Courting Trouble (23 page)

————

Essie refused to eat.

‘‘I’m fasting,’’ she told her mother, then she wedged a chair underneath her doorknob and read her Bible.

She read Ecclesiastes.

‘‘‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.’ . . . Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure. . . . I said of laughter—‘Madness!’; and of mirth, ‘What does it accomplish?’’’

She memorized verses, then chapters. She ignored her mother’s pleas to come out. Her father’s commands to unbar the door.

Hours turned into a day, then into two days. Still she read. Memorized. Fasted. Christ had gone without food for forty days. Surely she could share in His sacrifice.

She wasn’t worried about her baby—if there even was one. She had complete faith that God would take care of it. She was, after all, fasting. An endeavor that God would honor by protecting any babe He’d created.

Papa kicked the door open, his face red. Whether from anger or exertion, she wasn’t sure. She stared at him, unmoved and unrepentant. Mother led her to the kitchen and fed her.

The food did not settle well and left her stomach shortly after reaching it. She had no energy. No interest in bicycling. No will to do anything other than sleep and read her Bible.

For the first time, she realized what a burden she must be to her parents. All she’d ever done was make mistakes, and that was probably all she’d ever do. She should have long ago left the nest. Yet here she was, still in their home. Eating their food. Encroaching on their privacy. Spending their money on fine clothes.

In the weeks that followed, she restricted herself to the simplest of attire. Dark skirts, white shirtwaists, no hats. She tried not to eat too much, so as not to be a burden. She worked harder than ever before around the house and garden.

She gathered all her hats and put them in burlap bags.

‘‘What are you doing?’’ her mother asked.

‘‘I’m going to give my hats to the poor,’’ she said, descending the stairs with three bulky sacks.

Mother pointed to a corner of the hall. ‘‘Set them there. I have some things to give away, as well. I’ll put yours with mine.’’

The next day the bags were gone. Essie wondered what it would be like to see someone else in town wearing one of her hats. She wondered if she’d care.

She took a basket of bedding out to the clothesline. Her mother joined her.

‘‘There is no babe,’’ Essie said, pinning one corner of a sheet onto the taut wire before securing its other corner.

Mother paused, a pillow slip in her hand. She offered no response, good or otherwise.

————

Essie chose another pecan from the bucket, cracked it open, then began to pick out its fruit. The sun had risen more than an hour ago, and she had been on the porch shelling pecans long before the first glimmer of light had touched the sky.

In an effort to ward off the cool breeze, she adjusted a blanket thrown about her shoulders.

Her mother pushed open the screen door and stepped out onto the back porch. ‘‘The Harvest Festival is today.’’

The day Essie was supposed to have married Adam. She placed a shelled nut into a bowl at her side.

‘‘Have you decided what you are going to wear?’’ Mother asked.

‘‘I’m not going.’’ She cracked another nut.

‘‘You’ll miss the tightrope walker.’’

‘‘I’m no longer interested in such frivolities.’’

Mother eased into a rocking chair. ‘‘Essie, dear. I think it is time we had a talk.’’

Essie raised a brow. ‘‘I believe it’s a little late to be discussing the birds and the bees, don’t you?’’

Mother blushed but remained steady. ‘‘Actually, I would venture to guess there is quite a bit you don’t yet know, but that is not what I wanted to talk about.’’

The sun touched a corner of the porch but offered no relief from the chill in the air. Essie’s fingers ached from the cold. She ignored it and harvested another pecan.

Mother moistened her lips. ‘‘Young women are taught that losing their virtue is synonymous with losing their right to marry.’’ She paused. ‘‘I want you to know, your father and I do not agree with that line of thinking.’’

The pecan Essie was picking splintered. She popped the ruined fruit into her mouth, its dry texture rough and hard to swallow.

‘‘What I’m trying to say is, if you think you can no longer marry because of what happened between you and that young man, then I think you will find that is not the case.’’

‘‘Oh, Mother,’’ Essie said. ‘‘What you and Papa believe about such things means nothing. It is what the man in question believes that is at issue. And I would venture to guess, no man wants used goods. Besides, I cannot credit any man wanting me, chaste or no.’’

‘‘I have complete faith that God has someone for you.’’

Essie rolled her eyes. ‘‘Are you quite through?’’

‘‘You do not have to give up your zest for life,’’ Mother said, leaning forward. ‘‘You needn’t give up your hats, either, simply because you made a mistake.’’

