The Bridal Veil (30 page)

When they arrived at the church, the
surrounding grounds were packed with wagons, buckboards, and a
buggy or two. To see a carriage in Fairdale would have been so
astounding, Emily suspected that its owner would be mobbed by
curiosity-seekers, or perhaps even shunned as
highfalutin.

Women came and went, toting boxes of
food and dishes, flapping tablecloths over makeshift picnic tables,
and setting out all manner of delectables for those who weren’t
participating in the box-dinner auction. A temporary dance floor
had been built in the side yard and Jennie Manning had told Emily
that music would be provided by the Duffy brothers, the same group
who played at weddings, grange dances, and socials. They had a
fiddle, a tin whistle, and spoons. If Tom Duffy had enough to
drink, he might even bring out his uilleann bagpipes. Reverend
Ackerman didn’t hold much with drinking on church grounds, but he
figured the Duffys were the pope’s problem and not his. A string of
lanterns had been rigged around the perimeter for late-night
dancing. Luke had told her that dances sometimes went on until
dawn, although that probably wouldn’t be the case with a church
social. Reverend Ackerman wouldn’t want to give anyone an excuse
for not being in their pews in the morning.

Children ran around, full of energy
and high spirits, playing tag, and bragging about their mothers’s
cooking. The men clustered in groups and engaged in discussions
about planting, weather, and crops.

Luke stopped the wagon under a
wide-branched maple and jumped from the high seat to help Emily
down. Then he handed Rose out and unloaded the wicker hamper that
Emily had packed.

“
Mrs. Luke!” Emily turned
and saw Jennie Manning waving at her from a group of tables on the
north side of the church. A couple of the smallest Manning
children, a girl and a boy, peeked at the Beckers from behind
Jennie’s skirt. “Mrs. Luke, come and sit with us.”

Relieved to see a familiar face, Emily
waved back, and Luke and Rose followed her to the table set up next
to the Mannings’s. “Mrs. Manning, how good to see you,” Emily
responded. “Carrie and Jack, it’s good to see you, too.” With a
nudge from their mother, the youngsters made polite
replies.

“
My, my, but that dress made
up so nice! You have a real talent with the needle,” Jennie said.
“And Rose, I see you’ve got a new frock. The Becker women look
handsome tonight.”

Emily thanked her, and opened the
hamper to pull out her box dinner. “Luke, would you mind putting
this on the table with the other dinners?”

He tipped her a private smile and
said, “Don’t forget what I said the other night. I’ll make sure
that you and I eat this—no one else.”

Emily felt the blood rise to her face
and she ducked her chin.

“
Come on, Rose,” he said.
“Let’s find out where they’re collecting the boxes.” Emily watched
them walk away and when she looked at Jennie again, the woman was
smiling approvingly.

They chatted for a while, then
Jennie’s attention was diverted to a minor squabble among her own
brood. Emily was putting out her family’s dishes when she saw Clara
Thurmon coming toward her. She hadn’t seen or spoken to the woman
since that terrible afternoon at the general store. She smoothed
out her checked tablecloth and waited for Clara to speak
first.

“
Well, Mrs. Becker, this is
a surprise. I didn’t expect to see you here at my basket social
tonight.”

Apparently Clara had recovered from
their last encounter, enough to try and insult her again. Emily
straightened and squared her shoulders. “And why is that Miss
Thurmon?”

“
I figured this might be
tame entertainment for someone used to big-city ways. We’re just
plain-speaking folks here, not given to fancy manners and fancy
talk.”

“
Really? I’ve found that
people are basically the same everywhere. One difference I’ve
noticed, though, is that where I come from it’s customary to
make
everyone
feel
welcome, especially newcomers.”

Clara tightened her lips into a white
line, obviously unable to think of an excuse for her plain-speaking
rudeness. So she changed tactics. The sun glared off her
spectacles, giving her a weird, eyeless appearance. Her gaze raked
Emily up and down, taking in her new dress. “What a lovely outfit.
Blonds usually look terrible in that shade. But it suits
you.”

