A Woman so Bold (23 page)

The room was fine without being lavish. Henry had not yet arrived. I removed my gloves and smoothed my hair in the looking glass that hung above the washbasin. It had been so long since I gave any thought to my appearance; a crease was forming between my eyes from worry, and I smoothed it with my fingers. I had rouged my lips and powdered my face on the train, but it did not hide the freckles that had blossomed on my nose and cheeks from working in the garden. Della Van Heusen-Miller did not have freckles, I knew.

The sound of the lock turning in the door made me whirl around. Henry entered the room with uncharacteristic shyness, but his dark eyes were full of pleasure as they met mine. He slid the bolt in place and crossed the room.

“Lander Anders,” he said, embracing me, “I thought you’d never come. Thought, in fact, I’d have to drag you here kickin’ and screamin’.”

“You’d have been in for a fight if you’d tried it,” I said, raising one brow.

Henry shook his head. “Don’t I know it?”

“I’m glad you got here so soon,” I said, “for I hadn’t time to get nervous.”

He smiled, but there was a hunger in his eyes that hadn’t been there when he entered the room. My heart began hammering in my chest. I had worried a hundred times on the train about how it would go, but I needn’t have done so. Henry never created any need for pretense. He kissed me with determination, taking my lips in his own, tasting me with his tongue. His hand cupped one of my breasts and caressed it. He lifted my skirts with the other, letting his fingers wander to unhook my garters and slide up my inner thigh.

“Oh!” I gasped when he touched me, kneading me between my thighs until I was wet with desire.

“Take this off,” he breathed, tugging at the buttons of my dress. With his help, it was off and he was carrying me to the bed. He ran his hands all over me, kissed my neck and tasted my breasts. Then he lifted me, his hands on my bottom, and penetrated me. I cried out with the promptness of it. All of my nerves were pent up with anticipation, and it built as he made love to me, expertly, rhythmically, until a keen pleasure burst before my closed eyes in a myriad of colors. He finished a few moments later and lay beside me. I was trembling and breathless. He propped himself on his elbow to look at me.

“Was all of that too much?” he asked.

I gave him a small smile. “It was not unexpected.”

“I reckon your husband don’t make you feel that way?”

I closed my eyes. William was a skilled and gentle lover; his Parisian and New Orleans whores had taught him well in his youth.

“You promised we wouldn’t speak of him, or of Della.”

“I’m sorry.” He traced the rose-hued circle of my areola with his finger. “Your tits are bigger than I recall.”

“Is this meant to be a compliment?”

“I say so!”

“You know, Fitzwilliam Darcy would never have used the word
tits
. You might have phrased it, ‘your bosom is opulent even above my recollection.’”

“If I knew what any of them words meant I mighta used ‘em.”

I sighed, smiling. “I’ve had two babies since you were with me last. I’m worn out now.”

“You’re gorgeous is what you are. Perfect.”

“Perfect!” I laughed. “You don’t have to flatter me to get what you want, Henry. After all, I’m here.”

He ran his hand over my belly. “Yes. I think of you all the time, Landra. I have for always.”

I did not believe this, but I allowed it. I took in his features, sating years of longing; he was just as I had known him, the dark, piercing eyes with the brows arched fiercely above them, the chiseled jaw, the thin-lipped mouth, and coppery brown curls.

“Whatcha see?” he asked.

“Just you. You always were the finest-looking hayseed in the county. I might say in return, you were not such a skilled lover at our last coupling.”

The corner of his mouth lifted into the rakish smile that had undone me so often in my youth, revealing his small, fine teeth, slightly out of line. I slid off the bed and wrapped myself in the robe hanging in the closet then admired his form as he lay prone on top of the coverlet. While Will’s strength was one of broad shoulders and strong arms, Henry’s was more subtle, cunning. I took in his slender wiriness, his ample manhood.

He caught me looking at him and moved into a posture that displayed his charms more openly, his eyes laughing. “Did you forget I was hung like a stallion?”

