The Gifted (36 page)

Jessamine did not know her meaning, but it was not hard to guess her thoughts were of some sort of improper behavior. “Nay, our elders would never do anything to harm us,” she said quickly.

“Nothing but keep you locked up away from the normal way of living. God’s way or else he wouldn’t have talked so much about begetting in the good book. How do your people get around that?”

“If you speak of marrying, there are many stories in the Scripture to demonstrate the sorrows one opens up one’s spirit to with worldly love.”

“Sounds like they got you believing their way.” Edwina pulled a long cord out of her pocket and wrapped it around Jessamine’s waist. Then she slipped it up under Jessamine’s armpits. “Just a little measuring here. Don’t get alarmed. I won’t be hurting you. Just raise your arms a little.”

Jessamine did as she was told. She was accustomed to obedience when the order was given with authority.

The woman slipped the cord off, holding her finger and thumb on a measuring place. She held the string from where she’d measured and found a piece of paper to jot down some numbers. “But what about babies? It seems to me it would be a sad old world without any sweet tiny babes. What about them?”

“There are children in the village,” Jessamine said.

“Children with no loving mother watching out for them. The very thought of it makes my eyes prickly with tears, and I’ve heard tell the Shaker way of breaking apart families drives some of the females out there to madness.” She stepped back to study Jessamine’s shape. “As it would. Nothing natural about separating a mother and her children. Even wolves don’t do that.”

“The Shaker sisters loved me,” Jessamine said. “Like a mother would.”

“Oh, I ain’t meaning to bad-mouth them to you.” She handed one end of the cord to Jessamine. “Hold that at your waist, dearie, so’s I can see how long to make your skirt.” Then as she bent down to the floor, she went on. “What with you not knowing any better all these years shut up there with them like that. But now you just let your sweet papa introduce you to the better way of the world. The natural way. The Lord intended there to be babies. He designed us to hanker after the loving between a man and a woman.”

She straightened up and wrote more numbers on her paper. “You keep that in mind when you’re out there at that White Oak Springs. Romance is ever in the air at the Springs and romance is just what old Edwina is ordering for you. And we’re going to find you something to get that romantic air a stirring round about you.”

More than an hour later, Jessamine went back out the dressmaker’s door a different person than the one who had climbed down from the carriage with her father. She’d shed her Shaker clothes like a hen molting old feathers. She had on her new feathers, a rose-colored gingham dress with a square neckline trimmed in lace that showed a shocking amount of skin. Mrs. Browning claimed it very modest, but without the Shaker collar wrapped around her, Jessamine wanted to cross her arms over her chest to hide her exposed skin and the way the dress molded around her breasts.

Mrs. Browning had wanted to lace a corset around Jessamine’s middle to make her waist fashionably slender, but Jessamine could not imagine wearing the thing with its stiff rods the woman claimed were bones from a whale.

“I don’t believe I will need to be so fashionable,” she told the dressmaker firmly.

Even with a mouth brimming with pins, Mrs. Browning had managed to cluck her tongue with some disapproval at Jessamine. She pulled the pins out to say, “You can get by in a day dress, but you will need the corset laced for the ball gown. Your waist is small, barely over twenty, but sixteen is so much more desirable for the ladies and would be easily managed for you.”

Jessamine put her hands on her waist and stared at the corset hanging on a hook on the dressing room wall. “How would there be room for nourishment? Or breathing.”

“You do have much to learn, dearie. A lady takes tiny bites and flutters her fan to push air to her nose.” She laughed as she smoothed her hands down over her own generous waist. “Plenty are the times when I’ve been relieved not to be one of the fine ladies. I would have had to push away my plate much more than I have.”

“I have never aspired to be a lady,” Jessamine told the woman. But then she remembered her granny telling her to wait for her prince to come. A prince would expect a lady at the very least. It was all enough to make her head spin.

“Perhaps not, but I would not be surprised if your gentleman father may have different aspirations for you.”

And so when she emerged from the dressmaker’s house in her new dress over three starched petticoats and wearing a bonnet with a matching rose-colored ribbon and a fake silken rose, he did seem pleased with the change. Even her feet had been freed from the sturdy Shaker shoes and now wore shoes that would be of no use whatsoever in the garden or berry picking. Both evidently things a lady would not consider doing at any rate.

Mrs. Browning had declared Jessaminie’s berry-stained fingernails and scratched hands a shameful blemish and insisted Jessamine don white gloves. It felt silly to wear gloves with the sun beating down on her head, but Mrs. Browning assured her such wasn’t uncommon for ladies.

“You’ll be gardening the soil of hearts now, dearie. And I’ll wager you’ll bring in a good harvest,” Mrs. Browning said before she packed up three other dresses for Jessamine. One evening frock of silky lavender and two more dresses much like the one she was wearing. She had made the dresses for a girl who had failed to get her father to pay for them.

She picked up the Shaker dress and apron. “Sturdy cloth, this. I suppose I could cut it apart for a child’s dress if you want to leave it with me.”

“Nay,” Jessamine said quickly. “I’ll take it with me. I may have the opportunity to send it back to Harmony Hill for use by one of the other sisters. It is not good to be wasteful.”

Mrs. Browning shook her head with a little chuckle. “Would that I could be one of the pins in your hair this evening to witness your introduction to the Springs. I do hope your father can find a lady’s maid to help you dress and fix your hair.”

Jessamine touched her hair. She was beginning to understand that the things she had wondered about the world were only a tiny drop in a perplexing sea of wonders.

