A Woman so Bold (18 page)

“
Will. It’s one of the nicest rooms I’ve ever
been
in, let alone slept in!”

I went to the windows again. They were nearly covered in creeping ivy that grew all along the east side of the house so that the light filtering through had a green hue.

“I meant to pull down that ivy,” said Will, more to himself than to me.

“Oh no,” I said quickly, “leave it. This place fell asleep a long time ago. It’d be a shame to wake it up again. Besides, it will be like sleeping in the topmost branches of a tree.”

He smiled as if the idea did not appeal to him so much as it did me but made no remark, humoring me, and I went into his arms again, brimming with joy.

I busied myself for the remaining hours of daylight, making the bed in our room and hanging the long drapes I had made for the parlor. That night was chilly, and after we had eaten our supper of leftover sandwiches and wedding cake, William stoked a fire in the wide hearth in our bedroom. Later, that room would prove a trial to us, its ostentatious size making it impossible to heat in winter and its east-facing windows a curse in summer, but that night it seemed perfect to me, wanting nothing.

I seated myself at the vanity and let my hair down, then changed out of my wedding gown into an everyday dress. We sat on the rug before the fire, and he brushed my hair, running his fingers through the chestnut waves as the fire crackled. At length his arms encircled me from behind, and his lips found my neck. I swallowed, both nervous and overcome with feeling.

“Are we going to make love?” I asked.

“When you are comfortable.”

“I am,” I said, “or as comfortable as I shall be.” I turned to face him.

“You know what to do?” he asked.

“Sort of. It was long ago and . . . rather brief.”

“We’ll take our time,” he said, smoothing my hair behind my ear.

It was as unlike my first experience with the act as light from dark. He unfastened the hooks of my Basque bodice and unlaced my corset, expertly for a man, I thought, until I remembered, nervously, that I was not the first woman he had undressed. Then he helped me out of my undergarments, pulling off my stockings, running his hands up my legs, over my hips, up my back. He stood looking at my body by the light of the fire, his gaze moving from my full breasts to my waist then down the slope of my hips. I wasn’t ashamed for him to look at me. I had been aching for him for months, the kisses we stole in the darkness unable to sate my thirst.

His eyes came to rest on mine, and we gazed at one another, the desire between us building until he drew me to him and kissed me, this time heatedly. I took his shirt off as he fumbled with the buttons of his pants, and then he was naked before me, his body golden in the firelight. He was as I remembered him, all of a piece, from broad shoulders, to strong chest, to the rippling saddle muscles in his thighs and well-formed calves. He was visibly aroused, and I ran my fingers through the curling golden hair on his chest that trailed to his navel, until his arms encircled my waist and he lifted me, taking me to the bed.

Everything he did was intended to provoke sensation, overwhelm with feeling. I remember most the moment when he licked his fingers and touched me gently between my bare legs. “Do you ever touch yourself, here?” he asked.

I nodded and hid my face against his chest, both embarrassed and enflamed with desire for him.

“Touch me there again,” I whispered.

He did, with gently increasing pressure, until I began to gasp.

“You’re going to come,” he said simply, as he might have said, “It’s going to rain,” and in a moment I did, rapturously. As I lay limp and breathless against him I said, “Was that all of it?”

“No.” He smiled, running the backs of his fingers along the soft skin on the inside of my arm, making me shiver. “That was just the preamble.”

When at last we were joined, I felt as if I had passed into some other realm of knowledge, where only he and I remained.

Sometime later, we lay spent, satisfied. It was an initiation, a consummation in every way the past had not been. Virginity, it seemed, had little to do with first times, for I felt entirely new. I had never been made love to thoroughly and enjoyed it.

“I feel so different,” I whispered.

He pecked at my mouth, nipping me playfully. “You look like the cat that got the cream.”

“I feel like it, too. It feels we’ve done something very wrong and got away with it.”

“Wrong? Are you unhappy? What did you think it would be?”

“Oh no!” I shrugged, remembering my deplorable sadness after the time with Henry. “I don’t
know
what I thought.”

“And what
do
you know?”

“You.”

He smiled, pleased, and held me closer.

Waking the following morning with no pressing chores and no household to rouse was a new sensation. When I opened my eyes, I was tucked against Will’s side for warmth. The feel of our bare legs tangled together was pleasant. He was awake, lying on his back, and he rolled over and put one arm out to encircle me, pressing his hand to the small of my back. It was a reassuring gesture, void of sensuality, and I smiled, comfortable.

He bid me good morning and pressed a kiss into the hollow of my dimple. I hid my face in my pillow, grinning at nothing.

When he slipped out of bed to dress for chores, I sat up as well, but he shook his head.

“Lie abed your first morning, Mrs. Cavendish. I’ll be back.”

“What about breakfast? I was going to put on coffee for you.”