I tisked at this vulgarity, but his easy confidence aroused me. I lay down again and ran my fingernails over his taut bicep, raising goosebumps on his skin. It was not long before we made love again. This time, as he moved inside me, he said, “Say you love me.” I closed my eyes, but he repeated the words until I said them.

“I love you, I love you.”

The following day was Saturday. We ordered room service and bathed together. After a bout of lovemaking, I lay in his arms as he ran his fingers through my hair and over my features.

“Henry, we should talk of this. Before tomorrow.”

He shook his head and did not speak.

“We
must
.”

“Naw. We’ll talk next time, and the next. Then we’ll get a house only for talkin, and another house, only for lovemakin’.”

“And you say
I
talk nonsense.”

“Truly, Lan. I want you to have a house. You can cook and have the children there. I’ll send you money.”

I studied him, thinking. He wanted me to become his mistress. As if having a child by him at sixteen had not been detriment enough. As if this secret liaison were not treacherous beyond imagining to everything I held dear. And what did I want? I suddenly realized I had not made it at all clear to myself, or to him. If it were him I wanted, I could never have him. He was Della’s, body, mind, soul, and on paper, too. Perhaps I had possessed him once, long ago, in a cornfield under a cloudless blue sky, but no more. As for the money, was I truly that desperate?

“Henry, listen,” I said, pulling the sheet up to cover myself. “I won’t become your mistress. I don’t want to be
kept
, and you can’t leave your wife. You think her Daddy would let you keep that railroad job he gave you? Whatever do you do, anyway?”

He sighed. “Why do you always wanna talk?”

“At least look this in the face!”

“I am, and it’s mighty purty.” He leaned in to kiss me, but I struggled away from him.

He clenched his fists and brought them down on the mattress, giving a cry of frustration. “I
care
for you! Ain’t that enough to go on?”

“No! I am a woman. You may have your dalliances, but how do you think this world will treat me if I become your mistress? I must have something more. Security.”

He sighed. “I already said money
once
. Do you want a goddamned contract?”

“I want
Ezra
provided for. He’s never had anything . . . flour sack shirts and no shoes half the year, with ringworm coming and going. I want him to have the things you offered me in my parlor that day. Food and clothing and an education.”

“A horse?”

“Fine, if that’s what you want, but it has to look like a gift from a stranger.”

“And what’ll your husband say? This sudden . . . influx of funds?”

“My husband is not the wisest when it comes to money. If I hide most of it and only use what I truly need, he won’t know. Or you could create a trust fund for him, to inherit when he’s 18.”

Henry agreed to this, and then we gave up on talking about serious things, got dressed, and talked about old times. Henry ordered room service, and we played cards and ate peanuts after we had finished. He thought it a lark that Ida and Eric were married and laughed at my description of her infidelity.

“I saw them end badly a hundred times,” he said.

“Worse than this?”

“Oh honey, this ain’t nothing. Far, far worse.”

I told him also about Daddy’s unconscionable behavior since Colleen’s death. “I always hated your Daddy when he drank,” he said, crunching a peanut shell thoughtfully, “but he sure set a store by that woman. Maybe he’s got a right. I reckon your man would lose his mind if you up and died. I’ve seen the way he looks at you, that night at the barn raisin’ and at the funeral.”

I nodded, frowning.

“Is this the first time you stepped out on Della?”

He shuffled the cards with a practiced hand and spat the shell at the spittoon. It gave a light
ping
. “Not hardly. It’s different for men than it is for women.”

His coldness galled me, and for the first time, I remembered Ida’s words that I was a hypocrite, and my skin crawled with revulsion at the reality of what we had done. That night he went home, and when he was gone, a thick stack of bills was left on the bureau where his hat had been, nearly three hundred dollars. I didn’t know how he could spare so much without Della noticing, but I supposed their life was very different from mine when it came to finances.

Henry drove me to the depot the next morning. He was wearing a simple traveling suit of good cloth, with a white blossom in the lapel. As the train came in, he sealed his thin lips together in a resolute line and pulled me to him. He took the carnation from his lapel and placed it behind my ear. When the train stopped, he bent and kissed my cheek, and there was a quiet want in his eyes.

