James River - Lost Lady Part 23

"He wants you to live with him; in fact, I think at least half of the roses are for you, to get you to come live with him too."

"I wish he'd send me roses. Timmie Watts says Daddy only wants you, and I'll have to stay here with Brandy when you go away."

"That was a dreadful thing for him to say! And totally untrue! Your Daddy loves you very much. Didn't he tell you of the pony he bought for you and the treehouse he built? And this was before he'd even met you. Just think what he's going to do now that he knows who you are."

"You think he'll ask me to marry him too?"

Regan had no idea how to reply to that. "When he asks me, it means he wants you too."

Sighing, Jennifer leaned against her mother. "I wish Daddy'd come home. I wish he'd never go away again, and I wish he'd send me roses and write me letters."

Rocking her daughter, stroking her hair, Regan felt Jennifer's sadness. How Travis would hate knowing he had hurt his daughter by excluding her. Perhaps tomorrow she could make up for Travis's oversight. Maybe she could find some roses, if there were any left within the state after Travis's harvesting of them, and give them to her daughter—from her father.

Tomorrow, she thought, and almost shuddered. What could he be planning for tomorrow?

Chapter 19.

Jennifer woke her mother the next morning, a little bundle of roses clutched in her hand. "Do you think they're from Daddy?" she asked her mother.

"Could be," Regan said, not really lying but giving the child hope. She'd placed the little bouquet on her daughter's pillow early this morning.

"They're not from Daddy," Jennifer said with great despair. "You put them there." With a fling, she tossed them across the bed and ran to her own room.

It was some time before Regan could comfort her daughter, and she was close to tears herself before Jennifer quietened. If only there was some way she could get a message to Travis and tell him of Jennifer's distress.

When they were finally dressed, both of them far from cheerful, they held hands and together prepared for what the day—and Travis—had planned for them.

The reception rooms were full of townspeople, but since there was no new excitement, often only one family member was present. Stiffly, Regan fended off their questions and kept Jennifer near her as she checked the rooms of the inn and tried to keep up a normal routine. She was quite tired of being a spectacle for everyone to stare and gawk at.

By noon nothing new had happened, and the townspeople, deflated, began to go home. The dining room was filled but not packed, and Regan noticed Margo and Farrell dining together, their heads bent, almost touching as they talked. Frowning, she wondered what the two of them could have to say to each other.

But she had no more time to think about anything else, because the noise coming from the hall was rising in tone and pitch.

Eyes skyward, she felt like crying in despair. "Now what has he done?" she muttered.

Jennifer clutched her mother's hand. "Do you think Daddy's come home?"

"I'm sure he's done something, " she said, and started for the front door.

Music began to fill the front of the inn as soon as they left the dining room. The sound of horses and wagons and other sounds she'd never heard before became louder and louder.

"What is it?" Jennifer asked, eyes widening by the second.

"I have no idea," Regan replied.

The front of the hotel was plastered with people, all frozen in their places at the six windows in front and

the open door.

"Jennifer!" someone yelled, and all the people suddenly came alive."

"It's a circus!"

"And a menagerie! I saw one in Philadelphia once."

Jennifer's name was repeated several times before Regan could make a place for herself and her

daughter on the front porch.

Just rounding the corner by the schoolhouse were three men, their faces painted, wearing satin clothes

sewn with spots and stripes of outrageous colors, and they were doing flips, tumbling, jumping over each other.

Something on their chests seemed to be letters. It took Regan a while to make out the word because of

the clowns' acrobatics.

"Jennifer," she said. "It says Jennifer."

Laughing, grabbing her daughter in her arms, she pointed excitedly. "It's for you! They're clowns, and

they have Jennifer, your name, written on their suits."

"They're for me?"

"Yes, yes, yes! Your Daddy has sent you a whole circus, and if I know Travis, it's no little circus. Look!

Here come some men doing tricks on horses."

More than a little stunned, Jennifer watched as three horses, beautiful, golden, long-maned horses, came galloping toward them, a man in each saddle, one standing up, another jumping in and out of the saddle, his feet barely touching the ground, and the last man's horse seemed to be dancing. As a body, they stopped in the midst of a storm of dust and saluted Jennifer. Grinning almost enough to tear her skin, she looked at her mother.

"The circus is for me," she said proudly, turning away to look at the other people beside her. "My Daddy sent a circus for me."

A stilt-walker followed the clowns and equestrians, and then came a man pulling a small black bear on a chain. Everything had Jennifer's name written on it. The music was growing louder as the band came closer to the inn.

Suddenly a hush fell over all the townspeople as around the corner came the biggest, most bizarre creature anyone had ever seen. Lumbering slowly, its ma.s.sive feet making the ground quake, the animal with its trainer leading it stopped before the inn. The man unfurled a sign down the animal's side: "Capt. John Crowins.h.i.+eld presents the first elephant to appear in these United States of America. And at a special request of Mr. Travis Stanford, this great beast will perform for—."

