The Mirk and Midnight Hour (25 page)

“A bazaar! How bizarre. What kind?”

“The kind that raises money for the war. The local ladies have been creating all sorts of handiwork for it. I made pen wipers to sell that no one could possibly want.”

“If I were there, I’d buy every one. One can never have too many pen wipers. So is that all it is? A sale?”

“No, it’s also a dance for the Texas brigade that’s passing through.”

“And you like dancing?”

“I do indeed. I may even come out of mourning so I can join in. Most people agree that young folks don’t have to wear black now for more than a few months.”

“Will your cousin be there?”

“My cousin?” I looked up from the stump I was rolling back in place.

“Yes. The one you said was so heroic with his blockade-running.”

“Probably. I expect he enjoys dancing.”

“Has he mailed my letters yet?”

“Next time he crosses the lines, I’ll ask him to do it.”

“So tonight you’ll be whirling around the room with him and all those other Secesh boys.”

“I will—and don’t call them ‘Secesh.’ It’s an awful word.”

“I’m sorry.” He gave a slight bow. “I meant with all the Southern gentlemen. They do say ladies admire men in uniform.”

“You’ve got a uniform.”

“Oh yes, I’d forgotten. Pity it’s ragged and bloody and needs to be burned. I expect ladies also admire gentlemen who don’t have giant chunks blown out of them.”

This was a new mood for Thomas. Till now he had never sounded bitter or the least bit self-pitying. “Well, I’m sure you looked splendid in your uniform before.…”

“Thank you, Violet,” he said dryly.

“And you’ll look splendid in it again,” I said quickly.

He compressed his lips and turned away so I couldn’t see his
expression. “Have a wonderful time. You deserve it. I forget you have a whole busy life I know nothing about. It’s amazing you’ve been able to steal away as often as you have.”

I started for the door. “I’m going to go find you some walking sticks.”

He stopped me. “First could you bring me my trousers out of the bag? So I can come out from under the blanket.”

“Oh, my goodness, yes.” The foolish blood rushed to my cheeks and I was thankful to hurry outside after I did what he asked.

The children dashed off when I sent them to find two straight sticks. Meanwhile, I cleared a path through the rubble of the front room. By the time we joined Thomas, he was fully clothed, sweating from the exertion of struggling into his trousers. Seeley and I helped lift under his arms while Sparrow stood close. Shaking a little, he stood. He was even taller than I had thought. The muscles in his face and neck strained as though they would burst through as he grasped the sticks, but slowly, determinedly, with a swinging gait, he made his way from the room where he had lain for more than two months.

My hands dropped to my sides. I followed, tense. All my skin tingled from touching him. So interesting. He stumbled slightly and every one of us leaped forward, but he righted himself before we could reach him.

Outside was hot and bright and bees hummed in the riotous yellow roses that climbed nearly to the roof of the Lodge. Thomas picked one blossom and awkwardly tucked it behind my ear.

He and I both lifted our faces into the full brilliance of the sun.

When Seeley and I returned home soon afterward, we walked in on Dorian and Sunny huddled together on the sofa.

Dorian’s eyes were holding hers steadily. “You know what you must do,” he was saying, “what would speed things up.”

She started to speak, but he put a finger over her lips. “Don’t say anything out loud. Just think of our future.”

He noticed Seeley and me then, and turned on a smile, showing all his very white teeth. There was something in the curve of his mouth that didn’t match the expression in his eyes. I shrugged inwardly; I had no desire to know what plots those two were hatching.

“Y’all are going to the Summer Bazaar, aren’t you?” I asked.

“So bizarre,” Dorian murmured, and I was unfairly annoyed because he had used Thomas’s joke. He picked an infinitesimal bit of lint off the sleeve of his blue broadcloth coat. The hue made his eyes bluer than ever and his hair a brighter gold. “Are you going?”

“Yes, I am. In fact, I’m heading up into the attic to see if there’s anything I can wear.”

“Tossing out the black?” Dorian said. “About time.”

I expected Sunny to comment as well, since it was a subject on which she had strong opinions, but she said nothing.