“Don’t let it be the last time,” he whispered. I nodded, looking away, thinking of the money in my clutch. When I was in my seat, I looked out the window, and he was standing just below, with his hands in his pockets, his bare head raised. He smiled, transforming his handsome face into boyishness again. The train began to pull away, and I raised my gloved hand to him.

When he was out of sight, I took a deep breath and put all of it away from me. I wiped my eyes, ordered coffee and a sandwich, and let the flower he had given me fall to the floor of the car. Its fragrance wafted to my nostrils as I crushed it with the heel of my boot.

Chapter 20

The Last Autumn

It was late October, and the perennials and the last of the autumn flowers were blooming before the first frost. The flat fuchsia blossoms of my four o’clock plant peeked at me in the gray light as I walked through the back garden toward the barn to milk the cows. I brushed them lightly with my fingertips, my thoughts elsewhere. Ezra had been under the weather the last few days. I hoped he would get out to play once more before the cold set in.

I had jerked awake early that morning, disturbed by a dream with a portent of darkness, but upon waking, I could recall nothing but blood and a sense of foreboding. Unable to fall back asleep, I went to milk the cows and feed the horses. My early chores done, I boiled porridge for the children and made scrambled eggs and a pan of grits for Will. When everyone was fed and the kitchen was clean, I set Ezra down for his lessons, but his mind wandered.

“Don’t you feel well?” I asked. “You looked peaked.”

“Yes’m.”

At 9:30, I glanced at the watch I kept on my belt.

“Go play and get some sunshine until dinner,” I said. “Your lessons will be waiting when you get back.”

His eyes brightened a bit. “Can I go to the treehouse?”

“Yes, but be careful and put your coat on.”

I dusted the mantel and put a pot of beans on to blanch for supper then began a pile of mending. At 11:00, I prepared dinner. For Ezra and Card, I made soft-boiled eggs and toast soaked in milk and peeled a windfall apple for each of them. For myself, there was a salad of wild autumn greens and radishes from the garden. I had suffered a miscarriage some weeks after my tryst with Henry and had lost a lot of blood. Three months later, I still had not fully recovered, and Lenore recommended green vegetables and dandelion tea, as much as I could stand. As for Henry, I sent him a letter explaining why our meeting had been a mistake and had not seen or spoken to him since. He continued to send money for Ezra, but his letters asking me to come to him had finally ceased.

I went to the back door and called Ezra to the midday meal, but he didn’t show himself, so I rang the dinner bell. When, after ten minutes, he still had not arrived, I went to the door and shouted for him once more, but in the end Card and I took our meal alone.

“If he doesn’t want his dinner, he can go hungry until supper,” I told Card. He nodded.

When I had washed the dinner dishes, I began to worry. It wasn’t like Ezra not to come when called, not really. I took Card’s hand and set off toward the treehouse, half-angry with Ezra for making me walk so far. When we reached the clearing, I saw nothing; all was stillness. There was a bundle of some sort lying on the bottom floor of the treehouse. It took me a minute to realize it was him. I dropped Card’s hand and ran.

He was wrapped in the blanket I kept in the treehouse for them to use during picnics, and burning up with fever.

“Oh dear God,” I whispered, for in that instant, I recalled my dream. Ezra ill, and me unable to help him. Ezra, with blood in his eyes. I had dreamt of blood once before, the night before Mama died.

I ran to him and lifted him into my arms with difficulty, as he was dead weight, and struggled back toward the house as quickly as I could, screaming for Will. Cardinal, crying at my panic, toddled after me, clutching at my skirts.

When Will had helped me to carry Ezra to the house and put him to bed, he seemed doubtful.

“No extra money for the doctor,” he said. “May just be fever and he’ll come through it by morning.”

“It isn’t only a fever! He’s very bad, Will, look at him! He hardly knows me.”

Ezra was shuddering beneath the blanket, moaning and mumbling to himself. When I put a cold compress to his forehead, he clawed at it.

“Go for the doctor at once, or I shall do so myself. I’ll pay.”

