Pieces of Dreams (8 page)

It almost sounded as if he had tried. She wondered if the two men had spent the last few days competing with each other. If so, they had certainly accomplished miracles in the process. With some care, she said, “Where is Conrad today?”

“Resting, I hope,” Caleb replied with a wry laugh.

It was good to hear the respect and even affection in Caleb's tone. She hadn't liked to think of the two brothers being at odds because of her.

Looking toward the outbuildings again as they drew nearer, she said, “I didn't think about the barn being so much bigger.”

“Didn't you? That's the way it is, you know—lot more animals on a farm than people.”

He had a point. The crops and animals the barn must shelter would be their livelihood. Yet looking at the barn overshadowing the house gave her a peculiar suffocating feeling, as if it was she who was being overpowered.

As they drew up in the yard before the house, Caleb climbed down and came around to help her from the wagon.

She leaned to put her hands on his shoulders and he caught her waist, lifting her free of the wagon bed with easy strength before setting her on her feet. Her body brushed his, but he did nothing to prolong the contact, seemed not even to notice it. The disturbance inside her increased.

With a hand on her elbow, he guided her toward the porch steps. They reached the front door and he flung it wide, then stepped aside for her to enter ahead of him.

The house was simple but well-designed, with rooms that all opened into each other. The walls were painted white except for the parlor that was given some interest by a rose-patterned wallpaper. The kitchen was large and convenient to the back garden area. There was a fireplace in the parlor as well as the bedroom, and both wood mantels had been painted to look like gray-streaked white marble.

It was a pleasant house, everything considered, but it lacked color, had little character or warmth. Then again, these things could be added, Melly thought. She could paint flower and ribbon designs on the bedroom door and stencil the floors to look like rugs. She could make curtains and cushions and antimacassars, frame the needlework samplers she had done as a young girl and hang them on the walls. Of course, her precious Friendship Quilt must go in the parlor. Then there was the furniture. She would choose chairs and tables with some life to them, and a pretty oil lamp as well.

“I think,” she said, as they returned to the front of the house, “that I would like to buy a parlor set first.”

“Not bedroom furnishing?” Caleb asked with the lift of a brow.

She colored a little as she moved ahead of him into the parlor. “We will have my bed and wardrobe I'm using now at the boarding house. They are good quality, my mother's and father's set that Aunt Dora kept after the accident. She sold most of the other things and put the money in the bank for me. I don't mean to spend all of it; but I saw a model for a parlor set I liked that was brought to the mercantile by a drummer. Mr. McDougall could order—”

“There's no hurry for such folderols,” Caleb said with a decided shake of his head. “What we really need is a good hay rake, if we have the money on hand.”

“A hay rake.” She heard the flatness of her tone, but could do nothing to prevent it.

“The better our machinery, the more I can do and the better things will be for us. We've talked about this before, Melly. “

“Yes, I know,” she said in some distress. “I understand that you want to make a good life for us, I really do. It's not that I don't appreciate all your hard work in building the house and making it nice, the way you've worked in the fields out here as well as helping your father at the livery. But I would like something of my own, and this is my money...”

“Your money?” he said, his features set in grim lines. “What I have is yours, Melly, and I thought you felt the same way. That's what being married is all about.”

“I do feel it!” She flung out a hand in a pleading gesture as she sought for words to explain. “But you're making all the decisions for our future. You bought the land, chose the house design; you picked out the paint and wallpaper and arranged the kitchen. You aren't letting me be a part of what you're doing at all. Is that what marriage is supposed to be?”

“You don't like the house,” he said, his voice tight.

“Of course I like it! That's not the problem.”

“You want to change the kitchen.”

“The kitchen is fine!”

“Then I don't know what's wrong with you. We want the same things, Melly. We have the same dream of a good, solid life here on the farm, working the land and watching our crops and our children grow and prosper year by year. It's all we've talked about, all we've ever felt was worthwhile.”

“I still want those things,” she said in desperation, “But don't you see it isn't all I need?”

His face hardened. “I see you've changed since Conrad came home.”

Had she? Or had she only remembered the way she used to be before she agreed to marry Caleb? Before she learned to be practical? Before she was forced to accept that the things she conjured up in her mind, the places she would like to see and things she longed to do, were impossible.

It was not really so much that she and Caleb had the same dream, she thought in sudden insight, but rather she had given up her own so that only his was left.

That was often the way of it, she knew; she had seen it before with her aunt's friends. So many women became faded shadows of their men without a view or opinion solely their own. And yet she had not expected it with her and Caleb.

The hardest thing, however, was not giving up all the things that made her different, but knowing that her future husband had no idea she had ever thought of anything else. Or if he did, he actually felt the sacrifice was natural, the way things should be arranged.

He was wrong.

He wouldn't accept that, she knew, would never believe their disagreement wasn’t about furniture or money. It didn't matter, she told herself. It was necessary to make a stand somewhere and it might as well be here.

She stared at him, her eyes dark and a little bleak. Lifting her chin, she said plainly, “I am going to have the parlor set.”

She turned away without waiting for an answer. Walking through the open front door, she crossed the porch toward where the wagon stood with the horse cropping at a patch of dry grass. She climbed unaided to the seat, then settled her skirts and sat staring straight ahead.

