Garters.htm (23 page)

"Don't
you
try to strike me," he said furiously. "Just because you saw another woman get away with slapping me doesn't mean you can do the same. You are not Miss Sophrona!"

Esme's eyes widened in horrified shock. "How dare you bring her name up between us on our wedding night!"

Cleav opened his mouth to make a crude comment on what should be between them on their wedding night, only to be interrupted by an anxious voice from the second-floor landing.

"What in the name of heaven is going on down there!"

The two combatants stood silently staring at each other. Neither had remembered that they were not alone in the house.

Cleav stepped away and fumbled for a match to light the lamp. "It's me, Mother," he called upstairs with a more controlled tone. "Esme and I are home at last," he commented conversationally. "How are you feeling?"

"I was feeling fine and sleeping peacefully until I was awakened by what sounded like a Saturday-night brawl in my own foyer." Mrs. Rhy's words were clipped and haughty.

Cleav managed to light the lamp and then gave Esme a beseeching glance.

"Evenin', Miz Rhy," Esme said sweetly as she stepped closer to Cleav. "We's real sorry about waking you up. I'm sure glad you're feeling better."

Cleav wrapped his arm loosely around Esme's waist.

When she started to squirm in protest, he tightened his grip.

"The wedding was lovely, Mother," he said evenly. "Everybody in town was there."

Eula Rhy peered curiously at the couple at the foot of the stairs. "You look awful. How did you get so muddy?"

Esme glanced down at her ruined dress and wanted to die with mortification.

"They had a shivaree," Cleave explained calmly. "It's a custom among the hill people to—"

"I know what a shivaree is, Cleavis," his mother replied sharply. "I've lived in these mountains all my life. Your father had to get me down out of a tree, and we both were covered with poison oak." Her eyes stared out into nothingness for a moment as if she were recalling the unpleasant incident fondly. Then, looking at the young couple at the bottom of the stairs, she actually smiled.

As if the memory of her youth had somehow fortified her, the older woman pulled up the sleeves of her wrapper and headed downstairs.

"You'll both be needing baths, no doubt," she said practically. "Esme, do come help me get the water heated."

What a way to start a marriage! Esme thought to herself as she helped Mrs. Rhy draw water for their bath.

"We can just have a basin bath," she had assured her new mother-in-law. But the older woman was having nothing to do with it.

"Lord only knows what kind of vermin you're bringing to my clean sheets," Eula Rhy had declared.

Esme gasped in shock. Mrs. Rhy hastily attempted an explanation. "I mean the both of you all muddy from the shivaree!" she corrected. "A couple only gets one wedding night. The
least
it ought to be is clean."

Esme thought that if a couple got only one wedding night, the least it ought to be is
alone
.

It had taken the better part of an hour to heat enough water for a tub bath. Chivalrously Cleav allowed Esme to bathe first.

The water felt delicious, and Esme was tired, but she couldn't quite relax. She was in Eula Rhy's kitchen, and the older woman showed no inclination to leave her alone with her thoughts. Esme was trapped stark naked in the bathtub as Mrs. Rhy explained Cleavis, his life and family, and Eula's own personal philosophy of marriage. "Things are different today than when I married," she told Esme. "In my day a couple really knew each other and the families were all agreed before the wedding even took place." The older woman shook her head in disapproval. "Now, you and Cleavy don't know the first thing about each other," she said.

"Oh, but we do," Esme insisted. "I've been watching Cleavis for weeks, studying him. I know everything about him."

Eula Rhy snorted in disbelief. "That's obviously not the truth, young woman, or you would have never married him."

Esme's mouth dropped open in shock. "Why do you say that?"

"You seem like a fairly intelligent girl, Esme. If you really knew Cleav, you'd have seen how totally unsuited for him you are."

Esme held her tongue with great effort.

"My son is a gentleman," Eula continued. "His life revolves around the finer things and higher thoughts. A mate for such a man should be as refined and conversant as he is."

Esme's jaw was tight as she scrubbed with diligence. Someone like Sophrona Tewksbury, she thought to herself but refused to utter the words.

"Heaven knows," Mrs. Rhy had rambled on, "it hasn't been easy for me. My late husband was a common man. He'd been to school, of course, and knew a lot about the business. But he never worried about who he was or his place in the world. Our people just weren't like that." Eula gave a tired sigh as she considered the memory.

"But, Cleavis…" She shook her head. "Let me tell you, Esme Crabb, that once Cleavy had been to that school in Knoxville, why, he knew everything about everything and wanted the best of all of it."

"My name isn't Crabb anymore," Esme said quietly. "It's Rhy."

Casting a wary eye at the young woman in the tub, Eula shook her head disapprovingly. "You are not at all what he had in mind when he thought of marrying."

Esme raised her chin defiantly. "Well, maybe not," she admitted grudgingly. "But
we're married now, and I know Cleav well enough to know he won't back down from his vows."

"Of course he wouldn't!" her mother-in-law agreed with a haughty tone that said such a thing was foolish even to suggest.

