Compromise with Sin Read online

  Compromise with Sin

  Leanna Englert

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  Publisher’s Note

  Copyright

  Dedication

  2nd Title Page

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Part 2

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Part 3

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Part 4

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Part 5

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Acknowledgments

  Discussion Questions

  Afterword: What’s Real and What’s Not

  Looking for More?

  One More Thing

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  LEANNA ENGLERT

  They enslave their children’s children who

  make compromise with sin.

  —Helen Keller

  (quoting James Russell Lowell)

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  All rights reserved under International and Pan American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Enchanted Indie Press, LLC. No part of these pages, either text or image may be used for any purpose other than personal use. Therefore, reproduction, modification, storage in a retrieval system or retransmission, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, for reasons other than personal use, is strictly prohibited without prior written permission.

  Although this story was inspired by actual historical events, it is a product of the author’s imagination. With the exception of several historical figures, any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Helen Keller and Edward Bok are sometimes portrayed in a fictitious manner but always in a way that remains true to who they were. The description of the Nebraska campaign for “babies’ sore eyes” legislation and workings of the Nebraska State Legislature are fictitious.

  Published in the United States of America

  by Enchanted Indie Press

  Copyright © 2017 by Leanna Englert

  Cover design by Kristin Bryant of 99designs

  Additional cover design and interior design for print

  and digital editions by Tosh McIntosh

  Author photo by Timothy Englert

  Editing by Susan Mayson and Patsy Shepherd

  Digital Edition (v1.7)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-938749-37-7

  ISBN-10: 1-938749-37-5

  Print Edition

  ISBN-13: 978-1-938749-36-0

  ISBN-10: 1-938749-36-0

  Dedicated to all who make the journey

  in spite of the dark

  1

  December 1894

  Slumped on the toilet after her nausea subsided, Louise Morrissey pressed a wet handkerchief against her forehead and made no effort to stop the cool rivulets trickling down her wrist. She could hold her breath only so long; then the foul smell of the public comfort station above Anderson’s Seed and Feed assaulted her, and she reached for the atomizer of lavender water.

  As Louise sprayed the cloying fragrance about the cramped room, she longed to be back in her own pristine water closet. Home. What was it she needed to tell Frank? Then she remembered. As she was leaving Riverview Inn, the hotel they owned and called home, a guest had stopped her to complain that his room was as cold and drafty as an old castle. Frank could be so exasperating. He had promised weeks before to seal the room’s ill-fitting storm window, but he frittered away hours in his workshop with their friend Yonder LaFontaine, tinkering—she stopped mid-thought and set down the atomizer. What did she care about the Inn, the thankless job of the innkeeper’s wife? Her future was with Doc.

  In a matter of minutes she would hear the words that would launch her new life. Benjamin Dewitt Foster, M.D., expected to be named to the faculty of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. As his wife, she would accompany him, her arm in his, to the theater and charity balls, indulge her love of classical studies, and champion worthy causes. And bear his children.

  Feeling stronger, she stood and studied her face in the crazed mirror that hung askew from a rusty nail. In the miserly light from a bare overhead bulb she looked all of her thirty-one years. With a trembling hand she dabbed powder to conceal dark circles under her eyes and blotted perspiration that made flaxen curls cling to her forehead.

  The sound of the doorknob turning startled her. It turned again, accompanied by insistent knocking.

  “One moment, please.” She composed herself with a deep breath that she exhaled slowly, picked up her handbag and hat, and unlocked the door.

  A farmer in ragged overalls looked down at his boots. “Pardon, missus.”

  Louise stepped out into the empty hallway. Few people would have reason to come to the second floor today, as the professionals who had offices there took Wednesday afternoons off and the Riverbend Ladies Lending Library, which Louise had founded and now operated with the help of other volunteers, was closed.

  She walked down the hall past the lawyer’s office and, without pausing, as though the space were nothing out of the ordinary, past Doc’s surgery. When she reached the library, she picked up three books from the wicker table that sat in the hall for the after-hours convenience of patrons. Unlocking the door she made a mental note to post a fresh sign to replace the tattered one that read, “Open Monday and Thursday all day, and Saturday morning. Adult Literacy Class, Tuesday night.”

  On Wednesday afternoons the library belonged to her. She went there alone to order materials, keep financial records, shelve returned items, and, in recent months, to meet her lover.

