River Queen
Authors: Gilbert Morris
Copyright © 2011 by Gilbert Morris
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
978-1-4336-7320-7
Published by B&H Publishing Group,
Nashville, Tennessee
Dewey Decimal Classification: F
Subject Heading: LOVE STORIES \ STEAMBOATS—FICTION \ MISSISSIPPI RIVER—FICTION
Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.
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The snowstorm that had taken Natchez by surprise kept the temperatures well below freezing outside the family home of Charles Ashby. Fires bloomed in every room. Upstairs, in Julienne Ashby’s bedroom, the logs shifted and sent a myriad of sparks up the chimney. The heat-crackle of the wood made a cheerful sound in the room as it wafted out comforting waves of warmth. Julienne’s room was very feminine, full of flower brocades, oval-framed pictures, and mirrors. Three light, comfortable dressing chairs were set about to be both ornamental and useful. A double bed stood in the center of the room made up with clean sheets, a crisp white bolster, and a wine-colored eiderdown comforter that was pillow-thick. Set off in an angle of the room, an ornately carved mahogany washstand bore a delicate French porcelain pitcher and washbowl.
Now, however, a streak of mud went up one side of the satin-covered comforter, leading to a large dirty stain in the middle of the cover, and seated cross-legged in the middle of that stain was ten-year-old Carley Jeanne Ashby. She watched her sister Julienne as she went through the long and tedious process of dressing for a shopping excursion. Carley was a pretty girl, with long, curly red-gold hair, wide blue eyes, and a fresh peaches-and-cream complexion. She was small for her age, but she was energetic and had a strong constitution, which was a good thing since she was an incurable tomboy. Today her frilled dark-blue dress was relatively clean, as she had been wearing a heavy wool cape outside, but her pantalettes were caked with filthy mud, her hands were dirty, one of her pigtails had a dirt clod in it, and there was a streak of mud across one blooming cheek.
“Carley Jeanne Ashby,” Julienne said with mild amusement, “you are positively filthy. What on earth have you been doing? Plowing?”
Turning, Julienne huddled close to the fireplace. She had just put on her winter pantalettes and chemise—commonly pronounced “shimmy”—and shivering, she pulled on her heavy wool dressing gown again. She was a lovely woman of twenty-three, tall and slender, but with a womanly figure. Like her sister, she had inherited her gorgeous thick red-gold hair from her mother, but she had wide, very dark eyes and velvety lashes, somewhat startling with her fair hair and complexion. “Where is Tyla?” she asked herself with some irritation. “I can’t possibly lace up my corset by myself.”
But Carley ignored this and repeated loudly, “Plowing? ’Course not, ’cause I don’t have a mule. I’ve been collecting rocks. Want to see them?” When Carley Jeanne had been six years old, she had taken a straw bag from their cook, Mam Dooley, that was used for carrying vegetables from market. Carley had rarely been without the bag since then, and now it was old and frayed and permanently stained, but still she carried her “treasures” in it. These could be anything from rocks to wildflowers to bugs to fishing worms.
“No, darling, I’ll look at your rocks some other time,” Julienne answered. “So you escaped from lessons again, I take it.”
“Aunt Leah doesn’t care,” Carley said dismissively.
“You’re going to be an ignorant hooligan,” Julienne said absently, then went to the door, flung it open impatiently, and started to shout, “Ty—Oh. Here you are.”
“Here I am,” Tyla said, rolling her eyes. “I just now finished ironing these sleeves, Miss Julienne.”
“Oh, yes, I forgot. Lay the dress out, Tyla, and help me get into this corset,” Julienne ordered.
Tyla went over to Julienne’s bed and sighed as she saw the big dirty spot, and the small dirty child, in the middle of the bed.
“I’ve been collecting rocks,” Carley told her helpfully. “That’s why I’m so dirty.”
“Could you go be dirty somewhere else, please?” Tyla asked.
“No, I don’t want to. I want to watch Julienne dress. When am I going to get a shape like you, Julienne? Darcy said I look like a fence picket.”
