Strands of Bronze and Gold, page 17
“Gideon, can’t you see we’re doing nothing wrong meeting here? Our situation is different because there’s no way—no way—”
He drew his hand down his face. “I’ve tried to convince myself of what you say, but being with you like this, I’m putting you in a compromising position, not to mention betraying the deference I owe my calling.” He looked down at me, his eyes earnest, pleading for my understanding. I turned my head away. “You’re young and innocent and can’t realize how wrong it is. I’m years older and should know better. Can’t you see that it’s best for you if we don’t meet again until our situations are different, and then we can—”
I snatched away my hand from his arm. “Best for me?” I said in a low, shaking voice. “Why does everyone in this world think they know what’s best for me? What’s best for me is to continue to get to know a man who is good through and through and who makes me want to be a better person. That is what’s best for me.”
“I wish I were the man you think me.” He smiled faintly, and I wondered if he knew how very sad it made him appear. “If I were king of the world, I would make everything different.”
I couldn’t even attempt a smile.
He gathered up my forest treasure and put it in my arms. “I shall—bid you goodbye now.” His shoulders sagged as he walked away.
With burning eyes, I watched him. Jealousy that he could leave and I could not tangled inside me with a yearning to run after him and cling to his side.
When I emerged from the woods, Odette sniffed upon seeing the bundle in my arms, but she picked up a branch I dropped.
I placed my bounty in a vase on my mantel. The room looked warmer with the fall colors lighting it.
Somehow I got through the week, even though I worried when I found no more notes from Gideon. Surely he hadn’t really meant what he said about ceasing meeting me? It couldn’t be so—not with the intensity of what was growing between us. And why should I expect frequent messages? He had a great many duties. I would see him on Monday. I always saw him on Mondays. I anticipated our next time together all the more. In fact, on Sunday night I awaited the following day with such eagerness M. Bernard accused me of “glowing” during supper. I must be careful not to appear too joyous without a reason I could share.
“I was riding Lily and getting some wonderful exercise,” I told him. “Would you like to take Aramis out with us tonight? We haven’t ridden together in ages.”
Immediately distracted, he agreed and began telling me at length of beautiful foreign places he’d ridden. My mind was able to wander toward Gideon once again.
When the morning arrived, I dressed with care and happily made my way to our meeting place.
He was not there.
For half an hour I waited, and then I tried to seek Gideon out, tramping in every direction until I was ready to drop. Nowhere did I catch a glimpse of the black frock coat and long legs. An echoing hollowness inside me confirmed that he was not coming.
There might be a note. I raced, stumbling, to the tree. Inside the hole was a sheet of paper. With trembling hands, I unfolded it. The message was short.
Dear Miss Petheram,
In vain I have struggled over our situation, trying to convince myself that I can honorably continue to meet as we have been meeting. However, in spite of—or because of—the very high regard I have for you, I cannot reconcile my conscience with the position in which I have been placing both of us. I know you don’t agree with this, but please understand that I truly believe it’s for the best. I hope our circumstances will change someday. I’m so sorry.
Gideon Stone
I sank down onto a log and stared straight ahead. It was all over. It had barely begun, and now it was over. The meetings with Gideon had been my only joy, my only hope … and he was sorry. Heat flamed my cheeks. I crumpled up the note and stuffed it into my pocket. If he felt for me the way I feel for him, he couldn’t stay away. I was head over heels in love with Gideon Stone, but he must not be in love with me. He would forget propriety if he were. He would forget honor.…
No. Even as I thought that last, I knew it was false. I would not love Gideon as I did if he weren’t the man he was. I thought of the poem “To Lucasta, Going to the Wars”: I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honor more. I had always disliked that line because it seemed as if the writer must not have cared for the girl if he could leave her so, but I understood it better now. That verse would be my Gideon’s creed. He was a man of integrity.
I buried my face in my hands and wept bitterly.
Someone touched my shoulder. I gasped.
“Honey, it ain’t so bad as all that.”
