Eternity Read online

  If she thought the house was bad outside, she wasn’t prepared for the inside. Grim, she thought. A bleak, unhappy, colorless place that was guaranteed to make its inhabitants wretched. The walls were of bare planks darkened with soot from many fires. In the middle of the room was a dirty, round table with four mismatched chairs, one of which was leaning to one side from a leg that was too short.

  In the corner of the single room was a cabinet that seemed to be the kitchen of the house, for the top of the cabinet was piled high with chipped dishes that hadn’t been washed in so long that they were dusty as well as encrusted with dried food.

  As Carrie stood with her back to the broken door and looked about the dreadful place, at first she didn’t see the children. They were standing in the shadows of the doorway to what Carrie assumed was the bedroom, standing quietly, watching, waiting to see what was going to happen.

  They were beautiful children, even more beautiful than their photograph showed. The boy looked as though he might grow to be more handsome than his father, and it was obvious that the girl would someday blossom into splendor.

  In spite of their good looks, the children looked as unhappy as the house did. Neither of them had combed their hair in days, maybe months, and, although they were fairly clean, their clothes were dirty and torn and had that faded look that only hundreds of washings could give to cloth.

  As Carrie stood looking at them, she knew that she had been right: This family needed her.

  “Hello,” Carrie said as cheerfully as she could manage. “I’m your new mother.”

  The children looked at each other then back at Carrie, their eyes wide in wonder.

  Carrie went to the table and set her bags on it, noting that the table was greasy and needed a good cleaning. Sniffing around her legs, Choo-choo pulled to be free, and when she unsnapped his leash, he went immediately to the children, both of whom looked down at the animal in astonishment. Neither of them made any move to touch the little dog.

  Opening the first case, Carrie withdrew a porcelain-headed doll, an exquisite creature, made in France and dressed by hand all in silk. “This is for you,” she said to the girl, then waited for a seemingly endless moment until the child came forward to take the gift. She looked as though she were afraid to touch the elegant doll.

  Carrie took the sailboat from the bag. “And this is for you.” Holding out the boat to the boy, she saw by his eyes that he very much wanted to take the present, and he even took a step forward, but then he stepped back and shook his head no.

  “I brought it just for you,” Carrie said coaxingly. “My brothers sail ships from Maine to all over the world, and this is very much like one of their ships. I’d like for you to have it.”

  The boy looked as though he were fighting some inner demon, fighting the part of him that so much wanted the toy, and fighting the other part of himself that for some reason wanted to refuse the boat.

  At last the boy tightened his lips—and in doing so looked exactly like his father—and said belligerently, “Where’s Papa?”

  “I believe he’s helping a man with my baggage.”

  The boy gave a firm nod then ran out the door, obviously used to the broken hinge as he seemed to work it without nearly killing himself.

  “Well,” Carrie said and sat down on one of the unbroken chairs. “I think he’s angry at me. Do you know why?”

  “Papa said that you were going to be ugly and we weren’t to mention it. He said that lots of things were ugly, but they couldn’t help it,” the girl said, then cocked her head to one side as she studied Carrie. “But you’re not ugly at all.”

  Carrie smiled at the little girl. For all that she couldn’t be more than five, she was certainly articulate. “It seems to me to be a little unfair to be angry just because someone isn’t ugly.”

  “My mother is beautiful.”

  “Oh, I see,” Carrie said, and she did see. If her own beautiful mother died and her father had married another beautiful woman, Carrie wouldn’t have been too happy about it either. If her father had remarried, she would have much preferred him to marry an ugly woman, a very, very ugly woman.

  “You don’t mind that I’m not ugly, do you? I can be ugly if you want.” At that Carrie began to make faces, pulling her eyes down with her fingers, and pushing her nose up with her thumb.

  The little girl giggled.

  “Think Temmie would like me better if I looked like this?”

  Giggling again, the child nodded.

  “Why don’t you come here and let me brush your hair and you can tell me what you’re going to name your doll.”

  When the child hesitated, as though trying to decide if this would be something her father would want her to do, Carrie withdrew her silver-backed hairbrush from her case. After a little gasp of awe at the sight of the pretty brush, the child went to Carrie and took her place between Carrie’s knees and allowed her to gently brush her hair.

  “And your name is Dallas?” Carrie asked, stroking the child’s fine, soft hair. “Isn’t that a rather unusual name?”

  “Mother said it was where I was made.”

  “Like in a factory?” Carrie said before she thought, then cleared her throat, glad the girl couldn’t see her red face. “Oh, I see. What are you called? Dallie?”

  The child seemed to consider that for a moment. “You can call me Dallie if you want.”

  Behind her, Carrie smiled. “I should be honored to be allowed to call you a name that no one else calls you.”

  “What’s his name?” Dallie pointed to Choo-choo.

  Carrie told her. “It’s because the day my brother gave him to me, he sneezed many times. Do you know that since that day I don’t think he’s sneezed once?”

  When Dallas didn’t laugh but nodded solemnly, Carrie felt a tug at her heart. It wasn’t right that a child as young as she was should be so serious. “There now,” Carrie said. “Your hair is very tidy and what lovely hair it is, too. Would you like to look?” When she held out a silver-backed mirror, the child took it and looked at herself as though she were studying herself.

  “You are very pretty,” Carrie reassured her.

  Dallie nodded. “But not beautiful. Not like my mother.” She handed the mirror back to Carrie.

  What an odd thing for a little girl to say, Carrie thought as she looked about the cold, dreary little room. “Shall we see about dinner? What is there in the house to eat?”

  “Papa said that you would make dinner. He said that you knew how to cook anything in the world and that you would never let us go hungry.”

  Carrie smiled. “Then that’s what I’ll have to do.” Standing up, she went to the single cupboard and opened the doors. Her heart sank when she saw how little there was inside. The sight of half a loaf of stale bread, three cans of peas, and nothing else made a surge of anger at Josh shoot through her. Even if she were the greatest cook in the world, she wouldn’t be able to prepare a meal with these few ingredients.

  She searched the cupboard, and way in the back, she found a jar of homemade strawberry preserves. Withdrawing the jar, she smiled. “For dinner tonight we shall feast on bread and jam. I have a fat packet of China tea in my case so we shall be able to have a very elegant tea party.”

  “We can’t eat that,” Dallas said, motioning toward the jar of jam. “Papa says that we must save them for something special. Aunt Alice made them. They were a present.”

  Carrie smiled. “Every day is special. There is never a day when you can’t find something to celebrate, and today, especially, there are lots of things to celebrate. I have arrived and you have a new doll and Temmie has a new toy and—”

  “He won’t like for you to call him Temmie. He’s Tem and that’s all.”

  “Oh, I see. He’s too old to be Temmie, is that it?”

  Dallas nodded solemnly.

  Carrie smiled. “I’ll try to remember that he’s too old to be a Temmie. Now, let’s get the table set for dinner.”

  It was