“A man who’s been making his own meals for ten years ought to know how to make a pot of coffee.”

I sank back down into the feather mattress. He pulled up a corner of the quilt, and his eyes traced the lines of my body, the slope of my shoulder, the dip in my waist, and the curve of my hip.

“I’ll be back very shortly,” he breathed, leaning over to kiss the soft skin between my breasts. It was arousing, but I snatched the coverlet from him and brought it to my chest. “I see,” I laughed. “You wish me to be ornamental.”

“Not at all, for then I couldn’t touch you.”

I stared at the ceiling while he was gone, thinking about what marriage would mean. He had shown only the purest form of respect for me the night before; everything had been for my pleasure and well-being, but he spoke of my body possessively. I thought of Colleen’s sufferings in childbirth because my father did as he liked with no regard for her health. It frightened me, but by the time Will returned from his chores with coffee and toast, I had pushed the thought from my mind.

In spite of his earlier teasing words, we did not make love again. I was tired and sore from the previous night, so when we had eaten, he held me instead, kissing the top of my head and running his fingers through my tumbled hair. Later, we dressed and went to work in the garden together. Colleen had spoken of duty above all in the marriage bed, but I realized that this sort of blind duty would not be a part of my marriage. He loved me as much as he wanted me, and the love was stronger than the wanting.

Things continued in a dreamlike manner for several weeks, the spell of our wedded bliss wholly unbroken. We rose early and worked, Will taking care of the animals and seeing to the spring planting as I looked after the house and tended the garden. He took lunch with him and returned at four to bathe and have his supper. When the dishes were clean, I read or sang and played the piano until dusk, and then we went to bed, eager for one another. Sometimes, we didn’t wait for night. He would come in from the field under pretense of getting a drink of water and leave a half hour later after having his way with me. We made love in the library or on the thick parlor rug, two children playing at a game of house, with Eros spurring us on. They were days of warmth and splendor, but the trappings of everyday life came encroaching upon us to break the spell.

First came my homesickness. I missed Lily and the children, even Daddy and Colleen. I missed our well-scrubbed house, worn, but with everything sound and tidy and in its place. I was not used to caring for such a grand, old house as Oakhurst. Its mixture of space and disrepair filled me with despair. Spiders seemed to be housed in each corner, dust a constant companion. Everything was rickety and in need of replacement, from the ancient stair rail to the creaking front door.

Most of all, I missed Ezra. At first, I walked the distance to visit the Pines a few times a week, but Ezra grieved my absence, and each time I left he clung to my skirt, begging me not to go. Sometimes I could not keep myself from weeping. I hated leaving him. Finally, Colleen suggested that I keep my distance until he grew used to the idea. My place, after all, was with my husband. It felt as if I would never see him again.

“You’re down in the mouth these days,” Will would say. “You don’t regret marrying me?”

Never, I assured him. Yet I had expected to find utter happiness in matrimony, and it had turned out to be much like anything else: the prosaic replaced the brilliant until life drummed on.

The second blow came to break the spell only a few months after my wedding night. Always able to predict my monthly courses, I found that I was two weeks late. Remembering Ida’s adage that the best thing to do is wait, I did. Yet two weeks turned to three, and three to four. I lost my vibrancy, grew tired, and peaked. I waited another week, and when the vomiting started, I knew my rampant fertility had betrayed me once again.

Chapter 15

Fruitfulness

I went and had tea with Colleen at the Pines one Saturday when William had gone to town to do some trading. I hadn’t been feeling well for some time, but that day I had a raging appetite and tucked away sandwiches, berries, and molasses teacakes with veracity. Colleen watched me eat with mild interest and sipped her tea. She had never been a person with any appetite. Even though her midwife always said her lack of breast milk was from being worn out, I secretly maintained that it was because she refused to eat. I’d seen her nibble at crumbs and pick at everything set before her for years. It was how she kept her girlish figure, and I suppose, to her, it was better than growing stout as I was apt to do in later years, but it wasn’t for me.

“William said you had been feeling under the weather last time he was here.”

“Yes, for a while. I’m better now.”

“I can see that.”

I looked up at her. “Sorry. I know you don’t like it when I eat like this.”

“Don’t be silly. I know how it is to be hungry when you’re eating for two. I used to think I would starve to death with the twins.”

She looked smug. I wanted to shout at her that she didn’t understand; instead, I met her gaze with as flawless an impersonation of William’s poker face as I could muster. If I admitted to her that, at long last, I’d failed to stave off conception, that crouching beast of woe, that black spot I had sworn never to attract again by word or deed, it meant I had to admit it to myself and inevitably to William. How it had escaped his notice was beyond me, for he kept track of such things with alarming accuracy. I’d been brought up to believe men were ignorant of such matters.

I shook my head. “No, it isn’t that. It’s the heat, I think.”

