Across the Spectrum (14 page)

∞ ∞ ∞

Yes, I heard that story about how Jenny Fletcher came to
disappear. But I do suppose you know there’re other stories too. There’s the
one her cousin told me. She says the trouble really started on a Sunday, after
church.

When Reverend Cook came out of the church, Jenny Fletcher
tried to make herself small behind her mother. It did no good. The preacher
spotted Jenny at once and headed straight for her, like he was coming down from
some high place. His black suit and hat made an ink stain against the spring
green mountains. She knew, with a sinking heart, his sermon was not done yet.
He had something more to say about her dancing.

Her parents didn’t see him right off. Pa was deep in
conversation with Mr. Graves about the abolitionists stirring up trouble at the
county seat, and Ma was hearing about the Perkins’ baby’s scarlet fever from
Mrs. Graves. But the preacher’s shadow fell straight across them and they all
looked up, except Jenny. She just studied the dirt and grass in front of her
toes.

“Good morning, Mr. Fletcher, Mrs. Fletcher,” said Rev. Cook
in his deep, educated voice.

“Mornin’, Reverend,” answered her pa. “Fine sermon.”

“Thank you, Sir,” said Reverend Cook, truly pleased.

The man’s voice sings even when he’s just talking, Jenny
thought. He’d be grand to listen to if he’d stop saying such fool things.

Reverend Cook turned his dark eyes to Jenny. “I hope you
listened closely, Miss Fletcher.”

“Oh, yes, Sir. I harked at every word,” Jenny replied him
with frosty honesty. She had, too. “My text today is from Proverbs, 11:22,”
he’d said. “‘As a jewel of gold in a swine’s snout, so is a fair woman which is
without discretion.’” From there he’d gone on about worldly women, the ones who
carried on dancing and singing until they got cast into the fiery pit.

“I don’t think you’re a bad girl, Jenny,” Reverend Cook was
going on earnestly. He held up his bony hand which was clamped around the Bible
book. “I know you’re a good child and you work hard and mind your parents.”
Jenny felt her ears heating up. The whole congregation had collected around her
family. “But your carrying on is going to dance you straight into the devil’s
arms.” The preacher raised his voice up for everybody to hear. “You must find a
good man and be to him a good wife. You must pray to your God for forgiveness
and make yourself right in His eyes.”

Then and there, something inside Jenny snapped so hard she
was surprised the whole crowd didn’t hear it go.

“Anybody says I ain’t behaved myself right at any dance is a
liar!”

“Jenny!” thundered Pa.

“And as for marryin’,” Jenny barreled on. “If a man wants to
marry me, he’d better be ready to dance with me. Yes, and dance as long and as
fine, or I won’t have him for nothin’.” Ma gripped her arm then, so hard Jenny
had to bite her lip to keep from gasping.

“You will regret those words, Jenny Fletcher,” said the
preacher softly. “God has heard you.”

Jenny struggled to keep her mouth closed. She felt her
parent’s anger burning against her back and she could hardly miss the whispers
all around her. The Reverend turned his back on her and walked off. Her mother
scooted by with a sour glare and went after him.

Probably to apologize.

“You wait here, Jenny,” ordered her father and he too
stalked off, probably to get the wagon.

I won’t take it back. I won’t, she thought as she stood
there clenching her fists.

“Mornin’, Miss Fletcher.”

Jenny whipped around, ready to shout, until she saw it was
only Tom Hawkins, pinched old Jay Hawkins’s big son.

“Mornin’, Tom,” she said in as polite a voice as she could
muster. “How’s your pa?”

“Bit of croup. Got him laid up,” Tom answered in his soft,
steady voice. “Heard what you said to Mr. Cook. You mean it?”

“I said it, and I don’t break my word,” Jenny answered
evenly. Her mother had come back and was still glowering. Jenny fought not to
shrink in on herself. Her father drove up in the wagon and he too was giving
her black looks.

“’Bye, Tom.” Jenny left him standing where he was and
climbed into the wagon. As they drove off, she saw he was not glowering, just
looking thoughtful.

But Jenny knew a scene was coming well before they made it
home. Pa shouted at the top of his mighty lungs. If she’d been just a year or
two younger, Jenny knew, he’d’ve beaten her backside black and blue. Ma had her
piece to say too, of course, about wicked, thoughtless girls who wound up
having to leave their homes in disgrace.