Emily sizzled inside
her
lovely outfit
,
trying to think of a reply. But nothing came to mind, and she was
tired of the battle. “I’m sure you must have many important duties
to attend to, Miss Thurmon, and I know I do. If you’ll excuse
me . . . ” She dismissed Clara, who had no
option but to move on.

Jennie leaned closer, obviously a
witness to the war of words. “Isn’t she the most dreadful woman?”
she whispered. “I hate talking to her—I never know where to look.
All I can see is that silver mustache of hers.”

The tension broken, Emily laughed. “I
don’t suppose it would be so noticeable if she had a nice
personality that a person could concentrate on. For some reason,
she’s taken a grave disliking to me.”

Jennie, her eyes sparkling with humor
and good will, laughed too. “Mrs. Luke, I thought you knew
why!”

It was good to have another woman to
confide in. She hadn’t enjoyed that since she’d lost Alyssa. “I
know that she and Fran Eakins make fun of my height and my way of
doing—”

The other woman shook her head. “Oh,
no, no, it’s not that. Well, it might be part of it, but what’s
really eating them up is jealousy.”

Emily stared at her. “Jealousy!
Forgive me, Mrs. Manning, but that’s impossible.”

“
Don’t you think it’s time
you started calling me Jennie?”

She couldn’t help but grin at the
woman. Jennie Manning had known her share of heartache, loss, and
hard work, but she hadn’t let it conquer her spirit, as Cora had.
“Yes, and you must call me Emily. But Jennie, I still think you’re
wrong about those women. What could they possibly be jealous
of?”

Jennie pulled a stack of folded
napkins from the crate she’d brought with her. “They wanted to
marry your husband. And they hate it that he chose you
instead.”

Emily stared at her. “How do you know
that?”

“
Neither of them can keep a
confidence to save their eternal souls. They’ve been talking about
it in town ever since you got here. They were both sure that one of
them would eventually drag Luke to the altar. Heaven knows what
would have happened if he’d offered for one of them—they probably
would have scratched each other’s eyes out. He was the most
eligible bachelor around here, with a good piece of farmland and a
nice house. And it doesn’t hurt that he’s a good-looking man,
either, almost as handsome as my Chester.” Emily suppressed a
smile. Chester Manning was a devoted husband and a tireless
provider, and she knew that Jennie adored him, but he looked like a
scarecrow that had been left out for too many winters. “Anyway, you
pretty much settled their hash, and now they’re sniping and
resentful.” She leaned closer. “If I were you, I’d enjoy it. No one
has been able to put those two biddies in their place, and you did
it very nicely.”

Jealous. Emily could hardly
believe it—was it really true? No one—
no
one
—had ever been jealous of her. It seemed
that she’d spent most her life trying to justify her worth as a
human and a female. She’d never had anything that someone else
wanted or envied. Until now.

She let her gaze drift over the crowd
until she found her husband’s dark head where he was in a
conversation with a couple of other farmers. His stance was easy
and naturally graceful, his profile clean and chiseled. His black
frock coat emphasized his big shoulders and narrow waist, and she
thought he was the handsomest man present. Just as when he washed
at the pump, it was as if he felt her gaze on him, and looked in
her direction. He gave her a smile and winked at her.

She realized that Alyssa would have
made Clara and Fran just as envious. But Alyssa, God rest her, had
never suffered the kind of social misery that Emily had. Before the
Cannons’s financial ruin, when they still attended parties and
balls, Alyssa had taken her beauty and popularity for granted.
She’d never sat unclaimed at a dance, hour after hour, like the
last stale piece of pie on a plate, trying to make polite small
talk with the chaperones and all the while wishing she were on the
moon. In fact, when their social status had tumbled and all the
parties came to an end, Alyssa had been more baffled and unhappy
than Emily. After all, she’d lost so much more, including her
fiancé.

