The Bridal Veil (13 page)

Just as the road began its last
descent into town, a cemetery came into her view. Emily wondered
why she hadn’t noticed it before. Perhaps because it sat on a
gently sloping hillside, and spread out below was a breathtaking
vista of the river that eclipsed the burying ground. Only two or
three trees interrupted the view. Too, compared to the imposing
granite angels and large family tombs in Chicago’s cemeteries,
these grave markers were modest. It was a well-tended place,
though, and she supposed it would only be proper to go inside the
low iron fence to find and pay her respects to the grave of the
woman whose spirit lived on in the Becker house. She lingered at
the gate, her gloved hands gripping two of the iron pickets.
Somewhere in the breeze-blown trees a finch twittered a plaintive
song. Emily hesitated. She’d spent years in the shadow of the
paragon that had been her sister, but she had loved Alyssa with all
her heart. The woman she now apparently did not measure up to she
would never know, yet Belinda was honored like a saint. She closed
her left hand into a fist to feel her wedding band press against
the flesh of her little finger.

Perhaps she was being small, Emily
thought, but she turned away from the graveyard and kept
walking.

~~*~*~*~~

“
Clara, what do you think of
Luke Becker marrying that beanpole of a woman?”

Emily halted outside the open door to
Fran Eakins’s general store, riveted to a spot beside a barrel that
held a bouquet of corn brooms. To her distress, the druggist’s shop
had been closed and now she was forced to come to one of the last
places in town where she wanted to be. Based on what she’d just
heard, her trepidation was not unfounded. Her heart sank. She
didn’t want to go into the store—the memory of Franny Eakins’s
angry display in the sandwich shop was fresh in Emily’s mind. But
Fairdale was small and there weren’t a lot of merchants to choose
from. Her dress needed cleaning and there was no other way she knew
of to get the job done. She’d have to deal with Fran again. She’d
recognized the shopkeeper’s voice within and waited to hear a
response.

“
I was shocked, just
shocked. God in heaven, however did Luke choose such a gangling
bluestocking? And when did he meet her? I never saw her in town
before last Sunday.”

“
I
did,” Fran answered with a vinegary voice. “I saw her the day
she came in on the boat from The Dalles. I knew Luke was up to
something months ago. He’d been getting letters from some female in
Chicago. They smelled of rosewater and were written in a fancy hand
on fancy paper. I guess they were from
her
. She’s pretty full of herself,
from what I could tell, with her yapping about manners and
all.”

“
If he wanted a mother for
Rose, he should have chosen a woman here in Fairdale. One who knows
how to take care of a man.”

“
You, for instance?” Emily
heard an unmistakable bristling tone.

“
Why not? Luke and I knew
each other before he ever married Belinda. And we were more than
just polite friends, I can tell you. If ever there was a man who
knew exactly how and where to pleasure a woman—well, Luke didn’t
get his reputation as a ladies’ man for nothing. Those big hands of
his can be very gentle— For all his wild ways, I could have had him
in a minute if Belinda hadn’t gotten into trouble first.” Clara
Thurmon sounded both confident and annoyed. “So he had to marry her
instead.”

This bit of information surprised
Emily, if it was true, she thought. She remembered the woman
hanging on Luke after church, her manner far too familiar for
Emily’s liking.

“
Well, if I were his wife,”
Fran said, “I’d keep him on a short chain and make sure he didn’t
go around
pleasuring
anyone but me. And I’d take that little brat Rose in hand
mighty quick. A few nights locked in her room without supper would
teach her not to steal and pull pranks.”

That was as much as Emily could listen
to. Was everyone in this benighted town rude and snide? she
wondered. Or perhaps it was just the women. Never in her life had
she heard such a crude discussion between two females.

She strode into the store
with her shoulders back and her head high, the same posture she’d
used on the first day of classes every year at Miss Wheaton’s.
“Good afternoon,
ladies
.”

