The Bride's House (9 page)

“It was Miss Nealie’s idea,” Charlie said.

It really wasn’t. “It was Charlie’s,” Nealie admitted. “He’s the one got the shutters and put them up.”

“
We
put them up,” Charlie said, smiling at Nealie, but she didn’t respond. He had not asked again if Nealie would marry him, but the girl knew he had not given up.

So did Mrs. Travers, who told Nealie, “Charlie’s a sticker. I guess you’d have to beat him with piece of cordwood to keep him from coming around.”

Nealie didn’t mind being with Charlie, although he could be glum at times. He’d stare at her, his eyes dark, and he wouldn’t turn away when she caught him at it. He liked to act superior, telling her what to do. Once when the day was hot and she was sitting outside with her skirt up to her knees and her legs stretched out, Charlie came up on the porch and told her it was not right, her sitting with her legs showing, and she’d had to pull down her hot skirts. “You ought not to do it. You ought not at all. You got to be a lady, Miss Nealie.”

Will wasn’t so critical. He liked everything Nealie did and told her he’d never met a girl who pleased him so much. They ate supper at the Hotel de Paris and took long walks around Georgetown, up one street and down another, always ending up at the bride’s house to see its progress. Sometimes, they went up close so that Will could examine the workmanship on the outside, study the framing and the stone foundation or run his hands over the trim, which had been cut by a jigsaw into fanciful shapes, like wooden lace. “It’s a sturdy house,” he said, looking up at the big gable in front that was decorated with carved trim. They walked around the house and admired the tall windows whose decorative tops seemed like eyebrows. The tower soared into the sky, and Nealie guessed that at night, you could see heaven from it.

Once, as they climbed the stairs to the front porch to see the door, which was made of heavy wood that was painted with circles and swirls to look like bird’s-eye maple, they found the house open, and they crept inside. Will called, but no one answered, so they entered. Nealie stopped in the foyer, her mouth open, as she stared at the staircase, its banister a dark streak of polished wood that followed the graceful lines of the steps. “You could follow it to the stars,” she said.

They pushed open the pocket doors and entered a parlor that was dominated by a carved wooden fireplace set on a slab of dark granite. “Lookit, there’s the bedroom next to it. You could lay in bed and see the fire,” she told Will.

“I think that’s the back parlor. The bedrooms must be upstairs.”

“What would anybody do with two parlors?”

Will grinned at her and took her hand, as they went through the parlors into the dining room. Sun came through the bay window onto a chandelier, its dozens of crystal prisms catching the light and turning it into rainbows. “I’d put up wallpaper, yellow wallpaper with gold in it,” Nealie said. Then she entered a glass room connected with the dining room, a solarium, Will explained. Nealie didn’t know the word and frowned. “For plants,” Will added.

“Geraniums?”

“That and bigger ones, too, like palm trees.”

“Trees inside the house? Imagine that! I’d plant an oak tree so I could build a tree house in it.” There was wonder in Nealie’s voice.

“Who’s in here?” a man called, and Nealie cringed against Will, wondering if somebody had taken them for robbers. The man came into the room and glared at them, but he recognized Will and said, “Mr. Spaulding, I didn’t know ’twas you.”

Will apologized, saying they had discovered the door unlatched and were tempted to peer inside. “It’s the finest dwelling Miss Nealie’s ever seen.”

“That it is, built like a rock, as strong as the tipple at the Sharon.”

Will nodded approvingly. “I like a well-built structure. Do you think it will stand for a hundred years?”

“And more. Looking for a house, are you?” When Will didn’t answer, the man added, “It’s for sale. The folks that built it, the wife don’t like Georgetown. They’re going to live permanent in Denver.”

“If I were in the market, this is the house I would buy,” Will said, casting a sly look at Nealie. “Miss Nealie says it’s a house for a bride.”

“It’s a house for somebody with money, that’s what it is.” The man told them they might as well see the rest of it, and he showed them the kitchen, with a fine cookstove and water pipes running to a sink. “You can bucket the water right there in the kitchen,” Nealie said, thinking that with such a luxury, she would hardly have to lift a finger to cook. Then they went upstairs to see the bedrooms, rooms as big as the parlors. “This one’s where your bride would sleep,” the man said. Will looked at Nealie, and she turned away, embarrassed.

