A Woman so Bold (8 page)

“Stay put!” admonished Letty Hamilton in her nasal tones. She was the one slapping me. “I fainted an hour ago, and believe me, you’ll feel better if you lie still in the cool air.”

I closed my eyes and obeyed her. It was rather nice to lie there in the dark with the breeze blowing my hair away from my sweaty neck, if I didn’t dwell on the fact that I’d fainted in front of a man I found appealing.
At least I obeyed Ida,
I thought. Eventually, Mr. Cavendish brought me a glass of water, and Letty found the decency to give me some air and move to the other side of the balcony with the gentleman she’d been speaking to when I was brought out.

“I’m afraid I’ve humiliated myself,” I said.

“Nonsense. You’re not the first woman to faint tonight. Nor the first to faint in my arms.”

“How debonair,” I said ruefully.

He smiled. “I’m afraid my charm has nothing to do with it. Women compress their lungs with whalebone and prance around a crowded room all night in heavy silks, then wonder why they drop like flies.”

“However did I get out here?”

“I carried you, of course.”

He smiled at me and I flushed with embarrassment, and something else, which made me feel faint again. A moment later Ida came rushing out.

“Do you feel well, dearest?” she cried, crouching beside me. “You’re white as a sheet.”

“My stays ache terribly,” I whispered to her. “Take me upstairs, and no hysterics. Just take me round to the dining room.” The outer balcony connected the dancing hall to the dining room.

“I’ll accompany you,” said Mr. Cavendish. In a moment, I felt his arm around my waist. He lifted me easily from the balcony flooring and waited until I had my footing.

Just as I was saying that his help wouldn’t be necessary, Ida exclaimed, “Oh yes, you should carry her!”

“I can walk very well, thank you,” I said, embarrassed by Ida’s attempt to force me on him.

“Good night, then,” he said, bowing to us. I thought I heard a trifle of reluctance in his tone.

We bade him farewell and went upstairs. I was only too glad to get out of Ida’s dress and my too tight corset, and into my nightgown. I lay down on the feather mattress that had been spread out for me on the rug. The Mondays didn’t want for spare rooms, but I had always stayed in Ida’s room when visiting so we could chat. Lily joined me later, flushed and happy from her evening dancing with her friends from school, and “a lot of other handsome gentlemen besides.”

Just as we had extinguished the lights and fallen into half-slumber, Ida entered the room with a male companion. She groped around for a light for a moment, then gave up, giggling and dropping her slippers on the floor. They were kissing one another, and thinking of Lily, I was about to sit up and declare our presence when they collapsed onto the bed together. Mere moments later, came the sound of Ida’s heavy ball gown landing on the floor with a soft
whump
, and the sounds of their lovemaking became apparent.

Lily and I hid under our quilt, uncertain what to do with ourselves.

“Does she know we’re here?” she whispered, a high note of hysterical laughter in her voice.

“I don’t know!” I returned. “She left me here two hours ago.”

“It sounds like the minister’s son, but it’s hard to tell,” she replied.

I bit my knuckle to keep from laughing aloud at this, then whispered, “Oh Lily, this isn’t how you should learn of such things.”

“Don’t be silly. We live on a farm and our room shares a wall with Daddy’s and Colleen’s.”

We spent the rest of that awkward incident laughing into our pillows and plugging our ears to keep from hearing the noises coming from the bed. When Ida’s lover finally left, she lit a lamp and peered over the bedside at us.

“You chickens!” she squealed. “I didn’t remember you were here until halfway through and then it was too late. You might’ve said something!”

“You might have stopped!” I cried. “My little sister is present! What would I tell Colleen?”

“Well, I am sorry,” said Ida, petulant. “Gracious, I’m
starved
. I barely ate all evening. Anyone for a run to the kitchen?”

Lily and I could no longer contain ourselves at that, and we burst into peals of laughter. Her guests had all gone home at that point, and Ida got dressed in a wrapper, leaving her beautiful gown in a heap on the floor, then went downstairs again. Thinking of Tansy, I retrieved the rumple of mousseline and lace and hung it up in Ida’s closet. She returned in some minutes with a platter loaded with food.

