A Woman so Bold (20 page)

“If you were younger, and I was sober, I’d beat you for that,” he said flatly. “Beat you to death,” he repeated resolutely. I nearly laughed at his gravity.

“If the idea of killing me is so appealing, you should have done it long ago. That day in the cemetery, for instance. How convenient that the grave was still there.”

“Did anyone ever tell you that you’re a
shrew
? Elizabeth Monroe’s daughter,” he paused, swigged, and continued, “a damned, raucous shrew.”

“I didn’t come all the way out here to discuss my many charms. I want you
not
to send Ephraim and Esther away. Concord is one thing. Edith will do well there, for she’s bright and comely. Colleen’s sister married well. They’ll send her to a good school, make a good match for her when she’s older. She can visit every few years, if she ever sees fit to come back to this god-forsaken place. But the twins are too young to leave all they know.”

“My mind’s made up.”

“Why? Because looking at them pains you? Colleen was bound to die early. She was frail, and the climate never agreed with her. Neither did . . .”

He rounded on me. “What?”

“Well, neither did bearing a child each year.”

“You shut up, damn you. She was consumptive!”

“Yes, but you could’ve spared her all those miscarriages.”

I oughtn’t to have said it. He was wracked with grief, and perhaps guilt as well. It seemed the case that Daddy wished to have treated both his wives better after their deaths. He groaned and lunged at me, but lost his balance, and I retreated as he fell into the mud.

“You’re a cold-hearted little bitch!” he cursed.

“You’re a messy drunk,” I returned. “I only wanted to talk sense into you. It’s cold. I’m going back.”

“You can go to the devil . . . you and that bastard,” he muttered.

I stood rooted to the ground, trembling with anger. There were many worse things I could think of to reply. I’d learned no small amount of salty curses from Clyde, who used to yell at Ida when they were fighting. However, I held my tongue. I was better than him, better than his drunkenness and his low insults.

“You’re not the gentleman my mother married,” I said softly. “If she were here right now, she wouldn’t even recognize you.”

I returned to the house, leaving him at the spring, and with him my inhibitions.

Chapter 17

Eric and Ida at Last

A week after the funeral, I was still at the Pines helping Lily look after the children. Edith was to be sent to Massachusetts the following week, and we were helping to get her few possessions in order. Aunt Sally had agreed to take Esther and Ephraim with alacrity, for her stepchildren were all grown and she’d had only one child of her own, a girl who had married. We were still awaiting the train fare for the twins to head out west. It was an arduous journey, and I loathed the thought of them going alone, but there was no one to accompany them.

Ida knocked on our door one morning, looking very smart in a white polonaise trimmed with black braid and a gray bonnet trimmed with blue cornflowers. My father had stayed abed late after three nightcaps the previous evening, and Lily had gone back to sleep after our early breakfast. The children were not their usual chipper selves, living in dread of their impending departure. I had sent them out to play in the sunshine.

“What are you doing here dressed like that?” I asked, taking in Ida’s get up. “My family is in mourning.”

“I know. I’m terribly sorry, but I had to come!”

She looked so distressed that I was afraid she would make a fuss and wake the house, so I ushered her into the room I had once shared with Lily. It had become Colleen’s sewing room then Edith’s bedroom once Lily moved to the porch. The tiny room was cluttered with bolts of fabric, scraps of lace, and spools of thread. Colleen’s cast iron Singer was against one wall, and the only remaining bed was the little cot beneath the window that Edith slept on, neatly made, and next to it a small bedside table with a kerosene lamp and her Bible on it. I was reminded once again of Elsie Dinsmore. How I had always disliked and wished to pinch that boring heroine!

Ida sank down onto the bed, untying her bonnet and pulling out the pin.

“I’m here to beg your brother to marry me,” she said.

I laughed, unaffected by her airs. “Beg him? He’s asked you to marry him a dozen times since we were children. He asked you before he went to school. Didn’t you refuse him again after he graduated and that’s why you haven’t been speaking?”

“Yes, I’ve been a fool, and you need not rub it in. I would have accepted him years ago, for Papa doesn’t mind that he’s poor and there’s no other man I’ve ever truly cared two pins about, but being unmarried is too much fun! When you’re a girl, once you’re married, you’re through! Well, I’m through now anyway.”

“What’s happened?”

She leaned forward, her lips trembling, and whispered, “I’m going to have a baby.”

I stared. “Whose is it?”

“His, of course!” she cried.

“Ida, you know how I love you, but you do get around.”

“Don’t look at me like that! Don’t forget that I know all of your secrets too, or most of them. I’ve been Ida’d to within an inch of my life! Mama and Papa haven’t a clue, of course, but Mabel has figured it out, and she’s been lecturing me and swelling with indignation and murmuring under her breath until I can’t bear it.”