They went outside then and looked up at the house, its fine tower outlined against the sky. “What would you say about going there as a bride?” Will asked her. Nealie was too shy to respond, but she kept that remark in a special place in her mind, and each night, she went to sleep with the memory of Will looking up at the sunlight streaming through the clouds, wondering what it would be like to be a bride in that house.

As the summer came on and the ground dried, Nealie and Will went farther and farther from Georgetown. Will rented a hug-me-tight, a small buggy barely big enough for the two of them, and they drove to the towns downvalley, or they climbed the mountains to look at the mines. At times they were caught in storms that sent down chill rain, because rain in that high place came often in the afternoons and was never warm. “It’s like standing in ice melt,” Nealie observed once when they took shelter under a rocky outcrop to wait out a storm, Will holding his coat over Nealie’s head to keep her dry. On occasion, Nealie packed a dinner-on-the-ground, and they took a blanket along with the picnic basket and ate in some high meadow, staying there until the mountains turned blue. Sometimes, Will fixed a dinner of yellow cheese and bread and tins of food that Nealie had never before tasted. He brought wine, too, and she liked how the sweet-tasting stuff made her happy. She liked the way Will kissed her after she was warm with the wine, too, kissed her mouth and her neck and slid his hands over her.

More and more, they ended their days together at Will’s cottage, sitting on the bed with their arms around each other, while Will muttered words that made her glow. At night, alone in her room at the boardinghouse, Nealie lay on her cot, her arms around herself, and whispered them in the dark.

“You make me come alive. Things are so stuffy back home,” Will told her once, calling Nealie his mountain sprite. Then he mused so softly she’d barely heard him, “I wonder what’s to become of you.”

She saw Will every day, of course, and Charlie, too, because both still boarded with Mrs. Travers. Although each knew she was seeing the other, the two men apparently had agreed to a truce of sorts, for they no longer glared across the supper table. But they rarely had a thing to say to the other, either. The rest of the boarders saw how it was and left off teasing the two men—and Nealie, who would blush furiously if anyone remarked he’d seen her at the opera house or asked what she’d done on her Sunday off.

But at supper one evening, a boarder asked, “Who’s taking you out to Independence Day, Miss Nealie?”

Nealie ducked her head, and for a moment, she didn’t answer. July Fourth was the most important day in a mining town, bigger than Christmas. The mines shut down for the day, and there were drilling contests, foot races, hook-and-ladder company races, a band concert, and a dance. Neither Will nor Charlie had yet asked Nealie to go, and the two men looked at her expectantly, waiting to see which one of them she’d name. Of course, she wanted to go with Will. She wished he’d spoken up and said so, but maybe he didn’t plan on taking her, and she wouldn’t embarrass herself by presuming.

“Why, Nealie’s going with me,” Mrs. Travers said, coming in from the kitchen. “She promised to help me at the cake sale at the church. If any of you men know what’s good for you, you’ll bid on Nealie’s cake—a Gold and Silver Cake.”

“I’ll bid on it right now—two dollars,” Charlie said.

“Charlie’s got it bad,” one of the boarders said. “I bet President Garfield doesn’t pay two dollars for a cake.”

“I’ll make it five dollars,” Will said.

Nealie put her hand to her mouth. She’d never heard of anybody paying five dollars for a cake.

Charlie frowned and was about to go higher, but Mrs. Travers interrupted, “You can’t bid here. You have to go to the Presbyterian church. It’s the rule.” She turned to Nealie and added, “That’s the best way I know to get a man in church.”

The boarders laughed, and Nealie slipped into the kitchen, grateful that Mrs. Travers had rescued her.

“It’s not right, Mrs. Travers not letting me bid on your cake,” Charlie said later. “Are you really going to Independence Day with her?”

“I am,” Nealie replied.

“I guess there’s no law says I can’t stand next to you.”

“I guess not. I might even dance with you.” Nealie was annoyed then that Will hadn’t claimed her for the day and liked the idea of making him uneasy.