Will turned away with the slow look of acceptance he wore when I had won an argument. I’d have been angry if there were room in my mind for ought but worry. The doctor’s expression when he came did not lessen my fear.

“Is it scarlet fever?” I asked. Eric and I had suffered through the illness as children. When I came through it, I woke to find my hair cut off and my frocks burned to destroy the contagion. Mama always said I nearly didn’t make it.

He shook his head. “Diphtheria, I’m afraid. They have it over at the Robinson’s.”

My heart seemed to have dropped out of my chest. The Robinsons were poor tenant farmers, who had taken over Harold Buckley’s farm when he passed. They were our closest neighbors before the Pines. “Oh, God in heaven!”

“Has he been near them?”

“Yes, last Sunday. I sent him with a basket, and he stayed to play with their children.”

“You must send your youngest away, and be very careful.”

“I don’t care about that. Someone has to look after him.”

“I’ve seen many cases of this, often fatal, but not always. He’s terribly weak, my dear. You must tell him to fight, for you.”

I nodded.

Ezra was sick for five days, and as each passed, he grew worse. His neck swelled to distorted proportions and pained him so that he could not move or speak. I tried mustard plasters and warm tea with ginger and honey. When he could swallow, I gave him willow bark tea to ease his pain. I sent for the doctor on the fifth day, when his skin began to go blotchy. He looked grave and told me to prepare myself for the worst.

“How are Nell’s children?” I asked, referring to the Robinsons.

“The eldest is recovering. The other two . . .” He paused, folding cloths and winding up his stethoscope. “The girl passed yesterday, and the youngest is poorly.”

“What must I do?”

“I am a physician, Mrs. Cavendish. I would never recommend what might go against your conscience. Ease his suffering as best you can.”

“You don’t think he will live.”

He shook his head. “I see few children live once they’re this far gone.”

When the doctor had gone, I managed to get Ezra to sleep with a sip of tea mixed with whiskey. It quieted his cough and subdued him enough to rest for a while. I went in search of Will and found him eating cold hominy in the kitchen. I hadn’t had time to cook in the upheaval. When I told him the doctor’s words, he wept. The look in his eyes—so full of pity—galled me.

“I’m sorry, my dearest,” he said. “You should rest.”

I shook my head. “What difference if I rest? Everything is empty.”

“Don’t say that. I know you love him dearly, but there is still us, and our love, and our child.”

I held my hand up to silence him. I felt myself shattering, fraught with the need to destroy everything, a volatile Charybdis.

“I think God is punishing me.”

“For what?”

I looked at him and knew that even then he was oblivious to my sins. “The child I lost . . . it wasn’t yours. I went to Henry, back in June, when I told you I was visiting my aunt.”

Will’s face suddenly held the same look I knew was in mine, his world desecrated. Every inch of his love for me seemed to flicker through his eyes at once and then went cold. He stood up and paced the room then came back to the table where I was seated.

“You wanted him?” he asked.

“It takes money to provide for children. Ezra is Henry’s. He wanted him to have . . . everything.”

“And I didn’t?”

“No.”

“How dare you?” His hands clenched around the back of the chair he was standing behind.

“Will, you didn’t. I do not mean it as insult now, but you must admit to yourself that luxury means nothing to you. In fact, decency barely does. You’d be happy with a cot in a horse stall if you had your banjo.”

“Have you been back to him, since?”

“No. I couldn’t bring myself to.”

“I used to think our love would take us through everything,” he whispered. “All of your sorrow, all of your shame.”

“You never said shame when we were courting,” I said dully.

He raised his voice to me, something Will rarely did. “Well, it is shame, isn’t it?”

“What about
you
? Aren’t your European whores and New Orleans bawdy houses drenched in shame? You’re a sight more shameful than I could ever be.”

“I haven’t done a damned thing out of line since I met you, yet you conduct yourself like . . . I see too late that you’re common. That I chained myself to trash!”

“Please let us not shout at one another while my son is upstairs
dying
!” I pleaded. I rose shakily from the table, and he said, “Yes, go and see to your bastard.”