“Am I going?” Seeley asked.

“No,” I said. “It’s not a children’s thing. Run wash your hands, Squid. Goodness, we get dirty these days.”

Seeley trotted off obediently.

“It’s all your nature loving ‘these days,’ ” Dorian said. “What’ve y’all been doing lately out in the wilds?”

“Oh,” I said vaguely, “you know … exploring, hide-and-seek—that sort of thing.”

“Better you than me,” Dorian said. “Anyway”—he flexed his fingers—“I don’t believe Sunny and I will be attending this particular grand social occasion. I’ve got to meet someone here this evening, so I’m unavailable for keeping an eye on Seeley, but Sunny’ll do it.”

My stepsister’s head had been drooping in un-Sunny-like fashion. At Dorian’s words she jerked it up. “No, not tonight. Actually I
am
going to the bazaar. I’ve got to take the tea cozies I’ve been sewing my fingers to the bone over.”

Dorian rolled his eyes. “Is that what those creatures are? I’ve been wondering. Violet can take them, if tea cozies are so vital to the Cause. She deserves an evening away since she’s with the boy every day. You ought to stay with him this time, Sunny.”

“No,” she said flatly. “Not tonight. I’m going.”

I laughed inwardly. Poor Sunny, having to desert Dorian just so she wouldn’t have to attend to Seeley. “That’s fine. Laney won’t mind staying to tuck Seeley in bed and bring him his honey milk.”

“Sunny, my beauty,” Dorian said, reaching for her arm, “you’re
going to be too tired for our foray if you go gamboling about till all hours. I’m taking her on her first smuggling adventure tomorrow,” he explained to me. “You wouldn’t believe the things ladies can fit under their hoops. In fact, my meeting here is with Colonel Riding of the Texas Fifth to get commissions from him.”

I remembered that I also had a commission. “I’ve got some letters I’d like you to mail, actually, if you wouldn’t mind. A couple that will stay in the South, but also a letter to some friends in Connecticut. I’ll give them to you as soon as they’re ready.”

“Of course we’ll take them,” Dorian said.

Normally Sunny would have pried into who I knew in Connecticut, and I had a lie all ready, but she wasn’t acting like herself today. She returned to the subject of the bazaar. “I’m going whether you want me to or not, Dorian. I want to dance.”

Let them fight it out.

Dorian frowned and leaned down to whisper in her ear. I wasn’t sure because I was already headed out the door, but I thought his fingers dug hard into the white flesh of her upper arm. When I was halfway up the stairs, I heard noises that made me freeze. A squeal, a short scuffle, and then—a resounding blow.

He hit her
. Surely I must be mistaken—no gentleman would do that. But no, he had hit her. What was I to do? I started to whirl around to go back in and confront Dorian, but the sitting room door flew open. I jumped and bolted up to my bedroom like a startled rabbit.

Sunny’s door slammed.

One minute, then I would go to her. I perched on the edge of my bed, trying to catch my breath.

From under the floorboard I took the correspondence Thomas had given me to mail. It was a temptation to snoop and read it, but I resisted, although I did catch a glimpse of “Dearest sister Addie” scrawled on one of the pages. He had very bad handwriting. It occurred to me that I had been vaguely jealous of the sweetheart-Addie-of-my-imagination who had written so familiarly to the Thomas-of-my-imagination even before I had met Thomas himself. And she had been his sister all along. A little smile curved my lips as I placed the letters in an envelope and wrote the address. I also gathered up a letter to Aunt Lovina and another to a school acquaintance I had scrawled a few days earlier. Mixed among other envelopes, the one to the Lynds would be less noticeable.

I went across the hall and knocked softly on Sunny’s door.

“Come in,” she said. “Just in time to tighten my stays.”

The candy-pink gown she had worn lay puddled on the floor. I picked it up and shook it out. One dainty puffed sleeve was dangling, nearly ripped off.

I stared at her.

She shrugged. “See why I have to change?”

“Did Dorian do this?”

“Yes.”

“He—he hit you?”