‘‘Perhaps I want to give those things up. Perhaps I am tired of adventure and extravagant hats and wild living. It has brought me nothing but ridicule and scorn. I cannot believe that you, of all people, are trying to discourage me from living decorously.’’

‘‘Oh, Essie. I am merely pointing out that to try and mold yourself into some image the town has of a ‘proper woman’ is no way to experience God’s grace. You have made a mistake. Well, it wasn’t the first and it certainly won’t be the last.’’

‘‘That’s not the way you raised me. Why the sudden change of heart?’’

‘‘Maybe I’ve come to realize that, under the circumstances, riding bicycles and sliding down banisters are not really worth worrying over.’’

‘‘Well, it doesn’t matter anyway,’’ Essie said. ‘‘My new life of works and quiet living will please God. No more mistakes for me.’’

The sun edged closer, teasing the hem of Essie’s gown.

‘‘You cannot make yourself righteous by simply changing your behavior,’’ Mother replied.

Essie stiffened. ‘‘I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.’’

‘‘What I mean is that when Christ died on that cross, He took your sin upon himself. The very one you committed with Mr. Currington. As well as all the ones you have committed in the past and will commit in the future.’’

Cracking another pecan, Essie stuffed down the lump rising in her throat.

‘‘Have you so little appreciation for His sacrifice that you would fling it back in His face by trying to earn your way to heaven?’’ Mother rose.

Essie’s fingers stilled.

‘‘Tell me this, dear. What good is God’s mercy if we never have need of it?’’

She reentered the house, leaving Essie alone. Her hands lay still. A half-shelled pecan rolled from her fingertips and clattered onto the porch. The sun slowly climbed up her skirt and onto her lap, blessing her with warmth for the first time in a long, long while.

————

Buggies filled the roads. Single buggies, double rigs, and even some ‘‘Hug-Me-Tight’’ carriages with barely enough room for two. Horses of all kinds pranced through the streets, kicking up dust as they clip-clopped amongst the throng.

A giant tent had been staked out on Ninth Street. Beneath its shelter were rows of tables and booths selling every kind of goods imaginable. Children pulled taffy. Women circled around quilts. Men bet on the horse race that was to be run later in the day.

Mr. Lyman had parked his old wagon next to the tent, the perfume from his spicy chili pervading the air. He stirred his concoction in a large iron cauldron over charcoal coals. Bowls of chili were five cents each with an added bonus of all the crackers you could eat for free. His dog, Wolf, lay at his master’s feet, never leaving his side.

A rope high up in the air stretched taut, spanning the street between the balconies of Keber & Cobb’s Confectionery and Castle’s Drug Store. A mule-drawn street car gave its ‘‘last call’’ warning for potential riders.

The excitement of the atmosphere began to draw Essie in. She wore a dark wool skirt and white shirtwaist beneath her simple cloth cape and velvet collar. Her hat was dark and modest.

When she’d returned to her room this morning, two of the sacks she’d discarded earlier leaned against her bed. Inside were the hats she’d told Mother to give away. She assumed Mother had given the missing third sack to charity.

Essie wove through the aisles underneath the tent, looking for the table where she was to work. The ladies from her church had set up a baked-goods booth, and Essie was to help man it for a few hours. Just like she’d told God she would. Only, He hadn’t delivered His end of the bargain.

She passed Mr. Weidmann’s booth where people lined up to buy fruitcake. She waved to him, but he was so mobbed with customers, he didn’t see her.

At long last, she found her table. Sitting behind it was Katherine Crook. Hamilton’s beloved wife. She wore an exquisite gown of broadtail fur and moiré combined in an intricate design. A high collar of chinchilla was surrounded by a lower collar of Russian sable, both framing her delicate face.

Her hat, however, did not live up to the gown’s requirements. Instead, the flat design with very little ornamentation appeared incongruous with the rest of her costume. Still, Essie’s ready-mades were pauper’s fare next to hers.

‘‘Well, hello,’’ Essie said.

‘‘Miss Spreckelmeyer.’’ Her tone was polite but cool.

‘‘I’m supposed to help sell at this booth. Are you coming or going?’’ Essie asked, circling behind the table.

‘‘I just arrived. I didn’t know you were to be working with me. I’d heard you were, um, indisposed.’’

‘‘Had you? How very strange.’’ Essie looked over the goods on the table and began to rearrange them.

