"That's vanity. That's very perceptive," Clara said. He accepted this as his due and moved on to the next horse. She found herself thinking that Eleanor had been right to call him her little philosopher. But it was not only Sam who had shifted.
Mabel had stopped waiting to be asked before she helped. She had not stopped being watchful, that was too deep in her to change quickly, perhaps too deep ever to entirely change, but the watchfulness had lost its defensive edge. She came to the kitchen now sometimes without a purpose, which was something she had not done in Clara's first weeks. She sat at the table and talked while Clara cooked, or she stood beside her and they worked together in the particular comfortable silence of two people who have been through something difficult together and no longer need to explain themselves. It was Mabel who brought it up first.
They were making pie late August, the kitchen warm, the windows open. Mabel was rolling pastry with the focused efficiency of someone who had learned the task young and done it many times, and Clara was working the filling. And they had been talking about something inconsequential. The church social coming up the following week, whether Thomas and Daniel could be trusted to talk about it, when Mabel stopped rolling and said, without particular preamble, "People in town are talking about you." Clara kept her hands moving in the bowl.
"What are they saying?" She said. "Mrs. Harriet Coombes," Mabel said, "told Mrs. Aldridge at the dry goods store that Pa brought a woman here who probably couldn't find a decent husband elsewhere and took the job out of desperation."
She said it flatly. "Reporting. Mrs. Aldridge told her that she'd heard you were a widow and that widows who answered advertisements in newspapers were either very practical or very shameless and she hadn't decided which." "I see," Clara said.
"Reverend Marsh told Pa on Sunday that he hoped the domestic arrangement at the ranch was being managed with his word was propriety." Mabel's voice didn't change. "Pa told him the domestic arrangement at the ranch was none of his concern and walked away." Something warm moved through Clara's chest at that. "And what do you think?"
Clara asked. Mabel was quiet for a moment, pressing the pastry into the pan with careful hands. "I think," she said slowly, "that you stayed up all night fighting for my brother's life. And I think Mrs. Harriet Coombs has never once done anything that cost her anything."
She pressed the edge of the pastry down with her thumb, one deliberate movement. "So I know which one of you I respect more." Clara looked at her. Mabel did not look up. "Thank you," Clara said quietly.
"I'm just being accurate," Mabel said, but her ears had gone slightly pink. The pie went into the oven. They did not speak of it again. But something had been said, and both of them knew it, and that was enough. It was 3 days before the church social that the first real trouble came.