Jenny held her tongue through it all, thinking, I don’t
care. I said it and I won’t take it back. I won’t.

But that night, up in her bed in the loft, Jenny prayed
softly they wouldn’t forbid her from going to any more dances.

So, when Matt Hodges came round to ask Jenny to Mr. Cooper’s
barn dance, Jenny held her breath and crossed her fingers under her apron. When
she heard Pa say yes, she let out a great, gusting sigh of relief.

Thinking more of Matt’s ten acres than Reverend Cook’s
nonsense, Jenny smiled with quiet satisfaction.

The night of the dance came. Jenny put on her yellow dress
and tied her raven curls back with a matching ribbon. Matt came to fetch her in
his father’s buckboard and helped Jenny into it, all polite.

But as he slapped the reins on the horse’s backs and urged
them on, he gave her a wink and a leer that were anything but good mannered.

“I hope you’re set to get married, Jenny Fletcher. I’m going
to dance you right off your pretty feet tonight.”

Jenny sat there, stiff and prim despite the motion of the
wagon. “You’re certainly welcome to try.”

The barn was already crowded when they arrived. It was the
first dance of the summer and a whole county and a half worth of people seemed
to be trying to cram into the place.

Folks drifted around, talking comfortably and eyeing the
cakes set out for later. Gold lamplight flashed on the pink, blue and burgundy
of ladies’ dresses. The men were all done up in stiff calico shirts and their
creased boots had been polished ’til they shone.

At the far end of the barn, Harry Davis, the fat fiddle
player, took a swig from the jug beside the cracker barrel he sat on. He tucked
his instrument under all three chins and ran the bow down the strings one time
before he struck up “The Red Wine Jig.”

Mr. Cooper stood up beside Harry and called out, “All right,
folks, find your partner and your place!”

Matt took Jenny’s arm. The feel of a dare hung all around
him. Jenny smiled and let him see she took that dare. They joined three other
couples to make up a square set. Matt and Jenny had their backs to the fiddler,
so they were the first couple, with Jenny as first lady.

“Honors to your partner,” sang out Mr. Cooper. Jenny spread
her skirt and bobbed a curtsey to Matt. The sound of music swelled her heart
already and she itched to be moving.

“Corners the same!”

Jenny turned and bobbed to Al Rolands, her corner, and saw a
gleam in his eyes that was all for her. That gleam warmed her like the music
did and she smiled right back at him.

“First lady lead up to the right!” called Mr. Cooper. “Right
hand round with the right hand gent, left hand round with the partner! Birdie
in the center and seven hands round!”

Jenny took her turn around the set. The fiddle bow leapt up
and down like the music gave it wings. The same wings clapped to Jenny’s shoes.
She reached Al and held out her right hand. They circled each other, holding
tight, and then she circled with Matt, holding his left hand and letting him
hold her gaze. This was her place and her time. When she danced she was more
than just Hope and Martin Fletcher’s saucy daughter. She was Jenny all herself,
she was pretty, she was strong and she could do anything. The men all lined up
to watch her with yearning hearts and every woman’s eyes glowed green with
jealousy.

The song darted around the barn and picked up the tumult of
pounding boots and swishing cloth. Mr. Cooper called the figures strong and hearty.
Jenny slipped to the center of the square and all the others danced around her.
She looked up into the faces of the four young men as they circled her and saw
the same hungry look in each of them, and she savored it.

But none of their hunger could hold on to her. The music
sparked a magic inside her soul. It lent her limbs a grace that made anyone
near her look clumsy. With half a thought, she knew Matt, all wooden, tried to
match the ease of her motion, and couldn’t. His warm hands touched her, but
couldn’t hold her. Sound and movement whirled themselves together in her blood.
The sensation carried her straight up to the rafters, so high she didn’t even
feel the boards under her feet.

Harry laid down the final chord. Applause and whoops brought
Jenny back down to the floor. She gave Matt a saucy eye and Matt just shook his
head.

“I’m beat, Jenny Fletcher. What’s more, I’ll swear there’s
not a man on God’s earth can hold you to your word.”

“Well, you don’t mind if I try then, Matt?” Holden Caraway
put his broad back between Jenny and Matt. “Miss Fletcher?” He held out his
arm.

Jenny took it, and was hard pressed not to rush him into the
long line that set up for “The Fisher’s Hornpipe.”