“Little girls are supposed to look like fence pickets,” Julienne said, pulling her corset over her head. The crisscross lacings on the back hung loose. “You won’t get a womanly shape until you’re older.”
“How old?”
“A lot older. Tyla, just lay the dress on one of the chairs and come help me.”
“Yes, miss,” Tyla answered obediently. Tyla, whose name was actually Twyla, had been brought to the Ashby household when she was a newborn baby. Her grandmother, Old Mam, had been Julienne’s and her brother Darcy’s nurse. Twyla’s mother, Old Mam’s daughter, had died in childbirth, and Charles Ashby had agreed to let Old Mam bring Twyla to live with them and raise her with his own children. Julienne, at three years of age, had called her “Tyla” and the name had stuck. Tyla had grown up with the older Ashby children, but when she turned thirteen she became sixteen-year-old Julienne’s maid. Now she was a petite black woman of twenty, with a beautiful smile and a modest demeanor.
With one last regretful look at Julienne’s filthy comforter, she laid the dress on a side chair and came to tighten the laces of Julienne’s corset, while she held onto the bedpost.
“Unh,” Julienne grunted. “I knew I shouldn’t have eaten that dish of kidneys for breakfast.”
“Ecch,” Carley said. “Kidneys. You’re silly to tie yourself all up tight like that, Julienne. You’ve already got a shape.”
“When you have one, you’ll understand and you’ll tie yourself all up, too,” Julienne retorted. “What’s all this talk about a shape, anyway?”
“I was talking to my friend Denise Hopgood about it. Denise’s sister is fourteen and she doesn’t have a shape yet. We’re worried,” Carley told her solemnly.
“Carley, find something else to worry about,” Julienne said, managing a smile between grunts as Tyla yanked the corset lacings hard. Finally the corset was fastened, and Julienne had a nineteen-inch waist. Quickly Tyla picked up three petticoats, a linen, a cotton, and a woolen, pulled them over Julienne’s head and tied them around her waist. Leaning against the wall was Julienne’s hoop underskirt, collapsed into concentric rings. Tyla laid it down on the floor and Julienne stepped into the center ring. Rising, Tyla pulled the crinoline up as it ballooned out, a series of very light steel rings covered with crisp cotton, widening out to a full bell shape.
Carley watched, fascinated. “Why can’t I have one of those?”
“Because, Miss Carley, you won’t even keep your petticoats on if you can shuck them without your mother or your aunt noticing,” Tyla said sternly. “Whyever would you want to wear a hoop skirt?”
“I don’t want to wear it,” Carley answered impatiently. “I want to put it on and swing it back and forth and play like I’m a big bell. Or I could put it up outside, on sticks, and make a tent. Or maybe I could hang it from a tree and get under it and pretend like I’m in the clouds.”
Shocked, Tyla said, “It’s underclothes, Miss Carley. You can’t have underclothes outside flapping in the breeze for everyone to see!”
“If that’s the most shocking thing she ever does, I’ll be amazed,” Julienne said. “Oh, I do love this new outfit!”
The dress was made of chocolate brown velvet, with the wide skirt gathered so tightly that it was richly voluminous. The bodice had an open corsage, with a blouse front of ecru satin jean with tiny pleats. The high button collar folded down over a string tie of chocolate brown grosgrain. The sleeves were wide, with a wide ruffle of the ecru satin ruffle at the wrist. Her long cape-jacket was triple-tiered, of the same chocolate brown velvet with wide grosgrain trim on the three flounces. Julienne had her milliner make her a deep bonnet of the velvet, with ecru satin ruffles framing her face.
Now she sat at her dressing table, a wide oval table with a ruffled cotton tablecloth covering it, and a hinged mirror atop. Tyla began to brush Julienne’s hair and arrange it into a modest chignon so her bonnet would fit over it.
Carley studied the dress crumpled into a corner, thrown carelessly there by Julienne. It was a dark green with a flounced skirt and had a matching tartan shawl, also thrown on top of the dress. “I don’t understand why you have to change clothes, Julienne. That dress you were wearing was pretty.”
