Chapter seven

When Leslie got home she changed into her father's old overall and marched to the chicken coop with an axe in her hand. "If he wants meat," she said to herself, "then meat he shall have."

She stood outside the pen and watched the birds shuffling in the dirt. The chicken she had designated for Christmas dinner clucked at her softly, but she had no intention of giving up that plump bird for the likes of Dick Moore. A smile came to her lips, which stretched into a sneer as she entered the pen and cornered the young rooster that was hogging a dish of corn. He was a nasty creature, full of spite, and spurred and pecked Leslie (Mother never went near the coop) whenever he got the chance.

Leslie should have worn Papa's gloves – should have gone back for them – instead she took the rooster's final barb without so much as a wince. It was to be his last fight; who was she to stop him? She almost admired the way his pale claws lashed out for another good minute after she cut off his head.

The bird was gutted, dressed and stored away before her mother appeared. The only sign of Leslie's work was the ugly claw mark down her arm.

Rose sighed when she saw it and went to the pantry to fetch the lavender balm. "How about two chickens this Christmas?" she said, applying it to Leslie's skin. "We'd have enough for company then."

"You don't consider our neighbours company?" said Leslie, withdrawing her arm.

Rose gave her daughter a look which said that she did not, and sat in her armchair with deeper, heavier sigh. "Sometimes Leslie, you sound older than me."

Sometimes Leslie felt that way too, but she would not say so. She placed a fresh cup of tea on the settle – and away from her mother's arms. They would likely fly out in all directions when she heard the news, and Miss Bryant had only just washed the floor.

"I suppose you mean young company. Is twenty-five considered young?"

Rose frowned in confusion and Leslie went on quickly, anxious to get it over with.

"That's Dick Moore's age, isn't it? He's coming – for dinner – tomorrow – I met him today and –"

"Invited him for dinner? Oh Leslie, why didn't you warn me? The place is in a state and we haven't a thing fit to feed him…" Rose flew from her chair, flapping about like the headless chicken. She must have been thinking of one too, for she stopped in front of Leslie and grabbed her injured arm. "You didn't kill it, did you, not that stringy thing? There's not enough meat there for a sandwich. Dick's visit calls for pork chops or at least a bit of mutton. Do you suppose if you set off now you could get to the butcher before they closed?"

"There'll be nothing in our price range at this time of the day. I thought a chicken salad might do. I could bulk it out with corn and cucumber, make two loaves of bread."

"Salad? said Rose. "I wouldn't serve that to ol' Simons! And here I am undressed!"

She tore onto the hall and threw off her kimono, before throwing on her Sunday coat and buttoning it over her petticoats. Her boots were tied before Leslie appeared, a stony look on her face.

"You're not going to the butcher now."

"What choice do I have, when I know you won't. A salad indeed. He'll know we are economising and see it as a slight. No, if you convinced Dick Moore to come here then I mean to give him every reason to come back!"

Then she was gone, a good two inches of her petticoats visible under her full-length coat. She came back just after supper on the baker boy's wagon, who unloaded box after box.

"Nothing for me," she said to Leslie, nodding at yet another round of beans in the pot. "Mrs Carpenter gave me a complimentary tart, though not without trying to sell it to me first. As if I would. The custard was split, it must have been two days old."

"What did you get?" said Leslie, hardly daring to ask.

The baker's boy loitered, waiting for his payment, and answered, "Nuff to feed a king's army, I reckon."

Leslie peered into one of the boxes and saw the sorts of cakes typical of closing time, their cream yellowing, their jams oozing, the glazing on the doughnuts cracked and smudged. Another box held tiny tins of paté, fish eggs, crab paste, smoked oysters, and imported fruit of the kind Captain Jim had seen grow in the wild. But it was the last one, the heaviest box that brought up a scream in Leslie's throat. Two massive packages wrapped in brown paper, a leg of lamb and a crown roast of beef. The sorts of cuts that supplied the hotel where the finest tourist stayed. Leslie had no idea how to fit them into her oven, let alone how to cook them.

"Mother, what have you done… We can't afford –"

"Don't give me 'can't afford'," said Rose, handing the delivery boy a ten-cent piece and one of the more damaged doughnuts. "We can't afford not to, and well you know. Don't worry, I'll prepare the food. You need a bath, so go fetch the water and I'll wash your hair. I might have to wash the scowl off your face while I'm at it. I want my sweetest, prettiest Leslie by my side tomorrow."

