Garters.htm (11 page)

Monday morning arrived with a burst of springtime. Tiny green buds dotted the tree branches, patches of bright colors were sprinkled across the hillside, and the bright blue sky overhead heralded good things to come. Up on the mountain the snow was completely forgotten, and where the trees weren't shaded in morning fog, patches of laurel slicks dotted the horizon.

Cleavis Rhy noticed none of this. For him the day was as gray as his own thoughts. Only the fortuitous return of Miss Sophrona from tending her "windswept hair" had saved him from public humiliation yesterday afternoon. And even now it wasn't over. Although nothing was said in the presence of the innocent young woman, both his mother and the Tewksburys continued to look askance at him for the rest of the day.

With that thought clearly in his mind, it was no wonder he did not welcome the sight that greeted him when he arrived at the store.

Esme Crabb, her memorably ragged clothes covered by
his
work apron, was sweeping the store's porch.

"What in heaven's name are you doing?" The question was sharp, distinct, and to the point.

Esme raised her head and offered a bright smile.

"Morning, Mr. Rhy," she answered sweetly. "It's sure gonna be one beautiful day, ain't it?"

Cleav approached the steps woodenly. He'd lost all patience with her crush. He was clearly furious. "I asked what you think you are doing here, young woman, and I want an answer!" Standing on the first step, he was eye to eye with Esme.

Knowing it took two to make a fight, Esme simply decided not to take offense. Leaning gamely against the broom handle she propped under her chin, her eyes were bright with the hint of laughter in her voice.

"Well," she said. "You did say you didn't want me peeping at your house no more. So I come on down to the store. And I figured I might as well get started."

With a gesture Esme indicated the broom in her hand. "This is the first chore of the day, isn't it? First you dust the stock and then you sweep out."

Cleav took a deep breath and reminded himself that it was very impolite to throttle a young lady."First
I
dust the stock and then
I
sweep out," he said with deliberate calm. "It is
my
store, Miss Crabb."

She gave him a toothy grin. "Now, I told you to just call me Esme."

He set his jaw tightly and his eyes blazed. "Perhaps, Miss Crabb, I don't
want
to call you Esme."

Stepping onto the porch, he reached for the broom, and Esme relinquished it without a word.

"Give me my apron, Miss Crabb," he ordered.

"Sure," she answered, reaching back behind her to release the tie. "But, truth to tell, it looks better on me than it does on you."

A sound came through Cleav's lips that could only be described as a huff.

When Esme handed him the apron, he hurriedly slipped it over his head and crossed the long ties behind him, then tied it neatly in the front. He gestured at her, attempting to shoo his nemesis away as if she were a chicken or a stray cat. Then he commenced sweeping where Esme had left off, purposely looking away from her.

Esme took no offense and casually drifted back toward the door.

"Thanks for taking over for me," she said easily. "I didn't eat this morning and save to graces I'm sure looking forward to a little cracker and jelly."

As she stepped dirough the door, she hollered back over her shoulder, "Coffee's boiled if you want some."

Cleav stopped stock still and stared at the now-empty doorway in shock. "Coffee's boiled?" he repeated to himself, as if the words were some strange foreign phrase.

Cleaning the remaining dust on the porch with a vengeance, Cleav was finished in less than five minutes. His mind was scurrying in so many directions, he barely noticed the approach of old man Denny.

"Open up a little early this morning?" the man questioned.

Cleav raised his head and stared at the man wordlessly, then turned and walked into the store.

From that very difficult beginning, Cleav saw his day grow increasingly worse.

Esme Crabb was determined to both make herself at home and to be as helpful as possible. While Cleav did his Monday book work and restocked shelves, Esme kept Denny entertained with a chat.

When the old man's checkers partner, Hiram Tyree, showed up, Esme even helped them set up the game on the front porch. "So you can enjoy the day," she told them. "They's yellow violets up on the hill already," she informed the men cheerfully. "Saw 'em myself this morning. Afore you know it, the wildflowers will be across the valley like God's own patch quilt."

The men smiled and laughed with Esme, her warmth and good humor brightening the still-foggy morning.

