Riddle of the Prairie Bride Page 6

  Ida Kate bit back her irritation. Despite her own misgivings about Caroline, she didn’t want to hear Miss Butler’s criticism.

  Mrs. Ruppenthal, pulling her wagon up next to Miss Butler’s, cleared her throat. “Perhaps I can help you to understand,” she said calmly. “I, too, traveled here to marry, though I was acquainted with Mr. Ruppenthal only through letters. You see, I came to America with my brother’s family, and we settled in Pennsylvania. But I did not want to be a burden to my brother forever, and so when I learned that a good man of German descent was advertising for a bride to come to Kansas, I felt called to reply. I am so glad that I came to Kansas.”

  “We’re very glad, too,” said Martha loyally. “I can barely remember my own mother. What would we do without you? And, of course, without Gloria and Davy and Edmund?”

  Miss Butler had the grace to look ashamed. “I meant no disrespect, Mrs. Ruppenthal. Indeed, I had forgotten you had come to Kansas as a bride.” She pursed her lips. “You are such a pillar of the community—certainly not an adventuress!”

  Mrs. Ruppenthal nodded to show she accepted the teacher’s apology, and her lips twitched slightly. “Life with my three little children and three big stepchildren is definitely an adventure, I assure you,” she said.

  Ida Kate jumped down and ran in to alert Caroline that company had arrived. But inside there was no sign of Caroline, though Hanky was playing quietly under the table with some wooden spoons. Ida Kate said hello to him, then hurried toward the bedrooms to look for Caroline. As she crossed the main room, Caroline emerged from Papa’s bedroom.

  “Oh, you’re home!” she said to Ida Kate.

  “Yes,” said Ida Kate, wondering if Caroline had been dusting again. “And I’ve brought quite a lot of company.”

  “Looks like it’s a good thing I spent the morning making raisin tarts,” replied Caroline, peering out the front window at all the people in the little yard, “or there would be nothing to serve.”

  “I hope you don’t mind,” Ida Kate said in a low voice. “My teacher wanted to meet you—and so did Mrs. Ruppenthal …”

  “Of course I don’t mind at all. Let’s invite them in.” Caroline scooped Hanky into her arms and stepped out into the yard.

  Ida Kate took a deep breath to calm her jitters and managed to get the introductions out properly, the way Mama had taught her.

  “Hello, my dear Mrs. Fairchild,” Mrs. Ruppenthal sang out from her wagon. “I do hope this is not too late to come calling. Miss Butler and I wanted so very much to meet you. And is this your dear baby?”

  “This is Hanky,” said Caroline. “I’m sure he’s mighty pleased to meet you.” She handed Hanky to Ida Kate and reached for the horse’s reins so Mrs. Ruppenthal could climb down from the cart. Martha leaped down with a single bound, Gloria in her arms.

  “Martha!” reproved Mrs. Ruppenthal as she carefully stepped down. “Take care, dear.” Then she patted Hanky’s head. “What a sweet little boy.” She handed Caroline the box containing a cake she’d baked.

  Miss Butler climbed down from her wagon and presented Caroline with two jars of honey that she withdrew from her school satchel. “From my brother’s own bees,” Miss Butler said with pride. “My parents sell the honey at the general store.”

  “Thank you so much,” said Caroline graciously. “Now, please come in and I shall make us some tea.”

  Caroline led the way into the house, followed by the Ruppenthals.

  “Caroline tells me she has made raisin tarts today,” Ida Kate said to her teacher as they walked together across the yard. “And I imagine they’ll be very tasty. Caroline seems to be an excellent cook.” Mama had always taught her that it was ladylike to know the art of conversation.

  “So you address her as Caroline already, I see.” Miss Butler’s tone made it clear she felt this was not at all the proper thing to do.

  “Yes, ma’am. She asked us to.” Ida Kate stepped inside the house and set Hanky down on the floor to play.

  Caroline was laying out the fine china plates that had belonged to Ida Kate’s mother. She urged all the guests to find seats around the plank table. “Ida Kate, please fill this pitcher with milk from the pail.”

  Ida Kate took the heavy china pitcher. Martha came to the storeroom with her. She whispered in Ida Kate’s ear, “Old Butler has been absolutely perishing to get a look at your mail-order bride. I wonder if she’s still thinking of Caroline as an adventuress from afar coming to steal away the community’s most eligible bachelor!”