By one o'clock the following day, the scowl had left Leslie's face and was now firmly fixed on Rose's. If Dick Moore did not turn up soon her roast beef would be ruined!

Leslie had given up trying to convince her mother to bring it out and serve it cold. What of the roasted potatoes (now shrunken in the pan) and kilo of fresh shelled peas? The carrot mash, the cabbage and bacon, to say nothing of the lamb leg which was already cooling and set aside should Mr Moore care to stay for supper. She couldn't give the man two cold meats – though as Rose watched the hands move round the clock face she began to wonder if he would be eating any of it.

"You're sure he said dinner?" she asked for the tenth time that hour, "you're sure he said today?"

Leslie had given up her reassuring answers now, and merely nodded her head.

"Oh please stop your nodding, your curls are drooping. Go freshen up and I'll see what I can do to save the beef."

A chicken salad wouldn't have spoiled, thought Leslie as she trudged up the stairs and into her room. She ignored her looking glass and went to the window which faced out to the road, and looked for any sign of Dick. All night and all morning she dreaded the thought of him being in her house. Now she would have given anything to see him here. Her mother had gone to such trouble; had agitated her swollen wrist to peel all the potatoes and shell all the peas, when she should have been resting it in order to work on the Lennox gown. Molly Lennox was due for her final fitting in four days time. Just as Leslie was thinking this a buggy driven by Mrs Lennox turned into the drive.

"Ooh Leslie, come down!" her mother squealed up the stairs, "he's here, Dick Moore is here!"

Rose soon found out her mistake and was bidden by Mrs Lennox to take her somewhere private. Though Rose was loathe to enter the parlour (business was always conducted in the sewing room) one look at Mrs Lennox told her she would not make the stairs. Leslie passed by the shut door several times on the pretence of fetching this or that, but she did not discover what the visit was about until the visitor left.

"Dick isn't come yet, I take it?" said Rose, looking about her.

"No Mamma, not yet." She didn't have the heart to ask her mother why she hadn't taken the beef out when she said she would. The tenderest parts were all dried up and it was certainly halfway to spoiled.

The beef was the last thing on Rose's mind now that she had this piece of news. She pulled Leslie out to the garden and looked about her again. The news had obviously shaken her, and Leslie was about to find out why. In hushed tones, she told her wide-eyed daughter that Molly Lennox was not being presented to the Premier after all, it was all a pretext to hide the terrible truth. The silly girl had got herself pregnant and was being married off far away from the Glen on Saturday evening.

"So the gown you're making is a wedding gown?" Leslie was unsure why this news should shake her mother as much as it had.

"Mrs Lennox was most distressed when I told her I had already 'removed' the train."

"Mrs Lennox should have told us what the dress was for. We wouldn't have told anyone about Molly. Though it does make your job even harder now, you never let me help you with wedding gowns."

It was a well-known and deeply held superstition among tailors and dressmakers that single women were forbidden from working on a bride's dress, lest they never become brides themselves.

"Absolutely not," Rose concurred. Once she would have railed against Mrs Lennox for her lack of consideration, but now she didn't dare. Her face was ashen and she scanned the scorched grass beneath her feet, almost wildly, Leslie noticed.

"Mamma, what is it?" she tried again, gently. "You mustn't worry, you still have time."

"What I don't have is the train!"

Leslie huffed. "I know Mrs Lennox is a proud sort of woman but surely even she agrees that a pregnant bride is expected to dress modestly."

"It's not the train but what was sewn into the hem. Foolish woman, why didn't she say…"

"What was it, a lock of hair, a coin? I never noticed anything when we first received it except some small weights sewn into the corners, and that's not unusual given the length of the train –"

"One of those weights was not a weight at all! Oh Leslie, of all the bad luck…"

"Mother please –"

"It was a pocket watch. Her father's solid gold pocket watch was sewn in as her 'something old'. And now it's gone up in flames!"

"Oh Mamma, how did she take the news?"

Rose looked at her daughter askance. "I didn't tell her."

"But why, the fire wasn't your fault. We have to tell her. Now she'll wonder why you didn't before."

"She was already so upset, the poor dear. Molly swore she was three months gone, now it turns out she's nearly five. Mrs Lennox only came here to explain that I'll have to add another two inches to the waist. She was terribly vexed – I just couldn't tell her. If you'd been there you would have understood."

