Summer Lightning (14 page)

“Your parents wouldn’t approve of this,” she interpreted.

“They’d think it was vain and silly like dancing. Well, they’re right, you know. My aunt . . .”

Dulcie said without moving her lips. “Help!”

Edith tapped Dulcie’s cheek with her finger. Then she tried to scratch it with her nail. Water made no impression. An experiment with some hoarded eau de cologne brought a little green off on the dampened handkerchief but didn’t even begin to remove the thick layers.

“Dear me, it’s really stuck. Are you sure you only used what the recipe called for? I wonder if lining a young bull’s stomach with cement is really a good idea.”

Dulcie pointed to a nearly empty bottle also on the dressing table. Picking it up, Edith was at once struck by a strong smell of spirits of hartshorn, a well-known thickener. “I’m getting your mother,” Edith said firmly, starting toward the door.

The young girl grabbed Edith’s arm, halting her. She shook her head frantically.

“We must do
something”
Edith said. “You can’t stay like that. Besides, everyone is waiting for you.”

Dulcie began to cry, all the harder when she realized that not even tears could now melt the plaster on her face. Then Edith said, “I have an idea. Wait here.”

Dulcie indicated with a look that there was little else she could do.

A few moments later, Edith opened the girl’s door again and stood back. Gary walked in, a tan bag in his hand. “Good golly,” he said. “What a mess!”

“Please don’t gloat, Gary. We don’t have time for that,” Edith said, shutting the door. “Just go to work.”

He set the bag down on the dressing table. Snapping back the locks, he removed his carving tools. Dulcie shrank back. “Now don’t worry,” Gary said, patting her shoulder. “You know my hand never slips. But you better hold still.”

Forcing herself to smile, Edith came over and picked up Dulcie’s hand. Holding it awkwardly, she said, “I’m sorry, but he was all I could come up with. Are you sure you don’t want me to tell your mother about this?”

Gary answered for his sister as he picked up his smallest chisel. “Don’t even think about it, Miss Parker. My folks are about as easygoing as you can imagine but they’re death on vanity. Why, they made my little sister Annie wear a big plaid bow on her hair most of last winter, just ‘cause she said it didn’t become her. They don’t want us thinking about our outsides, when it’s our insides that matter.”

After fifteen wincing minutes passed, most of the green had fallen in chips to the floor. Gary broke off in the midst of a tuneless whistle. “That’s the best I can do. Say, if you can make me up some more of this stuff it sure would make a great medium for modeling. It handles really nice.”

“Oh, get out, Gary,” his sister said. “No, wait. I’m sorry. You’ve been a big help. I wouldn’t have gotten out of this mess without you.”

Gary bundled his tools back into his bag. “Don’t mention it. And you better get washed up. You still look kind of green around the gills.”

Edith let go of Dulcie’s hand. The marks of the girl’s nails were driven into the side of her palm. Once or twice it had seemed certain that Gary’s hand would slip.

“He’s a very good carver,” Dulcie said, after the door closed behind him. “And I thank heaven for it. If he’d cut my face . . . I already have buck teeth, you know, and a scar wouldn’t make me look any better.”

“Your brother is right. You are still greenish,” Edith said, not knowing how to answer. Dulcie’s front teeth did stick out and not all the polite nothings in the world would make them go in. “Where’s that cologne? Maybe if we scrub extra hard with that ... it took some off before.”

“I can only thank you again. I was so mortified for anyone to see me like that!”

“Oh, well,” Edith said, pouring cologne on a handkerchief. “I’m not anyone.”

Downstairs, the ladies were working hard on the delicate underthings and bed linen that a new bride required. Mrs. Armstrong, her starched apron brilliantly white, fussed over the refreshments in the dining room. “There you are, Dulcie. What a time you’ve been! Thanks for getting her, Miss Parker.”

“It was a pleasure, Mrs. Armstrong. Can I help you with . . . anything?”

“No, no. Go along and talk with the others. Dulcie, be nice to everyone. They’re working for your sake, you know.”

“Oh, Mother! I’m not going to snap their noses off, for goodness sake.”

Dulcie nudged Edith who stood with her mouth open in the middle of the doorway. “C’mon. I want to see what I’m getting.”