I felt then that what had once been alive between us had died.

Ezra grew worse in the night. Will sat up with me as I tended to him, and it was this—his coming to my aid in spite of everything that had passed—that made me see his worth. I had sacrificed him for perceived wealth and a weekend of pleasure with a man who had never shown me real love.

Diphtheria forms a dense membrane in the throat, and it is this which makes it deadly. Ezra struggled to breathe, and I tried a steam bath, as one would use for the croup, but it did no good. The membrane was too thick. He began to go blue, clutching at me, and I sobbed, screaming for Will to do something, but he had turned his face away, unable to watch Ezra’s suffering further. I alone was to witness his pain, and there was nothing to be done. Tears streamed from Ezra’s eyes; tears with blood in them. He was hemorrhaging from his nose and eyes.

“Oh my darling, I’m sorry,” I babbled. “I’m sorry! It’s nearly over. Soon it will be over, and you can rest.”

It made me wild to think of all the times I’d eased him through fevers and fears, not knowing I would live to ease him into death. A few minutes passed, and at last he ceased to struggle. His hands, which had clutched so frantically at my clothing and loose hair only moments before, relaxed.

He was still.

I hovered over him, hoping to see his chest rise, but he did not stir again. I closed his eyes and covered him with the sheet, unable to look at his swollen neck and gaping mouth any longer.

“Leave me,” I said at last. When Will was gone, I washed his limp body and laid him out in his Sunday best and then went downstairs. Unbeknownst to me, Will, in his grief, was awaiting me, spoiling for a fight.

“How can you say that I am idle, when all this time I’ve provided for you, our child, and your child by another man?”

His words stung me. “For God’s sake, he’s barely cold!” I cried. “I hardly call this life a provision. ‘Marry a gentleman’ my mother told me as a child. And Colleen said to marry a businessman. Well, we see who was right. Gentlemen in my mother’s day were rich. She knew nothing of your ilk.”

“You’re a cold-hearted shrew of a woman,” he said, deadly quiet, unaware that he echoed my father’s words, “and many other things I’ll save myself the face to utter. Do you love him?”

“I don’t want to speak of Henry,” I said.

“Tell me!”

I sighed, lowering myself into a chair, unbearably weary. “I thought a part of me did, but when we were together, I realized he only appealed to me because I had lost him.”

“I’ll say this. I thought once you were good, and pure, but any woman who pollutes her marriage bed for the sake of money should be ashamed! Why
him
?” He thundered this last question, working himself into an uncharacteristic show of temper. “Is it because I disappointed you? Because he was a better lover?”

He seized me by the shoulders. I waited for him to do violence, but after a moment he released me. I rose from the chair and stumbled away, weeping for Ezra, and heard him following.

“Leave me alone!” I exclaimed, my voice shrill with woe. “My son is dead. Let me grieve him.”

At some point, I went downstairs, out onto the porch, and into the garden. He did not follow me. I paused beside my rosebush and the purple four o’clock, still in bloom, and listened to a whippoorwill. The sun was shining, if palely; it was warm for October.

When I returned to the house, he was waiting for me at the table in the dining room, his hands folded neatly in front of him.

“I am sorry for what you’ve lost Landra, but I want you to go,” he said.

“Go?”

“From this house. Today.”

“William . . .”

“Please, go. I’ll go for the coroner and send your things to the Pines.”

“I will. You have every right to put me out, but at least allow me to—

“I will see to Ezra. He may be buried beneath the old oak.”

“So I might be barred from his grave in my estrangement from you? He belongs in my family’s plot!”

He shrugged. “Very well, but you must go.”

I squared my shoulders. “I won’t leave him! It isn’t right.”

He took hold of me then, put one arm round my waist, and removed me from the house. I fought him every step of the way, holding onto doorframes and scratching his hands, even sinking my teeth into his bicep at one point, but I was weak from my bedside vigil, and he was a strong man. Hadn’t I always admired him for it? In the end, he won, shoving me out onto the porch in the chilly air, then barring the door. I leant against it, weeping, for some time.