  Ida Kate rolled her eyes at Martha. She used the dipper to fill the pitcher with milk and then took the milk to the table. Caroline was serving the raisin tarts and slices of Mrs. Ruppenthal’s cake. Mrs. Ruppenthal sat with Gloria nestled on her lap and fed the toddler small pieces. Davy and Edmund sat next to their mother on the trestle bench, swinging their legs.

  When everyone was served, Caroline settled Hanky on her lap and began to eat. Ida Kate, watching her, saw that she didn’t cuddle him close the way Mrs. Ruppenthal held Gloria. She held him stiffly, as if unsure what to do with him. It was just as Ida Kate had described to Martha earlier. Ida Kate clenched her hands together on her lap, wishing she could discover what it all meant.

  “Mama?” asked Hanky. He screwed up his face and started to cry.

  “Oh, dear,” said Caroline. “He gets very cranky without his nap. Ida Kate, would you try to settle him down?”

  Ida Kate took the fussy baby and excused herself. In the bedroom she changed his diaper—loose again!—and rocked him in her arms, patting him firmly on the back until he closed his eyes. Then she lowered him gently into the little crib.

  When Ida Kate returned, she found Caroline pouring more tea, all the while speaking eagerly, asking the other two women about life on the prairie, about Hays City, about their families.

  Mrs. Ruppenthal was speaking to Caroline as if they were old friends. Even Miss Butler seemed less sour about the newcomer now that they were having tea together.

  As the women talked, Ida Kate watched Caroline carefully, searching for some sign of grievous injury that might cause memory lapses. She saw nothing unusual.

  “But enough about us,” Mrs. Ruppenthal said as Caroline offered everyone another raisin tart. “Let us hear about you. Tell us all about yourself!”

  “Oh, there’s not much that’s especially interesting,” Caroline demurred with a smile. “I’m a southern girl by birth, then moved to Massachusetts after my husband died. Factory work is grueling, ladies, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.”

  “Where in the South?” Miss Butler asked sharply. “Your family weren’t slave owners, were they? We don’t hold with slavery out here in Kansas, you know. Kansas entered the Union as a free state from the very beginning!”

  “Now, Miss Butler,” said Mrs. Ruppenthal. “The War Between the States has been over for more than ten years. There’s no use bringing it up.”

  “My father owned a plantation in—ah—North Carolina,” Caroline said softly, “and he did own slaves. But I’m glad to say he emancipated them and then paid them to continue working for us. Still, by the end of the war, we’d lost our home and land, and—worst of all—my father and two brothers had been killed.”

  “I am sorry to hear that,” said Miss Butler, pressing her napkin neatly to her mouth to catch a cake crumb. “I also lost a brother in the war. He was fighting for the North, however, I’m proud to say.”

  “And your husband was a soldier, too?” Mrs. Ruppenthal interjected quickly, turning to Caroline.

  “He was wounded in the chest,” said Caroline. She had a faraway look in her eyes, as if she was trying to remember. Ida Kate narrowed her eyes as she listened.

  “A grievous lung injury,” Caroline continued, shaking her head sadly. “But we weren’t married at the time; we didn’t marry until after the war. He was a distant cousin of mine. Our mothers hoped that we would marry, so finally we did. But he never really recovered his strength after his inju
ry. First his own mother died, and my mother and I tried to earn our living as seamstresses, but we weren’t very good ones, I’m afraid. My husband worked whenever he could at the land surveyor’s office, but with his bad lungs, he was too ill to work as often as not. Then my mother died of influenza, and consumption set into my poor husband’s lungs and he died as well. He never even knew I was expecting our baby.” She sat quietly, looking down at her hands.

  “Oh, what a very tragic story,” said Mrs. Ruppenthal sympathetically, and even Ida Kate felt moved by Caroline’s account, “Let us hope your life has taken a turn for the better now.”

  “Oh, I’m sure it has!” Caroline’s solemn face broke into a smile. “I waited until the baby was born, then moved to Lynn, Massachusetts. I had to leave Hanky with a baby minder all day while I worked in the factory. Mr. Deming’s advertisement seemed like a beacon, pointing the way west to a better life. I am so very glad we’ve come!”