Regan read the sign to her daughter, who was clinging tightly to her mother.

"For Jennifer!" a second sign heralded.

"What do you think of that?" Regan asked. "Daddy sent the elephant to perform just for you."

For a moment Jennifer didn't answer, but after a long pause she leaned toward her mother's ear. "I don't have to keep him, do I?" she whispered.

Regan wanted to laugh, but the more she thought of her daughter's question and Travis's sense of humor* "I sincerely, truly hope not," she said.

Thoughts of the elephant vanished as soon as it moved away, because behind the animal was a pretty little white pony covered with a blanket of white roses with "Jennifer" spelled out in red roses.

"What does it say, Mommie?" Jennifer asked with hope in her voice. "Is the pony for me?"

"It certainly is," said a pretty blonde woman in a revealing—scandalous actually—costume of stretchy cotton. "Your Daddy found you the sweetest, gentlest horse in this state, and if you like you can ride him in the parade."

"Could I? Please?"

"I'll take care of her," the woman said. "And Travis is on the grounds."

Reluctantly, Regan relinquished her daughter and watched as the woman lifted the child into the saddle.

From the side of the pony, the woman took a vest completely covered in pink roses and slipped Jennifer's arms through it.

"Roses for me!" Jennifer yelled. "Daddy sent roses for me too."

Regan noticed she seemed to be looking for someone, and a quick glance showed Timmie Watts hiding behind his mother's skirts. Feeling rotten as she did it, Regan pulled the boy into Jennifer's sight, where the child promptly stuck her tongue out at him and pelted him with a rose. To clear her guilty conscience, Regan asked if Timmie would like to walk beside Jennifer's pony in the parade, which he accepted gladly.

Waving gaily and somewhat regally, Jennifer rode down the street toward the south end of Scarlet Springs. More men and women followed her, some walking, some on horses, all dressed outlandishly and garishly, followed by a seven-piece bra.s.s band. At the end of the parade, more clowns came, bearing signs announcing that a free performance of the circus, courtesy of Miss Jennifer Stanford, would be given in two hours.

As the last person disappeared around the curve of the road past the church, the townspeople stood silently for a few moments.

"I guess I better get on with my ch.o.r.es," said one man finally.

"I wonder what a person wears to a circus?" asked a woman.

"Regan," someone else began. "I'm sure this town's gonna lay down and die from boredom when you leave."

A hastily stifled giggle that could only be Brandy's made Regan turn.

"What do you think Travis is planning now?"

"To get to me through Jennifer," Regan replied. "At least I hope that's all he plans. Come in, we've got to get busy. We'll close the inn, put signs on the door, 'Gone to the circus,' and everyone can go."

"Great idea. I'll pack food for us and half the town, and we'll be ready in as little time as Travis has given us."

The two hours pa.s.sed too quickly, and it seemed minutes before Regan was driving a wagon loaded with food to the circus grounds. A large enclosure had been made by stretching canvas walls around trees and posts. Long wooden benches had been set up, the ones in back taller than those in front, and already most of them were filled with townspeople. In one center section was a large s.p.a.ce set apart by pink and orange ribbons blowing in the breeze.

"Wonder where you're to sit?" Brandy laughed at Regan's look of embarra.s.sment. "Come on, it can't be as bad as you imagine."

The young woman in the pink tights directed both Regan and Brandy to the ribboned section and left them. Within minutes two horses, at full gallop, came tearing through the enclosure with one man on top, one leg on one horse, the other on the other horse. As he reached the end of the field, he jumped to one horse, turned both of them around, and, again at a gallop, leaped from one horse to the next.

"Oh my!" Brandy breathed.

After that, they had no time to think as the field filled with more and more horses. The horses did tricks; the men did tricks atop the horses. Two men stood on two horses, and a third man stood on the men's shoulders as the horses ran round and round the ring.

After the equestrians left, Jennifer rode into the ring, her pony led by the lady in pink, and Jennifer was wearing an identical costume of pink bits of gold glitter here and there. As Regan watched, her stomach in her throat, the woman took the little girl's hand and Jennifer stood in the saddle and slowly rode the pony once around the circle.

"Sit down!" Brandy commanded as Regan started after her daughter. "She can't fall very far, and the woman's holding her."

At that the circus woman let go of Jennifer's hand, and she cried, "Look at me, Mommie!" to which Regan nearly fainted, especially when Jennifer gave a jump and the lady caught her.

Jennifer took several bows as she'd obviously been taught, and all of Scarlet Springs applauded explosively. She ran to her mother, and Regan caught the child tightly.

"Was I good? Did I do it right?"

"You were splendid. You nearly scared me to death."