Cleav, however, felt no such sense of good cheer. The situation was growing very awkward, and he was convinced that if things continued this way, Miss Sophrona would surely hear gossip. He was determined to order Esme out of the store, but the time was never quite right. Customers came and went, making a private conversation impossible. He considered telling her to leave, privacy or no, but he couldn't do it. In his memory he saw her standing so bravely in the church. Her pride far too large for her meager lot in life. That was nothing to him, he quickly reminded himself. Setting his jaw firmly, he swore to himself to set this womanful of trouble out of his life as soon as possible.

Remarkably, he found she was actually quite helpful in the store. Somehow, in a few short days, she'd ferreted out where just about everything in the store could be located. And she was willing, even eager, to help out the customers.

"Since when have you been working here?" Cleav heard Pearly Beachum, the biggest gossip in town, ask her. Cold fear gripped him as he hurried over to them. What would Esme say? Whatever it was, it would be all over town by nightfall.

"I'm just helping out," Esme told the woman with a sweet smile and then whispered to her quietly, "We've run up some debt here in the past," she said in confidence. "Mr. Rhy has been so good to just forgive it, but I want to do what I can to make it right."

Cleav couldn't hear their whispers, and as he reached them, the two women moved apart. Pearly gave him a curious, but not unpleasant, look. Cleav decided that since she hadn't hit him with her parasol, Esme had obviously not said the worst.

As the morning wore on, his anger, which had ridden so strongly on Cleav when he arrived, lessened. Esme was unfailingly pleasant to the customers. He was even amused at the ingenious way she managed to make sales.

When Rog Wicker came in for his weekly supplies as well as a pack of Red Leaf, she spoke up.

"You know, Mr. Wicker, I don't chew myself, but from everything I've ever heard, Carolina Blue is a much superior jaw to that old Red Leaf."

Turning to look at the young woman, Wicker's brow wrinkled in consternation. "Course the Carolina's better," he agreed. "Costs more, too. I'll stick with Red Leaf, thank you."

"Of course." Esme nodded calmly in reply. "A penny saved is a penny earned, true enough." She sighed lightly and then added, "It just seemed to me that a man like yourself, a man who's got his farm all paid for and his children growed and married, a man who's got only one vice—and that merely being partial to a chew of tobacco— well, such a man ought to have the best. Seemed like such a man would deserve as much."

Rog Wicker's eyebrows raised. He stared after Esme for a minute as she wandered toward the canned goods. Cleav gathered the rest of the order.

"What else?" he asked the man finally.

"That's about it," Wicker answered, "total it up." The man reached for Ms tobacco and held it in his hand for a moment as if weighing it.

"Take this back and give me the Carolina Blue," he said without further explanation.

Cleav was momentarily stunned. Rog Wicker had been chewing Red Leaf since Cleav's daddy had run the store.

Wordlessly exchanging the tobacco, Cleav could barely concentrate on his math as he totaled up the purchase.

As Wicker took his leave, Cleav glanced across the room at Esme. Her grin was as wide as a new moon, and she raised her eyebrows in a bragging salute. The impish behavior was so infectious, Cleav caught himself grinning back. Then fastidiously he straightened his cuffs as he avoided looking at her. But he couldn't quite tamp down the smile that twitched at the corners of his lips.

The day might have taken a solid turn for the better if the next customer had not been Reverend Tewksbury. At his side his daughter Sophrona was clothed in a calico work dress and sunbonnet, and even in this modest outfit the diminutive young woman looked like a princess.

The reverend's smile was welcoming as he walked in but dimmed considerably when he glanced across the room and saw Esme Crabb apparently rearranging the canned goods.

For Esme, things were proceeding according to plan. Cleav was already seeing how much easier his job would be with her at his side. And she was surprised herself at how easily the customers were accepting her.

She'd hated her forced explanation to Pearly Beachum, but that couldn't be helped. She knew the best way to throw a dog off the scent was to give him another bone to chew on.

Now with her unequivocal victory over the tobacco, she was beginning to feel somewhat cocky. Cleav couldn't maintain his stiff behavior forever. He was coming around. A moment ago he'd smiled at her in genuine friendship. It was going to be easier than even she had expected. Her thoughts were strictly positive until she spied Sophrona Tewksbury.