  She set her hat and handbag on a shelf in the library workroom. She was shivering in spite of her coat but lacked the strength to get a fire going just yet. Instead she reclined on the green sofa in the social corner. Her swelling breasts and expanding midsection pushed against her shirtwaist. Should she have told Doc earlier? No, she had done the right thing in not forcing his hand.

  With one finger she traced the upholstery pattern of raised ivy vines. Her thoughts drifted to the forbidden pleasures she had known here. Doc’s words that she had recalled so many times thrilled her anew: “Wild horses could not keep us apart.” She smiled and forgave him the cliché.

  She watched as dust moved from shadow to become illuminated in shafts of sunlight streaming through the windows. Her finger traveled along the upholstery pattern and idled on its misaligned seam where leaves and vines failed to connect. A glimpse of her emerald-and-pearl ring broke her reverie. Frank had presented it to her for their tenth anniversary two years ago in a sudden and gushing display of affection so sentimental it made Louise squirm. What had possessed him to disturb the su
perficial calm which they both had accommodated? If he had intended it to be a pivotal moment, an attempt to rekindle what they had lost, it failed. They were estranged within the confines of a marriage, and that was that. If he had intended the ring to be a public show of his modest wealth─but no, in all fairness that was not his nature. Now the ring fit snugly on her swollen finger. Her throat tightened. She had become the thing Pa had called her.

  As the moments dragged by, her eyes went often to the Regulator wall clock, an ornately carved cherrywood timepiece donated to the library by a grateful patron. Louise wanted to speed up its swaying pendulum and silence its incessant ticking. Marking time until the moment of truth. What if Doc didn’t come? What if he didn’t get the faculty position? What if he had a change of heart?

  In spite of still feeling weak, she could sit no longer. Her restless mind and nervous energy forced her to get up. She moved the loaded shelving cart a safe distance from the wood stove and gathered small logs and kindling from the wood box.

  The stove being cold, it resisted supporting a fire. After a considerable passage of time, Louise succeeded in coaxing a log to flare and was prodding it with the poker when she heard the sound of the door opening and the words: “Allow me.”

  In Doc’s full, baritone voice Louise heard everything that her husband was not. A man in charge, a refined and serious man who admired her abilities and ambitions, a man who awakened her passion when she had assumed that part of her life was over. She had loved Frank once. Gentle, charming, a good provider. An engaging crooked grin. He had taught her to laugh. But he was a dreamer, and to her dismay she’d become a nag, ever reminding him to look after business. Six years after their marriage vows he became impotent. And with his impotence came thinly veiled resentment of her ambition and achievements, little jabs that taken singularly amounted to nothing but collectively could open old wounds if she let them. Instead she kept her dreams and accomplishments to herself, found safety in silence or in words that passed for communication, but just barely: I saw a flock of geese flying south today; do you think we’ll have an early winter?. . . Gunter and Alice finally got a telephone. . . . Anderson’s delivered your order today.

  Louise turned toward Doc’s voice. Usually when he came through the door, his professional look and bearing softened. Not today. He seemed aloof, or perhaps she was looking too hard for signs that their future together was assured.

  He reached for the poker. She straightened and caught the familiar, maple-syrup scent of pipe smoke that clung to his jacket. The fragrance, which she loved, belonged singularly to him. But today it made her queasy.

  When he knelt to tend the fire, Louise noticed the spot where his thick raven hair was thinning. As he prodded the wood, flames sprang from the flickering embers.

  “That will do,” Louise said. “It will get going of its own accord.”

  But he continued to jab the wood with the poker until flames swelled to fill the stove’s belly.

  Her breaths grew shallow. Did he think her incapable of building a fire? Or was this a delaying tactic?

  The stove door squealed shut.

  He stood. “Where is your oilcan?”

  “It’s—I don’t know. I shall tend to it later.”

  He replaced the poker in its stand. Then his dark brown eyes took on the same admiring look that months earlier had set her moral compass spinning, had defined the moment she knew herself vulnerable—not just vulnerable─but destined.

  “Now.” He softly exhaled the word.

  Louise braced for the words she could scarcely wait to hear.

  His gaze steady, he reached out and took both her hands. Then he leaned down and let his tongue tease around her lips before parting them, exciting her in all the wrong places. His hand slipped inside her coat and gently but deliberately glided over her breast as he felt for a button on her shirtwaist. She pulled away.

