Stand the Storm (24 page)

“This is as good as that obtained in Paris,” she said. “I assure you,” she added with a fillip of arrogance. She was certain this provincial had never dreamed of the shops where her name was well known.

“Bring her out. I want to see her. I want to have work done—expert needlework—work of the highest caliber. I want to have this seamstress. I will speak to her. I will hire her, sir. I want a banner done. That is nothing! I will pay her a large commission to work solely for me. I must execute a trousseau. You will take your part, I am sure,” the young woman added with a hint of sneer. She managed a singular act in taking the wind from Aaron Ridley’s sails. He who always had success with women was confused and again stammering.

“Miss . . .”

“Miss Millicent Standard.” The young woman spoke more softly than before because she was sensitive at her heart for the discomfort of another. She had stung him with her tone and she was momentarily contrite.

“Miss Standard, we will accept any commission. It would be an honor for us to furnish your trousseau.” Aaron noted her retreat and regained his bearings—his ease.

“She can be hired to work for me solely? She will come away with me—just now. Hurry her! I will have many things right away. I will pay whatever is asked.” She returned to fingering the made samples.

Having never been brushed aside by a woman, Aaron Ridley stood stock-still in the center of the floor and followed Miss Standard’s movements with his eyes. She walked about and peered at fabrics and only glanced disgustedly at the chairs to which Ridley tried to steer her.

Gabriel turned cautiously, looked at the floor between his feet with great concentration, and rumbled his throat several times. The sound drew attention and he spoke with little animation. “Mistress, the needlewoman is Ellen Coats, my sister. She is a free woman and is at work in the tailoring operation here. She will gladly accept whatever commission you would honor her with. However, she must remain here and attached to this concern. She has a great many commissions for prominent ladies and gentlemen. Is this not so, Master Ridley?” he added obsequiously.

The two whites were able to negotiate Gabriel’s impudence in addressing Millicent Standard directly by noting that his eyes had never left the floor. Only the top of his head was visible. Small snips of thread covered his clothes and made them humble. He was a still post except that he spoke.

“Quite true, mademoiselle. Ellen is associated only with this establishment. We will direct her to fulfilling your requests. You will be best served if she remains here,” Aaron pronounced in agreement. “It is our firm policy,” he added, enjoying his own arrogant self-assurance. “She will accept the commission of your trousseau and will go immediately to your house to measure and receive your dispatches. She will work under supervision of her brother and will execute your commission efficiently. He will keep her hard at it, I assure you.”

“I do not believe this woman is your sister, tailor. I believe she is your concubine and you would not lose your comfort,” Miss Standard said sharply and viciously, and shocked both men. “I am aware of how things stand in this town. But . . . as you say, she will work under your supervision. I will have none other to touch my commissions, sir.” She turned hard eyes on Aaron Ridley after staring hotly at Gabriel’s bowed head.

“Miss Standard, you have my solemn promise,” Aaron answered.

“Good day then. Send her to this address,” the young woman said, ending the business with thrusting her card forth in her hand. Aaron Ridley snatched the card quickly, taking extraordinary care not to touch Millicent Standard’s fingers. It was an ungraceful movement. Millicent Standard turned ungracefully also and swept out of the door as if crossing a ballroom floor. The sight was ludicrous and provocative of humor.

“Indeed! No one will touch your commissions to be sure, miss!” Aaron exploded, and turned hot, sarcastic eyes on cautious Gabriel, challenging him to react. The tight rein on reaction that Gabriel had always held kept his demeanor neutral. He showed nothing to Aaron Ridley, who continued. “I pity the unlucky bastard that gets that one!” Aaron Ridley assuaged his fallen pride with a calculated wound to Gabriel. “I should think that one and your Ellen to be a good match,” he said, smirking. “Two bitches with nails between their legs, eh?” He waited to read a flinch or a question or a threat, but Gabriel gave him no satisfaction. “Send her to take the measures,” Ridley gruffed.

“Sister, you are widely sought,” Gabriel crowed upon entering the back room to have his midday meal. He cheerfully announced the doings of the day to the assembled and Ellen. “You are commissioned especially to the trousseau of Miss Millicent Standard, an elegant young lady with particular tastes. You are to go to her home to take measures.” At this Gabriel tittered in recollection of Aaron Ridley’s pique and cringed to recall his jibes at Ellen.