Clara Thurmon flushed scarlet,
emphasizing her mustache, and she exchanged guilty looks with Fran
Eakins. Emily knew they were wondering how much she’d overheard,
and she got frank enjoyment from watching Clara squirm. Fran,
however, stuck out her chin, a clearly belligerent
stance.

“
Mrs. Becker,” Fran
acknowledged in much the same tone that Cora used. “What a
surprise.”

“
A rather unpleasant one I
gather, Miss Eakins, from what I heard outside.” Emily’s heart
thundered in her chest and she kept her hands at her sides because
she knew they were shaking. She could feel her market basket
trembling against her leg. She hated confrontations and usually did
her best to avoid them. But just because she had to put up with
Cora Hayward’s rudeness didn’t mean she had to accept it from
strangers. Her marriage to Luke was none of their
business.

Now Fran blushed as well and one of
her caterpillar brows began to twitch. Clara, wall-eyed behind her
spectacles, stood rooted to the floor like a deer caught in a
hunter’s sights and chewed her lower lip.

Emily forged ahead, her tone
businesslike and no-nonsense. Regardless of what Fran Eakins
thought of her, she suspected the woman would not pass up the
opportunity to make money. “I need a bottle of ammonia and some
castile soap, if you please.” The air was electric with mutual
disapproval, and Emily thought she could actually smell Clara
Thurmon beginning to sweat through her clothes.

“
I can’t add anything more
to Luke’s account until he comes in to settle up,” Fran announced,
her nose rising a notch.

Emily had spent most of her years
unnoticed, moving across the backdrop of others’s lives, and she
had never been the object of such overt hostility. Thank God what
little money she had she carried with her now. “I am paying for my
purchases today.”

Outflanked, Fran folded her mouth into
a flat line but said nothing more. She turned to the
floor-to-ceiling shelves behind the counter that held jars, boxes,
bottles, and packages of all sizes, types, and colors. When she put
a pint of ammonia and the soap on the counter, she said, “That’ll
be sixteen cents.”

Emily glanced at the jar of hard candy
sitting on the counter, priced at five for a penny. “I’ll take five
of the strawberry drops, too.” She searched her coin purse and
counted out three nickels and two pennies. Then she put her
purchases into her basket and started to leave. Hesitating a
moment, she turned and faced the two women again.

“
When you two return to your
kennels this evening, I hope you’ll reflect on your appalling
rudeness while you’re gnawing on your dinner bones and baying at
the moon.”

Clara released the grip her teeth held
on her lip when her jaw fell open. Fran looked as surprised as if
Emily had rapped her knuckles with a ruler.

Emily sailed to the door, certain that
her face was as red as the other women’s. It was the worst thing
she had ever said to anyone in her life.

And for the moment, it felt
wonderful.

~~*~*~*~~

The energy that Emily’s anger
generated carried her out of town and up the hill toward the farm
at such a fast clip that she began to grow breathless. She’d even
overtaken some children who laughed and ran with the joy of being
released from the confines of school on such a fine spring
afternoon. By the time she neared the cemetery again, she was
gasping for air and had to stop. While she agreed with physicians
that a corset laced too tightly was dangerous to a woman’s health,
fashion and modesty required that she wear one. She wore hers more
loosely than some women did, but it didn’t permit a lot of physical
exertion. She sat down on a boulder beside the road and
concentrated on taking even breaths. Reaching into her pocket, she
pulled out a black-edged handkerchief and dabbed at her damp
temples and upper lip.

Now that she’d walked off some of her
temper, she couldn’t believe she’d said that terrible thing to Fran
Eakins and Clara Thurmon. After tiptoeing around Cora Hayward and
pretending to ignore her sarcasm, Emily supposed her ladylike fuse
had burned down to a nubbin. But a true lady was supposed to ignore
gossip and rise above insults. Indeed, she was not even supposed to
acknowledge that she’d heard them. Still, a private smile turned up
the corners of her mouth when she remembered the looks on their
faces, and in her heart she was glad that she’d rebuked those two
harridans. Why should they care that Luke had married
her?