She smiled and held her fan across the table to me. “Admit it when you’re ready and not before.”

When I reached home after our visit, I was promptly ill. I leaned over the porch and vomited everything I’d eaten into my hydrangea bushes. This seemed such a shame that I burst into tears. I had just begun to keep food down again, and this upset was caused by nerves more than anything. I was obliged to lie down for a while, but by the time William got home, I made certain I was in the kitchen preparing his dinner.

“How was your visit with Colleen?” he asked, munching on one of the raw carrots I had peeled for beef stew.

I took it away from him and began to slice it. “Uneventful.”

“Did you tell her you’re going to have a baby?”

I stopped slicing. “What did you say?”

“Did you tell her you’re expecting?”

So he did know. Of course he did. He knew me, could predict my ways like clockwork.

I stared at the cutting board and put my knife down on it. “If you knew, why didn’t you say anything?”

He shrugged. “Thought you needed time to come round to it.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “You
are
unhappy, then.”

“No, I just . . . I have had a baby before, and it’s unpleasant. One feels ill for weeks, and it hurts like the dickens coming out. All Daddy ever used to say when Colleen got pregnant was, ‘Another mouth to feed.’ I imagined you saying it for some reason.”

Will grimaced. “I wish you could forget some of the things that man has said.”

“But it’s true, isn’t it? Especially for us.”

“It pains me when you insinuate that I am destitute. I did not spend my inheritance wisely, but I am not in debt. We have the garden, the livestock. We have the winter rye I’ve just planted and the nest egg.”

“I don’t call one hundred dollars a nest egg. One good storm, and all of that will come to naught.”

He squeezed my hand. “Who is to say there will be a storm?” William did not know Florida as well as I.

“Are
you
happy?”

“I am. Think of it, Landra. A baby,
together
.” He pulled me into an embrace and kissed me, and for the first time, I allowed myself to feel joy at the thought of having a child, without fear, without guilt. I read my mother’s journal entries from when she was expecting Eric, the ones about her joy at his birth, and mine, and how the doctor told her to have no more children or she would die.

July, 1866

I have been waiting to write about this, in part to make certain that it is true, but also because the task of running the house has fallen solely to me, and I have been up to my ears in work. Sally made an unexpected match with a blacksmith from town, a widower with two children, and has eloped with him! He has plans to move out west and become a cattle rancher, and she is going with him. He is fifteen years her senior, but her eyes are brighter than I have ever seen them, and I think she is happy. Solomon does not want her to go, as she is his only sibling, but she has promised to write, and visit if she can. I doubt we will ever see her again once she is gone. Colorado seems a world away from here.

The thing I have been waiting to write about is this: I am expecting our first child! I began to suspect back in May when I first felt unwell, but I am quite certain now. My belly is growing daily, and all of my morning sickness is gone—I am ravenous as a packhorse. Mother would faint at my mentioning such indelicate things, even in my diary, but they are just bare facts, and a woman who helps butcher hogs, shaves mold off old cheese, and shucks corn until her fingers bleed would do well not to fear the workings of her own body. The truth of it is, I am fascinated. There is a little spark of life growing inside me, and I cannot wait to feel it kick and hear its first cry. I hope it is a boy, for Solomon’s sake.

Halfway through my pregnancy, I began to have dreams of when I had carried Ezra. In them, I had been laboring for twenty-four hours to have him, and I was exhausted, nearing delirium. His actual birth had lasted only fourteen hours, but it might have been forty for the agony and exhaustion I spent on it. I dreamt the same thing many times and always awoke covered in cold sweat. Sometimes I woke William, moaning in my sleep or crying out. He worried for me, but I told him it was normal for pregnant women to dream vividly, even nightmares. Even so, the memory of the dream haunted my waking hours.

I woke at dawn one morning, aware that something had changed within me. I went out onto the front porch. The robins and warblers were heralding spring, every tree branch laden with them, bobbing and trilling. I stood on the steps and watched the sun rise over the cotton field, smelling the sweetness of the cape jessamine climbing up the lattice next to the porch swing. I felt an odd tinge of nausea. When it passed, I took my watering tin from its nail and waddled to the pump to fill it, cursing my huge belly and swollen ankles. As I was lifting the heavy tin over my head to water one of my hanging plants, I felt something tear lose in my middle, splitting me from navel to groin with pain. I cried out and dropped the tin, showering myself and the porch with cool water as warmth seeped down my legs and soaked my nightgown. I looked down in fear to see if there was blood, but it was clear.

William came running out at the sound of my cry and helped me inside. I changed clothes and insisted I was fine, but he pressed me until I got back into bed and hightailed it after Lenore as if the house were afire. My child was born six hours later, a son. His hair was flaming red, and I named him William Cardinal Cavendish. Card, for short, I told Will.