“Surely not!” Ellen cried out. She was delighted and behaved as though Gabriel, in bringing the news, had created the boon.

“Oh, Brother, is’t a good commission? A trousseau! A good commission!”

“Yes, very good. She’s a very haughty young woman. She is impatient for you. Go right away.”

Ellen gathered up her implements and continued to congratulate Gabriel, though she credited herself privately for accomplishing the commission.

If Millicent Standard had looked into the calmly demure face of her seamstress, she would have seen that her stinging taunts of Gabriel and Aaron Ridley were unfounded. In fact, Ellen was so prim and uncommunicative—only whispering her directions to turn here or there as she took measures—that Miss Standard might have mistaken her for a Catholic nun. She wore a sedate charcoal-colored dress that admitted no view of her flesh but her face and hands. Her hair was covered with a tied cloth of nearly the same color—only slightly lighter and capable of pulling more of daylight toward her complexion. Under this influence her skin was buttery milk chocolate and luminous.

Though frightened of Miss Standard, Ellen managed the young woman’s commissions. The future Mrs. Charles W. Beech required handkerchiefs, table linens, napkins, counterpanes, as well as bed jackets, shawls, camisoles, chemises, and a snood, all embroidered with her future monogram. She stammered at explaining to Ellen that she would also require a lacy, diaphanous garment to entice her husband. She impatiently rejected the seamstress’s suggested fabrics until Ellen brought a length of silk that Gabriel took from his stores. The beautiful sheer caused rounds and rounds of hearty laughter in the kitchen when Gabriel cut a caper with it drawn over his hand. This beautiful blue cloth would cover a body in name only. It was so transparent that it depended upon the color of skin beneath it to rise to its loveliness.

“Sister, do not be a goose!” Gabriel said laughing. “This young woman is nervous to keep her new husband.” Ellen grew warm and perplexed, but executed a garment that would cause excitement in a papist’s cell.

Ellen’s flawless, spirited embroidery—her knots and whorls and precision—occupied her attention but did not distract her from thoughts of Delia. From beneath the folds of her dress Ellen drew out a snuff pouch and pulled on her bottom lip to form a cup under her tongue. She had picked up the habit during her sojourn at the Warren Plantation. The tobacco-topping gang adopted the practice of grinding fine tobacco, resting it under the tongue, and moving spittle around in their mouths to alleviate the monotony and exhaustion of their work. It was a habit for a gal to cultivate, for it caused no smoke and gave her a whiff of soft dreams. The effect of the snuff fostered a contemplative look. Ellen’s graceful face was often caught with a thin trickle of brown spit on her bottom lip and chin while her eyes were focused off and away. But for the snuff she would feel a knife in her chest at the thought of Delia, her dear girl. She dipped up snuff and ruminated on first sight of Delia come bawling through the legs of the gal, Katharine. That event was now so far back and removed from loving the girl. It mattered little now how she’d come or from where.

Ellen dipped and spit. Her industry masked her longings for Delia. Despite Gabriel’s wishes she’d maintained a connection. Reverend William Higgins had brought letters and had forwarded her replies to Delia. The letters from Delia were comforting, for the girl had spoken of succeeding at her lessons and of being busy, but content. Ellen had read the letters in secret, reluctant to displease Gabriel.

Ellen recollected the girl’s soft voice at their leave-taking. “Uncle loves you, ma’am. He loves his mother and his wife and his babies. But he loves me not at all. Don’t cry,” Delia said. Her own cheeks were wet.

“He is wrong about you,” Ellen had declared vehemently. “You are a good girl.”

Twenty-four

“I
F THERE BE
something to see I’d as soon see it as another,” Daniel Joshua declared against Gabriel’s entreaties. Some merriment was in the air along with smoke.

As a worrier, Gabriel was slow to partake in the excitement. He was happy enough to do the work on uniforms, but his feelings were dark on the enterprise of war.

“Certainly there are as many in the town who are for the southern cause as for the Union. In that case we are ducks and should be securing our safety!” Gabriel countered. He and Daniel talked out all sides of the thing.

Annie had surprised them with her decision to accompany Daniel Joshua on a ride out to see the war. Daniel was hired for his wagon and horse and had the chance to see the fighting up close. None other than Mr. Jonathan Ridley had commissioned Daniel’s wagon simply because he preferred not to spoil his town carriage on the rutted roads to the battlefield.