Gangling
bluestocking.

Beanpole
.

Neither Fran nor Clara were great
beauties. Fran’s brows were so dark and heavy they almost joined
over the bridge of her nose to create one long horizontal line. And
if Emily had the kind of facial hair that Clara did, she’d
seriously consider learning to use a razor. But both women were
small and fine-boned, advantages that Emily did not
have.

So far, her impression of
Fairdale’s citizens was rather negative, although she’d met a
couple of nice women at church, despite Cora’s deliberate attempt
to mislead them about her status with the Becker family. Would she
ever be able to make friends here? she wondered. Were people
everywhere so shallow that they judged a person’s worth solely on
their appearance? God above, one would think she had a hump on her
back and a sign hanging from her neck that read,
Too ugly to live
.

Once more, unbidden, the image of her
grandmother’s bridal veil rose in her mind. Although she knew it
was silly, she still harbored the childlike dream that the veil
possessed magical powers that would transform her, plain and gawky
Emily Cannon, into a graceful and lovely woman. Even though she’d
hoped to wear it at her wedding, she had feared trying it on in
case it might not be true. Since she was already married, in name
anyway, she’d never really know. She sighed—perhaps it was just as
well. Her heart might not withstand the disappointment.

She glanced at the watch pinned to her
bodice and realized the day was waning. Now that her breathing had
slowed again, Emily rose from her hard seat and turned toward home.
She hoped to clean her dress before dinner so that it would have a
chance to dry overnight.

As she passed the cemetery, she
spotted a small, familiar figure sitting on one of the graves
beneath an elm tree. The coffee-colored braids, both coming loose,
and the flounced calico dress gave away the child’s identity even
though Emily couldn’t see her face.

She entered the enclosed burial
ground, passing small headstones that bore carvings of lambs and
angels, of lilies and crosses, and approached Rose quietly, not
wanting to startle her. The wind carried the fresh scent of the
river to these highlands, helping to dispel the lonely gloom of the
graveyard. Then Emily picked up the thread of a one-sided
conversation. She knew she was eavesdropping on a very personal
moment, but she couldn’t pull herself away and didn’t want to
interrupt. Rose sat cross-legged on the grave, tracing the carved
letters of her mother’s name with her fingertip while she
spoke.

“
. . . don’t know why
Grammy acts that way. She doesn’t have anything good to say about
her, Mama. She didn’t want Daddy to marry her. I guess I didn’t
either. She’s not as pretty as you were and—and I still miss you so
much. I’m lonesome without you.” Here her voice quavered with
forlorn longing that made Emily’s heart rise to her throat and form
an aching knot. She knew what it was to lose a mother and to be
lonely. “But Miss Emily smells good, and she knows about things
like tapestries and God. She tries to help around the house and
Grammy gets mad—a few days ago, she even said she was going to
leave.” Rose related to the headstone the commotion about the
tablecloth and began sobbing in earnest. “I hate it when Daddy and
Grammy fuss at each other! And it just keeps getting worse. They
act like they don’t love each other. I don’t know what’s going to
happen.”

Emily’s heart twisted. She wanted to
draw Rose into her arms and comfort her, to reassure her. But she
couldn’t do that without revealing that she’d listened in. Besides,
who was she to reassure anyone? She was as uncertain and insecure
as Rose. Probably more so. Her sole advantage was her age—being an
adult didn’t render one’s heart unbreakable, but with years and
experience, hers had acquired a harder shell. She realized the only
way out of this situation was to back away and make her presence
known from outside the fence. Quietly, she stole back to the
entrance and acted as if she’d just now come by. “Rose, is that
you?” she called.

The girl whirled to look at her, eyes
streaming and nose red.

“
I’m just on my way back
from town.” Emily stepped inside the fence and approached her.
“Would you like to walk home with me? It must be uncomfortable
sitting on that wet grass.” Her offer sounded inadequate to her own
ears—how must it sound to a child with a broken heart? She held out
her hand and gave her a tentative smile. “I’d like your
company.”