"I'm learning to help out about the store," Esme told her proudly. "And I know some about his fish, and I'm real interested in that."

"His fish!" Eula Rhy chuckled with disdain. "Those fish are the biggest bunch of foolishness that Cleavis ever involved himself with. There are fish aplenty in the river. There is certainly no call to try raising them like chickens."

"That's probably what the mother of the man who decided to tame the first rooster thought, too."

Eula raised an eyebrow at her daughter-in-law's unexpected defense of Cleav. But young Mrs. Rhy could apparently be counted upon to do the unexpected.

"You married my son for his pecuniary fettle and social position," Eula said evenly. "I fear that you will both find that it takes more than wedding vows to make a marriage."

Sloshing the soap from herself, Esme could think of no appropriate reply. It was not a fact that she could dispute. She'd chosen Cleav for his big white house. It was too late to deny it. Already having a glimpse of the disparity between them—Cleav regarding her mother's fine tablecloth as little more than a rag—Esme wondered if she'd made a mistake.

In all her planning and scheming, she'd never thought past the wedding. And she'd fully expected Cleav to fall in love with her and ask her to be his wife. Having a pair of garters intervene in her favor had thrown molasses in the churn. No matter how thick and hard to paddle, it seemed the combination would never turn to butter.

Esme rose to her feet. Mrs. Rhy, apparently unsatisfied with Esme's ablutions, picked up a bucket and poured the warmed water over the young woman's head.

The rush of water was not unpleasant, but it was a surprise. Esme had the bad manners to shake off the excess like a dog, splattering Eula Rhy, who gave a cry of disgust.

"Here!" she snapped, handing the young woman a towel. "Don't you even know how to take a bath?"

"I take them mostly in the river," Esme admitted. "I don't really approve of sitting in a big vat of hot dirty suds,'' she declared with as great a degree of hauteur as she could muster.

Clothed in Eula Rhy's soft cotton challis wrapper, Esme followed her new mother-in-law to the front hallway. The two came up short at finding Cleav seated on the stairs.

"Good heavens! What are you doing out here, Cleavy?"

His forehead was furrowed with worry. "I was waiting to take Esme up to our room."

"Oh, I can do that!" Mrs. Rhy said impatiently. "You go ahead and get your bath."

Cleav looked ready to argue, but Eula whisked past him, her arm firmly around Esme's waist, leading her upstairs.

"The furniture in this room came all the way from North Carolina," Eula told her as they stepped across the threshold. "Cleavis has very fashionable taste but an eye to quality. All of these pieces were hand-lathed from native black walnut."

Esme gazed with awe at the massive pieces of dark furniture. There were enough shelves and drawers to hide everything in the town of Vader. The huge wardrobe had a beveled glass mirror. The bed was wider and longer than any Esme had ever seen, and the headboard touched the ceiling.

"Save to graces, it's a palace!" Her whispered exclamation was so horrified, Eula Rhy turned to look at her curiously.

"Wasn't that what you wanted?"

Before Esme had time to answer, she found herself alone.

"I didn't expect a palace!" she answered the empty room. "I only wanted a good sturdy roof over my family's head." Even as she said it, the words rang false.

Somewhere between that first day in the General Merchandise and the "
I do"
she'd spoken earlier in the evening, Esme had fallen in love. But she knew, as she ran her hand along the pristine chenille bedspread, that she hadn't fallen for a man with a palace. She was in love with a man who was so gentle, he could call the fish to come eat from his hand.

She smiled as she recalled the memory. Sitting in his shadow, she'd felt so safe, so calm. It was as if the world had been lifted from her shoulders. As long as she was within his shadow, he would take care of her.

Take care of her
? Esme smiled and shook her head. What a strange idea. Esme took care of everyone. She had no need for someone to take care of her.

With that, sweet memory floated in the remembrance of the other emotions of that day. The tingle that coursed through her as she became aware of his nearness. The catch in her breathing as she felt his breath on her neck. And the anxious jitters of anticipation that caused her to throw herself right into his arms.

Esme suppressed a nervous giggle and covered her pink cheeks with her hand. From this night on she would be in his arms, for better or worse, for the rest of their lives.

With that thought Esme scrambled into her bedclothes and braided her hair. Leaving one coal-oil lamp to light his way, she arranged herself in the big dark bed and waited with trembling anticipation for her husband.

She waited.

And waited.

She awakened when the other side of the bed dipped with his weight. The lamp had gone out and the room was dark as pitch.

"Cleav?" The question was a startled exclamation.

"Who else would it be?" His tone was tight with displeasure.

"No one," Esme answered in a small voice.

He lay down beside her and sighed loudly.

Wide awake now, Esme held herself as stiff as a board. This was their wedding night. He would make her his woman. But Cleav didn't move.

Maybe she should reach out to him, she thought. No, she'd thrown herself into his arms once before. Tonight he would have to reach for her. He would reach for her. When would he reach for her?