Mail Order Bride- Springtime Page 10

  The disturbance from downstairs woke her some time later. It might have been minutes or hours since the kerosene lamp had guttered and died, and she turned from face-down to side in confusion. The noise was subdued, it was true, but unexpected: the front door opening and closing, a few scrapes of wooden furniture across the floor, the furtive rasp of male voices.

  Disoriented, she sat up in bed to listen.

  Benjamin. Ah. So he had finally decided to seek out his own rooftree, had he?

  And Gabriel, his partner in crime.

  And both, she could tell by the sound, drunk as skunks.

  Her mouth thinned, and, reinforced by what she imagined, her mood darkened. Jerking the comforter back into place, she plunged a fist into the flattened pillow and threw herself upon it. A pox on those horrible, devious males and their horrible, devious doings! She was exhausted, and she intended to return immediately to the arms of Morpheus.

  Except that, by now, her mind was awake and flitting from one subject to the other like a rabid dog, frantic to chew.

  The vision of Morpheus was slipping farther and farther away.

  But, at least, if Ben decided to crawl up the stairs to his room, she planned to let him think she was sleeping the sleep of the just. It seemed only right. And, if ever he might try to reconcile, from here on, she would let him know she still had her mad on.

  Camellia woke next morning to a house preternaturally still, with no indication of human presence but her own.

  Having spent most of the night changing position from side to back to other side, sighing dispiritedly, and wiping away silent tears, she could count the sum total hours of sleep on a mere few fingers. The bright sunlight slanting across her bed and onto her face, and the cheerful birdsong emanating from a whole grove of receptive trees, roused her to consciousness.

  Sensing that Ben was long gone by now, she took her time fumbling into her wrapper and seeking out the slippers that, much earlier, she had flung, in a moment of pure fury, across the room.

  Padding downstairs, she found the three main rooms empty, with that desolate, abandoned air that a home acquires when the master has taken himself away.

  Camellia was feeling pretty much the same way herself. It was a lonely proposition, being a mail order bride, unloved, unappreciated, and barely tolerated. She might very well give in to an absolute luxury of weeping and self-pity, were she so inclined.

  “Coffee?” she discovered, following her nose to the shining, sparkling kitchen.

  It was indeed coffee, a half-full granite ware pot gently steaming on the stove’s back burner. Beautiful, aromatic, restorative coffee, that Ben had brewed for her to enjoy upon rising.

  And a note on the table, held down (as if some errant breeze might boldly whisk it away) by the same jar of delicious strawberry jam—now much depleted.

  “Didn’t want to wake you,” she read aloud, “because you must have been tired after all the cleaning you did yesterday. I’ll be back in a week. Maybe sooner. Sorry.”

  No salutation, no signature. Well, who did she think might have written it—the minister who had married them, or that lout of a doctor keeping him company during their round of all the available bars and hootchy houses in town? She knew what went on. She knew how this worked. Hadn’t she seen her father come unsteadily through the door, countless times, smelling of stale cigars and bad whiskey and cheap perfume? What else could her dearly departed husband be sorry for?

  She crumpled the thin paper against her breast.

  However. At least he had left a note. That alone was helping to salve her wounded feelings, just a little. A very little.

  Before she had time to think things through, a brisk knock sounded at the door, startling her so that she almost dropped the cup.

  “Gak! Who—who’s there?”

  “It’s Gabe, ma’am. Gabriel Havers. The doctor, remember? Wonderin’ if I could stop by and see you for a few minutes?”

  She squealed her displeasure. “See me? But—it’s so early! Of course you can’t see me!”

  “Uh—it’s nearabouts ten o’clock, ma’am,” came his friendly voice through the door. “Are you indisposed in some way?”

  “Indisposed? No. Not at all.” That wasn’t really a falsehood. A miasma of the spirit could not be considered actual physical illness, could it? “But I am not dressed. It would hardly be proper for me to entertain a gentleman caller in my wrapper.”

