#i need me a rugged scotsman and i need one now. i am no longer asking

[licorishh]

i love og soap too much. my stomach hurts. i don't feel good.

[bookwormchocaholic]

The Lonesome Road: Chapter 1

A03

SYNOPSIS:  Belle is drawn to her employers' neighbor and is surprised when he offers to help her out of a difficult situation.

Note: Not beta-ed, expect mistakes.

Rating: M

Special thanks to @onceuponanovel for the gorgeous artwork!!!!

November 1933

Belle’s shoulders sagged as she situated herself in the chair at the kitchen table, her book “The Age of Innocence,” spread open to the first page. The weather had turned off unseasonably warm, a symptom of Indian Summer, therefore she had opened up a few windows, to stir up the stagnant air of the closed up house.

The Mills’ family was out calling on friends and though she had not been invited to join them, she rejoiced at the opportunity to have the house to herself. Her life had had been one upheaval after another since her father passed.

Papa… She mouthed the word and she closed her book. It had been six weeks since he died of a sudden heart attack and left a hole in her heart. If losing her beloved parent wasn’t bad enough, she had to lose her home too. Her father had been the reverend of Storybrooke and the parsonage that she had lived in her whole life belonged to the church. The board members gave her a week to get things sorted, but she had to move out and make way for the new reverend and his family.

“Poor dear… my husband and I have talked it over and prayed about it. We would like it if you moved in with us.” Cora had said, drawing Belle off to a quiet corner of the church sanctuary to discuss delicate matters. The woman had hugged her and patted her cheek. “You need a home and I need someone to help me with a few chores around the house. You can have room and board in exchange. What do you think?”

With no place to go and with no real money of her own, Belle mumbled her acquiescence and that afternoon she packed up her meager belongings. Her clothes, books, and a few sentimental things fit inside one suitcase and a carpet bag. Everything else belonged to the church. The Mills’ were respectable people, good Christians, and her father had always spoken highly of Henry Mills. It would have been foolish not to accept. Cora shuffled her off to the attic of the Mills’ farmhouse, a stuffy and dusty room, but Belle knew it was better than being homeless like so many others in the country.

I am lucky. Belle reminded herself, shaking her head. So many were going hungry and didn’t have a roof over their heads. She had both, although, she couldn’t shake off the feeling that Cora was taking advantage of her.

No, it wasn’t just a feeling…it was a fact.

The second Belle set foot in the house, Cora deigned to lift a finger. The chores, the meals, the care of the two Mills girls fell to Belle, whilst Cora had the luxury of sleeping late, playing Schumann’s “Scenes From Childhood” on the piano, and lounging on the sofa during the day. The woman got a governess, maid, and cook in exchange for very little.

Belle hugged her book to her chest, it was the only thing she could hug, and winced at the tightness that balled in her stomach. Cora had her over a barrel and knew it. A deal was a deal though and nothing could be done about it.

With the country and the economy in dire straits due to the Crash and the Depression, things were bound to get worse before they got better. Cora’s husband was no help; he would not confront Cora. In fact, Belle was pretty certain that the man was afraid of her. More than once she had witnessed Cora smack Henry upside of his head and she was always shouting at him in the privacy of their bedroom. And the girls – Zelena and Regina – such wild little beasts. Regina was too young to know better, but mimicked everything her older, nastier sister did. The Mills family were not the good Christians that they claimed to be.

The blaring of the Mills’ Model A car horn roused Belle from her dark musings. Baruga, Baruga!

Belle cast her book aside. So much for my privacy!

Cora barged into the house, sweat-damp and her Sunday hat askew, shouting, “Close the windows, you daft girl! There’s a storm coming!”

Belle cringed and rushed to the front window, slamming it down. Across the property, her eyes bulged at the sight of a brown avalanche of dust rolling towards the house. Stifling a terrified gasp, she closed the remaining windows while the children and Henry made inside just in time for the dust to slam into the building.

Streams of brown particles seeped in through keyholes, cracks and slits, but for the most part, they were safe. She and Henry plugged up what holes they could with old handkerchiefs, and figured that she would spend the remainder of the day dusting.

Cora collapsed on the sofa, forearm draped over her face, bemoaning how it was too hot for her to move a muscle. “Why can’t we have air conditioning? The Blanchard’s have it and Gold is rumored to have it and fans! And one of those ice boxes!” Producing a hanky from her pocket, she fanned herself, “You fool, I’m dying here and all you can do is stand there!”

Henry outwardly flinched, hunching his shoulders, he dropped into his chair. “Cora, we can’t afford such luxuries, you know that.”

“You are a waste of perfectly good skin!” Cora hissed.

There was a crash upstairs and shouting from the girls.