Haltingly, Edith followed as Dulcie went ahead, prattling. “Of course, it’s very good of them to do nice things for me, but I want to get married without all this fuss. After all, people get married every day. And if you really love someone, you don’t need linens and aprons and pillowcases and all the rest, do you?”

She held the door open for Edith to follow. Her tender smile firmly in place, Dulcie said, “Hello, everybody!”

Edith sank into a vacant chair near Mrs. Green. She blinked and passed her hand over her eyes. Then she stared, fixing her inner vision strongly on Dulcie. She failed to make out the slightest glimmer or glow about the young bride-to-be.

As a test, Edith looked at the others in the room. Neither Miss Climson, Miss Albans, nor Mrs. Green gave off any light at all. Several of the women with rings on their third finger, left hand, had a certain incandescence about their figures but it was by no means brilliant.

Her gaze dropped to the carpet. Edith’s chest felt hollow, as though something were missing. It was as though she’d been suddenly struck blind. Surely, a young lady approaching the height of her existence must be sending out rays of light radiant enough to dazzle even casual observers.

Then Mrs. Armstrong entered and it was as if a comet had blazed around the room. Edith sat upright, wishing she had a pair of glasses with smoked lenses to protect her outer as well as her inner eye. Knowing a relief that left her limp, she basked in the glow of Mrs. Armstrong’s affection for her husband.

“Thank goodness,” she whispered.

“I beg your pardon,” Mrs. Green said.

Edith merely smiled at her in meaningless apology. If her “vision” hadn’t been working properly, she would, of course, have had to resign immediately from Jeff Dane’s employ. The risk of matching him with an unsuitable lady would have been too great. She could not act without seeing the hidden emotions of others.

Actually, she had matched up letter writers without using her talents, and those matches had, apparently, worked as well as those she’d “helped” along. Yet a regular choice would not do for Jeff. Edith knew she’d not be satisfied until he and his children were completely happy with the perfect wife and mother.

She glanced around. Miss Clemson continued setting stitches with machinelike precision. Miss Albans had laid her work aside for the moment, deep in conversation with two other ladies. From the way they held up their hands and exclaimed, Edith guessed they were discussing scandal. Mrs. Green was also sunk in conversation with a married lady. They had a comfortable look, as if they were talking of cake recipes and furniture polish.

Then her eye fell upon Dulcie, who was showing off her amethyst engagement ring to her friends. The only glow Dulcie wore came from the tiny gem on her finger. Edith feared that a merely material flash would not outlast the bridal year.

Dulcie sat beside her. “What an elegant apron. I’ll save it to wear it for company, or when Mr. Sullivan calls.”

“Mr. Sullivan?”

“My fiancé. Victor.” Dulcie dropped her eyes, her lashes shading her cheek. If Edith had been a normal person, she might have sworn to Dulcie’s blush. As it was, however, she could only marvel that such acting talent ran in a family determined not to use it for profit.

“Have you known him long?”

“Oh, no. Ours is what you might call a ‘whirlwind’ courtship. He only came to town two or three weeks ago. It was love at first sight. For both of us.”

“Was it? I believe that’s very rare.” Edith turned the subject back to the apron she was working. “Most of this was made by the late Mrs. Samuel Dane. I’m just finishing it so you can have it.”

“Really? I liked Mrs. Dane a lot. I’m glad I’ll have something of hers.”

Tending closely to the heart of one of the embroidered flowers, Edith asked, “What was Mrs. Jefferson Dane like?”

“Didn’t you meet her?”

“No, never.”

Dulcie said, “I liked Gwen. She seemed like a real happy person, always laughing and flirting.”

“Flirting?”

“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Green entered their conversation easily. “Gwen Dane was a dreadful flirt. She must have had half a dozen beaus on her string before Jeff came back.”

“Came back? Where had he been?”

“Like so many young boys, he was lured away from home by temptations we women never suffer. What, dear?” Mrs. Green rose to answer Mrs. Armstrong’s summons.

Seeing perhaps that Edith looked shocked and intrigued, Dulcie laid her fingers on Edith’s arm. “I heard that Jeff Dane went to a gold strike on the Trinity River in California when he was eighteen. To hear some of these folks talk, you’d think that was a sin. I think it’s an adventure. I’d love to be able to just pull up stakes and chase a dream. Wouldn’t you?”