  Chuckling, he shuffled his feet on the floorboards of the porch, as if unsure whether to stay or go. “Mrs. Forrester, I assure you I have seen ladies—uh—patients in far less than a wrapper. Meanwhile, there is a reason for my presence; I, like the Greeks, come bearing gifts.”

  “Gifts?” Camellia’s narrowed eyes matched the suspicion of her voice.”

  “Yep. Doncha wanna see what I have? B’sides, the longer I stand here, the more chance neighbors might see me, and have a chance to gossip about your good name.”

  “Oh, Heaven forfend,” she muttered.

  Yanking the belt together to tie into a loose knot, she stomped across the parlor and flung open the door.

  There, eyes twinkling, Gabriel had the audacity to look her up and down in a frankly lecherous, undoctorly way. “And this is your appearance, first thing in the mawnin’? My, my, Mrs. Forrester, I can only repeat what I’ve said before: your husband is a lucky man.”

  She stared at him. Without warning, to her utter astonishment and his utter consternation, those gas-flame blue eyes filled with tears, and the tears overflowed, and she collapsed onto the nearby settee with a few bitter sobs.

  “Oh, hey, now!”

  Talk about providing fodder for the neighborhood gossips! Hastily he shut the door upon this intriguing scene, set aside the tub full of young flowering bush he carried, and, with a couple of steps, went down on one knee before her. Just that quickly he had slipped into her hand a nicely folded white handkerchief. The item every gentleman carries, in case a distraught young lady ever needs to use it.

  “C’mon, darlin’, whatever I said that upset you, I apologize profusely. Can’t you please just forgive me, and stop cryin’?” poor Gabriel begged.

  A sweet and soft southern voice during normal times, his accent thickened even more with smooth-flowing molasses in moments of stress. Such as this one.

  “No, no,” protested Camellia, mopping at her drenched face even while gulps of contrition tore through her lungs. “No, it’s I who—who must beg forgiveness. So silly—I can’t imagine—what came over me!”

  Gabriel could well guess what had come over her. He had spent too much time with her culpable husband last night, and listened to his many sad tales of woe, not to realize just what was taking place in this short-lived marriage. It was amazing how two people could be so at loggerheads with each other, and after a mere twenty-four hours together, no less. At this rate, what chance might lesser mortals have at happiness?

  He himself was feeling a tad guilty for even the small role he had played in Ben’s fall from grace. Guilt had brought him here this morning, to ascertain Camellia’s mood; guilt would pin him to her side, until she had somewhat recovered.

  For now, he simply moved easily away, taking a seat and waiting silently while she pulled herself together. Gradually the weeping slowed, then stopped entirely.

  When the emotional deluge had died away to just an occasional sniffle, the doctor smiled brightly. “Got any coffee, Camellia?”

  “Oh, you—you men—!” she fluttered, torn between another onslaught of tears and laughter.

  “Yeah, I know. Always practical. But you don’t need to say it like that’s a bad thing.”

  “Doctor.” Her startled gaze took in his gift, parked largely in the middle of the floor to dwarf assorted furniture, “You brought me a—tree—?”

  “Not just a tree, my dear,” he protested, puffing out his chest. “A Royal Star Magnolia, prized everywhere for its fragrance. By all that’s holy, get a whiff of those blossoms. We shall plant thi
s beauty outside, bring it sunshine and water, and enjoy the show. Now, then.” Rising, he extended his hand to her. “C’mon. Let’s get some coffee, and you can tell me all your troubles.”

  She squinted up at him through reddened eyes. “What makes you so nice?”

  He chuckled. “Oh, honey, that’s just part of my native charm. You got anything to go with that coffee—maybe some cornbread or scrambled eggs or such?”

  “Do I look like a restaurant?”

  “No, ma’am, you do not. I wouldn’t dare tell you what you look like.”

  Time passed pleasantly over the kitchen table. She left him to his mug of coffee long enough to skim up the stairs and hurriedly change into a decent dress and light cloth shoes. Then, wrapping her slim self with a plain white apron, she prepared a mid-morning brunch for the two of them.

  “These victuals ain’t too bad,” he offered a halfway compliment. “Better’n what I could fix, anyway. So—uh—you got yourself kinda calmed down, now, back to feelin’ okay?”