An African woman stood over me, her face the color of burnished oak, obviously ancient but unwrinkled, with her skin stretched tight over jutting cheekbones. A good witch.
“You best come with me, lil Miss,” she said, gesturing with one warped, bony hand. “You best come with me, and I fix you a hot herb drink. It make you feel better right quick.”
She turned and stalked through the trees without looking behind, as if there were no question I would follow her. I followed her.
She was a tiny woman, wearing the ugliest striped calico I had ever seen, with an apron of bleached flour sacks. The kerchief she wore on her head was scarlet, and corkscrew tendrils of iron gray hair peeked from beneath. When she hitched up her skirts to step over fallen logs, it seemed a miracle she could hold herself up with such shriveled, scrawny limbs, but she walked ahead very straight-backed. She carried a switch to whip through the undergrowth before her.
“Don’t need to step in none of them traps, no sir,” she muttered.
She led me to a hovel whose walls leaned so pitifully I tilted my head to take it in. A garden patch, now fallow, surrounded it.
She turned to wait in the doorway and gestured with her switch at the short, saffron stalks poking up from the dirt. “My herbs grow there in season,” she said. “I dries them and sells them in town. I makes enough for my needs and a little extra to tuck away.” She gave a quick, birdlike shake of her head as she studied my face. “You be wore to a frazzle, lil Miss. You best come in and set.”
I stooped to enter. The tiny room was pungent from the scent of dried herbs dangling from rafters. It contained a rickety table with a couple of cane-bottom chairs, missing slats, drawn up to it; a thin bedstead covered with a patchwork quilt; and a lidded crate, which must act as the bureau. On one wall hung an unlikely colored print of an angelic little blond girl romping with puppies. The room was warm from the fire flickering on the hearth, where an iron kettle steamed. My head brushed the herbs, releasing more scent, as I sat down where the old woman indicated.
“My name be Anarchy,” she said as she bustled about, pouring hot water from the kettle into a brown crockery mug and sprinkling it with dried leaves she pinched from one of the bundles.
“Anarchy?” I asked, unsure if I had heard her properly.
“Yes, indeedy,” she said. “I done used to belong to the Vassars, them that owns Bella Vista Plantation, but when Mr. Richard give me to Miss Fanny, who I nursed from the day she was borned, she give me my freedom papers. I got them still, there in that box. Anthony—my son Anthony who still belong to Mr. Richard—he tell me I supposed to pay the courthouse three dollars every three years to renew them, but I don’t pay him no mind. I ain’t giving no courthouse no dollars till I good and ready. I got to save to buy Anthony’s baby’s freedom. She my baby princess. She small and fine and don’t got no mama no more—she won’t live to grow up if they work her too hard. I gots more’n half her price saved. Mr. Richard say he give me a good deal on her.”
The horror of a system where a grandmother matter-of-factly spoke of bargaining to buy her grandchild left me speechless. Luckily Anarchy didn’t expect a response.
“I don’t worry none about me. Miss Fanny wouldn’t let no one bother me here. She give me that picture too”—here she pointed to the print on the wall—“to remind me of my little girl I loved so well. It favors her as a child. Now you sip that. Chamomile to calm your nerves. I done put honey in too, from my own bees. Sweetest there is. You feel better right quick.”
The warmth and sweetness and scent of the place wrapped around me until I did feel better. And curious.
“Why didn’t you go up North when you received your freedom?” I asked.
She gave a cackle. “If this child ain’t asking what folks always ask …,” she said to the ceiling. “What they teach these folks make them always wonder that? I say, why should I? I got Miss Fanny and my Anthony and my grandbaby close by. I happy as a duck with a june bug. Anthony, he just made me these squirrel-skin boots I got on. Ain’t they fine?”
With a funny little flourish, she displayed her feet, and oddly the boots were fine. Anthony had obviously fashioned them with care, the squirrel skin soft and supple, and the fit perfect. Oddly, too, I loved this room, filled with Anarchy’s contentment. She had nothing, nothing, and yet she was happy.