  He gave her a quizzical look. “You look peaked. Have you taken ill?”

  “No, not exactly. Please tell me you bring good news.”

  He frowned.

  “About the faculty position. You said you expected confirmation this week.”

  “You are mistaken, my dear.”

  No. For weeks his exact words had been her last thought before falling asleep and the first upon awakening. Now addled by his condescension, she questioned her own memory. “If not this week, when?”

  “I expected to learn if I’d been confirmed. I was not.” His voice was matter-of-fact, as though he were reporting that the greengrocer was out of apples.

  Louise gasped. She strained to believe that even without the faculty position Doc would take her away and make her his wife. His cool manner is a man’s way of expressing disappointment. He needs comforting. “I’m so sorry. I know it’s a cruel blow after you were promised the position.”

  “So I had been led to believe.”

  “We’ll go somewhere else, perhaps the mountains of Colorado. You said you loved it there, and I suppose I could adapt to the lack of cultural opportunities. I could start another library.”

  He shook his head. “It would be impractical to give up a good practice here to start over again.” His words seemed to be coming from a distance. “Only a first-rate faculty position could lure me away.”

  Louise pressed a hand to her chest, as though to stop the expanding void inside. What had been vaguely unsettling was becoming crystal clear. The void was where her future had resided, a future slipping away. Such a fool. Respectable, rational Louise Morrissey had toyed with temptation like a giddy shop girl. She had fallen in love, and now she faced ruin. “What about us? You said yourself your wife would be better off without you, and you all but begged me to divorce Frank and go away with you. you’re not thinking we’ll divorce and remain in Riverbend . . .”

  “This is difficult for me as well, my dear. If I could follow my heart, I would take you away this minute. We shall continue to have our afternoons—”

  “Our afternoons? No. I refuse to continue like this.” The shrill audacity in her voice surprised her. “You vowed that you loved me, that you couldn’t wait to end your wretched marriage.”

  “All true, my dear. But leaving is financially out of the question. Besides why would you want to leave Riverbend? Life is comfortable, you have your friends, and one day you will be its most prominent civic leader.”

  Her voice quivered. “I would go anywhere to be with you, to become your wife . . . and bear your children.”

  “Perhaps another opportunity will arise. Meanwhile—” He reached for her.

  She sidestepped to avoid his hand and positioned herself next to the shelving cart, which she gripped with both hands. “Your pledge to me meant nothing. Listen to yourself. How can you be so cavalier . . .”

  A sound like a muffled gunshot gave her a start. She jerked the shelving cart. ”Just a log popping,” Doc said. “You’re certainly jumpy today.”

  “My world has been turned upside down, and you, our future─”

  “It’s my future, too, Louise. You say I am cavalier, but you are mistaken. I am not a demonstrative man, not one to wear disappointment on my sleeve. I am a realist, and it would be foolish for us to go away together at this time. Be patient.”

  “Patient? I’ll show you patient.” With a fury she had felt only once in her life, she plucked a book from the cart and hurled it across the room, and before it hit the floor she launched a second book. As she reached for a third, Doc’s hand stopped her.

  “You’re getting hysterical! Pull yourself together.”

  She glared at him. “I am not hysterical.” Her breaths came hard. How can I say it? My next words will either win him over or drive him off. “I am in the family way.”

  He backed away. “You cannot mean it.”

  “I am certain of it.”

  “Just because your monthly is late . . .”

  As the heat of a blush crept up her neck, she looked away and struggled to regain composure. “I waited t
o be absolutely certain before telling you.” She approached him. “This could be the son who will carry on your name.” She placed his hand on her belly.

  He yanked it away. “Is this a trap?”

  A side of Doc that Louise had never seen emerged, accusing eyes and curled lip that made her cringe. She tried to damn him with her next words, but her trembling voice, barely more than a whisper, betrayed her. “How . . . dare . . . you?”

  “What makes you so sure it’s mine?”

  Shallow, ragged breaths frustrated her efforts to appear calm. “I told you that Frank had lost his ability to perform.”

  Doc reacted with a bemused expression. “Married to a Jezebel such as yourself? Highly doubtful.”

  “Jezebel? Is that all I am to you?” Now she was shouting.

  Doc’s look and voice sobered. “Or have you been consorting with that halfbreed?”

  “With Yonder?” Light-headed and wobbly, Louise steadied herself on the shelving cart. “How could you—”