The Ballad of Hattie Taylor Read online

  God forgive him, for a moment he considered taking her home anyway. Then the front door was opened by Roger Lord himself, and it was too late for second thoughts.

  * * *

  —

  Hattie watched Jake’s buggy depart and barely contained the desperate urge to run after him. He’d refused Roger’s offer of refreshments, retreating in an indecent rush, and Hattie was overwhelmed by a feeling of something horrid about to happen.

  Later, at dinner with Roger, she silently admitted she was wrong. She could certainly think of more comfortable ways to spend this hour, but nothing untoward had occurred.

  “I suppose after the funeral, you will spend your time searching for a husband,” Roger said out of the blue, looking up from his glass of wine.

  Excuse me? Hattie’s ire rose, but she managed a polite, “No, sir. I’m leaving next month for the Seattle Normal School.”

  He gave her one of those supercilious looks she despised. “What on earth for? You’re a young woman of consequence.” His gaze dropped to her breasts for a moment, making her long to cross her arms over them. “You have no need to work. You should be thinking about an advantageous marriage.”

  “And yet I am looking forward to an education.”

  “Preposter—” He broke off as an older woman entered the dining room. She stopped just inside the door until Roger snapped his fingers at her, then tapped his pointer finger twice against his temple. Shooting a nervous look in Hattie’s direction, the servant crossed the room. Roger cocked his head as the woman leaned to whisper in his ear.

  Snapping his fingers again, he waved the servant away. Roger stood as she sidled out of the room. He turned to Hattie. “You’ll have to excuse me; my wife needs me.”

  Then he turned and left the room. So, she was wrong. Nothing horrid going on here. Just the opposite, in fact. The man was upstairs devoting time to his invalid wife. Alone in Lord’s dining room, Hattie felt foolish for imagining melodrama where none existed.

  Fine. She smiled. Perhaps she would forgive Jake after all. She had truly feared Roger would make improper advances and had been on guard from the moment she was dumped on the man’s doorstep. But while Lord spoke to her as though she had all the brain function of a stump, Hattie admitted he had been an acceptable, if condescending, host. While he made Hattie edgy as a cat stroked from tail to head rather than vice versa, the problem was clearly with her, not him.

  But Hattie’s relief faded as she gazed at the dregs in her teacup, a bone-deep loneliness taking its place. She was accustomed to being surrounded by females. They talked to each other in her aunt’s house. The sheer silence of the Lord household unsettled her. Since her arrival, Hattie hadn’t heard a solitary laugh or so much as a snippet of chatter among the household staff.

  Hearing the muffled clatter of dishes through the door at the far end of the dining room, Hattie collected her cup and saucer and rose. She crossed to the closed kitchen door but hesitated upon hearing faint murmurs on the now-quiet other side. Finally, along with a deep breath, she pushed the heavy swinging door open with her hip.

  Two older women, one in a clean, worn dress covered by a splattered apron, the other dressed in dowdy but slightly more fashionable apparel, sat at a worn worktable, steaming cups atop its scrupulously scrubbed surface. The apron lady, whom Hattie surmised was the cook, scrambled to her feet.

  “Miss!” She wrung her hands. “Be you needin’ more tea, dear? I’m so sorry, let me jes’ get you some!” She dashed over to remove the cup and saucer from Hattie’s hands. “Please,” the older woman added, “make yerself comfortable in the dining room. I’ll bring you a fresh cup right smart-like, along with a nice slice o’ cake.”

  Returning to that large, empty dining room was the last thing Hattie wanted. “Might I stay here with you for a few moments?” she asked. “I’m used to having my evening tea with my aunt Augusta in the parlor, or with Mirabel in the kitchen. I barely know Mr. Lord, so it feels odd to be sitting in such solitary splendor in his big dining room.”

  The women exchanged uneasy glances and Hattie braced for their refusal.

  The aproned woman, however, merely said, “Whatever you like, miss.”

  Hattie caught a flash of what looked suspiciously like fear crossing the other woman’s face. But that made no sense, and when Hattie blinked and reexamined the woman’s expression, she decided she must have been mistaken.

