Read Online The Peculiars by Maureen Doyle McQuerry - Free Book Online Page A

between her teeth as she and the marshal had stood out on the pier.
    “You’re your father’s daughter. I’m sure you’ll think of something.” Thomas Saltre had laughed, and only when they had turned and started back to town had he dropped her hand.
    Lena had another dilemma as well, not one she chose to share with the marshal. (Even now that she knew his full name, she could not think of him as anything other than“the marshal.”) Her problem was that she would soon have nowhere to stay. Her room at Miss Brett’s would be taken over shortly by a dowager from the southland. And Lena’s limited resources would not permit a stay at the one hotel in Knoster. She was in a pickle, as her mother used to say.
    For some inexplicable reason, she had not mentioned Jimson Quiggley to the marshal. It would be natural for her to pay a call on her companion from the train, especially since he had so kindly offered her assistance, should she need it.
    So the next morning she dressed carefully, braiding her long black hair and pinning the braids across the crown of her head. Her other traveling suit was still fresh—a fitted jacket with a skirt of dark blue to match her eyes. It had been made by Nana Crane. The skirt was just long enough to be fashionable but short enough not to get caught in the doors of a coach or train. She selected her one pair of kid gloves, saved for the most special of occasions, whose leather was soft and buttery against her skin. Then, with mixed feelings, Lena set out for Mr. Beasley’s house.
    The coast road north beyond Knoster was a seldom-used route. Most people heading to Scree preferred the newer and more direct inland road. Even the train turned inland at Knoster, chugging its way to the northern border crossing one day each week with its burden of convicts, suspected Peculiars, and opportunists. The coast road embraced the rocky shoulders of cliffs that dropped to pocket beaches. A few farms dotted the outskirts of Knoster, where mainly pumpkin and lettuce weregrown, and Lena saw globes of orange in fields of green that tumbled toward the sea. This new world was a riot of color so different from the muted gray of her city. Lena absorbed it all as she leaned forward, peering from the confines of a Concord coach. She had been deeply disappointed to be seated inside the coach rather than riding with the driver on his bench outside. She had read Mark Twain’s account of his overland journey in
Roughing It
—“a-top of the flying coach, dangled our legs over the side and leveled an outlook over the worldwide carpet about us for things new and strange to gaze at. It thrills me to think of the life and the wild sense of freedom on those fine overland mornings”—and had been fully prepared to experience the same thing herself, but it was not to be. The marshal had tucked her securely inside the coach and said that she would hear from him soon. She didn’t bother to ask where or how. She was happy to escape his robust mustache and prying eyes.
    Even though she was inside the coach, she couldn’t help but feel some of Twain’s “wild sense of freedom” as she rode into a new adventure. But the ride ended quickly, at an imposing row of poplars that bordered a gravel track that led toward the cliff’s edge and the sea below. A few hundred yards down the track was Beasley’s house, and Lena was glad to stretch her legs. She had seen glimpses of the building as they approached—cupolas and towers, sharp roof angles, and the wrought-iron railing of a widow’s walk. But she was not prepared for Mr. Beasley’s house in its entirety.
    It clung like a limpet to the edge of the cliff and was tall and gray-shingled with white railings and trim. The architecture had followed no particular style—a cornice here, a bay there, a swooping roofline that looked as if it might take flight. There was an old-fashioned garden that had run amok on the south side of the house and also a small apple orchard,