Morning Song (16 page)

"Jessica, dear, come here," Miss Flora trilled, beckoning. There was no help for it. Her skirt stained with grass and mud from kneeling in play with Jasper,

her hair tumbling every which way, and her face no doubt smudged, Jessie emerged from the orchard.

"Hello, dear," Miss Laurel said, not seeming to notice Jessie's disgraceful appearance.

"Hello, Miss Laurel, Miss Hora." Jessie dutifully kissed the two cheeks that were presented to her. She was growing resigned to the ritual.

"These dear ladies have a—a proposition to put to you." Celia's voice was sugary sweet. Looking quickly at her stepmother, Jessie was quite, quite sure that whatever the proposition was, Celia was not in favor of it.

"Proposition, my grandmother!" Miss Flora said roundly.

"We've come to spirit Jessica away with us to Jackson."

"Dear Stuart says she hasn't a stitch to her name," Miss Laurel chimed in.

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"To Jackson!" Horrified, Jessie looked from one old lady to the other.

"Of course I told them that you can't possibly just pick up and go," Celia said. For once, Celia's sentiments coincided perfectly with Jessie's.

"Of course Jessica will come with us," Miss Flora said.

"Run into the house and change your clothes and pack a bag, dear. You don't need to bring more than a change of dress. We'll get you outfitted when we get to Jackson." Miss Laurel echoed her sister.

Jessie looked from one to the other of them. "That's very nice of you, but really, I—"

She was silenced by Miss Flora's "Pish-tush."

"Celia is far too busy getting readjusted to married life to worry about your clothes, you know. And we are your aunts now. You may quite properly come with us."

"But really, I . . ." Jessie's protest trailed off in the face of Miss Flora's determined expression. The idea of accompanying Miss Flora and Miss Laurel on a shopping expedition of some days'

duration was too dreadful to contemplate. The old ladies seemed well meaning enough, but Jessie scarcely knew them. She was sure she would go mad if she had to endure their chirping presences for hours on end. The idea of acquiring new dresses was briefly tantalizing (the memory of how she had looked in the late, lamented yellow gown still warmed her), but not if she had to travel to Jackson to do it. The truth of the matter was, Jessie had never in her life spent a night away from Mimosa. The idea frightened her a little.

"It's all been decided," Miss Flora said sternly. 135

"Dear Stuart asked us to take you," Miss Laurel added, as if that clinched matters. And to Jessie's dismay, it did. Despite her misgivings, the trip turned out to be fun. They were gone for just over two weeks, and the time passed in a whirlwind of shopping. To Jessie's delighted surprise, Miss Flora turned out to be possessed of an infallible eye for color and style. Jessie, who trusted her own instincts in neither case, let Miss Flora decide what she needed. The only outfit that she chose for herself was a reading habit of bright peacock blue cut in the military style that Miss Flora assured her would be vastly becoming. Trying the dress on for its final fitting just before they began their journey home, Jessie had to admit that Miss Flora was right once again: the riding habit complimented her figure as nothing else in her life ever had.

Miss Flora had decreed brilliant jewel colors for Jessie. Jessie had silently questioned the old lady's judgment when that pronouncement was handed down, but at the end of a fortnight's shopping she was thrilled with the results. Something about the clear intensity of sapphire blue and emerald green and ruby red did wonders for her eyes and skin. The colors made her eyes appear larger and brighter, a deep glowing sherry brown, while her skin took on the white smoothness of a magnolia blossom. Awe-stricken when she studied her own reflection, Jessie thought that her skin looked almost velvety to the touch. Unbidden, she remembered that Stuart had called her skin beautiful. She could hardly wait for him to see it against the foil of the new clothes.

Jessie was also thrilled to discover that she was much slimmer. It wasn't her imagination, or a trick of the light. She was actually almost slender. Over the course of the summer she'd added about 136

half an inch to her height, while her belly and hips and especially her waist seemed to have reshaped themselves almost magically. Jessie wasn't quite sure what had brought about the change (she did wonder at first if perhaps the dressmaker had a special slimming mirror to aid in the selling of her designs), but somehow, somewhere, she had acquired a lovely woman's figure. Certainly she could no longer by any stretch of the imagination be described as fat.

