But those people had only been buffers against Dad’s idiosyncrasies. He had always been there, somewhere, on maneuvers, on duty, but there. Alive. Now I was really on my own, despite the legal farce of Major Regan Laird.
I wondered how old the major was. The war had graven such terrible marks on him it was impossible to guess accurately. Late thirties? Perhaps. Old!
I heard him pounding snow off his boots on the back porch and I cleaned my hair from his comb, putting it back precisely in the military brush from which I had filched it.
I scampered down the hall, to the kitchen, hoping to snag some coffee before he reentered. He had come straight to the stove with his armload of kindling.
“Close the damn hall door, girl,” he ordered as I stood there, thwarted. I slammed the door and stayed firm. He might leave.
He dumped his burden into the woodbox and poked several sticks into the stove. He glanced up and caught me staring at the coffeepot. He grinned.
“Stomach feel normal?”
I nodded.
“All right then. Fix me a cup, too. It’s hmmmm it’s cold out there and snowing again.”
“Sorry to cramp your style,” I remarked sweetly as I found cups in the cabinet beside the kitchen sink. I couldn’t quite reach the shelf so I hoisted myself onto the counter. The major’s long arm intercepted my grasp and I glared around at him.
“You are a little bit of a thing,” he said, handing me the cups.
He looked at me as though seeing me clearly for the first time. He would pick right now when I looked ghastly. I tugged for him to release the cups to me. He held onto them, regarding me steadily. It was difficult for me, in returning his gaze, to resist the compulsion to drop my glance slightly to the furrows of his wounded cheek. He smiled, the smile echoing in his gray eyes.
“A little bit of a cocky thing,” he repeated. He meant it, as Turtle Bailey, Dad’s sergeant, always did, as a compliment.
He let go of the cups and, picking me up at the elbows, lifted me off the counter. “Next time, use the step stool by the door,” he commented, nodding in its direction. “Like mine black and sweet.”
“And we are grad-u-ally, fading away,” I warbled as I poured the coffee.
Merlin, who had crawled under the table, flipped on to his side with a great groan, as if deploring my singing. He let out a huge sigh and fell asleep.
“Are we really snowbound?” I asked mischievously.
“Yes, indeed. We were damned lucky not to go off that road last night. Coast Guard had plowed, fortunately, right up to the final turnoff or I’d never have made it out. Damn train being late nearly sewed us up in town. There’s only the one inn in Orleans.” He reflected a moment. “Probably been better if we had stayed there though it’s no Waldorf.”
“You’re a good guardian, protecting my virtue,” I taunted him.
“Don’t kid yourself about that,” he snapped, annoyed by my flippancy.
“I can take care of myself,” I lashed back. “I’m a colonel’s daughter and the day I can’t handle a mere major“
He saw the humor in the situation quicker than I did and threw back his head to laugh. He sobered as quickly.
“All kidding aside, Carlysle“
“Carla,” I corrected him automatically.
“I’m too used to thinking of you as ‘Carlysle’ - and male to change both at once . All kidding aside, it’d be better for you not to stay on here any longer than the storm.”
I got the feeling then that it was not the proprieties that worried him. I couldn’t imagine what did. Then he confirmed a nagging doubt I’d had.
“You said there were two attempts to enter your rooming house? Was it the first or second time that Merlin interfered?”
“The second. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, nothing.”
“That’s the kind of nothing that’s something,” I replied with exasperation.
He raised an eyebrow but made no explanation.
“Did you bring everything you own with you?” he asked, nodding towards the corridor where my other suitcase still lay. “Or did you leave things with Mrs. Everett?”
“I left all my college books,” and I grimaced sullenly. “And my summer clothes are stored in a trunk in her cellar.”
“You’ll be back in the summer and you’ll make up this term. For Christ’s sake, the dean was justified,” he exploded as I turned obdurately sulky over that hotly contested decision. “You’re nothing but skin and bones. Worn out. Mentally, too, I’ll wager. Book fatigue, nothing more. Tired minds make mistakes and risk lives.”
“I’m not in a position to risk lives,” I replied angrily.
“No, you’re risking more. Your education and your future.”
“You know so much about it?”
He glared back at me, refusing to budge an inch. “In that letter, your dean - “
“Oh? Really, and you never tumbled from her letterhead that I was at Radcliffe, not Harvard .” I sneered.
“I thought it was a wartime exigency. So many professors drafted, the Radcliffe faculty pitching in to fill the gaps .”
“A likely tale. You didn’t want me to be female any more than my father did.”
“Damn well told,” he shouted, his carefully contained temper erupting, “and it’d be a piece of infantile foolishness for you to jeopardize a dean’s list record with your bullheadedness.”
The fact that he was absolutely right and rational only infuriated me more. The decision had been forced on me and I resented coercion bitterly.
“You’ll obey me in this, young lady. Legally I’m your guardian, and I’ll decide what’s right for you when you’re too stubborn blind stupid to see the forest for the trees. You’ll take this term off if I have to lock you up.”
“I’m not in the goddamned army,” I yelled, jumping to my feet.
“Too damned bad you’re not. You’d’ve learned to obey if you were!”
There we were, both on our feet, glaring at each other, our faces inches apart. The tension reached Merlin’s sleeping senses and he barked sharply twice. That brought us to our senses. I blinked at the major’s angry face, the cords of his neck taut and the ridges of the keloidal tissue red and angry-looking.
I was instantly heartily ashamed of my outburst. He was assuming a disagreeable responsibility and I was being a silly little fool not to make things as easy as possible for him. I sat down abruptly, stirring my coffee vigorously.
“I’m sorry,” I said, sincerely contrite. “I am behaving childishly. I’m being unfair to you. You’re right. I am worn out. I’ll behave.”
He remained standing for a moment so I couldn’t see his face. He sat down slowly. His unscarred left hand covered mine with a brief reassuring squeeze.
“I’ll make an arrangement for you in town and then you’d better go back to the Everetts after I leave.”
I looked at him stupidly. “After you leave?”
“I’m to report to Walter Reed in a few weeks,” he said tonelessly. In spite of myself my eyes went to his scarred face. He returned my startled look expressionlessly.
“But I could stay here then.”
He shook his head violently, frowning savagely.
“You can’t stay here alone.”
“Why not?” I insisted. “Merlin won’t let anyone he doesn’t know .”
Major Laird closed his mouth with a snap.
“You said” and he leaned forward to me, angry again, “you said you’d behave. Just leave it that I have good and sufficient reason for wanting you in town.” He hesitated just enough to clue me he was evading. He knew I caught it but refused to give me the satisfaction of a direct answer or an explanation. I was forced to bide by my agreement to behave.
I swallowed the hasty words I wanted to say: that I was well able to take care of myself. He’d’ve tossed them back to me.