Four of a Kind: A women's historical fiction (45 page)

Mama’s dining room table looked candle-light lovely with all her special dishes out, down to the tiny butter pats by each plate. The Christmas tree glowed in the corner of the room with its own set of candles. She and Pearl had gone to such great lengths and every piece of furniture, window and drinking glass shone to say this was not only a holiday. I ate little of the delicious wedding supper, so happy I was to be Mrs. Thomas Pickering and that he sat closely by my side, beaming as happy as I. Papa of course could not join us but he hoped to have a restful nap, and instructed us to return to his room for dessert and coffee. Lizzie presented the wedding cake displaying our names, joined together “in sugar”, she emphasized with a mischievous sparkle in her eye. The evening glowed with smiling faces, despite Mary Sue’s dour countenance. But with her, I expected nothing else and didn’t really care if it was due to homesickness, unfamiliar family, or even her unrequited affections for Thomas. He was mine.

Nonetheless I was unprepared for her to throw cold water on the social event. It began with Mama’s innocent question as she passed around the slices of cake.

“Mary Sue, how did you come to know Mr. and Mrs. Pickering?” She gave me a wink.

I recognized my error immediately in not preparing Mary Sue for this line of questioning, but we had spent little time together since my return to the newspaper office. Her presence had become blurred, as Thomas became my center of attention again.

“I first met her when she married my daddy.”

Thomas and I froze, except for my hand searching for his under the table. He folded it in his in silent comfort.

Mama didn’t see the connection and set a plate of cake in front of Pearl, saying, “Who married your daddy, sweetheart?”

“This lady right here.” Mary Sue pointed to me.

Mama looked around, confusion on her face. “Whom did you point to, dear? Someone here at our table?”

“I pointed to
her
. Miz Bess!”

Mama sat down hard in her seat. Her hand went to her throat and she pulled at her lace collar. “Bess, can you explain what she is talking about?”

“She is talking about something I wish not to talk about during my wedding supper,” I said.

Thomas turned in his chair and touched my shoulder. “There’s nothing here to be ashamed about. You made a mistake that was easily rectified. Now let us confess our sins and be done with it. You are around family who will forgive and forget. I’ll start.”

I opened my mouth to protest but then clammed it shut. The cat was out of the bag and if Thomas wanted to stroke it, so be it. I wasn’t the only sinner here; let Mama confess, too. If this wasn’t killing two birds with one stone, I didn’t know what was.

He turned toward his stunned audience. Mary Sue’s eyes lit with sudden interest - oh the little witch!

“It’s simply this,” he said. “Women had just won the right to vote in federal elections. Our long-suffering suffragist, our devoted Bess, had walked through many layers of shoe leather – as she likes to describe it - to see this moment. She had lived and fought for this, but when the war was over, where does a battle-weary soldier go? Home? But what if you’ve given up your home for this sacrifice? Tired and unsure of where to go from this point in her life, she met Mary Sue’s father, Mr. Jere Phillips, in Nashville Tennessee.” He turned toward me. “You can take it from here.”

“Thank you, Thomas,” I said, without meaning it. I felt the cat scratching and irritating me. “
Jere Phillips
,” I said slowly to Mama.

She looked blank and then sudden recognition lit her face. “Oh! Jere Phillips!”

“So you do know him after all.”

“No,
I
don’t know him. But I do remember you telling me last summer that you met him. So that’s why you seemed so aggravated when you returned home! Pearl and I just couldn’t understand it, since I hoped you’d be happy winning the vote.”

Oh, I was going to disown her if this kept up!

“Mama!” I said, clearly angry.

Thomas scowled at me. “Could we get on with this then?” He looked around the table. “My new wife seems to be feeling the pressure of marriage already. So, let me finish for her. This gentleman proposed marriage to her, and she accepted this as a new direction to go in. They went to the justice of the peace and legalized their marriage and then he drove her to his log cabin.”

I glanced quickly at Mama; now she’d have to know I’d married her old flame! Would her expression be one of jealousy? Of lost love? But no, not even a twitch! And I shook all over!

“At his home,” Thomas continued, “Bess met Mary Sue and her brothers and sisters. Instantly realizing her mistake, Bess asked to be returned to Nashville the next day and the marriage was eventually annulled. Bess sought atonement through educating Mary Sue. While doing so, Bess and Mary Sue have become good friends and work on a common goal to prepare Mary Sue to teach back in her hills of Tennessee. I don’t think Mary Sue will be truly happy until she gets back home. Isn’t that right, Mary Sue?”

Such a revelation had to hurt Mama, for reasons that went beyond a secret lover: her daughter had kept her first marriage a secret. I smiled a satisfied smile to both Mary Sue and Mama as I slowly released of my vendetta. I’d gotten what I wanted and they didn’t. Their betrayals and lies were doing them absolutely no good. Come to think of it, I had married the two men they coveted. I felt as smug as if I’d planned it all as revenge. Intoxicating!

Mama suddenly appeared distracted – her mind must have been spinning with questions – but I had to give her credit for respecting the inappropriate timing. She raised her glass of lemonade. “Here’s to the bright future of Thomas and Bess,
and
Mary Sue! And to Jere Phillips!” She drank the entire contents of her glass and then set it down with a hard thud on the table.

“After you, Mrs. Pickering,” Thomas said with a bow opening the front door.

We stepped inside to listen to the silent, dark rooms. My white cotton suit had been starched and stiff to wear and I immediately wanted to change, but I wasn’t sure whether to go to my old bedroom behind the kitchen to do this or - I decided to let Thomas make the call.