Holden put her across from him. Over his shoulder, Jenny saw
Tom Hawkins in the shadow of a ridge pole. His dark eyes drank her in, but it
was not the familiar hungry look. His eyes just looked soft, and a little sad.
His square face was gentle under its tangle of beard. Jenny felt her heart tip.

The music rang free of Harry’s fiddle and the dance took
off. Jenny’s heart set itself upright again and lost feeling for anything but
the hornpipe. Tom was a good man, but he couldn’t dance to save his soul.
Although, she couldn’t help wishing he’d try.

Holden lasted through the Fisher’s Hornpipe and took her
round the floor for a hop-step schottish polka, before he admitted he was beat.
Kevin Greer stepped on her feet all the way through the “Portland Fancy.”
Raphael Spinner danced her firm enough through “Darling Nellie Grey” and the
“Money Musk” but couldn’t hold her eyes for the “Weevily Wheat.”

The music stole her so far away, she scarcely remembered
whose hands held her to the floor.

The music fell quiet and the dancers broke for refreshments.
Raphael scuttled to fetch her a cup of punch. Jenny’s gaze wandered the room
while she waited. With a start, she realized she was looking for Tom.

Instead, her gaze found the flint cold shape of Reverend
Cook. He was all in grey and looked like a ghost man as he crossed the floor to
stand beside her.

“Miss Fletcher.” He stood close enough she could smell the
soap all over him. “I was afraid you would be here.”

“It’s a fine evening, isn’t it, Reverend Cook?” she said
politely. Her throat itched for the ginger punch and she looked around quick
for Raphael.

“Jenny,” he sighed, and all the sorrows of the world were in
his face. “I’ve been watching you. Don’t you realize you are going to damn your
soul to everlasting torment for your pride and intemperance?” Fire snapped in
the preacher’s eyes and his voice rang clearer than the fiddle’s music had. “If
you dance to the Devil’s song, it’s him you’ll have to pay!”

“Well,” Jenny met his gaze and matched his tone. “Once I’ve
paid the fiddler, I get to pick the tune, don’t I?”

Reverend Cook shied back from this blasphemy and Jenny
almost wished she could take it back.

The preacher straightened up again and held out one, bony
hand. “Come with me, Jenny. Come now and pray with me for God’s mercy on your
wicked soul.”

She looked at his hand, skinny and crooked, and then she
looked into his eyes, and she saw the look she knew so well, the look that came
to her from the men she danced with.

Hunger. Hunger for her. At last, she understood.

“If you want me, Reverend Cook, you have to dance with me.
That’s the bargain I’ve made.”

Reverend Cook looked down at his own hand. A moment later it
curled into a fist and for an instant, Jenny thought he was going to strike
her.

“I will pray for your soul, Jenny Fletcher.” He turned his
back on her. “But I fear the Lord has little mercy for such as you.”

Jenny stood like a stone. She watched him walk out of the
barn doors and into the darkness.

When the time came to go home, Jenny had danced with half
the men in the barn, and not one of them would take her up a second time. It
was the same way at Bess Kale’s wedding, and again at the county fair. Summer
travelled by in a riot of green leaves and bright flowers. Only old Mr. MacRory
asked her to dance at George Jessup’s christening, and then for just one dance.

Jenny truly didn’t know which was worse, the restless
fluttering in her heart when she heard the music and had no partner, or the
black looks from atop Reverend Cook’s pulpit and the blacker whispers behind
her back.

Eventually, rust spotted the deep green mountains. Jenny put
the final tucks into her dress for the harvest dance. No one had asked her, but
she held firm to her pride. She’d swallow a hot poker before she let on she
felt beat.

In the end, she went in her father’s wagon, sitting beside
her sour parents. Her bonnet concealed the disappointment she couldn’t keep off
her face.

The party gathered out back of Mose Johnson’s sprawling
white house. Not a woman there didn’t have on a brand new dress, all full of
lace and flounces. Their men fussed in suits they’d only wear again to get
married or buried. All the cakes and pies on the stretch of tables were prize
winners. The smell of the pig roasting over the open pit filled up the steady
breeze.

Jenny tried to keep herself busy gossiping and helping with
the food, but her mind kept skittering to the dance. Along with Harry’s fiddle,
there’d be a banjo and a mandolin. She ached to think she might be standing
still during all that fine music.