madam, really—”
The rest of his angry protest died on frozen lips as the woman slumped forward in a faint, and Dalton once more caught her in his arms.