“The ices have all melted, but there’s plenty of cake and cold chicken leftover!”

We fell to this repast with eagerness and talked late, until night turned to early morning.

Chapter 8

Harmonicas and Hoecake

It so happened that my father met William Cavendish far sooner than I expected. He lived a ways from us on foot, but his mail was dropped off very near to our house, a fact we had yet to learn when we heard the distant sound of music as we were having breakfast that Tuesday morning.

“What’s that?” asked Ephraim, looking up from the flapjacks and cane syrup he’d been digging into.

“It’s pretty!” said Edith, her blue eyes growing misty.

Daddy, who loved music and could carry any tune and play the banjo, said immediately, “Harmonica.”

“What on earth?” Colleen murmured.

Lily and I shoved our chairs away from the breakfast table and ran to peer out the back door. A few moments later, we saw a pale-headed man with a golden beard cutting across our backyard. He was walking with a graceful lope and playing “Be Thou My Vision”
on a harmonica.

“It’s our neighbor,” said Lily over her shoulder. Daddy pushed past us, coffee cup in hand.

“Mornin’!” he called, his deep voice booming across our property and bouncing back at us from the pinewoods.

Mr. Cavendish said, “‘Lo there!” raised a hand in greeting, hesitated, then stowed the harmonica in his pocket and came toward us.

“Beg pardon for trespassin’, sir!” he said when he was closer. “My mail you see, gets dropped off at your front drive.”

“No skin off our nose, though I had a bulldog died a few year ago woulda took your leg off at the knee for it! You make the mouth harp sound mighty fine.”

“Thanks, sir.” I noticed that his way of speaking to Daddy was quite different than the way he had spoken during his visit with us, sociable but less genteel.

“Play anything else?”

“The fiddle, a bit. Banjo.”

“Play the banjo myself. Been a far piece since I had anyone to pick with. I’m Solomon Andrews.” Daddy extended his hand, and Mr. Cavendish took it firmly.

“William Cavendish,” he replied.

“Well, Mr. Cavendish, I hear you’ve met my two eldest daughters already. I trust they gave you a fine welcome. How’d you like a cup of coffee?”

“I never refuse one.”

“Come on in!”

He opened the back door wide and let Mr. Cavendish enter before him as Lily and I exchanged a look of astonishment behind his back. Daddy was a friendly sort, but he never invited people in during breakfast.

As he entered the room, his glance wavered to mine for a mere second, and I gave him a smile of greeting before dropping my eyes. Still, my gaze had lingered long enough to take in his appearance, straying to his blue eyes and the small mole above his mouth. On a woman, it would have been called a beauty mark; on him it was enticing, out of the ordinary.

In contrast to what I had seen him wearing at the ball, he was clad in simple farm attire: khaki chinos, a cotton shirt, and suspenders. His pale blond hair and beard were neatly groomed, and the thin shirt did not belie the strength of his arms.
A fine looking man
, I thought. I had thought so every time we met, and the way Lily and Colleen’s eyes strayed to him, I thought they saw it too.

Colleen was five months pregnant by then, and I knew she would not wish to get up and reveal her swollen belly to Mr. Cavendish, so once he was seated at the table, I poured him a cup of coffee and placed a tin plate with a stack of the last few flapjacks on it. He tried to protest, but I silenced him with a shake of my head.

“Finish them. We’ve all had a plenty.”

He slathered them with a pat of butter and a few slow drizzles of cane syrup then took a bite, his eyes widening with pleasure.

“Ain’t words for it, are there?” said Daddy. “Wait ‘til you taste her ten-layer cake.” I looked at him in surprise. He was not one for compliments, especially not to me.

The morning of William’s Sunday visit, I went to the coop and wrung our second fattest chicken’s neck, plucked its feathers, and scalded it in a saltwater bath. Colleen basted it with butter and herbs and put it in the oven to roast. Lily peeled a bushel of potatoes from the cellar and set them boiling. After church, I changed into my old brown calico and set to work frying bacon to season the collard greens, then fried hoecakes in the grease. I had baked a ten-layer cake and frosted it with white sugar icing the day before. It was in the pantry on Mama’s best cake plate, waiting to be served with coffee and orange slices for dessert.