Now, though, Emily had a sense of
confidence and strength that she’d never known before. She was
married to Luke Becker, and as far as those women knew, it was a
love match. But whether they believed that or not, Emily would be
the one going home with him tonight, not either of them. And he had
kissed her last night with a passion that made her feel as if
molten honey drizzled through her. Only fear of her own response
had sent her scurrying to her room.

As Emily unpacked the silverware, she
overheard a group of farmers talking about the weather. Well, of
course—it was a popular topic among people who lived off the
land.

“
We’ve had some wicked-bad
rainstorms lately. But it’s been warm. Been worryin’ about the
snowmelt in the mountains.”

“
Yeah, after the those
snowfalls we had last winter, the creeks and rivers are runnin’ a
little high. I ain’t worried about my land, but the Edgertons
planted on the side of that steep slope. That damn fool Paul, I
told him it was a bad idea. The whole crop could wash down
to—”

Reverend Ackerman interrupted all
conversations when he clapped his hands for attention and used his
best preaching voice to carry to all ears.

“
Friends, thank you for
coming out this evening to support our humble church. God willing,
we’ll raise enough money to put the new roof on before the fall
rains set in.” He went on to introduce and thank Clara Thurmon for
organizing the social, to drone on about the joy of giving freely,
and finally, to begin the auction so that everyone could start
eating.

Several of the dinners were auctioned
off, including the one prepared by Fran Eakins. Jobie Palmer, an
arthritic old logger who lived in a cabin on Larch Mountain and
rode a mule, bought her box of roast beef for the grand sum of one
dollar. He was the only bidder. Everyone clapped and cheered Jobie
on, and Fran, trying to keep her face from collapsing with
disappointment, went along with him to dine at one of the
tables.

“
Now, let’s see,” Reverend
Ackerman continued, “it looks like we have a meal here from our
newest resident, Mrs. Emily Becker. She lists fried chicken, potato
salad, rolls and butter, chocolate cake—sounds mighty good. Who’ll
start the bidding?”

“
Five dollars!” A murmur
rippled through the onlookers and Emily saw Luke emerge from a
group of men. Five dollars was a fortune, an almost ostentatious
gesture, especially for a farmer. It was only a little less than
her weekly salary had been at Miss Wheeler’s.

Reverend Ackerman chuckled. “Luke, I
guess you know better than anyone how well your new bride can
cook.”

“
Yes sir, and for the time
being I intend to keep it that way. Good luck with the roof,
Reverend.” Emily blushed and everyone laughed as Luke handed over
his money to buy his wife’s dinner box. Everyone except for Clara,
who seemed to be stewing in her own juices, and Fran, who was
miserably occupied with gnarled, white-haired Jobie.

Luke looked around for Rose, found
her, and gestured at her to follow him to their table. When he came
back to Emily, he said, “I believe I have the pleasure,
ma’am.”

“
Luke, that was a lot of
money to spend,” she murmured. “Can we afford that?”

He chuckled. “No. But I didn’t want to
waste time outbidding someone else. So I just took everybody out of
the running.” He said this as if he believed another man would
actually have challenged him for the right to have dinner with
her.

“
Well, thank you. I am
honored.”

So the three of them, Luke,
Rose, and Emily, sat down and enjoyed her fried chicken dinner.
Emily felt awed, thrilled, stunned. Around her she could hear the
sounds of silver clinking on dishes, of the other boxes being
auctioned off, and the awkward moment when Reverend Ackerman
himself finally had to bid on Clara’s box because no one else did.
It was all there, buzzing in the background. But what she heard in
her mind, repeated over and over, was Luke saying,
I just took everybody out of the
running
.

~~*~*~*~~

After everyone had eaten, Reverend
Ackerman announced that with the money earned at this event, added
to proceeds from earlier bake sales and bazaars, the church had
achieved its financial goal and the roof could finally be replaced
instead of patched. Applause and cheering rippled through the
well-fed group, and Clara Thurmon took advantage of the moment to
bow as if she had personally donated every penny and cooked every
meal.