Ancient Spirits (Daisy Gumm Majesty Books) by Alice Duncan Page B

you, but that wasn’t true any longer. In fact, my bottom hurt as I sat in the hard wooden dining room chair because it was no longer padded as it had once been.
    “I think so, too,” said Ma. “You don’t get offers like that every day. You’d be throwing away a wonderful opportunity if you refuse. Besides, it would hurt his feelings.”
    Hurt Harold’s feelings? I doubted it. Granted, his suggestion had been kind and generous, but . . . Vi’s words finally struck home. “Have I really been moping around?”
    “Lord, yes, child! You don’t do anything from sunup to sundown but crawl around the house like a ghost. I was so pleased when you finally agreed to work for Missus P. again. I’d hoped it might help you feel better if you got back to work.”
    Talk about guilt! I lowered my eyes and said penitently, “I guess I haven’t been pulling my weight around here recently, have I?” I knew my family needed the money I made. Had I been self-indulgent and childish for the last month and a half? Should I have shoved my grief aside and charged back to the spiritualist trade, even given my bad attitude, which had me wanting more to chuck my clients out of high windows than help them cope with their trivial problems through idiotic spiritualistic means?
    “Nuts to that,” said Pa. “You’re hurting, and you have every right to hurt. Your Billy was a good man, and what happened to the two of you was a tragedy of the modern age. Anyhow, thanks to your generosity, we can manage fine for a few months without you working. But you’d be better off not working in, say, Cairo, than here, looking at the same old walls day and night for another six months or so.”
    “You’re all against me!” I cried pettishly. “I don’t want to go to Egypt.” What I wanted was to sulk and put flowers on my husband’s grave every couple of days or so.
    Very well, so perhaps I had been a little self-indulgent in recent weeks.
    “We’re not against you, Daisy. We’re worried about you.”
    When I looked at Ma, who’d spoken the words, I was appalled to see tears in her eyes. Oh, Lord, I was breaking my parents’ hearts. It didn’t seem fair that I had to think about their hearts when my own had been so recently plucked from my chest, stamped upon repeatedly, and dumped back inside my body, where it ached and throbbed constantly.
    “Why don’t you go down and talk to Johnny yourself, Daisy?” suggested Pa. “He’s a good man. I don’t think he’ll steer you wrong.”
    “Probably not,” I admitted reluctantly.
    “Harold is such a dear man,” said Vi. “So unlike his sister.”
    “And remember, too, that if you’re hoofing it all over Egypt with Harold, Missus Pinkerton can’t call and wail in your ear,” said Pa, grinning.
    That’s what decided me.
    * * * * *
    I sat in a chair opposite Johnny Buckingham’s desk in his office at the Salvation Army. “I know you’re doing the right thing, Daisy,” said Johnny, smiling at me.
    As for me, I was mopping up tears with my hankie. I swear to you, I never used to cry all the time. In those days, I was a blasted watering pot.
    “Thanks, Johnny. Harold has been quite insistent, and even my folks and Vi think it’s a good idea.” I remembered the past Saturday, when Sam Rotondo had again come to dinner and played cards with Pa afterwards, and added grumpily, “And so does Sam.”
    Johnny’s smile turned into a grin. “Billy told me he asked Sam to watch out for you after he passed, you know.”
    Flabbergasted, I blurted out, “He did?”
    “He did.”
    “Good Lord. I overheard a conversation between Billy and Sam about a week or two before he died, and I heard him ask Sam to take care of me after he was gone.”
    Johnny nodded. “It looks as if Sam is trying to do his best to follow Billy’s wishes.” He added with what I considered an unnecessarily sly glance, “If you’ll let him.”
    “I don’t need anyone to look out for me,” I said irritably. Then