“Are you certain?” he asked. “You know what it is to bear the weight of a different name.”

“An uncommon name for an uncommon child,” I replied, feeling, just as I had about Ezra, that he was indeed better than any baby ever born.

“He is a fat little thing, isn’t he?” I said, pleased. “Six pounds.”

Colleen and Lily had come to visit me and the baby, and she had exclaimed when she saw him, “Oh, Landra, you poor thing! How did you manage it?”

“It was easier than I hoped. You didn’t bring the other children?”

“Edith is studying, and Esther is watching the two youngest.”

I hated her for not bringing Ezra. It seemed she took every opportunity to deny me his presence, when I missed him more keenly than anyone else. I asked Lily to bring me a cup of tea then confronted her. “You might have brought my son. I long to see him, and I’d have liked him to meet the baby.”

“You have your own child now, with your husband. You ought to let the matter be.” Colleen folded her hands, a gesture of finality.

“
Ezra
is my child.”

“It does no good to beat a dead horse, Landra.”

“I always thought if I got married, you and Daddy would finally let me have him.”

“What would people say?”

“I don’t care what people would say!
Oh
!” I was overtaken with angry tears, and I lifted the coverlet and wept into it, clutching Cardinal. Colleen took him from me and stood away from the bed with her face bent over him. When Lily entered with my tea, she looked utterly confused.

“You ought to go, both of you,” I said, still crying.

“What have you done to her?” asked Lily.

Colleen put the baby in the cradle beside me. “Never mind,” she whispered. “Landra is overwrought from her lying in. We should let her rest.”

Lily kissed my wet cheek, worry in her eyes, and moments later they were gone. I turned on my side and wept myself into slumber, awakening later when Card began to fuss from hunger.

Card grew into a plump, jolly baby who rarely cried. My memories of his infancy are of his gurgling laughter, and his great blue eyes smiling into mine as I nursed him. Will and I were united in our mutual admiration of him. I had not known what it would be to love my spouse more deeply by watching him with a child created by our love.

Card was easy to preoccupy when I needed to do work about the house. I would place him in his cradle with a rattle and sing while I did the mending or peeled vegetables. He would coo at the sound of my voice, perfectly content. It often reminded me of Ezra’s babyhood, when I had looked after him similarly. But Ezra had been colicky and insisted on being rocked while in his cradle. I’d keep it moving with one foot on the rocker as I folded linens. Once, as I was rocking him so in the parlor, doing needlework and singing “Troubled in Mind,” a spiritual I’d learnt from Tansy, I was interrupted.

The variation I liked went something like this:

Oh, Jesus, my Saviour, on Thee I’ll depend

When troubles are near me you’ll be my true friend

I’m troubled

I’m troubled

I’m troubled in mind

If Jesus don’t help me

I surely will die

When ladened with troubles and burdened with grief

To Jesus in secret I’ll go for relief

In dark days of bondage to Jesus I prayed

To help me to bear it, and He gave me His aid.

There was a sweet, haunting simplicity in the melody, and I could never help liking the sound of my voice as I sang it. In spite of its inherent mournfulness, the tune always soothed Ezra. Sometimes my voice was the only thing that calmed him when he awoke with colic. Every now and then I’d lean over the edge of the cradle so he could see my face, and he would laugh delightedly.

I was jolted out of my reverie by Daddy entering the parlor. He had come into the house looking for Colleen, but the sound of my singing had drawn him. He held a highball glass in his hand full of amber liquid, and I knew no good would come of it.

“God didn’t give you that voice to sing hymns to a bastard with,” he muttered. “It’s sacrilege, to teach a child to laugh at hymns.”

I wanted to ask where this was written in the Holy Scriptures, but I remained silent.

“I better not hear you singing a hymn to that child again,” Daddy continued. “It ain’t right to use such a talent but for the Lord. Understand?”

His tone was unnecessarily sharp, and Ezra murmured in his cradle, almost whimpering. “Don’t frighten him,” I scolded.

“I asked if you understood.”

“I’ll corrupt my own issue if I see fit,” I said, “but not by singing a hymn. You
seek
for things to scold me on.”

“If I say I forbid it, then you best follow suit.”

“You can’t fault me for singing a hymn, surely?”

“I can when it ain’t but to feed your own vanity. You sing to hear the sound of your own voice.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

I knew Daddy was as jealous of my singing voice as he was proud of it.

His eyes grew wide. “Vain as a peacock!”

“If I can’t sing my
own child
to sleep, I shall leave this house.”

Ezra wailed, and I set to rocking him with one foot again. Daddy stared into the depths of his glass and hesitated, weighing his options. At last he seemed to decide that I was not worth the effort, and liquor and Colleen were what he desired. As soon as he had set foot outside the parlor, I began again on the line I’d been singing when he interrupted me:
If Jesus don’t help me, I surely will die.