Vows (11 page)

 
Again Edwin had to interrupt.
"
I'll
help Mr. McGiver with your luggage. You hold the bicycle!"

 
"All right, if you insist. But don't get bossy with me, Edwin, or we shan't get along at all. I'm not used to taking orders from men, you know."

 
As he reached up for the first dusty bag, he glanced over his shoulder to find her smirking like a leprechaun. The first bag was followed by a second, third, fourth and fifth. When her luggage sat in a circle at their feet he pushed back his bowler and, with his hands on his hips, scanned the collection of grips and trunks. "Good Lord, Fannie, all this?"

 
She arched one of her strawberry-blond eyebrows. "Why, of course, all that. A woman can't traipse out into the middle of no-man's-land with nothing more than the clothes on her back. Who knows
when
I'll get to a proper toggery again. And even if I did, I doubt that out here I could even
find
a pair of knicker-bockers."

 
"Knickerbockers?"

 
"Kneepants. For riding the bicycle. Whatever would I do with all these bustles and petticoats in those wheels? Why, they'd get tangled in the spokes and I'd break every bone in my body. And I value my bones very highly, Edwin." She held out one arm and assessed it fondly. "They're still very serviceable bones. How are your bones, Edwin?"

 
He laughed and replied, "I can see Emily is going to love you. Let's get these off the street."

 
"Emily—I can't wait to meet her." While he transferred her baggage to the boardwalk, Fannie chattered. "What's she like? Is she dark like you? Did she get Josephine's seriousness? I hope not. Josie was always too serious for her own good. I told her so from the time we were ten years old. There's so much in life about which we
must
be serious that I simply cannot abide being so when it's not necessary, don't you agree, Edwin? Tell me about Emily."

 
"I can't do Emily justice with words. You'll just have to meet her. I'm sorry she's not here. Both of the children assured me they would be, but Frankie is gone fishing and must have lost track of time, which he does quite frequently, and Emily went off on a picnic with Charles. They're not back yet."

 
"Charles Bliss?"

 
"Yes."

 
"Ah, the young man in her life. I feel as if I've met them both, I've heard so much about them in Josephine's letters. Do you think they'll be married, Edwin?"

 
"I don't know. If so, they haven't told us yet."

 
"Do you like him as much as Josie claims you do?"

 
"The whole family likes him. You will, too."

 
"I'll reserve my opinions till I've met him, if you please. I'm not a woman whose judgments can be dictated."

 
"Of course," Edwin replied with a crooked smirk. Her quicksilver spunkiness was only one of the attributes to which his parents had objected years ago. Thank heaven she hadn't lost it. She could scold and praise in the same breath, inquire and preach, sympathize and rejoice without breaking rhythm. Life with her would have been a ride on an eccentric wheel instead of a walk on a treadmill.

 
"I'm afraid I wasn't expecting you to have so much baggage. If you'll wait here I'll go over to the livery and get a wagon for it. It'll only take me—"

 
"I wouldn't dream of waiting here. I'll come along. You can give me a tour of your place."

 
He threw a cautious glance along the street, but it was Sunday, people were at home resting. The only ones about seemed to be the stage driver and a pair of cowboys lounging on the hotel step. He reminded himself Fannie was a relative. It was only his own apprehensions leading him to believe people would peek through their lace curtains and raise eyebrows.

 
"All right. It's only three blocks. Can you make it in those?" He gestured toward her shoes, which sported two-inch heels shaped like rope cleats.

 
She pulled up her skirt, revealing that her shoe tops were made of golden-brown silk vesting, which shimmered in the sun. "Of course I can make it. What a silly question, Edwin. Which way?" Her skirts fell and she captured his arm, striding in a strong, long step that made her skins sound like flapping sails. He was struck anew by her vitality and lack of guile. Obviously, she was a woman to whom conventionalities came second to naturalness. Everything she did seemed natural, from her strong, loud laugh to her almost masculine stride to her unaffected hold on his arm. She seemed unaware that the side of her breast brushed his sleeve as they moved along Main Street toward Grinnell.

 
"How was your trip?"

 
"Ach! Ghastly!" she shot back, and while she amused him with tales of jarred bones and Jake McGiver's ribald language Edwin nearly managed to forget about the proximity of her breast.

 
They rounded the corner and approached the livery barn. The town seemed as sleepy as the horses who stood on three feet to the west of the building. Edwin rolled back the broad front doors, which hung on a steel track. He opened them to their limits so that anyone passing could freely look inside and see that the only thing happening was an innocent tour of the facilities.

 
Inside all was quiet, different on Sunday when little commerce was about. A slice of sun fell across the dirt floor, but inside it was cool, shadowed, redolent of horses and hay. Fannie walked ahead, straight up the aisle between the stalls, looking left and right while Edwin stayed in the sun shaft and watched her. When she reached the far end she took it upon herself to roll open one of the north doors three feet and look out back. He watched her silhouette, stark black against the bright rectangle as she leaned over and poked her head out, looking up at the doorsill, then turned. She bracketed her mouth with both hands. When she called, her voice sounded distant and resonant through the giant barn.

 
"Edwiiiiiiiiiiiin!"—as if she were atop an Alp.

 
He smiled, cupped his mouth, and returned, "Fannieeeeeee?"

 
"You have a great place heeeeere!"

 
"Thank youuuuuuuu!"

 
"Where did you get all these buggieeeees?"

 
"In Rockforrrrrrrrrd."

 
"Where's thaaaaaaat?"

 
"West of Cheyeeeeeeene."

 
"Are you riiiiiiiich?"