“Anthony is a craftsman,” I said.
The old woman glowed with pride. “He make all the shoes on the plantation just like his daddy done before him. Miss Fanny, she used to dance for his daddy, so he’d make hers extra pointed and dainty.” She cackled again. “Too dainty. She got bunions now. Here. Miss Fanny brung me this cake last time she come, but I been saving it for an occasion. This be it. You eat it all up.”
She unwrapped a slice of very old, very dark fruitcake, bulging with hardened raisins, and laid it before me. I choked it down.
“My name is Sophie,” I said when I finished brushing crumbs from my mouth.
“Well now, lil Miss Sophie, you be wanting to tell old Anarchy what’s got you heartsore, ain’t you?” She seated herself on the other chair and waited with shrewd eyes.
I did. I did want to tell her. At first I didn’t know where to begin, but soon it came spilling out. I told her of my childhood and of my father’s death and of my life with M. Bernard and finally of my misery over Gideon. At some point Anarchy quietly began to rub my shoulders.
“Uh, uh, uh,” she said. “You been through a time, ain’t you? You been so lonesome and finally you think you got someone good and then he be snatched from you. Uh, uh, uh. All’s I can tell you is it’ll get better. You got to wade through the pain and the hurt, and when you come out the other side, you be stronger for it. I know your preacher man—he comes round here now and again to buy herbs and honey—he trying to do what he thinks right, but I got a inkling you be with him yet. And that Mr. Cressac—he a piece of work! But you is smart enough to deal with him.”
I gave a quavering smile. “Thank you for everything, Anarchy. I’d better go now.”
“Yes, you go. But first fix your hair and put your clothes to rights. You look like you been rode hard and put away wet.”
I laughed and drew my fingers through my hair. “May I come back and visit you sometimes?”
“Laws-a-mercy yes. I loves company! Have a blessed day.”
I started away briskly, but I soon slowed as the warmth seeped out of me. Once more I was absolutely alone.
A gray pall hung over my world in the following days, even with the sunniest skies, as if a film of grime covered everything. Poor Lily stood bored in her stall. Vaguely I hoped Garvey exercised her, but I didn’t ask.
I would do anything—anything—if I could see Gideon one more time. If only I could see him once more, maybe I could convince him …
The next Monday, nearly without hope, I waited again in the glade, clutching the little silver lapel pin Gideon had used to attach his note to the shawl. Of course he didn’t come.
Him and his unyielding male stubbornness. I dashed the pin hard across the glade so that it bounced against a tree trunk.
I scurried to pick it up and clean it off, my sorrow sharp once more.
Somehow I had to make something good come out of this awful experience. I would use it as a turning point to be a changed girl in the future. If I had been a Catholic, I would have entered a nunnery, but as it was, I would be a girl who cared less about pretty clothes and more about important things. I would try to pin down my butterfly mind. Anne would be here in six weeks; she would find me a much older and wiser sister.
And then a disturbing letter arrived. It began in Anne’s own pleasant style, but soon she stated her true reason for writing. Sophie, it read, if there were any other way, I would not come to you with this problem, particularly when you were so kind as to send money not long ago, but Harry is in dire straits. He has been running with a fast and affluent crowd, and recently he has been going with them to a high-stakes gaming house. He is deeply, deeply in debt, and so desperate he frightens me, saying things so wicked I cannot repeat them. Please, please bring this Terrible Misfortune to M. de Cressac’s attention. Oh, I am ashamed, but I must ask you to do this.
She went on to name a horrifying sum. I racked my brain for a way to obtain it without approaching my godfather. I couldn’t ask him for more. I could not.
M. Bernard noted my shadowed eyes and listlessness with concern. “You are unwell. I will instruct Ling to administer one of his Oriental tonics.”
I took the tonic, but to no avail.*
At last I developed a plan. I would package up my finest jewelry—the ornate emerald set with necklace, earrings, bracelet, and finger ring—and send it to Anne. She could sell it for more than the requested amount. If only there were a way I could mail it myself, but there was none. I must trust Ducky.