  “We’re glad, also,” said Mrs. Ruppenthal.

  Then Caroline ate the last bite of her cake and laid down her fork. “I do declare, that was such delicious cake, Mrs. Ruppenthal,” she said, and Ida Kate noticed the southern accent was more pronounced than before. “You simply must give me the recipe—unless it is a closely guarded family secret.”

  “I will be happy to share it with you right now. Indeed, the cake is ever so simple to make, and I’ve got the recipe memorized. And please do call me Margaretha, since we are now neighbors—and our girls such dear friends.”

  Caroline smiled across the table at Ida Kate. “Ida Kate, would you mind finding me a scrap of paper, a pen, and some ink? I shall ask Mrs. Ruppenthal—Margaretha!—to copy the recipe while her cake is still melting in my mouth.”

  Ida Kate obediently left the table and went into Papa’s bedroom. She walked straight to his dresser and opened the small wooden box where he kept their paper, pens, and ink bottle. And, of course, the letters from Caroline. She lifted out the packet and saw immediately that the ribbon was not in its proper bow but was simply knotted. Ida Kate’s forehead creased in a frown as she slipped off the ribbon. Caroline had been snooping.

  Ida Kate fanned through the letters, thinking how amazing it was that once Caroline Fairchild had been only words on the page—and now she was here, real and bright and large as life, right out at the table. Ida Kate did not feel she was snooping when she opened the first letter, because she and Papa had shared each letter as it arrived.

  Dear Sir, began the first letter they’d received from Caroline in her elegant, angled writing that marched so neatly across the page. The second letter started off Dear Mr. Deming. The salutation on the third read Dear Henry, and finally on later ones (Ida Kate shuffled rapidly through the remaining few letters), My dear husband-to-be. It was a sweet story, Ida Kate thought, folding the letters again and replacing the ribbon—or at least it had started out to be.

  If only she didn’t have such worries about Caroline. If only Caroline would stop snooping and making such strange mistakes! Was her behavior really due to lost memory—or was something sinister going on?

  Ida Kate grabbed the pen, the ink bottle, and a sheet of paper and shut the wooden box with a hard snap, as if she could shut off her disturbing thoughts in a similar fashion. Then she hurried back to the tea party and set the writing things on the table in front of Mrs. Ruppenthal. Miss Butler was talking quietly to Martha about the poem Martha would be reciting at the school picnic next month. Edmund and Davy were stacking the smooth wooden blocks that Papa had made for Ida Kate when she was little. Then Gloria toddled over and knocked the castle down. The boys shouted at her and she began howling. Then she started throwing the blocks.

  “Oh, dear,” said Mrs. Ruppenthal, hurrying over to pick up the little girl. “I think we have overstayed our welcome, my sweet one.”

  Caroline uncapped the bottle of ink and held out the pen. “Please don’t leave without writing down the recipe,” she said. “I have never tasted such a cake.”

  “Certainly,” said Mrs. Ruppenthal, balancing the screeching Gloria on one ample hip. “But now that my hands are full, I shall dictate it to you. You begin with one pound of flour …”

  Caroline looked flustered. She turned to Ida Kate. “Would you care to write it for me, dear? I think I heard Hanky waking up.” She dipped the pen into the ink and held it out.

  Ida Kate shook her head, puzzled. “I don’t hear him. I’m sure he’s still fast asleep.”

  Caroline bit her lip. She hunched over the paper and began to write as Mrs. Ruppenthal’s voice enunciated each ingredient clearly: a pound of flour, a pound of butter, a pound of sugar, six eggs … all mixed well and set into a hot oven with …

  Ida Kate’s heart began to pound as she watched Caroline’s pen move across the paper. What she saw made her hands grow cold even though the day was still warm.

  Caroline finished writing and blotted the ink carefully. “I shall try my hand at this cake very soon,” she said brightly. “You’ll like that, won’t you, Ida Kate?” She glanced up to find Ida Kate staring at her. A deep flush slowly spread up Caroline’s neck to her cheeks as their eyes met. Hastily she folded the recipe and tucked it into her apron hanging on the hook by the stove.