Ridley’s lady friend had begged prettily for the excursion. She was the one who first suggested the ride out to battle. Day after day of military parades whetted the palates of citizens, and the movement of troops southward promised gay entertainment. The sable brown curls at Bella Strong’s temples were expertly dressed and well set off by a be-ribboned, tricolor hat bought for the occasion.

Provisioned with baskets of food and drink, Daniel and Annie sat aboard the front of the wagon and Ridley and Bella Strong rigged soft seats in the bed of the conveyance. A merry cavalcade of citizens followed behind companies of soldiers and army sutlers.

As the four gay travelers straggled back into Georgetown, their faces were soot-blackened and somber. They were all-over weary and looked like owls. On the retreat Ridley had changed places in the wagon and sat beside Daniel at the reins. Something inside the coddled man had wanted to participate in his own deliverance. No matter that he sat on equal terms with an underling. Both men knew that, in this moment, they had their particulars in their hands and must hold and fly. They were braced against each other as Daniel guided the team over the collapsing road. They navigated ruts made by the retreating army’s wagons and the passengers were tossed like beans.

The sky blackened quickly with approaching night and profuse smoke from rifles and cannons. The women huddled in the back of the carriage, each with her head down in her skirts. Bella Strong let the contents of her stomach into her kerchief. The ribbons that had sat so jauntily on her hat in the morning were slick with grease and hung drearily.

Annie had shrunk into the back of the wagon when Jonathan Ridley usurped her position at Daniel’s side. She peeped intermittently at the passing action, then propped her sock and needles upon the end of her nose and worked to avoid seeing.

When the anxious, retreating cavalcade reached Georgetown, Ridley refused the offer of a hot toddy at the tailor shop and he and the lady were taken directly to the Whilton Hotel.

“Will you rest?” Annie said to open up with Daniel. Both were stunned to silence.

“It would be foolish to come down from this buckboard or leave this animal,” Daniel replied. Indeed he dared not leave the wagon and horse. He put a club at hand for pummeling somebody’s head who would try for the reins. Annie brought him a toddy to the alley behind the shop where he tied up. She stood at the side of the wagon and sighed as he sighed from the buckboard. They stood a bit longer without talking. Then Annie brought fodder for the horse. She pressed Daniel to wait as she went to the house for a biscuit with meat.

As transport of any kind was a luxury, Daniel returned to the Long Bridge to ferry some wounded and some simply weary to a higher ground. The wealthy paid well to have a ride and the indigent begged loudly. There were many horses running madly across the Long Bridge, having thrown their riders along rutted roads clogged with panicked onlookers and soldiers. The animals were trailing their bridles and some folk tried to rein them. Crying from the loose horses frightened Daniel’s usually dull nag and there was trouble to steady him.

Annie recited the tale of the day in a monotone, for she was exhausted and past lively. “They lollygagged getting there —the soldiers. We all lollygagged—we onlookers. We were playful. We saw the soldiers on the road out. They picked berries and worried the countryside. They sang songs and cavorted with saying they would be Sunday soldiers and would be right back to home. So the secesh were ready and sore. The Sunday soldiers were punished bad. We got there when it started and turned back on the run. Still some of the green soldiers got in front of us. Daniel and Master Ridley had it to whip ’em back to keep to the road.”

Gabriel brought a basin with cool water, rinsed his mother’s feet, and set them soaking. He rubbed and twisted her feet to unwind them, screwing them up and releasing them like rags. Annie wanted to push him off for his presumption, but his hands were good on her feet. She let him rub her back and lead her to bed.

“You are shivering, Nanny. Your bones are rattling,” Gabriel said.

“Aye, Brother,” she answered. “Come.” She drew back the covers and let him come to lie by and warm her. He put his head on her breasts and hugged her to give her his own warmth. He stayed cradling her until he slept. Then she woke him and sent him off to his own bed.

“Bodies floating downstream on the river. Come and see it,” Daniel urged. He put his head in the door and shouted. Annie rose to her feet in alarm. Of late, every day brought a sight to pull a soul from her chair. There was a parade or a boat or a wagon of wonders of some kind. There were constant sounds of exploding shells, discharges of firearms, loud animal cries, shouting, and general banter. The small girls seated about the floor sprang to their grandmother.