Mr. Cavendish came to the front door, and Esther ran to let him in. He sniffed the air appreciatively. “I haven’t had a home-cooked meal in weeks,” he said happily, “unless you count scrambled eggs and oatmeal, which I do not.”

Just before dinner, Lily and I changed out of our aprons and old dresses and back into our Sunday best. Edith set the table, and I placed a pitcher of fresh sweet tea on the table made with cold water from the spring, with lemon slices and mint leaves floating on its surface. The sun from the window winked at me through the glass pitcher.

Everyone sat down, and I presided over the table as hostess in Colleen’s place. After Daddy had said grace, we commenced eating. The skin on the roast chicken was browned to a nice crunch on the outside; the meat underneath, tender and juicy. We ate the boiled potatoes with gravy and dipped the crisp hoecake in the fragrant pot liquor, savoring every bite. Daddy preferred his collards with a spicy sauce of hot peppers soaked in vinegar, and so did I, but I refrained from dousing my vegetables in such a way in the presence of company. Instead, I offered everyone seconds and made sure I was next to last to begin my food, to keep Colleen from complaining.

“Where is Emmett?” I asked Lily. He was usually present for Sunday dinner and on holidays. I would have noticed his absence sooner, had I not been distracted by the presence of William.

“I broke it off with Emmett.”

She said this resolutely, but her eyes had a lackluster appearance, and she had barely touched her food. I stared at her, uncomprehending. Emmett had started coming around when she was only thirteen. In the beginning, it had been little more than puppy love, wildflower bouquets and hand-holding on the porch, but I had sensed in the last several months that something lasting and serious had grown between them and expected them to be married when they were old enough.

“Why?” I asked. “You’ve been courting for years. I thought you loved him!”

“I don’t know, sissy. I used to be crazy about him, but I’m used to him now. Besides, Daddy never liked him.”

“Damn right, I didn’t.”

Colleen jumped a bit at this uncharacteristic display of language from my father, but she made no protest. I suppose it occurred to her that he was showing off for our visitor.

As was his wont to do, Daddy left the subject alone until we had begun on dessert, then brought it up unsolicited. Dumping a spoonful of sugar into his coffee and stirring it with unwarranted vigor, he said, “No dockworker from the river is good enough for one of my girls.” Coffee sloshed over the side of his cup onto the yellowed lace tablecloth that was reserved for company and holidays. “Especially my Lily. She’s too handsome and oughta set her cap a good deal higher.”

Lily and I both winced at this, for different reasons. I felt that Daddy was calling unnecessary attention to the stark difference in our looks, and Lily, mostly oblivious to her own appearance, had never learned to take a compliment. I was often baffled by how anyone so lovely could lack vanity entirely. There was always something to dislike; the sun made freckles pop out on her nose, her teeth were too large, her knees were too knobby.

After lunch, Daddy and Mr. Cavendish set off toward the porch to drink mint juleps and smoke, a gentleman’s pastime I loathed because it separated me from all interesting conversation. Lily and I resigned ourselves to the drudgery of dishes, but when we were finished, I crept to the front window they were sitting beneath, which was loose in its casing, and set my ear to the crack. Emboldened by whiskey, my father and our visitor were doing nothing to keep their voices low, and I could discern snatches of their conversation.

“So! Do you have plans to marry in the future?” This came from Daddy.

“Eventually,” said William, but . . . only twenty-eight.”

Daddy laughed. “Bachelorhood. It can be quite lonely . . . cookin’ your own meals and scrubbin’ . . . clothes.”

A laugh from William this time.

“So when . . . to settle down,” said Daddy, “either of mine might do you very well.”

William’s reply to this was unintelligible. I rolled my eyes. Daddy had been trying to sell me off for years. Lily was practically a child, but he disliked her beau, so he took any opportunity to introduce her to other men, even ones nearly twice her age. I often reminded him that it was Colleen’s job to find us husbands.

“Lily is the beauty. But she’s young, a bit frivolous. Landra is rather plain, but she’s dependable. She’ll stand by you.”

“She’s got vim and vigor,” said William.

My father’s voice rose an octave at this, and his rocker creaked as he stood. “She does that! She’ll give you a run for your money, by golly! Why just the other day I . . .”