  I’m not sure I will ever feel okay again. “Of course. Please realize that my—my—distress—was only an aberration. Pray tell, have you no office hours to keep? No patients to see?”

  “I thank you for your concern, but at the moment I’m free as a bird. Everybody in this town is disgustin’ly healthy.”

  Camellia found Gabriel Havers an interesting—and interested—conversationalist. He spoke of local topics first, while he devoured a less-than-perfect omelet and cold slices of ham. This town business or that town business. People moving in, people moving out. Plans for building decent sidewalks and improving streets, for providing outdoor lights once darkness descended, for beefing up the sheriff’s office by hiring another deputy or two—all being considered by Turnabout’s Council, all having been proposed by Turnabout’s Mayor.

  “Indeed,” the woman said thoughtfully. She was nibbling on a thin slice of bread, keeping her visitor company, and absorbing every fact he decided to share.

  “Eat, girl, eat. Come a strong wind, those skirts are gonna just pick you up and float you away like a kite, you don’t put on some weight.”

  “I have already been advised of that—just recently.”

  “Not surprisin’.” He glanced up at her from under the thick reddish-blonde brows. “So what’s on your mind, Camellia? Wanna know a little more about that husband of yours than he’s been willin’ to tell you?”

  She dusted her sticky fingers across one of the napkins she had unearthed during yesterday’s cleaning. “Ben has not,” she observed thoughtfully, “been very forthcoming.”

  “Again, not surprisin’. He’s a very private person, keeps things locked up. He ain’t used to sharin’, that’s for sure. Figured the man would live and die a crotchety ol’ bachelor, so I about dropped my teeth when he told me he was gettin’ hitched.”

  “No doubt he was pleased, assuming he’d found someone docile as a packhorse,” said Camellia bitterly, “to clean his house and cook his food and wash his clothes. But someone who would otherwise never make a peep. No questions, no comments, no opinions. Nothing more, really, than a servant. And after he assured me he was looking for an intelligent wife!”

  “Oh, sure he does. And you are exactly that, no doubt about it. But I think you challenge him, Camellia, and that’s a fact. And I think the whole reason he went so far afield to find him a lady is b’cause nobody around here will have him.”

  Camellia stared. “What? Whyever not? Is there something wrong with my husband that I have yet to discover?”

  Finally finished “swillin’ like a hawg” (his own words), Gabriel tipped his chair comfortably back on two legs—while she, waiting for the crash, watched in dismay—and chuckled. “Only what we’ve just been talkin’ about, honey: his refusal to tear down the barrier he’s built up and let anybody in.”

  “I see.”

  A late morning shaft of sunlight slanted in through the south window across a patch of Blackfoot Daisies just outside, stirring a few sleepy bees to life. Clean though the kitchen was, dust motes, close in color to the flowers, glimmered like golden fairy dust. A large mantel clock, displayed prominently on the top shelf of a rather battered walnut sideboard, quietly, reassuringly, ticked away the minutes.

  It was a quiet, comforting room, full of welcome and content, and Camellia sighed with pleasure. Rose petal lotion had softened the slight roughness of her hands, and a night of partial rest had alleviated the soreness of her back and shoulders. Such small physical ailments were a negligible price to pay for the satisfaction of a job well done.

  With a tiny yawn carefully hidden behind one palm, she poured another cup of coffee, in the hope that more caffeine might bring her out of the doldrums. “So I’m not the only one who’s tried to deal with his—his thorny personality.”

  “Oh, Lawdy, no. I’m tellin’ you, that’s why he was alone for so long.” Gabriel reached for his own cup and took a thoughtful sip. “I dunno, Cam. We were all of us affected by the War, and I think we’ll carry it to our graves. But, Ben—well, I think it was harder for him than for some others.”

  She nodded. “Yes, he did tell me about his brother Jackson falling at Gettysburg. And that the other brother, Cole, disappeared, out west. And, then, there was the estrangement between him and his parents.”