Caleb came out of the house, secured the front door behind him and crossed to the wagon. The vehicle rocked as he gained his seat. He unwound the reins from the brake handle and sat holding them a few moments before he turned to look at her.

“Does it seem I'm putting the farm ahead of you, Melly? Is that it?” he asked in low tones. “I didn't mean to. It's just that there's been so much to do. I wanted it all perfect for you when you came here as a bride. There's a lot I'd like to give you some day—another room or two on the house, a nice organ for the parlor, all the pretty doodads and gewgaws that you deserve. It's just that first things come first, to my mind.” He transferred both reins to his left hand and reached out to place his right on her fists that were clenched in her lap. “But I want you to be happy. If you've got your heart set on parlor furniture, then that's what I want you to have. I do love you, Melly.”

“Oh, Caleb,” she said quietly, but could not go on for the lump in her throat. He was trying his best to be reasonable, and to show her that he cared.

She looked up at him, letting her gaze roam over his strong, regular features, meeting the straight-forward devotion in his eyes. There was so much fondness between them, so many years and memories, so many good times. She had danced her first dance with him, shared her first grown-up kiss with him behind the door of the livery stable. He knew her so well, knew that she loved blackberries and cream, kittens and Christmas, but despised yellow squash and baying hounds. He knew she was fearless when it came to snakes and spiders or thunder and lightning, but terrified of deep water after nearly drowning in the riverboat disaster that killed her parents. Surely that was a firm enough foundation on which to build a life?

“I do love you, too, Caleb.”

A soft exclamation left him. He leaned closer and pressed his mouth to hers.

It was a kiss of warm and careful affection. The dry smoothness of his lips was pleasant. She felt the abrasion of his beard stubble at their ridges as he caressed her mouth with gentle movements. Then he drew back, sending a quick glance around, as if checking to be sure no one had seen them. They were safe. He lifted the reins, slapping the horse into motion.

He looked down at Melly once more and smiled. She felt her lips curve in a faint response.

Yet all the while she was distracted, almost fearful. It was wrong to compare the staid embrace of her future husband with the wild, reckless kisses of his brother, but she could not help it.

Chapter Seven

The day of the picnic dawned breathlessly hot. The air was still and heavy with a sulfurous scent in it. The molten sunlight that poured over everything had a metallic, brassy sheen.

The very idea of building a fire in the cook stove then standing over a pan of hot grease to fry chicken was enough to make Melly feel lightheaded. To actually do it was like descending into the pits of hell.

She was all for calling off the outing. There was a thundery, oppressive feeling in the air that she did not like. Moreover, the chance of any enjoyment being gained from sitting beside the river seemed remote

Aunt Dora laughed at Melly’s misgivings. This little spell of heat, she declared, was like a breath of spring compared to the ones she had endured in her younger days. The only problem might be if the hot weather broke with a cloud burst. Anyway, it was bound to be better beside the water.

It was indeed. The site chosen for spreading the picnic cloths and pallets made of old quilts was a couple of miles out of town. It was an oak-crested ridge, once part of the bank of an old river channel, that merged with the river's natural levee to form a wooded platform higher than the water. A hot breeze wafted over their vantage point now and then. It ruffled the glassy surface of the water below so it sparkled in the sun like millions of glass shards. Whispering in the leaves of the oaks overhead, it stirred the leaf shadows that patterned the quilts where they sat. The touch of it fanned their moist faces, sifted through their hair with delicate, cooling fingers, and lifted the light summer skirts of the young women now and then in indolent billows.

A steamboat churned past, spreading a froth of foam over the water—the
Cincinnati Star
on her way down to New Orleans. It gave them a blast of its steam whistle that startled a nearby flock of crows into flight. Passengers on the boiler deck and deckhands and chambermaids on the main deck below waved and called across the water. The steamer's wake rocked an old piece of raft tied up just along the way, causing it to thud against the bank with a sound like distant thunder.

Still, nothing could banish the heat-induced lethargy that held them in its grip. When they had eaten, they all sat around in a kind of daze, talking in fits and starts and staring out over the endless glide of the river.

“Oh, I ate too much,” Biddy said, pressing her hand to her abdomen.

“My, yes, we can sure tell.” The wry comment came from Esther as she surveyed the other girl's tiny, corseted waist and slender shape under her full skirts. “You really should get yourself right up and walk it off.”

“Good idea,” Biddy returned with alacrity. “Let's stroll along the levee a way.” She waited expectantly for volunteers.

Esther rolled her eyes at her. “Don't be daft.”

“Melly will come,” the smaller woman said as she turned in her direction. “Won't you?”

Reaching up to smother a yawn, Melly said, “Maybe, in a little while.”

Biddy glanced around at the others lounging here and there on the quilts, her gaze hopeful. “Doesn’t anybody want to walk?”

Aunt Dora groaned as if even the suggestion were excruciatingly painful. No one else answered.

They were eleven in number. Besides Melly, her aunt, Caleb and Conrad, there were the four bridesmaids, Biddy, Esther, Lydia and Sarah. Aunt Dora's boarder, Mr. Prine had somehow attached himself to the party. Esther had invited Reverend Milken as well, since he was at loose ends and always looked in need of a home-cooked meal. Sheriff Telford rounded out the group; he had happened by as Sarah was leaving the house, and she had asked him to come along.