I did not catch the rest of this and felt myself reddening. Could he be referencing when he had beaten me for my insolence? There was any number of instances he might be referring to in which we had disagreed.

“And she can sing to beat the band! I’ll ask her to sing for us next time you visit, if we can talk her round to it.”

It was to Will’s credit that Daddy was already treating him as a future acquaintance.

“I like a fiery woman.” William stood as well, and I crouched down, flattening against the wall. Their booted footfalls were heavy on the porch floor as they made their way to the front door.

“Well, that sort does fine for a young man,” Daddy was saying as he entered the breezeway. “My first wife was spirited, but she had a lady-like way about her that hid it. Landra wears her spirit on her sleeve.”

I busied myself straightening books in the corner as the two of them entered the sitting room.

“Enjoy your drink?” I asked.

“Very much,” said William.

“Pour us another one, Landra girl. The decanter is on the mantle there.”

“Oh, thank you, sir, but I shouldn’t. I really must be going.”

William made as if to hand me his glass. When I did not take it, he set it on the mantle next to the whiskey.

“Begging your pardon,” he said.

“My mother was a housemaid and then a governess after the war,” I said, “I am neither, but I’ll give you your hat and see you out.”

Daddy shot him a look as if to say
I told you so.

We paused on the porch, and he turned his hat around several times rather than putting it on.

“I had a very pleasant time,” he said finally. “Your father’s a nice fella, not at all how you let on.”

“Yes, he seems to like you. You would feel quite differently if he didn’t. Just ask Emmett.
”

“
And who is that?”

“Lily’s former beau. He’s about eighteen, so in my opinion that makes her far too young for
you
.”

“I have no intention of courting Lily, but
you’ve
been eavesdropping.”

“Men smoke and drink so they can talk away from women. It’s the only way to hear anything of importance. Perhaps I’ve been too outspoken, but that only goes along with my
vim and vigor.”

He looked away, embarrassed. “I meant that as a compliment. If not, I wouldn’t have said it to your father.”

“However you meant it, I don’t relish being spoken of as if I were a pony up for auction. Why must gentlemen compare ladies to breeding animals?”

“I sincerely beg your pardon. It’s just something men do when they’re alone—speak of women so. I did it more to get on his good side than anything.”

“Oh?”

“We are neighbors. And I’ll warrant you’re desperate for company out here in the boondocks, a young thing like you! Seems you’ve got precious few gentlemen to choose from.”

I flushed. “I want to be absolutely certain you haven’t been deceiving yourself about me, sir,” I said. “I find your company pleasant, but you’re a stranger to me.”

“I’ve offended you.” His cheeks turned ruddy as well, and I thought,
What fools we are, blushing like childhood sweethearts at one another.
“I assure you, I never meant to be rude or forward. I only meant . . . you must get lonely.”

I twisted a fold of my skirt and shrugged. “You haven’t offended me, and I do get lonely. It’s only that, no matter what Daddy says, I didn’t want you to think that I’d . . . encouraged you.”

“I wouldn’t think such a thing of a woman with your manner or intelligence.” He put his hat on and descended the front steps, unfastening his horse from the hitching post. I stayed where I was.

“Thank you for a fine dinner, Miss Andrews,” he said, swinging into the saddle.

“Thank you for attending,” I replied.

“I hope to see you again, but I shall await your invitation.”

I filled my lungs, nodding. “You may wait a long time,” I said softly, but he had already swung his horse into the drive and was gone.

I was wrong. Mr. Cavendish visited us only two weeks later at an invitation from Colleen, who risked my ire by then being so ill from nausea as to be in bed when he arrived.

“My stepmother is indisposed today,” I said, showing him into the parlor, “but Lily is here, and Edith.”

Edith rose and curtsied, then folded herself back into the armchair where she was reading. I glanced briefly at her bowed head; her blond hair was parted cleanly in the middle and twisted into two neat braids. Edith’s presence did not make much difference in a social circle, as her nose was always buried in a book. I envied the way Colleen indulged her love of literature. I had not been given such freedom to read since my years with the Mondays. Things had been different then; I was in my teens, Eric was home, and Colleen was well.