‘‘What are you doing?’’

‘‘I’m grouping the goods so that they will be more pleasing to the eye and so they will make more sense to the customer.’’ She put the meringue pies on one end and the frosted cakes on the other.

‘‘You’d best take note, my dear,’’ Hamilton said, stepping up to the table. ‘‘Essie has quite a knack for sales. I’ve no doubt the hours she works will be the most profitable for the booth.’’

Katherine clicked her tongue. ‘‘Honestly. You say the most ridiculous things sometimes.’’

Essie looked up in surprise. ‘‘Hamilton. My goodness. How are you?’’

A healthy color tinged his round cheeks, no doubt from the brisk weather. There was nothing cool about his gaze, though. It conveyed warmth and kindness. She smiled in response.

His square spectacles had slid down his nose so that their upper rims divided his irises in half. She longed to push them back up so she could see his brown eyes without interference.

He tipped the brim of his derby. ‘‘You haven’t stopped by the Slap Out in ages. Haven’t you missed me, Essie? I’ve certainly missed you.’’

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Katherine stiffen. Flustered, Essie didn’t know how to respond. For the truth was, she hadn’t missed him at all.

chapter NINETEEN

HAMILTON DRANK IN the sight of Essie. There was something different about her. She was more reserved. More circumspect. More . . . refined.

He’d have expected her to wear her most outrageous hat to a festival such as this. Yet she wore a very understated hat and a somber costume.

She had greeted him with eloquence instead of exuberance. She rearranged the items on the table in a slow, deliberate manner. He liked this new Essie. He liked her very much.

‘‘What has kept you away?’’ he asked.

‘‘I’ve been . . . busy.’’

‘‘Drilling oil wells?’’

‘‘Not anymore. Papa decided it wasn’t proper and has banned me from them.’’

‘‘Really?’’ Katherine said. ‘‘That’s not quite how I heard it.’’

Essie glanced at her, but Katherine busied herself placing oatmeal cookies in a tin container.

She’d been a model wife, his Katherine, and he loved her to distraction. But he discovered she’d developed a penchant for gossiping. She had an uncanny ability to pluck out two completely unrelated events and connect them together in the most absurd fashion.

Take Essie, for example. Her father’s endorsement of her role in his new oil venture had Katherine’s tongue twanging. Then Jeremy would come to the store and inadvertently mention something that intimated a relationship brewed between Essie and the cowboy who worked for Sullivan Oil—which was ridiculous, of course. Hamilton had seen for himself the type of women Currington had favored, though he couldn’t very well tell Katherine that.

When the drifter left town unexpectedly and the judge reversed his decision to let Essie work in the oil field, Katherine decided it was because Essie and Currington had been involved in a licentious relationship.

Hamilton had never heard of anything so preposterous. And the more he tried to defend Essie’s honor, the more adamantly his wife justified her theory. It had progressed to the point where he wasn’t sure if Katherine was able to separate the truth from whatever fantasy she had concocted within her mind.

‘‘Mrs. Lockhart misses you,’’ he said.

‘‘I miss her, too.’’

‘‘Well,’’ Katherine said, ‘‘I can’t imagine what you were thinking, Miss Spreckelmeyer, to perpetuate the decline of a churchgoing woman. Were it up to me, I’d refuse to order those scandalous books she’s so attached to.’’

Hamilton frowned. ‘‘But it isn’t up to you, is it, my dear? It’s up to me.’’

Essie looked between the two of them. ‘‘You must admit, Hamilton, they are shameful. Mrs. Crook is right about that.’’

Katherine pulled back, causing her chin to collapse into folds against her collar. ‘‘And just how would you know that?’’

A hint of a smile touched Essie’s lips. ‘‘She insisted I read one.
Clarabel’s Love Story,
I believe it was. Quite shocking.’’

Gasping, Katherine sent him an
I-told-you-so
look.

He suppressed a groan and did what he could to repair the damage. ‘‘That was very businesslike of you, Essie. I can’t seem to impress upon Katherine the value of familiarizing herself with the items we carry. Yet you were always so good at that.’’

‘‘Oh, nonsense,’’ Essie said. ‘‘I read that book long after I quit working at the Slap Out. And I’m sure the customers just love Mrs. Crook.’’ She stayed Katherine’s hand. ‘‘You might want to put those pralines next to the divinities. Don’t you think it would be more attractive that way?’’