Belle rolled her eyes, grabbed up her book, and sequestered herself to the kitchen to work on supper. Hopefully she could get a few more chapters read before the end of the day.

Such was her life and there was no end of it in sight.

#

Belle went upstairs to dispense piles of laundry, stopping in her own room at the end. Tucking her clothes away in the chest of drawers and the chiffarobe, she took a moment’s respite on the bed, kicking her feet up. Breakfast had been loud, the laundry had been a never ending mound of filth infested clothes, and the girls had been especially fractious all morning. Encouraged by Zelena, Regina had thrown a small rock at Belle’s face while she had been stooped over the wringer washer.

Belle had always vowed that she would not spank the girls; that wasn’t her place. But rage filled her and she whipped Regina around and swatted her on the behind. The girls ran off after that, doing God knows what.

She reached for the hand mirror that had belonged to her mother and pressed the spot on her cheek. It was already puffy and purple. Tears smarted her eyes but she blinked them away. If she started crying now, she never would stop. Weeping was for night, when her time was her own. Besides, she still had to dust downstairs, to clean up the remnants of the dust storm that had swept through the area. It had done minimal damage to the property, leaving behind more dirt than anything. According to the radio, the dust storm had begun in the Dakotas and spread across the country. In places on the East Coast, it rained red. No explanations as to why it had happened or if it would happen again.

“Ugh, where’s my book?” Belle groaned. Blindly groping the quilt, she frowned, unable to locate it. She could have sworn she had left it on the bed this morning, reluctant to part from it because Newland Archer had just been reintroduced to Ellen Olenska.

Swinging her feet onto the floor, she looked around and noticed a few scraps of paper on the other side of the room. Hurrying over, Belle found her book, mutilated on the area rug. Turning it over, she examined it and found that the first twenty pages had been ripped out by sticky, smudged fingers.

Belle let out an aggravated cry. The girls! “Regina, Zelena!” She tossed the book on the bed and stomped down the stairs, shouting, “What have you done? You miserable little brats!”

She saw the girls make a wild dash into the living room and duck behind their mother. “You nasty beasts! You ought to be horsewhipped!” she fumed.

“Miss French, we have company!” Cora exclaimed, her hand flying to her cheek.

Belle halted and slowly turned around. In her anger she hadn’t noticed the man in a suit sitting on the sofa, conversing with Henry Mills. The stranger shot to his feet and nodded to her.

“My apologies.” She gulped, feeling ashamed.

No longer the reverend’s daughter, Belle still prided herself on propriety and first impressions – and there she was shouting at children in front of company.

Henry stood and gestured towards the guest. “This is our neighbor, Mr. Gold. Mr. Gold, this is Belle French.”

“Hello. Nice to meet you.” Belle offered her hand.

Mr. Gold’s hand enveloped hers – the cracked skin of his palms were far more abrasive than hers and she felt a little less embarrassed that her hands were not as soft as they should be. “Miss French,” He greeted, offering her a strained smile. “A pleasure.”

Those four words were weighed down by a thick brogue – a Scottish brogue. Well, what she assumed was a Scottish brogue. The only Scotsman she had ever encountered was on the pages of one of her books, never in person.  

Belle shyly met his gaze and wished that they were better acquainted that way she could ask him all about his home country and his travels. She, who had never been anywhere, would love to hear about foreign places.

Mr. Gold’s eyes seemed to darken as they swept over her. She shivered; she wasn’t cold yet gooseflesh pebbled her skin.

Belle had not realized that his hand was still clasped around hers when Cora wedged herself between them, breaking the connection.

“Belle, will you see to the tea?” Cora asked in a clipped tone, her mouth twisted in a scowl. The woman would give her an earful later, for yelling at the children and make a horrid display before their guest. “And then start on the meal?”

Mr. Gold frowned and then folded his arms over his chest.

“Yes, Mrs. Mills.” Belle mumbled and dragged her feet to the kitchen.

Filling the kettle full of water, she placed it on the burner and fought the twinge of jealousy as Cora’s lighthearted laughter and chatter drifted in.

#

While the harvest had not been plenty, the Mills had a small bumper crop of tomatoes from the own personal garden, enough for Belle to spend all of October stewing and canning to have for the winter.

Fetching three mason jars from the root cellar, she dumped the pulpy red slime into the dutch oven and added an array of spices, as well as a little vinegar. Stirring it occasionally, she brought the spoon to her lips and tasted it, then made a face. Too vinegary, too strong. But in such desperate times, one did not have the luxury to be persnickety about one’s meal.