"Why, Jessica, you've turned into a real beauty," Miss Laurel said with mild surprise as Jessie emerged from the encounter she'd dreaded most of all, that with a hairdresser's scissors.

"I knew she would," Miss Flora replied with satisfaction. "She's the image of her mother. Don't you remember, sister, that Elizabeth Hodge turned away beaux from as far away as New Orleans before she settled on Thomas Lindsay?"

"That's right, she did." Miss Laurel nodded. Jessie, who'd been busy trying to catch a glimpse of her new hairstyle in every shop window that they passed, stopped craning her neck at her own reflection for long enough to smile rather tremulously at Miss Flora and Miss Laurel.

"Do I truly look like my mother?" Jessie's memories of her mother were of a dark-haired, beautiful lady who always seemed to be smiling. Impossible to imagine that she could ever look like that.

"Anyone who ever knew Elizabeth would know you for her daughter," Miss Flora answered softly. To Jessie's distress, she felt her throat begin to tighten. Suddenly her heart ached for her mother, ached as it hadn't ached in years.

"But enough of this," Miss Flora added briskly, seeing the sudden emotion on Jessie's face. "Stand still, child, and let us 137

look at your hair. It's certainly an improvement. At least it's out of your face."

Grateful for the diversion before she could make a fool of herself on a public street, Jessie obediently stopped and turned her head this way and that for the aunts' inspection.

"Do you really like it?" she asked after a minute. The hairdresser had taken scissors to her hair with ruthless abandon, and Jessie had been silently appalled at the length and number of curling locks that had dropped to the floor. In back the length was much as it had been, reaching down to well past her waist. The whole unruly mane had been shaped and thinned, but the locks around her face had been ruthlessly pruned to form a profusion of short curls. Madame Fleur, the hairdresser, had shown Jessie how to pin it up in back, so that the heavy mass of it formed a soft roll at the crown of her head. The shortened curls in front framed her face like a tousled halo. The effect was charming, and Madame Fleur assured her that if the hair was pinned properly, the style should last through anything, up to and including a hurricane. Jessie could also, Madame Fleur advised her, wear it down, with the hair at the crown pulled away from her face and secured by a bow. But Miss Fleur very much suggested that such a style not be attempted in the middle of summer. In such heat the remarkable thickness of Jessie's hair would act as a blanket, and Mademoiselle would be very likely to suffocate.

"You look lovely," Miss Laurel said, beaming after admiring Jessie's new hairstyle from every angle.

"Most becoming," Miss Flora agreed. And Jessie, who sneaked many another admiring glance at her reflection in the shop 138

windows as they made their way back to their hotel, decided happily that Miss Flora and Miss Laurel were right.

Despite all her misgivings, Jessie enjoyed herself so much in Jackson that she was almost reluctant to leave.

But the nearer the carriage drew to Mimosa, the more eager she was to reach home. In the final few miles she was finally afflicted with the homesickness she had dreaded. She could barely wait to get home again. It was hard to say whom or what she had missed most: Tudi, or Sissie, or Firefly and Jasper—or Stuart.

But when the carriage rocked to a halt in front of Mimosa's front door, Jessie discovered, to her own surprise, that she was going to miss the aunts. Quite dreadfully.

"We won't get down, dear," Miss Flora said briskly. Jessie looked from her to Miss Laurel, all at once hating to part from them. Impulsively she leaned over to hug Miss Laurel, and then, fiercely, Miss Flora.

"Thank you both," she said around the sudden lump in her throat, and meant it.

Miss Flora pish-tushed, while Miss Laurel patted Jessie's shoulder.

"Don't forget that we're family now. You must come see us," Miss Laurel told her.

"I won't forget," Jessie promised. Then as Ben, Miss Flora and Miss Laurel's elderly driver, who had safely conveyed them all the way to Jackson and back, opened the door, Jessie smiled at them one last time and stepped out of the carriage.

"Good-bye, Jessica!"

"Good-bye!"

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Thomas and Fred were already gathering up the dozens of boxes that Ben had slung down from the top of the carriage. The pair of them greeted Jessie vociferously. She returned their greetings, genuinely glad to see them, to be home, but inside she was torn. She, the girl who never cried, was battling the awful urge to sniffle. As the carriage bearing her new aunts swept down the drive and along the road toward Tulip Hill, Jessie felt her eyes sting. If she hadn't had Jasper's bounding attack to distract her, she might not have been able to hold back the threatening tears.

