Free Crimson Snow by Jeanne Dams Page A

still in your sittin’ room, and we’ve things to talk about.”
    He sat down on the shabby old couch and patted the cushion beside him, but Hilda shook her head and turned to one of the wooden chairs around the table. “No, Patrick. Mrs. Sullivan has shown that she trusts us. We must not misbehave ourselves.”
    Patrick sighed. “Me girl, this is the first time in months I’ve had you alone anyplace where we wasn’t freezin’ to death. And you’re tellin’ me I can’t even have you sit next to me?”
    Into Hilda’s mind swam Norah’s comments. “Patrick’s Irish. I wouldn’t be so sure…”
    â€œIt would not stop at that, would it?” said Hilda primly. “No, we must talk, but it must be talk only. And Patrick, I am sorry, but we must not be too long. I am very tired.”
    â€œYou work too hard.” Patrick dropped his flirtatious tone and became serious. “Hilda, I watched you tonight. This was just an ordinary family dinner, but you was run off your feet.”
    â€œThat was because Mr. Williams was not there. The work is not usually so hard.”
    â€œIt’s hard enough. How many times have we been out together when you was so tired you near fell asleep? How often have I heard you complain about old Williams bein’ a tyrant, and a slave-driver, and—”
    â€œNo, Patrick! It is not right to talk about him when he is ill, when he is maybe…” She wouldn’t say the word, but it hung in the air between them.
    â€œAll right, I won’t talk about him. I’m sorry he’s so bad sick, but I’m not wantin’ to talk about him, anyway. I’m talkin’ about us. I’m wantin’ to take you out of this, give you a house of your own, servants of your own. Haven’t you had enough of bein’ ordered about?”
    Hilda waited a long time before replying, so long that Patrick looked at her anxiously. “No, wait,” she said. “I must say this the right way.”
    Patrick looked more anxious than ever.
    She took a deep breath. “I have thought for a long time about this. Always I say to myself the same t’ings. Things. I say—I think to myself, you understand—that I want to marry you and have my own home and—and children. I say that I want to be my own mistress, not a servant anymore. I say that now, if you become Uncle Dan’s partner, these things are possible. And then I remember about your family, and my family, and how much they would hate this.”
    She sounded so forlorn that Patrick longed to take her in his arms, but she saw the wish in his eyes and put out a forbidding hand. “No. Let me finish. Always I think the same things, and never do I come to an answer. But yesterday I talked to Norah.”
    At the “but,” Patrick’s eyes grew a little brighter.
    â€œWe did not have enough time, because she had to hurry home to cook supper. And she was very tired, and I had a new thought, that maybe marriage was not all fun, that it, too, was work. But,” she hurried on to forestall him, “Norah said something else, something that made me think another new thought. All day today, when I could think at all, I thought about what she said. She asked me what I wanted most, to please my family or to marry the man—the man I loved.” Hilda looked down and addressed her next remark to Patrick’s shoes. “And I decided,” she whispered, “that I do not know what our families will do, but I want to marry you.”
    This time she didn’t try to stay Patrick from the joyful embrace that swept them both into another world, one built of pink clouds and inhabited by chubby cupids.
    When he at last freed her, gently, reluctantly, he reached into his pocket. “I’ve had this for a while, darlin’ girl, just hopin’,” he whispered. “I’ve held your hand often enough to