“No,” she said coolly. “He tore my dress grabbing at me when I left, but actually it was
me
who slapped
him
. Hard. He deserved it, with his pestering and plaguing.”

“What is he plaguing you about?”

She suddenly looked tired and pinched. “Oh … nothing important.”

I started to tug at her corset laces but stopped short. Five reddish finger-shaped bruises were forming on Sunny’s upper arm, and a large, splotchy, older bruise, purplish, discolored the back of her neck.

Words clogged in my throat. When I could finally speak, I said, “Sunny, the way you two act is not normal.”

Over her shoulder she flashed a brilliant smile with a ghastly edge to it. “Maybe not, but it’s exciting. I should detest a mealymouthed little man who says, ‘Yes, darling,’ and ‘No, darling.’ And”—she dropped down on her bed—“you’ll never guess. Last night Dorian asked me to marry him.”

I sank down beside her. She gripped my hand and squeezed it, giving a delighted shiver.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” was all I could say.

“Of course. I totally adore him. And you wouldn’t believe the delicious promises he’s been making. The gowns and jewels I’m to have and the trips we’re to take and my precious sweetheart to boot!” She tugged playfully at my hair. “Why, I’m the luckiest girl in the world!”

Dorian must have done much better with his blockade-running than I would have suspected.

“When is the wedding to be?”

“Not sure. We’re to keep it secret for a bit, but of course I have to tell you and Mama. It all depends on—oh, boring things like finances and the progress of the war and all that nonsense.”

So, Sunny, as so often happened with her, had gotten exactly what she wanted. Wasn’t it odd that getting exactly what one wanted often didn’t make for happiness? I couldn’t believe Dorian
had asked her to marry him. Why? Much of the time my stepsister seemed to annoy rather than captivate my cousin—adequate only for a dalliance when he had nothing better available. But I must be mistaken; he had stayed here a good deal longer than he had planned and the reason had to be Sunny. He
must
love her. They must have the sort of affection where sparks of all kinds flew. I would hate such a relationship, but perhaps the two of them loved each other all the better for it.

“Now,” Sunny said, “after you help me with the buttons on my dress—drat, it’d better be the cinnamon-striped since I suppose I’ll have to cover up with sleeves and my hair down over my neck—we’re going to go up into the attic to find you the most perfect gown. Then we’ll fix you up prettily so you’ll catch the eye of five or six—no,
ten
!—gallant Texans. You shall be my pet. And don’t you dare say no.”

I didn’t.

In the attic we pawed through trunks until Sunny pulled out a china-blue silk taffeta edged with tiny ivory embroidered rosebuds. “It’s so darling it makes my knees go weak. Also, blue is a good color to follow mourning. You’re quick with your needle, unlike frivolous, useless me, so you can raise the waist in no time.” She paused and studied my face. “Aren’t you excited?”

“I am and that’s what surprises me. I never thought I’d be excited over fashions again.”

“Silly goose. As if dead people would want you to go about looking like a drab for the rest of your life when you’re only seventeen.”

Downstairs I sought out Laney in the kitchen to ask her to do the evening milking and to watch out for Seeley while we were gone. I displayed the gown I was about to make over.

“It’ll look good on you,” Laney said.

“If you get yourself some dresses from Mama’s trunks, I’ll help you fix them up. Aren’t we lucky she brought so many pretty things from Panola? There’s a dark red cambric would suit you perfectly.”

“Thank you. I will.” She glanced toward the door. “Did you hear—” She stopped and her lips tightened.

“Hear what?”

She shook her head.

“Laney, tell me.”

“Did you hear that fight going on between those two?”

“Between Sunny and Dorian? Yes, I did.”

“Well, you couldn’t have heard much of it because they’ve been at it all the livelong day. I couldn’t hear well enough to tell what they were caterwauling about, but it’s something bad.”

I sighed. “However they quarrel, Sunny still adores him. In fact, she’s—” I stopped myself before I told Laney about the engagement. Not my secret to share. “Sunny could have almost any man she wants, but it’s Dorian she chooses.”