A Woman so Bold (11 page)

“It was all such a very long time ago.” I looked over his shoulder as I said this, trying to remain passive.

“Now don’t be like that. We’ve been friends too long.”

I looked at him and narrowed my eyes. “How can I be any other way? Civility is all I can manage, and you ought to be thankful. Engaged to a girl from Tallahassee in just under three months. How you managed the train fare is beyond me.”

He snorted, dumbfounded, and I moved my gaze above his shoulder again.

“She was here, visitin’ relatives,” he explained. “There was no other way,” he continued in a low tone. “Mama was sick. The girls were in rags. You know what farmin’ does to a man. I’d lie awake at night and think about a wife, another mouth to feed, and then a baby every year . . .”

He sighed. I ventured a glance at him and was surprised to see that he was pale, with sweat breaking out on his brow.

“For heaven’s sake, let us change the subject,” I pleaded.

“Please.”

“Your wife seems like an amusing person.”

“She is. I do love her, Landra, even if we did marry for convenience, but I hope you know you’ll always be in my heart.”

I tried to pull away from him instinctively at this drivel, which did not work out, as we were in the middle of a turn. I plowed into the couple behind us. After several angry protests from the lady that I had tread on her hem and hurried apologies from me, I found myself back in Henry’s grasp.

“I thought this was goin’ so well,” he laughed. “Are you dead set on makin’ a scene?”

“Only as set as
you
are on making a fool of me. Asking your childhood sweetheart to dance and then talking such nonsense. You should be ashamed of yourself!”

“I only said what is true.”

I raised one eyebrow. “Very well. I shall always be in your heart, like a sister, as you said to your wife.”

“No. Not like a sister. Like my first love.”

I said nothing.

“Well? Ain’t ya goin’ to say you’ll always care for me too?”

I put my chin up. “Go to the devil, Henry Miller. I don’t think of you above twice a year.”

He laughed. “You conceited little minx. I’ll have them play something that’ll make you think of me.”

The waltz was ending, and before the next began, Henry sidled up to the musicians and asked them to play a local tune that had been written by Daddy and one of the other men he picked with. I had written lyrics for it when Henry and I were courting, and they signified my innocent romanticism. They went:

The fields were ripe, the sea azure,

The winds rippled on water,

Yet I was blind to hill and wave

For love o’ the crofter’s daughter.

Eyes of gray and hair of gold;

So had the crofter’s daughter.

A laugh like wine, and a look as bold;

God gave the crofter’s daughter.

I met her coming from the dell:

Her mouth o’erflowed with laughter.

Her arms were full o’ blossoms fair,

The lovely crofter’s daughter.

The meadow gleamed like a fiery gem,

The leaves blew swirling over,

Yet I was deaf to breeze and glen,

For love o’ the crofter’s daughter.

I took her to the Kirk yard old

All clad in white and muslin.

The bells were ringing bright and cold.

The children followed laughing.

Since I wed her on that frosty morn

The years have flown right past us.

Her hair grown silver, beauty worn,

Oh Time, it does come after.

The trees are felled and the field is shorn,

The lambs all gone to slaughter,

Yet I am lost to all save one,

My own, the crofter’s daughter.

The words and the feel of his hand against the small of my back brought back the memory of sensations and sounds I had wished to forget. The rustle of leaves in a field of ripe corn. The feel of sand, cool against my bare feet and then beneath my back. Henry’s coppery brown head silhouetted against a bright blue sky. I had been humming the last few notes.

“Why would you do such a thing?” I asked breathlessly. It was a long waltz, and I was growing tired.

“Why not? It reminds me of our old days.”

“Yes, exactly. It isn’t proper.”

“It’s perfect.”

I bit my lip angrily, and we finished the waltz in silence. Henry had a wild, merry mischief that was downright contrary at its most powerful. His nature had always been a match for my determination, and at sixteen and twenty, sparks had flown between us. Every bit of our brief romance had been laced with joy, anger, and passion.

When we returned to our original spot, we found Della, chatting politely with William. Sensing my discomfort, though not its source, he came to me.

“There you are, Miss Andrews! We have not stood up together tonight,” he said. “Will you do me the honor?”

I gave him my hand, looking over my shoulder in time to see Henry staring after us with a furrowed brow as Della tugged at his sleeve. We danced two reels and a waltz, and then he found a place for me to sit while he fetched us some punch. He fanned me as I sipped the beverage.

“You know him well? The man you were dancing with?” His gaze was easy as he asked this, but the question was direct.