  Her tea and cake were set before her. “I be Mrs. Morton, the cook,” the older woman said gruffly. She indicated the other lady. “This here be Mrs. Bryant, the housekeeper.”

  “How very nice to meet you both,” Hattie replied sincerely. “I’m grateful for the company.”

  Mrs. Bryant studied her. “It’s not my place to say, miss, but I’m rather surprised you weren’t taken to a more female-leaning household to spend this night.”

  “Oh, I agree wholeheartedly,” Hattie admitted. “But my aunt and Mirabel are out of town and unfortunately so is Aurelia Donaldson, with whom I would ordinarily stay.”

  Instead of prompting more conversation between them, her explanation seemed to grind it to a standstill. Mrs. Morton and Mrs. Bryant were perfectly polite and respectful, but Hattie could see her presence in their domain unsettled them. What conversation she could coax from them was stilted, and while they seemed to avoid looking directly at her, Hattie caught them exchanging worried glances.

  Accepting that she was unwanted in the kitchen, she finished her tea and rose. “Thank you for the refreshment and your company. I’ll retire to my room now.”

  She tried not to let their patent relief affect her.

  Upstairs, Hattie undressed, neatly hung her gown and underclothes in the wardrobe, then donned her night rail and turned out the light. She climbed under the neatly folded-back counterpane and pulled the covers up around her shoulders. She had clearly discomfited the women in the kitchen and wondered if it was her reputation—if it had preceded her. Well, either that or her barging into their territory had affronted their sense of propriety. Hattie wouldn’t be surprised to learn Roger had strict rules about interaction between the classes. That would account for the . . . trepidation that seemed to encircle the two servants.

  Trepidation. Hattie shivered, although the room was comfortably warm. It was an unnerving word, yet try as she might to tell herself she was too imaginative, she felt unsettled. Unease was an itch at the back of her neck. She could not relax, but rather tossed and turned, while continuously flipping her pillow in search of some soothing coolness. Finally, however, sheer exhaustion tugged her into agitated slumber.

  She was twitching in restless sleep when her bedroom door silently opened.

  18

  BARELY AUGUST 12, 1906

  Doc Fielding was warming a pan of milk when he heard the scratching at his kitchen door. What the hell?

  It was after two a.m. and he groaned, hoping Mrs. Worley’s time hadn’t come. He had only been home ten minutes, following a particularly hard delivery at an outlying ranch. Mrs. Whitfield and babe were fine, but it had been touch-and-go for quite some time. Moving the milk to the back of the stove, he went to answer the door.

  Hattie stumbled into the room when the door supporting her opened. She stood barefoot, swaying unsteadily. “He hurt me, Doc,” she whimpered, gazing up at him with dazed eyes.

  Doc stared at her in horror. She was dressed only in a once-white ripped nightgown. He saw a bruise on her arm beneath the torn sleeve and her bottom lip was split. Trembling visibly, she hugged herself with one arm. The other arm clutched a dressmaker’s box to her side.

  Doc swore long and imaginatively. He stepped forward to give her a comforting hug, but she flinched away, and it produced an unthinkable suspicion. Gently grasping her arm, he led her to a chair, glancing at the back of her night rail as he seated her. There was blood on it around her thighs, and Doc felt sick. “Who di
d this to you?”

  “I begged Jake not to . . . but he wouldn’t listen to me,” she mumbled through chattering teeth.

  “Jake?” Doc went cold with shock, then hot with rage. “Jake did this to you?”

  “What? No.” Hattie’s eyes didn’t quite focus as she stared in confusion at Doc Fielding, and he realized she was in shock. She was so pale her freckles stood out like cinnamon on cream.

  “Don’t move,” he ordered and sped from the room. Returning in moments, he draped her in a wool blanket and poured the warm milk he’d been preparing for himself into a cup and added a generous shot of whiskey. “Here, drink this.”

  Hattie held the cup between shaking hands and brought it up to her mouth. Her teeth rattled against the cup as she took a sip. She choked and coughed as the whiskey no doubt burned a path down her throat, yet Doc knew when its heat reached her stomach, for it restored a measure of color to her face.