  “Huh. That ain’t the half of it. Those two limbs of Satan betrayed him to the local authorities—good Rebs, every one of ’em—and he was hauled away in chains.”

  Her gasp of horror sounded extra-loud in the stillness. Was there no end to the unknowns being exposed throughout this conversation? How many more secrets about her enigmatic husband would she learn?

  “Oh, but surely—surely—not their own son—?”

  “Hard to figure, ain’t it? No wonder the boy doesn’t want nothin’ to do with either one. Reckon he’s just plain lost his faith in humanity. Benjamin woulda been hanged, if he and another fellah hadn’t managed to escape.”

  The shiver deep inside her middle seemed to be radiating outward, along every muscle, to her very fingertips. What a far-ranging effect of war, down through generations; what tangible, lingering anathema and pure hatred to carry forward!

  “See, I know just how rough this past weekend was on you, and that you’re mad enough at Ben to spit ten-penny nails. And I ain’t sayin’ he don’t deserve it. But, darlin’, next time you two have a dust-up, just remember what I’ve told you of his past, and try to give him the benefit of the doubt.”

  There were two sets of doubts needing benefit, two sides to every coin. It was called compromise. Camellia’s mouth set into a mutinous line.

  “He’s a rich man, y’ know.”

  Camellia blinked. “Ben?”

  “Yup. Came here without a penny in his pocket, worked hard eighteen hours a day, and been on the road to prosperity ever since. You’ll end up with a pretty decent life, Mrs. Forrester, if you can stick it out through the tough times.”

  Another unexpected revelation, one to which she would have to give careful thought. Whatever kind of life she ended up with, Camellia refused to surrender her own sense of self, her standards, her ideals, her visions and dreams.

  Stung, she flashed, “Do you take me, then, to be so venal?”

  “No, o’ course not, perish the thought. And, now,” the doctor’s chair legs came back to earth with a hearty thunk, “suppose you fill me in about your background, Camellia, my dear, and let Uncle Gabe solve all your problems in one magical session. And then we’ll go plant that nice expensive magnolia tree in your back yard.”

  Chapter Twelve

  THE REAR HALF OF THE first floor had been divided into two rooms: the kitchen, an ample area serviced by wonderful wide windows and a back door which led to another porch and the yard full of trees, grass, and outbuildings; and a smaller open space holding an oak library table, several leather chairs, a desk, and some nicely filled bookcases.

  The front half had been given over to a parlor, which held interesti
ng mixes of formal and informal. A large fringed rug, topped by small round tables scattered here and there, three or four upholstered armchairs and a settee to match, and some objets d’art that looked chosen by some masculine hand more for filler than for appreciation, covered most of the wooden floor.

  The main wall, looking out onto the verandah, supported a substantial fireplace and wooden mirror; the north wall had been bumped out for a trio of windows that held an inviting cushioned seat. Against the remaining outside wall stood, not surprisingly, an upright piano, its lid closed and its top wearing a layer of dust. Most homes of that era featured a piano, thus ensuring their own brand of entertainment.

  Better than seeking out the bawdy houses and saloons, for sure!

  Satisfactory rooms, all in all, but certainly in need of a woman’s touch, for cleaning and straightening and rearranging.

  All of which Camellia, somewhat restored, achieved later that afternoon.

  Once again, wearing another older dress, her form tied snugly into one of the aprons packed an eon ago at the St. Louis mansion, her hair snugged under a scarf, she swept and dusted, polished with lemon oil and washed with ammonia. By pushing and pulling, she managed to move the long settee (newly brushed) to a better location in front of the fireplace (newly scrubbed). Which meant a different position for the remaining furniture.

  She removed a few extraneous, outdated items (two withered and dried-up potted plants, a stack of yellowed newspapers, candles burned down to a stub, a couple soiled pillows, the display of glass jars and chimneys which held nothing more interesting than bodies of dead flies). She shook loose every fold of the blue paisley curtains and washed the huge fireplace mirror. She worked long and diligently, until the room had been loved enough back into a sleek and shining model of its former self.

  Just as during her work in the kitchen, she made mistakes and fell victim to accidents.