The woman seemed quite pleased with the bills Jessamine’s father handed over to her before she stashed them in a hidden pocket. Then as if noticing the sun beating down on her own uncovered head, she said, “Wait. One thing more is absolutely necessary. With those lovely blonde waves, our young lady should not have to wear a bonnet every minute at the Springs. But we must keep the sun off her nose. Freckles aren’t at all to be desired.”

As she rushed back into her shop, Jessamine’s father laughed. “She’s turned you into quite the young lady, but I can see you are more than bewildered by it all. Never fear, my beautiful daughter, you will enchant everyone you meet, just as you have Mrs. Browning.”

In all her wondering about things of the world, she had never once thought to wonder what the world would think of her. That was because she never thought to actually be part of the world. Now here she was wearing a dress with ruffles and a bonnet festooned with ribbons. She wasn’t sure how she could have lost the gift to be simple so completely, so quickly.

She smoothed her hand down over her skirt and thought of the petticoats under it. Even they had ruffles and lace. Such had to be sinful vanity, for what purpose could ruffles on a petticoat have? For that matter, what purpose could there be in wearing so many layers of petticoats that they sprang up in the way as she climbed into the carriage? She had to shove them down with energy to keep them in the seat.

She could only too well imagine Sister Sophrena’s disapproving look and Sister Edna’s harsh words of condemnation. And yet, even while she worried about sinful vanity, she did like the swish of the petticoats against her legs. She liked the way the lace on the bottom of her sleeves looked against her skin. She was surely being enticed by the devil to embrace so many worldly things with no resistance.

But Mrs. Browning didn’t seem to have any of the devil in her. Nor did her father. They thought these clothes natural and normal. But would she ever feel the same? Perhaps it would be better for her to be at Harmony Hill, listening for the bell to signal the evening meal. Perhaps it would be better for her to continue to wonder about things of the world instead of experiencing them. If only the Lord would send her a sign, give her a message.

At that moment, Mrs. Browning came bustling back out of her front door. “A parasol, dearie.” She pushed up on the rod she was carrying and blue material popped up. She twirled it a bit before closing it down and handing it up to Jessamine. “You will definitely have need of a parasol as you stroll around the lake at the Springs.”

Jessamine took it and ran her fingers over it. “A parasol,” she whispered, remembering leading Sister Annie through the woods in a vain quest to see this very thing of the world. And now she held one in her hands. Now she was on her way to the Springs where perhaps she would see the stranger she had found in the woods that day. Her hands tightened on the parasol as her father flicked the reins to start the horse walking. She had asked for a sign, but how could she be sure the sign had come from the Lord?

23

Thursday afternoon Tristan once again watched Laura toss bread crumbs to the ducks as they strolled around the lake. They were more at ease with one another as if things had been, if not settled between them, at least begun. When they started toward a bench in the shade of a tall oak tree, he reached for her hand. He thought he should make some attempt at romance.

Her eyebrows lifted a bit as she looked down at his hand grasping hers, but she didn’t pull away. Instead she said, “I daresay it’s past time we talked about this, don’t you?”

“You’re a beautiful woman,” he began.

She cut him off with a wave of the fan she held in her free hand. “We can dispense with the sweet words, Tristan. We both know why you took hold of my hand. My father and your mother. They’ve determined we make a good match. The Cleveland money. The Cooper name.”

He didn’t know what to say. He’d never been around a lady who spoke so plainly.

“I’ve shocked you.” She whispered a sigh as she gently freed her hand from his and gingerly perched on the edge of the bench. After he sat down beside her, she peered over at his face intently and went on. “But don’t you think it better to be at least somewhat honest if we are to form this required partnership?”

Tristan leaned back and considered his words carefully before he spoke. “I don’t know that I would consider it a partnership exactly.”

“But that is exactly what it would be. I’m not a shrinking violet of a girl as many see my mother. That’s how you see her, isn’t it? As completely overpowered by my father.”

“She does seem somewhat reserved.”

Laura laughed. “You are delightfully polite, Tristan. But right now the truth would tickle my ears much more than polite nonsense. In fact, my mother is a very determined woman. That is why it is so difficult for her when she is in company with my father and why we maintain a second residence in Boston to, as she says, keep her sane. What seems like nervous worry to those who do not know her is actually often pent-up irritation. She, like you, my good sir, feels the need to be socially correct and polite, but I will not be one whit surprised if she stands up in the dining room and lets everybody there know exactly what she thinks before we leave the Springs.”

“About what?”

“About the servants. You are aware that many of them are slaves, aren’t you? Purchased to do the bidding of Mr. Hargrove. Even the band that plays so charmingly. Slaves with no freedom. My mother comes from a long line of Boston abolitionists.” She looked straight at him again. “I told Father that might be a problem in the merging of our families, since I’m sure you are accustomed to slaves attending your every whim. Of course, Father would be jubilant if he could make everyone his slave. He does expect to get his way. You should be forewarned of that.”

“I am not always polite,” Tristan said.

She blew out a long breath. “I’m relieved to hear it, but even so, my father can be difficult.”

Tristan studied Laura as he considered his position. She looked lovely in a yellow striped dress with matching roses woven into her dark hair. He thought back through the days since they’d been introduced and couldn’t remember seeing her in the same dress twice. Whatever she was saying about her father, it was obvious she wanted for nothing. Tristan could not possibly supply her with the same unless the father surrendered some of his fortune to them. He moved uncomfortably on the bench. If they married, Tristan would never be his own man again. He’d be bought and paid for. A name for his daughter.

“He seems to give you whatever you want,” Tristan said.

“Things are not always as they seem,” she said softly as she turned her eyes from him to stare out toward the lake. Her shoulders drooped and the smile slipped away from her face. “The thing I want most I cannot have.”