Mabel, Tansy’s mother and Ida’s former nanny, was still a fixture at their estate, and far more maternal to Ida than her own mother was.

“I cried all morning,” she continued. “Just look at my eyes and nose.” Her eyes and nose were indeed red and swollen, but it did very little to diminish her beauty.

“Do you mind my asking how you’re having a child by my brother when he’s been home barely two weeks?”

“Landra, I don’t go to Tallahassee just to buy hats, my dear.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re certain this is what you want?” I asked.

“No, it’s not what I want! I’ve
never
wanted a baby. But it
is
Eric’s baby, and if it means he’ll come back to me . . . I’ve loved Eric since we were children.”

I raised an eyebrow. “To be frank, you have on odd way of showing romantic affection.” I loved Ida, but Eric was my brother, and I had never thought he should trust her as far as he could throw her.

“Don’t be mean. It’s not like when that fellow got me in trouble and then denied it. If Eric refuses to marry me, I think I’ll
die
.”

I had to struggle not to roll my eyes again at Ida’s flamboyant statements. Her lips were trembling, and for once, I felt her distress was somewhat justified. “I don’t think I’m the person you ought to be speaking to about this,” I said. “Eric is in the next room. I shall go and fetch him for you.”

All of the blood drained from her face at this, and she leaped to her feet. “Don’t!” she pleaded. “I don’t know what I’ll say to him!”

“Say what you said to me, but leave out the italics.”

I left amidst her protests and returned a moment later with Eric. He entered the room before me with a lofty air and refused to look at his visitor. From the look on her face when she saw him, I thought she would faint, but she only sank back down onto the cot, twisting her handkerchief with her hands.

“Ida has something she wishes to discuss with you,” I said, and shut the door on them.

Walking away, I heard her cry out tearfully, “Oh, Eric!”

I didn’t hear his reply, and to this day I don’t know what words were spoken in that room, but they emerged an hour later as two very different people. Eric was quietly triumphant, and Ida’s face was shining with the most genuine gladness I had ever seen on it.

“Congratulate me, sister, I’m to be married,” said Eric.

“Are you?” I replied.

“Next week at the courthouse,” said Ida, “before Edith leaves. It shall be very small and quiet, because it’s so close on the funeral. I’m awfully sorry we can’t put it off.”

“Obviously that is not to be helped.”

“No,” said Eric, the corner of his mouth lifting.

Once Ida had gone, he went for a walk, and when at length he did not return, I went in search of him. I found him sitting in the treehouse with his legs hanging over the side of the platform. I hiked my skirts to the knee to climb the ladder, and he gave me a hand up.

We sat in silence for some time, watching the sunset.

“Are you sure it’s what you want?” I asked finally, “to wed Ida?”

He nodded, his brow furrowed.

“I know you’ve loved her for years, but I feel you don’t truly know her. Of course she’s rich and her father will probably build you a grand house, but there must be a mighty high price to pay to marry Ida.”

“There’s always a high price to pay in love, one way or another. I do know Ida. She’s told me things no one else knows about her, not even you.”

I turned to him in surprise but did not press him.

“That reminds me.” He reached into his pocket and held out a golden ring, set with a row of pearls.

I took it gingerly between my thumb and pointer finger. “Mama’s wedding ring? But I already have her garnet. Besides, I thought Colleen was to be buried in it.”

He shook his head. “She left it to me. For my wife.”

I laughed, understanding. “Ida didn’t want it, did she?”

“She called it ‘sweet and quaint.’ She wants a big diamond.”

“That bitch.”

“Landra!”

“I don’t care! How dare she? This ring is worth a thousand diamonds.” I put it on my right forefinger and held my hands out before me, surveying how it looked with my emerald wedding ring and Mama’s garnet. “I’m running out of fingers.”

Eric smiled, a genuine smile this time, not a smirk. “Good. You deserve to have something fine.”

Edith departed for Concord the day after Erica and Ida’s wedding. As Eric was away on his honeymoon, Will and I drove her to the depot. I kept looking over my shoulder at her during the drive to see if she was comfortable. She sat quietly in the back of the wagon with her hands folded over a book. Beside her was a small trunk that had been Colleen’s. It was filled with her small collection of beloved books and a meager wardrobe of hand-me-downs, homemade skirts, aprons, and shirtwaists. I had given her Colleen’s gloves, jewelry, and combs as well, as she was the eldest daughter. Owning my mother’s things had always meant a great deal to me. A satchel containing a lunch and her boarding pass was tucked at her feet, and the bow of her brown bonnet was tied beneath her chin with impeccable neatness. She kept smoothing her braids as the wind mussed them. Beneath her bonnet, her hair was parted in the middle and plaited as always.