Together they went to the washing line and kicked at the dirt like chickens in the coop. Captain Jim had raked the piled earth over the whole back garden. If the rake had caught the watch it might be anywhere by now.

"What are we going to do? Even if we find it it's bound to be spoiled. I expect the gold will be intact but the watch face… If Mrs Lennox ever sees it, she'll know."

"She won't have to see it, Mother, we can simply sew it back into the gown."

Leslie got up and dusted her hands before retrieving her own father's watch from her pocket. It was a cheap brass timepiece, missing the case and the chain. But it meant as much to her as the Lennox watch did to Mrs Lennox – probably more.

"It's almost three, I think we can safely say that Mr Moore is not coming today. I'm going to change, then I'll rake over the whole yard. See what you can do to save the beef… Mamma?"

Her mother had a faraway look in her eyes as though she hadn't heard a word that Leslie said.

"The beef..." she murmured, glancing at her dear Frank's watch.

She took Leslie's hand with her bad one, sucking in a wince, then arm in arm the two women returned to the house.

It was almost five when Dick turned up. He knocked twice, waited a few seconds then went around the back and looked through the kitchen window. The flowers and candles that had once graced the kitchen table were gone, replaced with jars, bowls topped with tea cloths, and a pot of rendered fat. Rose was in the cool store wearing her housecoat instead of her smart blue tea gown, and was currently cooling her swollen wrist with the ice that was delivered once a week.

Leslie was in her father's overall again. The rag-curls her mother had carefully made the night before were tangled and drooping, and there were smudges of red earth and old ash on her brow and cheek. She had taken off the leather gloves long ago, and grime had worked itself under each nail and in every line of her hands.

Dick found her on her hands and knees, and sucked in a breath. What he wanted to do was whistle, because the sight of Leslie in trousers was quite a sight to see. He knew how she would react to that (he fancied he knew quite a lot about little Leslie) so he stood by quietly, leaning against a washing line post, his arms crossed over his chest. He stood like this for some time, admiring her hips and thighs and rump, as Leslie knelt in the filth-strewn yard and scrambled in the muck. Dick was sure she must sense his presence, and was just as sure she was ignoring him. He did whistle then. Not the teasing one he wanted to make to let her know exactly how much he was appreciating the scene. This was clear and lilting. Dick had a talent for mimicking birdsong, it was something to do on the dead calm days when the sails were robbed of their wind.

The second whistle got her. Leslie leaned back on her haunches and rubbed the sweat on her brow, leaving a dark red streak. God, how he wanted to rub it off, then rub the rest of himself on her.

"Mr Moore…" she murmured, standing up.

It touched him to see her bring her hands in front to hide the place where her curved thighs met.

"I've been watching you for some time," he said, "and I still can't make out what you're doing down there."

Leslie's eyes narrowed but her hands stayed where they were. "I lost something," she said at last. "Mr Moore, you're very late. We expected you at –"

"Lost something?" Dick went toward the place where she had been searching and heedless of his best boots and trousers, knelt down in the dirt. "Something small, I reckon. Something precious too or you wouldn't be taking so long over it. Your overall," he explained, when she gave him a querying look, "you must have known you were in for a real job seeing you changed especially."

"How do you know I changed," Leslie snapped, "how do you know I haven't been dressed like this since sun up? Just because you were expected, doesn't mean I made any great effort –"

"For me?" he finished. "Fair point, little Leslie. Though you're making me feel quite the fool for dressing up for you."

He threw off his flannel jacket and unbuttoned his fresh starched shirt. Beneath it he was wearing a clean white vest. The mermaid was almost obscured from view.

Almost. Leslie looked, she never could help it, and saw an elbow, the thick waves of her hair. He grinned when he saw her looking, but only to himself. The hunger he saw in her eyes was something he wanted to deny. Bending low, he moved his great arms about the dirt, not unaware of how the muscles in his back would writhe to great effect.

"You don't even know what you're looking for," she said, kneeling some distance from him.

"Something small of great value, I'd say. But if the diamond I find is not what you're after you can have it all the same."

"It's not a diamond!" Leslie was cross now, once again at herself. Why hadn't she ordered him to leave, or at least extracted an apology for standing them up? Instead she had let him swoop in and take charge the way he always did. She did not like it. Yet if that was so, why was she here on her knees beside him? For he had moved closer to her now. He was almost in front of her.