“I don’t know how to dance.”

Nealie looked at him in surprise. “Me, neither.”

*   *   *

As it turned out, Nealie went to the July Fourth festivities by herself, since that morning, Mrs. Travers was called down to Red Elephant to tend to a friend whose husband had cut off her toes with an axe. The foot was infected, and the doctor told Mrs. Travers he feared the woman would die. It was a certainty she would if her husband nursed her.

“That’s the worst thing I ever heard. Even my pa wouldn’t do such a thing,” Nealie said, although she wasn’t sure about that. “Maybe it was an accident.”

“Maybe gold jumps out of the ground into a wheelbarrow,” Mrs. Travers replied. “The boarders know we’re not serving supper tonight on Independence Day. But then there’s the next day or two. I’d hire a girl to work in the kitchen with you, but where would I find one on such short notice? Can you do the cooking and serving and the lunches until I get back?”

“I can,” Nealie said, proud that Mrs. Travers trusted her.

“Everything’s set out for tomorrow’s breakfast,” Mrs. Travers said. “You go on now, or you’ll miss the parade.”

But Nealie insisted on waiting on the porch with the older woman until the doctor arrived in his buggy, since Mrs. Travers did not plan to walk to Red Elephant. The girl watched them as they passed the turn in the road and couldn’t be seen anymore. Then she went inside and put on the green dress and walked the two blocks to Alpine Street, where a crowd lined the sidewalk in front of stores that were decorated with red, white, and blue bunting. Pictures of President Garfield, who had been wounded in an assassination attempt just two days before, and President Lincoln hung in the shop windows, along with lithographs of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the burning of the President’s House in the War of 1812. The people were decorated, too. Men in white shirts tied red or blue bandanas around their necks, while women trimmed their hats with tiny flags. Nealie was the only one in green.

She stood at the edge of the boardwalk, watching as the foot racers gathered at the starting line at the end of the street. They wore tights that looked like long underwear, and they hopped from foot to foot, slapping each other on the back and bragging about how fast they were. One of them turned and spotted the girl in the green dress and called, “Miss Nealie!” Charlie Dumas grinned and waved at her.

Nealie was too embarrassed to wave back and stared at the dirt street, but that didn’t stop Charlie. “I’m going to win you the prize,” he yelled.

Nealie slipped back through the thick crowd, until she leaned against the window of the Kaiser Mercantile, beside Mr. Kaiser, who had pinned a flag to his white apron. “That Charlie Dumas is fast,” he said. “You want me to get you a chair to stand on so’s you can see him?” Before Nealie could reply, there was a gunshot, and the racers took off. Men cheered, and children jumped up and down, but Nealie couldn’t watch the racers because all creation seemed to be in front of her. All she saw was a blur as they rushed past. In a minute there was a cheer, and she knew the race was over. Mr. Kaiser said above the noise, “It looks like Charlie Dumas won, after all.”

“He may have won the race, but I’ve got the prize,” Will said, coming up beside Nealie and taking her arm.

The remark made Nealie feel warm, and she knew this would be the best Fourth of July of her life, not that she had celebrated Independence Day so much before. Her pa had taken her to the celebration in Hannibal once when she was small, but only because he’d wanted to go into town to get drunk. She’d had a good time, although her father had passed out, and she’d had to walk all the way back to the farm by herself. She’d missed the fireworks because she hadn’t wanted to go home alone in the dark.

Will propelled Nealie through the throng of people and led her to a stand where women sold food. “I bought your cake,” he whispered. “I saw Mrs. Travers take it to the church last night, so I paid them ten dollars to let me take it. I left it at my cottage.” He smiled at Nealie. “Would you have some lemonade?”

“What’s that?” asked Nealie, who had never heard of such a thing.

“It’s a drink made from lemon juice. Haven’t you ever tasted it?”

Nealie made a wry face. “It sounds sour.”

“No, there’s plenty of sugar in it.” Will handed a dime to the woman behind the stand, and she gave him two glasses. Nealie sipped the drink carefully, then grinned and drank it down. “It tastes as good as wine,” she said.