“You look acceptable to meet your Aunt Elaine,” I assured her, “not fancy, but neat.”

She wore a pair of hand-crocheted mitts and a cast-off dress of Ida’s that had once been mine: a navy gingham that suited her light blond hair and brought out the blue in her eyes. It had been twice turned, and there were patches in the elbows and a strip of fabric around the bottom that had replaced the worn hem. I had no doubt Colleen’s sister would soon dispose of her mismatched wardrobe and have her fitted for sensible school clothes, but I did not say as much.

When we reached the depot, I handed her a few coins.

“You have the lunch I packed you, and it’s not much, but this should buy you an extra meal on the train,” I said.

“Oh, Eric gave me money.”

“Well, add that to it. It won’t hurt. And take these handkerchiefs I’ve embroidered with your initials. They were to be your Christmas present.”

“Thank you.” Edith tugged at one of her braids, staring down the tracks.

“No doubt you will find New England very different, but you shall prosper there,” I said.

“Yes. You said my Aunt Elaine and Uncle Frederick have a fine library?”

“They live in the old family home, and Colleen often spoke of the extensive book collection housed in the library, going back several generations.”

Edith nodded, her brows knitting in a moment of intense anticipation, before smoothing again into tranquility. I studied her face, which was still with reserve, belying the tumult of upheaval that must have festered within her. There had never been much in Edith for me to relate to. At last, I kissed her cheek, and she embraced me in return.

“Goodbye then,” she said as the train came slowly chugging into view, its column of black smoke trailing behind. “Perhaps I shan’t see you again. Thank you, for the learning of my letters when I was small. It has meant a great deal to me.”

“You’re welcome,” I said, laughing at her spare goodbye. She thanked William in turn for the ride to the depot, and he helped her onto the train.

Following Colleen’s death and the departure of his eldest offspring by her, Daddy shocked our entire family and most of Willowbend by taking up with a woman who lived down by the river and operated an establishment no man of integrity would frequent. It was part saloon, part makeshift brothel, frequented by drinkers and lowlifes who went there to swill moonshine, cheat one another at cards, and pay a dime for a favor from one of the girls. Most shocking of all, however, was when he showed up in the middle of dinner two days before the twins were to leave for Colorado, sober and freshly barbered. He instructed me to take out and brush his Sunday suit.

“What for?” I asked. “Are you and that bad woman to be married?”

He narrowed an eye at me. “Hell, no. I’m going to Colorado with the young ‘uns.”

Ephraim leaped up from his seat at the table and whooped, but I stayed him with a hand.

“With what money?” asked Will, a sensible enough inquiry, I thought.

“Won it in poker.”

“Poker!” I spat the word with disgust. This from a man who had repeatedly instructed me on the evils of dancing and cards (neither of which had kept me from a ball or a round of faro during my stay at the Monday estate).

“You are a raving hypocrite, and I think perhaps you’ve lost your marbles, as well,” I said.

He ignored me. “My Sunday go-to-meeting clothes must be ironed and brushed, and then I must pack. We’re headed West!”

“What about the farm?” asked Lily, aghast. “And Granny?”

He shrugged. “Been left untended before and shall be again. As for Ma, she’ll make out all right.”

“All right!” I cried. “She’s old. Someone must check on her daily. Where is
Lily
to go? She cannot live here alone with Effie.”

“Let her live with you and Will. Or better, Eric and Ida. She can’t make a spinster forever with all the folk they’ll be among.”

Lily and I shared a look of mutual despair. Daddy truly had gone round the bend. Over the next few days, we made futile attempts to convince him to stay, but to no avail. He was bound and determined to board the train with the twins, and so he did. He kissed me, Lily, and Effie goodbye in turn, but I was not sorry to see him go after the ordeal he had caused. Telegraphing Aunt Sally to inform her of his arrival—in spite of his insistence that he surprise her—ironing out the details of what should be done with the house, and so on. Lily at last decided she would stay there with the baby and have Granny come to live with her. I helped her shut up any rooms that would go unused and covered the furniture.

Granny insisted she would sleep in the small room that had been Edith’s, so that left the parlor, the master bedroom, and the kitchen for their use. I tried convincing our hired hands to stay on, but they did not relish the idea of working a farm without a farmer. In the end, the two newest went without a word.

Only Laramie, the hand who had been with us since I was in my teens, took work at another farm and promised to stay part time to help. Will sold off the majority of the livestock, leaving only a heifer and a few chickens for Lily to manage, with what help I could spare her. She planned to tend the vegetable garden, and the rest must go to seed. Thus, I thought, came the end of the Pines as I had known it, surrounded by cotton and tobacco and the smell of beasts. It would return to scrub pine and wildness, until it could be cleared again.