Edith didn’t mention that she rarely had to chase dreams. Usually, she had to frighten them off. Even now, as she worked her needle through the fabric, she was thinking of dawn above a silvery river.
The rampant scents of wildflowers filled her spirit as she opened her tent flap and stepped out into the cool lushness of a California morning.

Wildcat Hawes they called her, as quick on the draw as any man jack. Little did the grubby miners know that under her buckskin vest beat a heart ablaze with love for only one man, the man she’d followed to the primitive conditions of the gold-fields. She fought to conceal her love, knowing that he didn’t want her as much as he wanted that gleaming devil, gold.

The time passed quickly, as it always did when she was lost in daydreams. Wildcat was just showing her beloved the error of his ways when she looked up to find Jeff grinning down at her.

“Where are you?” he asked. “A million miles away?”

Edith looked around. Half the ladies had left. She only hoped she’d been civil in her farewells. Sometimes when she was lost in thought, people could speak to her and she wouldn’t hear them. Like Mrs. Webb, several people in the boardinghouse had considered her insufferably stuck-up when she’d only been fighting Tartars during dinner, or taming tigers at noon.

She tied the final knot in the last flower. “I’m ready,” she said. “Just let me say my good-byes.”

Jeff waited for her until the bracket clock on the mantel chimed the quarter hour. Then he went in search of her.

He heard the bass rumble of the preacher’s voice before he entered the kitchen. Pushing open the door, he heard, “To cling to possessions is folly, Miss Parker. Some of the best men who ever lived have taught us that.”

“That’s true. But there is a difference between sharing your goods with the poor and having them smashed to bits by clumsy guests.”

Jeff thought, What’s up now?

“The message is the same. I should remember General Polk for his faith and good works rather than for his talents as a military leader. That chair was the wrong thing to remember him by. I can see that now.”

“Don’t tell me .  .  .” Jeff muttered.

Edith said, “Will you tell me more about him, Mr. Armstrong? I should enjoy learning about such a noble gentleman. Maybe if you share your memories, you will keep them all the brighter.”

Mrs. Armstrong said, “There now, Ezra. Stop making the girl feel guilty over a chair.”

Jeff coughed and walked in. “If there’s anything I can do ... Maybe I can fix it, though if Gary can’t, I guess my skill won’t pay toll.”

“I’m afraid I’ve wrecked it utterly, Cousin Jeff,” Edith said, hanging her head. She would have told Jeff about her mishap once they were private. Then only she would see his disappointment. Perhaps he would decide he didn’t want such a bumbling nincompoop handling his delicate liaisons. If that were the case, she’d want to hear her dismissal in private too.

“The chair was old,” Mrs. Armstrong said. “And it didn’t go with any of the furniture.”

“I think,” Mr. Armstrong replied, “that will be the last word on the subject. Jeff, do you want some coffee?”

“No, thanks. I’d best be heading back. Lots to see to when you’ve been gone a week.”

“I bet those pretty girls of yours seem to have shot up since you left.”

“They sure have.” Jeff turned to Edith. “You won’t believe it, Edith, but they were just babies last week.”

After some more good-byes and Dulcie’s surprisingly warm farewell embrace that left Edith shy and bewildered, Jeff and Edith walked out to the street. Standing by the boardwalk, Miss Albans and Miss Climson had paused to talk privately.

Jeff tipped his hat as he opened the gate. “Good day, ladies. Hasn’t the weather turned sunny?”

Watching carefully, Edith saw no sparks fly between Jeff and either of the two young women.

Miss Climson said, “I’ll want to have a talk with you about Louise, Mr. Dane. We really can’t have her running wild about the schoolyard like she did last year. And your younger child will be starting this fall too, won’t she?”

“Yes, Maribel will be there. And Louise has grown up a lot since that little incident with the firecracker.”

“I’m glad to hear it. I’m all for patriotic fervor but not five months before Independence Day.”

“I agree completely, Miss Climson.”

Miss Climson said, “It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Parker. I hope to see you again soon. Good day.” The school teacher began to walk away.

Miss Albans said, “My best to your father,” before she followed her friend. Mrs. Green had evidently gone hurrying home to her sons. Edith wondered if sparks ever flew between the warmhearted matron and the widowed man beside her. She was ashamed to admit, in the secret, darkest depths of her soul, that she hoped they did not.

“I want to stop by Mrs. Green’s a moment,” Edith said. “She promised to give me a pattern for a new style of rose.”