  He pulled up a chair and sat facing her. “Now, tell me: is Jake responsible for this?”

  “Yes—no.” She shook her head. “He made me go there, but he would never . . . he didn’t—” The chattering of her teeth and shaking of her hands intensified, and she set the cup down on the table before she dropped it.

  “Easy, girl,” Doc said soothingly. “It’s all right now; no one’s gonna hurt you again.” He picked up her hand, and after an initial resistance, she allowed him to smooth his thumb over her long fingers. He waited patiently for her eyes to meet his. “Where did Jake make you go?”

  Her trembling increased. “R-Roger Lord’s.”

  “Why?”

  “B-because, Jake kissed me and t-touched my bosoms. He was drunk and upset about me being in the hall wearing only a wrapper. But I knew he wouldn’t hurt me. He stopped after a couple minutes, but he was angry with himself and he said it wasn’t . . . wasn’t safe for me to stay at the ranch with him.” Hattie began to laugh hysterically. “Isn’t that fu-funny?” Her laughter turned to a storm of weeping, and cautiously, Doc eased her into his arms, rocking her gently.

  His reaction to hearing his son-in-law had initiated an intimacy with Hattie was mixed. It hadn’t angered Doc when he’d first discovered Jake had started frequenting Mamie Parker’s girls after four years of marriage. He’d assumed Jake went there to spare Jane-Ellen from unwanted attention. Doc knew his daughter was a rigidly moral young woman, and he’d suspected she didn’t like the marriage bed. Jake was an earthy young man and, overall, he’d been a good husband. But, dammit, his daughter had been dead less than four full days! And Hattie was only a kid . . .

  As she shuddered in his arms, Doc reminded himself she was eighteen, an age when most girls her age were married, some already with a child or two. She also possessed a figure that probably brought a throb to more than one young buck’s loins. To be fair, from her few faltering words it sounded as though fear for her virtue was what had driven Jake to make arrangements to remove her from his reach. He must have thought he was delivering her to safety.

  Instead, he’d delivered her into the hands of a goddamn rapist.

  “Missy?” Doc drew back until he could look into Hattie’s eyes. “I’m going to ask you some questions, dear. Then I’ll have to do an examination. Do you think you can bear with me?”

  Hattie nodded uncertainly. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, watching Doc rise and go to the icebox. He chipped some ice from the block in the bottom of the oak cabinet and placed it in a clean dishcloth. Returning to her, he placed it gently against her split lip and instructed her to hold it.

  “Did Roger Lord do this?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Did he rape you, Hattie?” At her blank look, he realized she’d probably never heard the word before. He cleared his throat. “Did he force his . . . man part . . . into—”

  “It hurt, Doc.” Her voice verged on hysteria, and the ice pack fell from her hands as she used them to push away an unseen attacker. “I tried to make him stop, but he kept hitting me and shoving that . . . Oh criminy, it was so painful. He said, ‘You’re not s-such a fast talker now, are you, you little bitch?’ and something about teaching me to kn-know my place, and, oh God, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt!” Shaking violently, she stared at Dr. Fielding with dazed eyes. “I hurt him, too, Doc. I s-stabbed him with a pair of embroidery scissors.”

  “What?”

  “I just wanted to make him stop. I struggled and I fought, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. I scratched his neck with my fingernails, and he called me a filthy name and hit me so hard I skidded partway off the side of the bed.”

  She shuddered and hugged herself, rocking back and forth, back and forth. Closing her eyes, she felt again that unholy agony pinning her hips to the mattress, and her eyes snapped back open. It was easier if she concentrated on the remembered pain of her arm cracking against the corner of the night table before it slid across the furniture’s surface, sweeping off everything in its path.

  “I tried to grab the edge of the table for balance,” she whispered, “but my hand kept sliding across its top. Then I felt a pair of scissors and . . .” She made a stabbing motion in unconscious illustration. Her hand dropped limply into her lap and she stared at its empty, widespread fingers. “Oh God, they were sticking out of his arm and he just looked at them. It wasn’t until the bleeding started that he pulled them out. And I shoved him as hard as I could and ran.”