“Yes. The Millers and my folks go way back. We grew up together and were sweethearts once.”

“Long ago?”

“Four or five years now.”

He smiled. “A veritable lifetime.”

I was always forgetting the difference in our ages. What four years seemed to me at twenty was very little to him at twenty-eight.

“May I ask, did you part badly?”

“Yes. . .”

“You don’t have to speak of it.”

“No, I don’t mind but . . . perhaps not here.”

He nodded. We spent the rest of the evening in one another’s company, both emboldened by punch. We talked and laughed for much of it. As the dancing ended, he asked if he might see me home.

“You may, but you’ll have to ask my father.”

Much to my surprise, Daddy agreed, and before I knew it, Will and I were riding alone in a wagon together beneath the stars of a June sky.

“I told you I would explain my connection to Henry Miller, and I shall,” I said, regretfully breaking the silence. “It’s something you should know as my b—” I stopped myself, realizing I thought of Will as my beau, but he had never openly acknowledged it.

“Your beau?”

“I-I didn’t mean to say it!”

There was the hint of a smile in his voice as he replied, “I’m afraid I don’t always express myself as I ought, Miss Andrews. I’m not a flowers and poetry sort of man, but I care for you.”

I felt myself go hot all over at the warmth in his tone. Henry Miller was suddenly the last thing I wanted to discuss, and I fell silent. Will chirruped to the horse.

“You were saying?”

“Oh, yes. Well, Henry and my brother were childhood playmates, and I knew him well. All of us—Henry, Eric, me, Ida, and her brother Clyde—played together. Living within several miles of each other and no one else nearby, we saw each other often. I was always rather sweet on him. Clyde had a violent streak, but Henry was all shenanigans, and he grew up handsome. He was four years older and never took any notice of me. Then when I was fifteen . . .” I paused, swallowing. It wasn’t a tale I cherished, not any longer.

“Then he did take notice.”

“Yes. We started going together when I was ward at the Monday estate. I was mad for him, and for about six months, he was smitten too. We talked of getting married and everything, but it was never decided. I was so young. Then one day we had a disagreement. Well, I’m not one to grovel or beg for pardon after a fight.”

“You? Not grovel or beg? You don’t say?”

I laughed at this and continued shakily, desperate to be done.

“I kept thinking he’d come back . . . he loved me, I thought. A few months passed, and I was heartbroken. Finally, I went up to his house to see him, to see if he’d forgiven me, and Della was there, and they were engaged.”

“Pardon my French, but this fella sounds like a yellow rat bastard.”

“He is, rather, but there was more to it than that. Their farm was mortgaged, and Henry’s father was dead. His mother was ill, and Della had money. Lots of it. Her father offered him a job with the railroad. It all worked out far better for him than if he had married me.” I shrugged. “Things have a way of working out.”

He switched the reins to his left hand and took my own in his right.

“They do indeed.”

Chapter 10

Courting

Following the gift of the shawl and the day of the barn-raising, I considered William Cavendish to be courting me in earnest. On Fridays, he called after supper, and we went for an evening walk. He called again after church on Sundays and had dinner with us, sometimes staying until dusk. Much to my regret, my courtship with William reminded me of the only other beau I’d had, and for the first time in four years, I allowed myself to think of him often. Henry with a bouquet of wild flowers in his hand. Henry in a simple suit and tie, dancing with me at a private ball. Henry kissing me in the cornfield at midday.

In spite of these unwelcome recollections, I enjoyed every moment in Will’s presence. Soon, two days a week seemed far too few. There was a lovely hollow in the pinewoods behind the house, and sometimes we arranged to meet there for a mid-morning tryst, or in the evening, I crept away to meet him in our pecan grove. It was difficult for me to get away from my daily chores, but I often finished them more quickly if I knew it meant I could see him. Daddy wouldn’t have allowed me to meet a gentleman alone in the woods if he’d known, but to me mid-morning was as innocent a time of day as could be.

We were returning from a private ball in town at eleven o’clock one night in July. Will stopped the buggy at the front gate before the drive so the sound of harnesses jingling didn’t set the dogs barking and wake the house. He walked with me down the drive between the double rows of slender sand pines. Our footfalls made no noise on the carpet of fallen needles, and the wind in the branches above us whispered dryly, alive as breath. I put my head back to feel it and to take in the summer sky. The earthy scent of pinesap and the sharp, cinnamon tang of the dead needles filled my lungs as I inhaled.

