Chapter 10

The other passengers on the stage and then the train, assumed that Adam and Eloise were husband and wife although they spoke little to each other. But there was something about the way they sat next to one another and the manner in which they spoke to one another when they did speak that hinted at an intimacy. And Adam was always aware of Eloise even when in conversation with a fellow traveler.

"So," a female passenger on the coach asked Eloise with a smile, "how long have you two been married?" The woman was sitting opposite Eloise and Adam.

Eloise barely hesitated. "Three years."

Adam glanced at Eloise and suppressed a smile.

"Any children?" the woman asked Eloise.

"No, no children."

"At least, not yet," Adam said and Eloise turned to glare at him. He grinned in response.

"Well, that will happen soon enough, I'm sure. I have three myself, all boys. The oldest is twelve…" Eloise listened politely as the woman went on about her children and Adam slouched down in his seat and pulled his hat down over his eyes. Later he would have to tell Eloise what a cool liar she was. When Adam did, she had replied that it was easier to lie than to explain.

When they reached Denver to pick up the rail line to Chicago, it was a little past five and dusk was falling. Adam sensed how weary Eloise was. She shrugged it off by saying that she never traveled well. So Adam stored Eloise's trunks at the station and taking the least luggage with them, Adam asked where a good hotel was. Following the clerk's advice on where to stay, Adam led Eloise to the Grand Hotel which was less than grand but decent. Adam asked for two rooms and a young boy took their luggage upstairs. At her room door, Eloise stopped and turned to Adam.

"What is it?" Adam asked. Her face was drawn and she looked sad.

"I can't let you do all this."

"What? What can't you let me do?"

"This-paying for all this. Doing what you're doing. I just can't let you. I'm no one to you. I can't let you do this anymore."

"And what are you going to do then? How are you going to pay for it? It's a little late to back out and claim fiduciary morality."

"I don't want to back out-I just want to give up. It's too much." Her voice broke and Adam feared that she was going to cry. It had been hard on her, all of it and he knew it. She had left her livelihood, left what security she believed she had and had no idea what she would find in Chicago. Hiram had talked about possible prosecution and that she may be charged as an accomplice but that he was certain that her ignorance of the whole matter could easily be shown. Eloise just needed to make sure that she had a good lawyer. Eloise reassured him that she had a lawyer in Chicago, one who had been with her family for as long as she could remember.

"Just go lie down for a bit and then we'll get something to eat."

"But Adam…"

"I'll come get you in an hour. Go freshen up and lie down a while. We'll talk then-at dinner."

An hour later, Adam came for Eloise and she still looked tired but she had put rouge on her cheeks and lips to hide her paleness. They went to the restaurant in the hotel and Adam ordered for them both and Eloise merely picked at her food once it was brought.

"The steak is good," Adam said. "You really should eat some." He had noticed how little she was eating and it concerned him. "The bread is good too. Not as good as what you make in your bakery, of course, but it's tolerable with enough butter. Speaking of butter, d'you think Pansy misses you, misses your gentle touch?"

Eloise looked up from her food and it was as if for the first time she saw Adam. Eloise realized that he was making a joke about Pansy and she smiled. He was trying to cheer her up and her heart filled with gratitude.

"Well," Adam said, leaning in a bit, "what do you know? You can smile. I believe that's the first time I've seen you smile. You should smile more."

"There hasn't been much to smile about," she said and looked back down at her food. Suddenly she felt self-conscious and uncomfortable. "Perhaps I should eat more." And she began to slice her steak into small pieces.

Adam shifted in his seat. He knew what he wanted to talk about because he had done nothing but think about it since Eloise had told the woman in the coach that they were married. From then on, the thought of marrying Eloise had never left him and he fancied how it would be to have her as his wife.

"Have you thought of marrying again?" Adam asked, his voice deep in his throat; he could barely utter the words.

"No," she answered. "Why would I marry again?"

"You might fall in love and want to marry."

She gave a small snort of disdain. "Once I believed in that-marrying for love but no more. You may not believe it but when I was a young girl, I had imagined that one day a handsome man would sweep me up in his arms and take care of me forever and we would be so happy and have beautiful children and live a wonderful life together just like in a novel. But that was when I was a young girl; I know better now. What does it say in the Bible? When I was a child…I forget the verse."

"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly…"

"Yes." Eloise sat as if in a trance, staring ahead. "Everything is dark now-through a glass, darkly-and I regret so much, I've lost so much but it seems now that I can lose even more." The tears welled in her eyes.

And Adam wanted to hold her, she touched his heart so. He wanted to make her happy, to see her smile again. He knew he couldn't wipe away her past pain but he also knew that maybe he could make her future happier.

"We could marry," Adam said quietly.

Eloise focused her eyes and stared at him. "You would want to marry me? Why? You don't love me and I don't love you. We barely know each other. Don't you think you should marry someone you love?"

"You just said you don't believe in that and I have my doubts as well. Maybe people shouldn't marry for love. 'The heart is deceitful above all things and to ourselves desperately wicked; who can know it?' Why should anyone follow a deceitful heart? Maybe we fool ourselves into thinking we're in love for after all, what is it really?"

"If you ever had a child, then you would know what love is. It's an emotion beyond comprehension. Even feeling it yourself, you can't understand it. We may think we love the man or woman we marry but that type of love pales by comparison." Eloise watched Adam's face.

"You just assume that what you feel is the same for others." Adam leaned in even closer to Eloise. "Maybe a man can love a woman that way, with a tenderness and caring and an effacement of the self where the loved one is all there is, all that exists for them. You have to agree that it's possible."

Eloise sat quietly, thinking about what Adam had said. She didn't know that his pulse was pounding in his ears, that it had taken him great courage to approach her with the proposal of marriage.

"What would you want from the marriage?" Eloise asked. "From me?"

Adam's hopes rose. She seemed to be considering his proposition. "You. I just want you. I would try my best to see that you never had to suffer another day but in exchange, I would get you and you would have to tolerate me. But then I have a feeling you can tolerate quite a bit. You're very strong."

"No, I'm not strong. I'm just resigned to the fact that I can't go on struggling, that in this world I need a man to do for me. I just can't manage on my own. Are you asking me to marry you?"

"Yes."

"Then I will. I'll be your wife and I'll do what you ask of me. After all, I suppose in a way that you're buying me. My mother always told me that a wife gives of herself, of her person and in exchange, the husband takes care of her. And I'm so tired of struggling to take care of my Aunt Martha and myself. Will you take care of her as well? Please?"

"Yes," Adam said, "I'll take care of her too. The train leaves in the afternoon. We can be married by the justice of the peace in the morning. Now you need to eat more dinner." And they sat and finished their meal before going up to their separate rooms. And Eloise cried herself to sleep as she finally let herself remember the death of her parents and of her precious child and the face of her dead husband staring blankly with his throat slit. And Adam lay on his bed in the dark, thinking of the wall between the two of them that would disappear after tonight. He knew there would be a wall between them still-Eloise wouldn't easily take it down but there would be no more physical separation and perhaps, in that way, he could come to know her and understand her and she would let him into her world and maybe, just maybe, love him in return.