XIX

September came, and with it came Seth Chandler's birthday. Everybody in the valley knew the exact date—the fourteenth—

because every year on that date Elmway was the site of the biggest party of the season. Lissa was an excellent hostess, and guests came from miles around for barbecue, fireworks, and an evening of dancing. Many from the more distant plantations stayed overnight with the Chandlers, and many more, relatives mostly, stayed as long as a couple of weeks. In fact, Miss May Chandler, Seth's unmarried cousin, had come for the party three years before and never left. Nobody thought much of it. It was the custom in the South for menfolk to offer the protection of their homes to their unmarried female relatives. And anyway, Miss May helped with the children.

Jessie had never attended Seth Chandler's birthday party, or at least not since she was a little girl and had gone with her parents. 140

It never would have occurred to her to go this year, either, if Stuart hadn't insisted.

"Of course she's going," he said impatiently when Celia, sweeping downstairs on the morning of the party, told him that Jessie never went. Both Celia and Stuart were already dressed, and Minna followed Celia with her dance dress, carefully stuffed with tissue and folded so that it would not wrinkle, carried over her arm. Stuart inquired as to Jessie's whereabouts. Upon receiving an answer that displeased him, he swore and went to fetch her himself. He found her in the stable, just getting ready to set out for her morning ride. She was already mounted on Firefly when he strode through the wide door. Clad in the new blue riding habit that did marvelous things for her coloring while at the same time making her waist look impossibly slender, her hair only a shade or so darker than the sorrel mare on which she perched sidesaddle, she made a pretty picture. From the tight set to Stuart's mouth as he looked her over, it was clear that he was in no mood to appreciate it.

"Did you want me?" Jessie asked innocently after a moment's silence. She nudged Firefly forward so that the mare stood directly in front of him. Jasper had bounded ahead upon setting eyes on Stuart, who was a great favorite of his, and done his best to express his welcome in the age-old way of dogs. While Stuart, swearing, held Jasper away from his immaculate waistcoat and breeches by the simple expedient of catching a huge front paw in both hands, Jessie realized that for once she had the pleasure of looking down at Stuart. Savoring the unaccustomed advantage in height, she watched with a lurking smile as he admonished Jasper sharply, dropped the dog's paws to the ground, and kept him earthbound by placing a precautionary hand on the animal's 141

head. Jasper took that as an incipient pat. Immediately he groveled for more, dropping to his belly and rolling onto his back with his paws waving in the air. It was a blatant invitation to Stuart to scratch his belly. Jessie laughed. Stuart looked up at her. It was clear from his expression that he, at least, was not amused.

"Get down," he said.

"I'm getting ready to ride," she answered, not so much arguing as surprised.

"You are going to the Chandlers' party." Aggravation was as plain in his voice as it was in his eyes. His fists rested on his hips, and his booted feet were planted wide apart in an aggressive stance.

"I never go."

"Well, you're going this time."

When she just sat there looking at him, he muttered something that she couldn't quite hear but that she was sure was distinctly uncomplimentary. Then, stepping forward, he reached up to catch her around the waist and haul her bodily out of the saddle. Jessie gasped, Firefly sidestepped nervously, Jasper leaped to his feet and barked, and Progress stepped quickly forward to hold the mare's head.

"But I don't want to go," Jessie protested, her hands closing over Stuart's upper arms to steady herself as he set her on her feet in front of him. The muscles of his arms felt hard and very strong beneath her hands, even through the cloth of his coat and shirt. Of their own volition Jessie's fingers lingered on that breathstopping hardness. Almost immediately ashamed of herself, she curled her hands into fists and lifted them away. Ever since that day in the cotton field when her body had betrayed her so 142

embarrassingly, Jessie had forced herself to think of Stuart strictly in an avuncular light. Besides the fact that he had become both friend and mentor, he was her stepmother's husband, for goodness' sake! The wayward images of him that sometimes flitted unbidden through her brain were nothing short of evil. She would not recognize the tingle that his hands on her waist had ignited along her nerve endings. She would not.