Even if Esme were better wife material, physically the preacher's daughter was everything that Esme was not. And the pretty expanse of bright blue calico was headed straight in her direction.

"Esme! Good morning, what a surprise."

Although only a couple of years separated the two in age, a world of living
stood between them. As children, Sophrona had played with the twins, unaware of the difference in their status. As time had passed, however, the concerns of the well-fed, well-tended young woman diverged greatly from the daily struggles of the Crabb family.

Esme, however, had always been aware of the difference. There had been no
carefree childhood for her, just as it seemed there would be no careworn
adulthood for Sophrona. It would have been natural to feel jealousy, envy, even hatred. But Esme had always liked Sophrona. She couldn't help it. It was hard to make an enemy of someone whose cheerfulness was legend.

"Morning, Sophrona," Esme greeted her. She saw Cleav and the preacher at a distance. Cleav looked as if he'd just taken a big bite of green persimmon.

"That's a real pretty dress you got on," Esme commented honestly. "That blue looks real nice on you."

Sophrona smiled, delighted, and then glanced down at the dress. "Do you think so?" she asked, and then with a guarded glance back to her father she added with a naughty twinkle, " 'Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.' "

Almost against her will Esme found herself smiling back. Sophrona had that way about her. She drew people to her
and almost compelled them to enjoy the experience.

"I wanted to thank you for the basket we received," she said calmly, steeling herself to politeness, even as a pain clutched tightly at her. "I gathered from Mrs. Beachum that the idea and much of the gathering was done by you."

Sophrona waved away the gratitude with a pleasant word. "We all wanted to do it," she said easily. " 'A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly,'" she quoted.

Her smile faded slightly, and she glanced to the side warily. She moved closer to Esme. "Follow me," she whispered. With a guarded look behind her, she grasped Esme's arm and led her toward a deserted corner of the store.

"Have you seen the new crepe de chine Mr. Rhy has purchased?" she asked Esme with considerably more volume than was necessary. "I declare that color would be perfect for you."

Walking beside her, Esme gave Sophrona a very puzzled glance. "I could never afford to buy crepe de chine," she whispered, embarrassed.

"I know," Sophrona answered easily. "I just wanted to speak to you alone. Here it is," she began again more loudly.

Opening the cabinet into which were neatly stacked the bolts of sturdy rugged materials, Sophrona pulled out the extra-long remnant of rose crepe de chine that a drummer had thrown in with Cleav's last order.

As the two women reverently ran their hands across the beautiful material, Sophrona spoke. "There's been talk about you and Mr. Rhy."

"Oh?" Esme felt a blush stain her cheek, and she was grateful that Sophrona kept her eyes on the cloth.

"I heard a bit at church yesterday," she admitted. "Everyone was determined not to let me find out what was going on, but I know they're saying you've been seen together."

"I…" Esme began but immediately hesitated. Should she explain? Deny? She planned to marry Cleavis Rhy, but perhaps Miss Sophrona did, too.

"In the afternoon we took tea at Mrs. Rhy's home," Sophrona explained as she leaned forward conspiratorially. "They sent me into the house. Mother said that I needed to fix my hair." Sophrona sighed with exasperation. "Sometimes I wonder if they think I am stupid. I did fix my hair, of course," she said, "but I listened at the parlor window."

This quiet avowal was made with such seriousness, it sounded as if she were confessing to murder.

Sophrona raised her eyes to meet Esme's gaze. "I'm not sure exactly what they are accusing you two of," the young woman admitted. "But I want you to know," she said firmly, "I don't believe a word of it."

Taking Esme's hand in her own, Sophrona gave it a warm squeeze.

Cleav was never more grateful to leave the suddenly close confines of the store for the freedom of the fish ponds. When his mother arrived, she had looked even more horrified than the reverend at the sight of Esme Crabb making herself at home.

"Son," the preacher had said quietly as they had watched the two young women admiring a piece of dress goods, "just having her here in the building with you is fodder for the gossips."

"I can't throw her out," Cleav said reasonably. "If the girl doesn't steal or cause trouble, she's got as much right to be in the store as anyone else."