 
Edwin dropped his hands and burst out laughing.
Fannie, darling Fannie, I will play hell resisting you.
He slowly walked the length of the barn and stopped before her, studying her for a long moment before answering quietly, "I've done all right. I've built Josie a fine house with two stories and plenty of windows."

 
Fannie sobered. "How is she, Edwin? How is she, really?"

 
For the first time their eyes met with all pretense stripped away and he saw that she cared deeply, still, not only about him but about her cousin.

 
"She's dying, Fannie."

 
Fannie moved to him so swiftly he had no chance to evade her. "Oh, Edwin, I'm so sorry." She captured his two hands, folded them between her own, and rested her lips against the tips of his longest fingers. For moments she stood just so, absorbing the truth. Drawing back, she gazed into his eyes with a determination so palpable he could not look away. "I promise you I'll do everything in my power to make it easier on both of you. As long as it takes … whatever it takes … do you understand?"

 
He could not answer, for his heart seemed to have expanded and filled his throat, where it clamored at her touch. She was near enough that he could smell the dust in her clothing, the scent of her hair, of her skin; could feel her breath upon their aligned hands while a sunprick of light touched her somber hazel eyes.

 
"Because I have never stopped loving either one of you," she added, and stepped back so abruptly he was left with his hands folded in midair. "Now show me your stable quickly so I can go see my cousin."

 
He did so in a tangle of emotions, her words shimmering along his nerve endings. Whatever it takes … do you understand? He feared that he did understand, but in the next instant her mercurial mood change made him wonder if he was right. As he showed her the office, which he had neatened for her arrival, and the stalls, which he'd cleaned, and the stock, which he'd curried, she was as breezy as she'd been while calling messages across the barn; as if her quieter, startling words had never been spoken. When the brief tour ended she stood motionless, watching him hitch a horse to a wagon. She did not try to disguise her keen study of him under any pretense of studying the interior of the barn but stood arrow straight with her hands pressed down along her skirts. Not so much as a muscle moved, save those with which she breathed. He moved about, completing his chore, avoiding her glance, feeling as he thought a piece of fruit must feel as it ripens on a tree—warm inside, pressing out, out against its own skin, expanding. She might have been the sun, ripening him.

 
It was her way. She was an observer, a listener, an imbiber. When they were young she had hauled him by the hand into her mother's side yard one night and said, "Shh! Edwin, listen! I believe I can hear the apples growing." And after a moment: "They grow by starlight, instead of by sunlight, you know."

 
"Fannie, don't be silly," he'd said.

 
"I'm not silly. It's true. I'll show you tomorrow."

 
The next day she had cut an apple in half cross-wise and shown him the star inside, formed by the seeds. "See? Starlight," she'd chided, and made a believer of him.

 
Perhaps now she was cataloging the changes in him. Whatever her thoughts, he grew uneasy while her eyes followed him as he moved around Gunpowder, a pure black gelding, whom he was hitching to the buckboard.

 
"Do your children know?"

 
Neither of them had spoken for so long he'd lost the train of conversation. For one startled moment he thought she meant about them—did his children know about himself and Fannie, twenty-two years ago?

 
"The children?" He stood with the gelding between them, his hands on the animal's broad, curved back.

 
"Yes, do they know she's dying?"

 
He released his breath with superb control so she could not guess his thoughts. "I believe Emily has guessed. Frankie's too young to dwell on it much."

 
"I want one thing understood. There'll be no talk of death as long as I'm in your house. She's alive, and as long as she is we must do her the honor of enhancing that life in whatever ways possible."

 
Their eyes met over the horse's back, carrying another unspoken vow of honor. Nothing had changed for either of them, but this was as close as they must come to saying it. Still, they plucked from the afternoon this one ripe moment to look truly into each other's eyes, to accept the creases added to their skin by the years, the paleness of her hair, the brush of silver in his; and to pledge silently never to allow their naked feelings to show like this again.

 
"You have my word, Fannie," he said quietly.

 
The sound of an approaching wagon interrupted as Emily and Charles pulled into the open doorway.

 
Emily spoke before Charles drew the rig to a halt. "Oh, she's here!" Emily bounced down and went straight to Fannie. "Hello, Fannie, I'm Emily."

 
"Well, of course you are. I'd have picked you out in a crowd of strangers." The mercurial Fannie was capable of shifting moods as the situation demanded and chattered gaily, "Edwin, she's the spitting image of you with those blue eyes and black hair. But the mouth I think is Josie's." Holding Emily's hands, she added, "My goodness, child, you're lovely. You got the best of both parents, I'd say."

 
Emily had never considered herself lovely, by anybody's yardstick. The compliment went straight to her heart and brought a moment of self-consciousness as she searched for a graceful response.

 
"Unfortunately, I didn't get Mother's domestic skills, so the entire family is overjoyed to see you here."

 
They all laughed and Emily turned to her father. "I'm sorry we're late, Papa. We went a little farther than I expected."

 
"No harm done."

 
"Fannie, you haven't met Charles." He had drawn up beside them and stepped from the rig. "Charles, this is Mother's cousin, Fannie Cooper. This is Charles Bliss."

 
"Charles … quite as I pictured you." She took stock of his neatly trimmed beard and gray eyes.

 
"How do you do, Miss Cooper."

 
"Now that's the
last
time I want to be called 'Miss Cooper.' I'm Fannie. Just Fannie." They, too, exchanged handclasps. "You realize, of course, that I know at what age you learned to walk on stilts and what kind of a student you were and what an excellent carpenter you are."