He found his way in the dark to the library and turned on a lamp there. “I have an aged bottle of port hidden here from the Prohibition for just such an occasion as this. Will you have a glass with me?” He removed some books from a shelf and exposed a small door. Behind this door was a short-necked bottle; with it two tiny glasses. He poured a concentrated burgundy-colored wine into the glasses and handed me one. The taste was bittersweet and seemed to take any stray bad nerves down with it. I had another sip, willing my body to relax. He would have great expectations and I, as inexperienced with intimacy as a staked scarecrow, felt incompetent. One accustomed to detracting, not attracting, had attracted a beautiful peacock and how would I join him on the ground without hurting myself? Or worse, would I let him down? Would he be disappointed in me as a wife? As a lover? I watched him hold his glass to his lips and suddenly longed for his touch as he had touched me once before, sitting in this same wing-backed chair. How long ago that seemed, preserved then in chastity. Now he had opened the door and I was free to go inside and love him in the most intimate of ways. These were my thoughts as he refilled our glasses.

He touched his glass to mine, his cheeks flushed, his eyes intense and hungry.

“To us,” he said.

“To us,” I repeated.

He drank his down and then so did I. He lit two candles and handed one to me. “No electric lighting tonight, love. Let’s take these up to our bed chamber.”

I followed him through the dark hallway, shadows of the chairs and our figures looming large on the walls. Like a ghost I trailed him up the stairway, our white apparel glowing in the frail, flickering
light. Light-headed now, my eyes played tricks with our silhouettes on the walls; my steps up the stairs exaggerating my shadowy form into marching steps.
Women’s rights or War, What are we fighting for?

At the top, he stopped and squared his shoulders as if preparing himself to face his foe. He opened the door to the master bed chamber and let out an audible sigh. He turned to me and smiled. “All is fine,” he said. Walking carefully to the bedside table, he set his candle down and motioned for me to do the same on the other side. He met me there with a kiss.

A kiss so dizzying I wanted to lie down for it. He backed away, his lips deep red in the candlelight. His attention focused on my jacket buttons and skirt zipper until the suit lay heaped on the floor. My camisole slipped off over my head, my half-slip fell to my feet that I at least had enough sense left to step out of. He threw back the coverlets and picked me up and sat me down on the bed in what seemed one smooth motion. I watched with keen interest as a spectator would as he partially undressed himself, unashamedly. Silvery hair on his chest sparkled in the light as he bent over and blew out my candle, leaving his to burn. The light gone dimmer, my other senses turned up to high as he laid me down. I was the sponge, he was my water and I sought to soak him in. This sense of freedom to touch, explore, and bring our lips to private places was exhilarating. Instinctively I knew the ultimate outcome and I reached out to be taken and marked by him. The pain was brief and I cried out but … soon forgotten in the surges of pleasure. To move with such abandon!

With a kiss to my neck, he rose up to his knees and looked down at the sheets.

“You are a virgin?”

“I
was
.”

He patted my navel appreciatively.

“I wish
you
were,” I added.

“No you don’t,” he said. He rested by my side, his arm possessively over my stomach. “I couldn’t give you pleasure if I was fumbling and ignorant about it.”

“Which means I gave you none?” I challenged.

“It’s my pleasure to know I’m your first. Japanese men pay big money for virgin geishas.”

His bare leg moved out of the way as I raised my hand to smack him. He snickered softly and placed my hand gently on his thigh. “We’ll keep practicing until you get the hang of it. It’ll be great fun teaching you.”

“Maybe I can teach you some things, too,” I said.

“Such as?” He yawned.

“Humility for starters. You are far too confident now, knowing you are my first.”

“And last,” he mumbled sleepily.

“And last.” I repeated.
It is forever
, I added like a ghost.

CAPTURED
, read the bold headlines in the next day’s newspaper.
Our bachelor-about-town, our willful watchdog, our illustrious editor, our candidate for future mayor now has a new title as husband to a former suffragist, Miss Bess Wright …

“They failed to mention that you’re the boss of the newspaper. Which goes in your favor, because there is no word of my former marriage or that I lived at your residence all these years. Do you threaten to wash your staff’s mouth out with soap, if they don’t give you a clean name?”

“Worse. I’ll send one off to report on the filthy New York City septic system in the immigrant areas. I’ve only had to do that once, but all remember and want to stay clean, as much as I do.”

We finished our sections of newspaper reading in peaceful quiet, with only the occasional clink of the coffee cup settling on its saucer and a crunch of toast here and there. Having breakfast brought to my – to our – bed was such a royal treat, I felt compelled to relay this to Thomas when he brought the tray in. I raised the top of my hand for him to kiss. He bowed as formally as one could in boxer shorts and an undershirt. I was tickled at our teasing. Such peace and relaxation I had never known. If it weren’t for my virgin desecration causing
such tenderness where I sat, I would have felt perfect. I could see calm and contentedness in my husband’s (oh how I loved calling him that!) demeanor and I accepted full credit for it.

I was truly happy our wedding night had been spent here. From this vantage point, everything around me was new and different. No signs of his first wife were in the room; photographs and memorabilia had been replaced with a vase of fresh flowers on the mantle. I asked not where they were, since I wasn’t supposed to know about them in this previously sanctioned chamber. The aged off-white lace coverlets had been removed from the stately four-poster bed and a wedding ring quilt – our gift from Mama’s friend Phyllis - had been spread there on top of a thick feather mattress cover. Six or more feather pillows were there to prop us up in this early morning hour.