dare in Hale's presence. Tears filled her eyes. She wanted to fall to her knees and weep, to pour out twenty years of grief and pain and frustration into the grass just barely started over the dirt mounds.
Her mother. She knew it. Evie could feel it to the very bottom of her soul. It was as if Louise were standing over her now, holding out a hand in sorrow. She had died so young. If only Evie had come a few months sooner. She would have known her, spoken to her, maybe come to love and understand her. Just a few short months, and now eternity separated them. It was more than Evie's heart could bear.
She turned away and started down the path before her tears could betray her. She pulled out a handkerchief and neatly dabbed at her eyes, forcing herself to behave as Maryellen Peyton, disinterested observer. She should be handed an acting award. Her very foundations had been shaken, and she was walking with this man as if she didn't have a care in the world.
"How sad for the Hardings. Their mother must have been terribly young. It is always tragic when someone dies young." Evie was doing mental acrobatics. Applying her mind to a problem always helped to alleviate emotion. She had no reason to cry over a mother who had abandoned her, even if that mother could barely have been twenty years old when she had her. Her age. Evie could very well remember the terrible fear of being pregnant with no man's name for her child. She didn't want to feel sympathy for the dead woman, but it would come later, when she didn't have to think.
"Actually, she was just their stepmother. I'm right between Jace and Kyle in age, and I can remember when she married their father. She probably wasn't much more than ten years older than Jace, but she made us boys jump when she came around. She was a mighty fine woman. She's the one who put up the money for the school. The government has finally got around to saying we ought to have public schools, but the money just isn't there. Without her, the children around here would be growing up ignorant."
Evie liked hearing these things. Her mother was a good woman, a well-respected woman, and a good mother. It gave her some small sense of pride. She supposed if she thought about it she could be furiously bitter that such a good woman would desert her only daughter, but Evie was certain there were mitigating circumstances. She couldn't have done what her mother had done, but was abandoning a child so much worse than killing an unborn one? That's what she had meant to do.
Lost in the torment of her thoughts, Evie almost didn't hear Mr. Hale's next words. She halted a minute as if to adjust the buttons on her gloves, then looked up at him through her lashes. "I'm so sorry, Mr. Hale, I believe I missed what you were saying."
He tucked his cane beneath his arm and took her arm to guide her over a tree root as they left the cemetery. "Perhaps it would be better if I did not repeat it. I have no business talking so freely to you like this, but I can see you are a woman of compassion, and that you have Miss Howell's best interests in mind. I do not know how to phrase this without going beyond my authority to do so."
"You mentioned the Hardings," Evie recalled. "I fail to see how they would be of any interest to my friend."
Hale answered in low tones as they traversed the main street. "Mr. Harding had a younger brother. Really, Mrs. Peyton, I cannot say more. As long as your friend does not come to Mineral Springs, there's no need to worry. The Hardings are very attractive young men. It would just be... shall we say, indelicate, if she should develop any relationship with Kyle or Jace."
It didn't take too long to work out that hint. If Kyle's uncle were Evie's father, the Hardings would be her first cousins. So much for her mother being a good woman. Evie's lips tightened.
"I'm certain that won't be a problem. Evangeline is happily affianced to a very wealthy gentleman back in St. Louis. You can understand why a woman on the brink of marriage might be concerned about her heritage." Since Mr. Hale was being so understanding, Evie boldly pushed forward.