“There’s nothing like a summer sky, full of summer stars,” I said.

“Except a summer girl, wearing a summer rose,” said William, referring to the wild rose I had placed in my hair for the evening. I felt his fingers brush my own, and I sidestepped away from him, laughing softly.

Then I quoted:

“My love is like a red, red rose

That’s newly sprung in June:

My love is like the melody

That’s sweetly played in tune.”

“Ah, Burns,” Will replied. Then he finished the second stanza:

“As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

So deep in love am I:

And I will love thee still, my dear,

Till a’ the seas gang dry.”

“And shall you?” I teased, letting him take my hand at last.

“I shall.”

“It isn’t every night you quote poetry back to me, fond as I am of it.”

“It isn’t every night we have our first kiss, either.”

My heart leapt into my throat at his words, and I turned to face him. All of my nerves had come alive at the warmth in his tone. They were quivering in unison like the pine needles in the breeze above us.

“I never allowed you might kiss me,” I whispered, knowing as I said it that I would let him.

“May I?”

I put my hand out and let him take it and draw me toward him, his fingers sliding up my wrist to my bare forearm, and then to my shoulder. I put my arms around his waist, a far more intimate gesture than we had yet attempted, and he placed his hands on my shoulders and in my hair. Then his mouth was on mine, his lips soft and tender. I let him kiss me, sighing, until I felt the hint of his tongue against my bottom lip and lit up like wildfire, leaning into him hungrily. Our tongues met, and he pressed himself against me, moving his mouth to my neck until I clung to him, gasping.

When we parted, I stepped some feet away from him to calm myself. My breath was coming in gasps, and a warmth had kindled in my loins. I wanted him then and there, on the soft carpet of dead needles beneath the trees, but I bit my knuckle to keep from reaching for him. What would he think of me?

His voice startled me. “I apologize,” he said raggedly, “That was improper of me.”

I continued to catch my breath, not trusting myself to speak.

“In the grip of my ardor for you,” he continued, “I did not behave as a gentleman.”

It sounded like something he must have learned to say at boarding school, and I disliked its inadequacy.

“Will, don’t,” I managed. “You can be free with me.”

“All the same, I shall conduct myself with more respect to you in future.”

I felt a stab of disappointment at this, and I moved closer to him until my head fitted neatly beneath his chin. His arms went round me, and I raised my face to him.

“Kiss me again,” I whispered. “I want you to,” and he did. We kissed until I was ragged with desire for him, and then we parted, to think of one another in the dark.

Colleen continued to carry the child she was expecting without incident. I began to wonder if she would actually carry it to term, but she went into labor midway through her seventh month. Far from reconciled to the loss, she wept with each contraction that brought her closer to the end, and to the sixth grave in the pine grove, with a nameless marker. The midwife made reassuring sounds and bathed her face with lavender water.

Lily and Edith were still considered too young to be present for the birth, but I was the eldest daughter and had seen trials; I was required. I remained in the stifling room, sweating through my clothes. Colleen labored tiredly, writhing on the mattress, her nightgown soaked with perspiration. Finally, the midwife removed it. Her protruding belly was rigid and round as a melon; it contrasted sharply with her thin limbs and small, sagging breasts. Her body never seemed to make enough milk for her babies.

At last I could tell she was nearing the end. She wailed and groaned like the wind on a winter’s day, crouching on the mattress. I hated the sound of it. The stout midwife crossed the room from where she was tearing strips of cloth by the window and peered between her legs. “Nearly there. Landra, get the scissors and twine, and a clean towel.”

I did as I was bid and returned to my spot next to the bed. Colleen’s belly heaved with her next contraction, and she groaned, bearing down. When she could stand it no longer, she paused to gasp for breath.

“
Ohhhh
,” she moaned, clutching her belly. “It hurts. It
hurts
.”

“Push it out, and it won’t hurt anymore,” said Beth. She’d delivered too many babies to have much sympathy left.

Colleen took several labored breaths and obeyed, straining. The head was visible between her legs now, distending her perineum. I grimaced, unable to conceal my revulsion.

“That’s a girl,” Beth praised, “Now bear down again, but not too hard, just let it come.”

Colleen screamed as the head continued to crown and emerged, then paused, weeping. She barely had time to rest before another pain was on her. She gave another terrible scream as it reached its peak. The child was small, and the spasm forced it out of her and into Beth’s hands in a gush of water. I made a soft sound of displeasure. The infant was the purplish gray of a stillbirth, and I expected the midwife to cover it and put it away. Instead, it let out a wail as soon as the cord was cut, and Beth set to rubbing it with a towel. The child was a girl, and she was given to Colleen immediately, to see if she would suckle and breathe on her own.