  Caroline walked her guests out to the wagons, but Ida Kate just called good-bye from the door. She could hear Caroline thanking everyone for coming and urging them to return soon. Their voices rang cheerfully outside in the yard, but to Ida Kate, standing inside by the stove, they sounded hollow.

  She reached quickly for the apron hanging on its hook. She fished the folded recipe out of the pocket.

  “Hey,” Martha called to her from the doorway. “Aren’t you even going to see us off?” Then, noting Ida Kate’s expression, she hurried to her friend’s side. “What’s wrong?”

  Wordlessly Ida Kate unfolded the recipe. Her heart thumped hard as she held it out.

  Dear Sir, Caroline had written in her lengthy letters to Papa. Dear Mr. Deming. Dear Henry. My dear husband-to-be. But where was the elegantly slanted handwriting now?

  Pound of Flower, Buter, Shuger, Eggs, Milk …

  The cake recipe was written in a heavy black scrawl, the letters ill-formed, the spelling as often wrong as it was right.

  Ida Kate crammed the recipe into her own pocket and stared at Martha.

  “What’s wrong?” whispered Martha. “I mean, besides the spelling?”

  Ida Kate shook her head. “You’d better go. They’re calling for you.” She was desperate now for Martha to leave, for everyone to leave. She was desperate to be out of sight when Caroline came back into the house. “Hurry and go. I’ll talk to you at school tomorrow. I promise!”

  And as Martha, perplexed, left the house, Ida Kate slipped into the darkness of the storeroom. She carefully shut the door and leaned against it, her thoughts spinning. She listened intently for Papa’s heavy step coming into the house. But she heard other things instead. She heard someone else.

  She heard pots banging around as someone prepared the evening meal. She heard teacups clattering as someone cleared the table.

  Someone was out there. Someone who had come on a train from far away—bringing a baby boy and settling right in. Someone who had very nicely arranged her silver-backed hairbrush and comb on Ida Kate’s bureau and hung her garments on the pegs along Ida Kate’s walls. Someone who was using Mama’s cooking pots and pretty china and liked to go walking out in the fields with Papa, leaning on his arm. Someone.

  Someone—but not Caroline Fairchild. Ida Kate could no longer deny the terrible truth, and it was all she could do to keep from screaming.

  The woman they all called Caroline Fairchild was an impostor.

  CHAPTER 8

  IMPOSTOR!

  An impostor?” cried Martha the next morning on the way to school. “Oh, mercy, are you sure?”

  “Shhh!” Ida Kate shook Martha’s arm. The twins were ambling along just ahead, and she didn’t want anyone else overhearing this conversat
ion. She couldn’t even really believe they were having this conversation in the first place.

  “Are you very sure?” pressed Martha in a softer voice.

  “Look at this,” said Ida Kate, pulling the cake recipe out of one pocket of her pinafore. “And compare it with this.” She reached into the other pocket and withdrew a folded letter. She shook it open and handed both letter and recipe to Martha. “Compare the handwriting. That’s all you need to do to see that the same person couldn’t have written both.”

  Martha scanned the recipe and the letter and sucked in her breath sharply. “I see what you mean,” she murmured. “But maybe she was ashamed that her handwriting and spelling are so poor, so she asked a friend from her factory—somebody with elegant handwriting—to help, and she dictated the letters she sent your father. That’s not a crime …”

  “But why would the daughter of a wealthy southern planter have such terrible penmanship in the first place?” demanded Ida Kate. “No, Martha, I just don’t believe it. Not when you consider all the other strange things about her.”

  Martha’s eyes gleamed with excitement. “Then you must be right, Ida Kate! She is an impostor!”

  Ida Kate twisted her braid in agitation. She wanted to find a simple, agreeable explanation for the strange handwriting and be done with it. She’d lain awake for hours last night trying to come up with some innocent explanation that would account for all the strange mistakes Caroline kept making. But there wasn’t one.

  Ida Kate heaved a deep sigh. Too many mistakes altogether.

  “Ooh, it makes me shiver,” breathed Martha. “What will you do?”

  “I have to tell Papa, of course,” Ida Kate said firmly. “I wanted to tell him last night, but I was never alone with him.”

  “Why didn’t you just announce it at the dinner table?” asked Martha.