Belle slipped upstairs briefly for her book and returned to her place by the kitchen stove. Cracking the novel open, she read it using one hand. The first twenty pages might be gone, but the remainder of the story was there and she could still find out the rest of Newland Archer’s tale.

Loosing herself in the book, she did not hear someone enter, and did not snap to attention until the person laid the tea tray on the counter. Assuming it was Cora, she hid the book behind her back and was surprised to find Mr. Gold instead.

Heat rose to her cheeks and it was not from the steam billowing off of the pan. “Oh, thank you!” Belle put the book on the counter, left the wooden spoon in the soup, and fumbled with the tea cups, laying them in the sink. She would wash them up later. “Sorry, I was distracted.”

Mr. Gold cleared his throat, his Adam ’s apple pulsated. “Um, I want to relay my condolences for the loss of your father. He was a good man.”

“Thank you. That’s very kind of you to say.” Belle replied.

Her father rarely mentioned Mr. Gold, except to say that he owned a successful farm, he was comfortable and that it was “easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven.” The Scotsman never attended Sunday services. Never. There were atheists who went to church, to keep up appearance sake and to socialize, but Mr. Gold never did. According to Granny Lucas, the church’s organ player, Mr. Gold was a Catholic. When Belle asked her father about it, he confirmed it, spatting out the word “Catholic” like a wad of tobacco. Somehow being comfortable and a Catholic was a mortal sin in her father’s eyes.

And Mr. Gold had the misfortune of being both.

That he was Scottish never came up.

Belle had never had any real interactions with Mr. Gold herself. The only times she saw him in town was when he came on errands. Once he picked up on her gaping at him from the library display window and nodded in her direction, but that was the extent of it.

The man was a mystery to her. He was of average height, his medium brown hair was graying at his temples, and his eyes were warm as freshly brewed coffee. On the rare occasion that he smiled, he revealed a mouthful of crooked teeth, which were thankfully white. He had to be stifling in his three-piece suit – no man wore a suit except on Sundays, special occasions, and when he was courting. Compared to him she felt dowdy in her chicken feed sack house dress, her skin slick with sweat. Not to mention the bruise on her cheek, dark enough for all to see.

Dear Lord, I hope he does not get the wrong impression! Belle returned to her post near the stove. She expected for the Scotsman to shuffle back into the living room with the others and was bewildered as to why he remained.

Mr. Gold picked up her book and examined its cover. “‘The Age of Innocence?’ Is it good?” he asked. The man could not have chosen a better subject to talk to her on.

“Very good. Excellent even.” Belle nodded at it and was soon singing the novel’s praises, gushing like a school girl. “‘The Age of Innocence’ won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature and Edith Wharton was the first woman to do so. She wrote it after the Great War, capturing the old world and how life was for the upper classes in 19th century New York.”

She continued to prattle on, referencing Wharton’s other works, and she found in Mr. Gold a willing listener. Over the years, she had come to understand that there were few people in Storybrooke who worshipped the written word, and even less who could discuss it intelligibly. When Mr. Gold admitted that he had never read Wharton, but thought she sounded similar to Austen, Trollope, and Henry James, Belle felt her heart soar.

Rich and Catholic he may be, but the only thing that mattered to Belle was that she had discovered a fellow book lover.

She was midway through telling Mr. Gold about “The House of Mirth,” having grown so animated, that she was gesticulating wildly and laughing for the first time in weeks, when Cora noiselessly entered the kitchen.

Belle shrank back, turning her attention back to the tomato soup.

“I do hope that you aren’t talking poor Mr. Gold’s ear off.” Cora drawled, arching one of her thinly plucked brows.

It was on the tip of Belle’s tongue to apologized, not that she particularly wanted to. But she couldn’t afford to get on Cora’s bad side. Not when she had nowhere else to go.

“On the contrary, Mrs. Mills.” When Mr. Gold addressed Cora, Belle noted that there was a coldness in his tone that wasn’t present before. His upper lip curled back into a snarl. “We were having a riveting discussion on English and American literature. One that I would like to get back to.”

Cora’s full lips formed an “O”. She turned and with a sway of her hips, she marched back into the living room. No one ever argued with Cora, let alone put her in her place. No one dared. That Mr. Gold had no fear of the woman, spoke volumes.

Mr. Gold faced Belle and sent her an apologetic look. “Miss French, what are your thoughts on ‘The Great Gatsby?’”

Belle dropped the spoon back in the pot and clapped her hands gleefully. “I loved it! I’ve read it three times.”

Mr. Gold spent the next hour with her discussing literature, until he left before supper. Henry had invited him to stay for the meal, but he had somewhere else to be.

Belle was sad to see him go. She repeatedly played their conversation over in her head for the remainder of the evening. And for that, she felt a little less lonesome.