“It’s a girl!” exclaimed Colleen wearily. “Oh, she’s pretty.” Her voice already held the high notes of joy that quickly followed the agony of delivery.

“Best not git yer hopes up,” said Beth, not without kindness.

“Oh but—she’s small, but she looks so well! And so pretty.”

“She looks scrawny as a shorn bird to me,” I replied, unimpressed. Ezra had been a beautiful baby, with a halo of copper curls and an ethereal look, but this purple mite looked like something the cat dragged in.

After she had nursed, I washed the tiny infant in a basin of warm water, counting her fingers and toes, then scrubbed her dry until she yowled like a baby kitten, a sound that made us laugh. I pinned on the smallest of our store of cloth diapers, wrapped her in a soft blanket, and put my finger against her cheek to see if she would root. She turned her head and mouthed for it.

“She won’t open her eyes a peep,” I said as I gave her back to Colleen, “but she’s greedy. Maybe she’ll grow. I’ll go tell Daddy you’re all right.”

Daddy was seated in a chair against the wall, and he glanced up when I came out. I saw he’d been reading the paper instead of smoking his pipe, as was usually his custom when Colleen was in labor.

“A dead one?” he asked. “Didn’t hear much crying.”

I looked at him with momentary loathing. To see him treat such an ordeal as this as an everyday occurrence, like spoiled milk or a broken egg, was more than I could stand.

“It’s a girl, and still alive.”

“Another girl?” He was unmoved.

“Yes. Colleen is fine this time, and it looks like a healthy baby, if small, but Miz Beth says not to hope with it so early. It could easily go in the night or catch pneumonia.”

Daddy nodded and went back to his paper.

“Don’t you wish to see her? Colleen, I mean.”

He shrugged. “She needs to rest. Sounded like a rough one.”

I retreated. Rather than return to the birthing room, I went in search of Ezra, who had been neglected in the upheaval. Instead, I found Esther and Ephraim perched in the corncrib. Esther was making a doll from a cob and scraps of cloth. Ephraim was pelting her with dry corn kernels.

“Where is Ezra?” I snapped at them. “You were to watch him!”

“You got blood on your apron,” said Ephraim.

Esther gasped. “Is Mama okay?” She was too young to understand what childbirth meant, but she knew her mother had been terribly ill from it in the past, and lived in constant fear when Colleen was pregnant. I would normally have shown sympathy, but I was sweaty and exhausted, my patience running thin. I untied my soiled apron and pulled it over my head.

“Your mother is fine. You have a baby sister.
Where is Ezra
?”

“With Lily, in the treehouse.”

I walked along the edge of our property toward the thicket of trees where the treehouse was located. The sky above Daddy’s fields was a deep azure, with masses of billowy clouds. Having been cramped in a sweltering room all day, I gloried in the open space where crows flew, cackling their throaty cry of, “ca-caw, ca-caw!”

I climbed the ladder leading up to the treehouse, nestled in an ancient oak tree, in the center of the thicket. The treehouse had been there since my father was a child, and he had kept it sound for Eric and me when we were children. After Mama died, it had gone to disrepair, but Eric had mended it for the twins the summer they were five. Lily and Ezra were lying on a blanket in the late afternoon sunlight. Edith was there, too, reading one of my old Elsie Dinsmore books.
How dreadfully fitting,
I thought.

Ezra had been crying, and Lily was telling him a story about three foolish owls who hunted in the daylight and slept at night.

“Mama,” mumbled Ezra when he saw me.

“It’s all he’s said for
hours,”
wailed Lily. “He barely ate the bread and butter I made him for dinner. He probably wants supper.”

“I want Mama! Leen!” yelled Ezra.

“Stop that noise! I’ll take you to see Colleen, but you must behave. You have a new baby, a girl.”

“No baby!” Ezra threw a pinecone he’d been clutching at me.

“Ezra, you mustn’t!” cried Lily. “That is very unkind.”

“Give him to me. He’s tired.”

She handed him across the small space, and I took him in my arms. “Petulance is unbecoming in children,” I said firmly. “Now rest your head. You’re tired.” He obeyed, laying his head on my shoulder, and I stroked his curls and slender back. “You aren’t the baby any more. You must learn to be a big man.”