  The next half hour was a nightmare for both Hattie and Doc. The examination he insisted upon was one more trauma she had to endure, and he felt sicker to his soul and so goddamn furious with every new bruise he unveiled.

  Ordinarily, he would’ve awakened his housekeeper to attend Hattie during an examination of this nature. In this instance, however, he didn’t dare. Mrs. Higgins was a fine woman and a soothing presence for the ladies when a pelvic examination was indicated. But she dearly loved her gossip. The personal nature of the exam was difficult for Hattie, but luckily, she was still mostly numb with shock. Growing grimmer with each new discovery, Doc wished he, too, could submerge his emotions.

  Using his new Brownie camera, he recorded the evidence of abuse to her face. Then he pulled her nightgown up here and down there, rearranging it carefully in order to record as much of the damage to her arms, legs, and chest as he could, while still preserving her modesty. He knew he’d have to take the film into the county seat to have it developed. Word would spread like wildfire if he developed the photographs in Mattawa. And until he knew what Augusta wanted to do, he planned to protect Hattie’s privacy.

  It was a relief to finally dose her with tincture of opium and tuck her into the bed in Jane-Ellen’s old room. Doc felt like crying when she revealed that the dressmaker’s box, which she insisted on keeping with her, held her attire for Jane-Ellen’s funeral. He sat with her until she went to sleep, then went into the kitchen and poured himself a stiff drink. Sitting at the table, Doc wrote notes on Hattie’s condition while they were fresh in his mind. His brain churned with a dozen emotions as he thought about his daughter’s death, Jake Murdock, Roger Lord, Hattie’s brutally stolen innocence, and Augusta’s homecoming. He cradled his aching head in his hands.

  Christ Almighty, what a mess.

  * * *

  —

  EARLY SUNDAY EVENING

  Doc closed his office early to meet Augusta’s train. His expression carefully bland, he directed Mirabel and the stationmaster to collect the women’s luggage and transport everything to Augusta’s house. Then he assisted Augusta into his car. Ordinarily, he’d have helped Mirabel himself, but he simply could not summon the patience today. And regardless of how close Augusta was to her companion, this was a conversation best delivered privately.

  He wanted to drive while he delivered the dreadful story. At least then, he wouldn’t have to see Augusta’s horror when he broke the last news she’d want to hear. He also wanted h
is child back and Hattie untouched, the way she had been yesterday. But all the wishing in the world couldn’t make that happen—so he cranked up the car. And started talking.

  * * *

  —

  No, no, no. Augusta thought coming home to bury her daughter-in-law and grandchild was the worst thing that could happen. But this! Her darling Hattie viciously violated?

  Dear, dear God. “What should we do?” She pressed her knuckles against her trembling lips. “God in heaven. Roger Lord cannot be allowed to get away with this outrage. I dearly want to call the sheriff and have that man dragged away in chains.” Her eyes burned with a fierce light when she stated, “I want to see him either hanged or spending an eternity in jail—I don’t care which.” She met Doc’s eyes. “And I understand perfectly well if I take steps to ensure that, Hattie will be ruined.”

  “I know, Augusta.” Swearing, Doc ran his fingers through his thinning hair. “That’s why I didn’t do anything before you got home. I have enough evidence to ensure Roger Lord spends a good long time in jail. But it would mean a trial. And despite the pictures I took, or giving testimony in which I swear Hattie was relieved of her virginity in a most violent way, or even the fact that she struggled to the point of causing him bodily harm, she will never again be accepted in polite society. Jesus, Augusta, she is sometimes barely tolerated now, even under your protection. If it becomes known she no longer possesses a maidenhead, Mattawa’s upstanding citizens will turn their backs on her entirely—I guarantee it. Men will make improper advances, women will cross the street to avoid having their skirts brush against hers, and all of them will feel perfectly justified in doing so. Hattie’s been too outspoken in the past, and that girl is a born fighter. She isn’t the type to kill herself over this, and—bet your bottom dollar—she won’t be forgiven for rejecting death over dishonor.” He rubbed his temples. “And if it ever came out at a trial why Jake sent her to Lord’s house in the first place—” He shook his head.