His fingers grazed over her rough canvas trousers and he said in a husky voice, "Move."

Leslie did not move. She could not. She could feel the heat of his skin as he drew his body close to her, thigh to thigh, hip to hip.

"You don't know what you're looking for," Leslie said again.

"I think I do," he growled, his pupils dilating. "I think you do too."

It was coming for her, that great mouth of flashing teeth and a rum flavoured tongue. Though it wasn't rum she smelled this time, but spearmint, and the lips that brushed against hers were firm and dry.

She fell back, unbalanced by his weight bearing down on her and he landed between her thighs. Without the bulk of her skirts she could feel his obvious arousal growing harder with every breath.

"Get off me," she hissed, her eyes narrowed into slits.

"Shut it," he said.

He reached further forward so that his chest rubbed over her face, and worked something out of the dirt beyond her head.

Leslie lay there, her heart pounding, while his kept a steady beat. If mother should see her, or worse, Miss Bryant, how could she ever explain? She twisted and turned under his weight, working her knee beneath his ribs. When he lurched back quickly Leslie hoped she had made him afraid for his tender parts which were about to receive a swift kick.

The hope left her quickly when she saw the look of triumph on his face, and he held up a disk of dirty gold.

"The watch! But how did you…"

Dick leaned back and worked the dirt off of it, making sure to keep his eyes squarely on the find. Doing so allowed Leslie to recover herself, and she scrambled to her feet and brushed herself down.

"I'll take that, if you don't mind. Mother is wanting it."

"It's not a watch." He almost sounded sorry. "Just the top of the case one is kept in."

Not wanting to believe him, Leslie plucked it from his hand and checked it for herself. Ash had been worked into the scroll work, spelling out C.W. Lennox 1838. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"Go then, run on, tell your mother, I'll keep looking here."

Leslie did so, just as she was bid, with a soaring feel of excitement buoying every step.

It took some time to explain it, and a little more for Mother to tidy herself. Rose tried to convince Leslie to clean up too, or at least get out of that overall, but the girl wouldn't hear of it and rushed out to the garden again.

He had his shirt off now, his skin golden in the low light of the sun. Leslie dropped her eyes when she saw him bare chested. He stood up to meet her, his hands on his hips.

"Dress yourself, for goodness sake, my mother will be here any minute!"

"I'm not one of your spinster neighbours, I do as I please," he sassed. "I've had a good look around since you've been gone, and this place is a mess." He surveyed the land, his hand by his brow as he looked up to the Simons place. Sweat trickled over the mermaid's tail, catching on his nipple, and he bent down to retrieve his shirt and patted it over his chest. "It's clear you two aren't managing alone, what you need is a man."

Rose approached then with a glass of the fruit punch cordial she had bought for him especially. She offered it to him with the same coy smile she gave to Abner Moore.

"Funny you should say that," she said, placing her arm around her daughter. "I was just thinking the same."

...

Nictastrophe: When I got your review I was sure it was going to be about you waiting for another post (and I would have deserved it!). But to get something so kind and encouraging was such a lovely surprise. Thank you so much for taking the time to comment :o)

Angela: A scoundrel alright! Leslie and Dick don't marry till Winter so there is a while to go yet. I am hoping to keep each part to ten chapters, so expect a wedding by then!

Guest: Thank you!

Guest: I was always interested in Leslie's hate, I suspected most of it was directed at herself. The thing to remember is that she is so young and inexperienced. The age difference is a huge one, but that's what Maud wrote, so that's what I have to work with. It does give me pause sometimes though :o/

FJAK: I have a love/hate relationship to Dick too. I think you have to if you want to make him believable. On the one hand he is a total shit, but there is something compelling about him too. Whenever he is there you can't look away, and Leslie can't either. One of the things I love about writing in serialised form is that the story starts out like this tight little bud and slowly opens with every detail that you add. I like that you wonder if Dick started the fire, maybe you are wondering now if he planted the gold watch too. It all adds to this foreboding sense; he gets into your head even while your instinct is to get as far away from him as you can.

...

Thanks to everyone who is reading and for all your comments. I don't suppose I will post again till after Christmas so let me take this chance to wish all of my wonderful readers a Merry Christmas and peace-filled holiday. See you all in the New Year! k.