I tied up the parcel with string and sealed it with wax. As I placed it in Ducky’s hands, I said, “It’s merely a trifle I’m sending to my sister. A small gift I thought she could use before she arrives here.”
“I’ll give it to George to post,” she said.
I sighed with relief. Ducky wouldn’t have the audacity to peek inside a sealed bundle.
That evening my heart skipped a beat when my bedroom door flew open just as Odette finished dressing me for dinner. M. Bernard burst in.
“Leave us, Odette,” he said. “I must have an interview with Mademoiselle Sophia.”
“Now?” My voice squeaked as Odette curtsied and swished out, but not before she cast me a concerned look over Monsieur’s shoulder.
“Now.” His tone made my blood turn chill.
I knew immediately what had happened. Oh, Ducky, Ducky, you seem so harmless.…
The cords in M. Bernard’s neck stood out and his eyes blazed. He flung the poor little parcel, all unsealed, onto my bed. The emerald pieces scattered, glittering green. “What is the meaning of this? Did you dislike my gift? Is that it?”
His voice blasted me. Would he actually strike me? I had been waiting for it, fearing it, I realized now, for a long while.
I sat on the edge of the bed, licked my dry lips, and said slowly, “I didn’t know what to do. Anne wrote saying my brother Harry is in deep trouble. I hoped she could sell it.”
“When was this?”
“The letter came a few days ago. I thought the jewelry was mine.”
“It is yours, but only to do with as I will. Am I such a beast you did not dare approach me? What did you think I would do? Beat you and lock you in a tower with only dry crusts of bread?”
“No, sir,” I said, although that thought had occurred to me. “Of course you would have been generous as always, but you’ve done so much I couldn’t bear to ask for more.”
“Therefore, you chose to deceive me.”
“It was not deception.”
“Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”
Suddenly I was sick of being questioned, sick of the frequent humiliation, sick of constantly appeasing him. I sat up straight. “Honestly it wasn’t such a terrible thing. I simply tried to take care of something without bothering you.”
“Apologize for not confiding in me, and then perhaps I will listen to your request.” His voice was cold and quiet now.
Did he expect me to kneel at his feet to beg for the money? Well, I would not. I made myself slow my breathing so that the emotion bursting behind my ribs would subside. I must remember Harry. He was what mattered. “I beg your pardon, sir,” I said. “I’ll never again hesitate to ask when I have a need.” Somehow, still seated on my bed, I managed to ask M. Bernard for the funds without dying of shame.
“I will send a bank draft that will cover it,” he said when I finished. “It shall be posted today to relieve their minds.”
As I reached to gather up the jewelry, M. Bernard’s hand closed over my wrist as if in a vise.
I stared up at him, startled.
Slowly he released me. “Remember well, Sophia, if you do not better value my gifts, everything will be taken from you.”
“I’ll remember.”
It was as if a silken net further tightened around me.
On the following Monday, this time without a shred of hope, I went to the glade for the last time.
I gave myself a stern lecture when, of course, it was vacant. If I continued this way, I should fall into a decline, and I refused to be a declining sort of person. Life must go on.
I worked to rouse myself. I walked in the gardens. I exercised Lily. I stitched away on the tapestry. I made myself focus on the pages of books I read. I continued to study biology, although it pressed on the bruised bits of my heart to do so.
“We need an outing,” M. Bernard announced one evening. “Tomorrow we shall drive into Memphis so you may shop for Christmas gifts for your siblings.”
I had not left the abbey’s boundaries for five months—the excitement I showed was genuine.
The next morning eagerness sped my footsteps as I went out to the waiting carriage while it was yet dark. Despite having endured Odette’s black looks because of having to rise early (when I knew she’d go back to bed as soon as I left), I had enjoyed making my toilette today. Over my gown of golden figured brocade I wore a brown velvet day cloak. My bonnet was of amber pleated silk with an ostrich plume that reached down to caress my cheek.
