The Wives of Henry Oades (28 page)

Nancy started down the steps. “I’d much prefer to walk, thank you.”

“You haven’t changed your mind about selling your place?”

“A deal is a deal,” said Nancy. “We shook hands, didn’t we?”

It’s what a man would say. They never seemed to confuse friendship with enterprise. A man would stroll away whistling, caring only about the hefty profit in his pocket.

The rain began a mile from home. Nancy trudged on. Chilblains and a ruined hat were a small price to pay for setting their departure in motion.

Margaret was in the kitchen with Martha and Josephine, giving French lessons at the table. “You met with success,” she said, knowing right away.

H
ENRY WAS SURPRISED
by the price she’d wheedled, but he was not happy that she’d gone. “I specifically asked you not to.” He went to see Mr. Strickland the next afternoon, returning without having sold the farm.

“Only twenty-three hundred? Mildred promised thirty-five!”

“She doesn’t hold the purse strings, Nan.”

The miserly offer was to include all tools, all animals, alive and butchered, the contents of larder and root cellar, and every last stick of furniture.

“It’s still a great deal of money,” said Nancy.

“The farm and livestock are worth much more.”

His dismissive tone hurt. “You’re mean, Henry, and you’re greedy to boot.”

He turned short with her. “I told you to leave business matters to me. He’ll come around, you’ll see. He’s desperate for the land.”

She drew a bath the way he liked it, cold water first. The peace offering did nothing to improve his mood. He got in, spreading out, hogging the whole tub, when he usually made room for her.

“Enjoy your old bath,” she said, leaving the kitchen.

T
HEY WERE ARRAIGNED
the following Monday. The proceeding took all of ten minutes. Nancy and Henry stood before Judge Billings, their lawyer, Mr. Lewis Grimes, a bald gentleman with fleshy lips, between them.

“Absolutely not guilty!” The fury in Nancy’s voice ricocheted off the paneled walls and put an exasperated look on the old judge. He sucked his teeth and consulted his pocket watch, concerned about his noontime meal, no doubt. She had not expected such indifference from a man thrice married himself.

He named a trial date two months off, but Nancy didn’t retain the exact day. It didn’t matter. They’d be long gone.

“In the meantime,” said the judge, “beginning today, you and the lady will house yourselves separately.”

Nancy let out a little cry. The worst she’d anticipated was a command to return to this churchy courtroom, with its domed ceiling painted to look like heaven. Fat cherubs cavorted among frescoed clouds, taunting the innocent below. “That’s not fair, your honor!”

The bang of the gavel startled her. “Oh, my.”

The beaky judge glared down. “I’ll be the judge of what’s fair and what isn’t,
miss.
”

“It’s
Mrs
!
Mrs.
Henry P. Oades!” Nancy nearly bit her tongue in two getting the words out.

A Question of Divorce

T
HE MOON
-
BLUE ROOM SWAYED
. Somewhere glass was breaking. Nancy lifted her head from the pillow, perspiring freely, alone and confused, still drunk on the croup remedy she’d taken for sleep. Henry was gone, spending his nights at Mr. Potter’s, who was charging double now, simply because he could. The lawyer said it would look better come trial time if she herself vacated the premises. Nancy had agreed, not with enthusiasm admittedly, but Henry wouldn’t hear of it. Mr. Grimes then made special arrangements. Henry was allowed to return by day to work his farm, as long as he kept his distance from her. He was permitted to speak to Margaret, his lawfully wedded wife, as long and as much as he pleased. They could go out riding in an open buckboard in broad daylight if they felt so inclined. But the briefest exchange with Nancy meant jail. The anger knotted her. She felt it pulsing the livelong day. All tranquillity left with Henry.

A door slammed down the hall. Someone cried out, the words unintelligible. The dogs and cows kept on, barking and mooing in the dead of night. Nancy fell back on the damp pillow, groggy and sick. In the next instant the bed had shifted and she was on the floor. Margaret pounded on her door, shouting, “Earthquake!”

The door burst open and in she flew, long gray braid streaming behind her. “Get up, Nancy, get up, get up!”

She yanked Nancy to her feet and plucked wailing Gertrude from her crib. Somehow Nancy found her robe and slippers. They raced down the back stairs, glass from the fallen frames grinding beneath their thin soles. Outside, Margaret’s girls stood shivering, their flimsy nightgowns fluttering about their bare ankles. Margaret began pacing the yard, crooning a foreign ditty, reducing Gertrude’s cry to a whimper in a matter of seconds. Nancy might have taken her baby then, but she feared setting her off again. Instead she went with John to check on the bellowing cows. She managed to quiet Begonia, talking to her by lamplight, sleepily stroking her cheek.

“Shush, cow. Simmer down now.” The heifer eventually responded, surrendering sweetly. If only Nancy had the same effect on her own child.

At first light they went back inside.

The front porch had buckled. Two front windows had shattered. A south section of chimney was gone. But the walls and roof had held, and the hall floor felt secure.

The girls crept upstairs, Gertrude asleep in Josephine’s arms. Nancy and Margaret went into the front room, finding a glittering mess.

The damage to Francis’s jar was complete. The shards themselves were cracked. They approached the irreparable ginger jar with reverence, as if approaching a sacristy. Nancy fell to her knees weeping. She scraped Francis’s soft ashes into a heap, desecrating his remains with house dust and spider legs. Margaret went into the kitchen, returning with a mason jar for Francis, a hand broom, and a pail. She knelt beside Nancy, stretching to reach behind the pedestal for the broken lid, her chin trembling.

“The jar belonged to my mum, before it became Mr. Foreland’s resting place.”

“Oh, Margaret, I never knew. Henry said it had been in the family, but I didn’t think to ask more. I’m sorry. I was in such a state at the time.”

Margaret rubbed the piece of lid, her eyes dulling with sadness. “You couldn’t have known.”

They sat back on their heels, not looking at each other. Nancy pushed at tears with a knuckle. “You’d think God was conspiring against us.”

“I cannot imagine God bothering to concern himself one way or the other.”

“You don’t mean it.”

Margaret gave a little shrug.

“Maybe something for our nerves is in order. If the brandy bottle didn’t bust.”

“No thank you, Nancy,” said Margaret, rising.

Nancy waited for Margaret to leave the room, pouring then more than she’d intended.

H
ENRY DROVE UP
later than usual and headed straight for the milk room. Nancy so wanted to go to him, but didn’t dare take the risk. People rode by at all hours these days, hoping for a peek of the bigamist and his wives. If Henry was reported seen near the house he’d go to jail. For of course the judge would take a shameless rubbernecker’s word over theirs.

“You go, Margaret. He’ll want to know that we’re all right.” Margaret was gone almost two hours. Nancy was wound up tight by the time she returned. She met Margaret at the kitchen door. “What on earth kept you? No conversation could have lasted this long. Did he have you milking?”

Margaret gave her a bewildered scowl, her thin lips all but disappearing. She was homely as dishwater, true, particularly in this harsh light, but she was also smart and sturdy. A man needed an oak in troubled times, not some useless meadow flower.

Margaret took her apron from the nail, pulling it over her head. She stooped and picked up a missed sliver. Nancy had swept up the broken crockery by herself. She’d also dumped the cold ashes into the privy, fed the stove, got the fire going, picked and washed some carrots and put them on for soup. Margaret seemed not to notice any of it.

Nancy asked, “Did Henry mention Mr. Strickland?”

“He didn’t.” Margaret went to the sink and gazed out the window. “The butchering shed is in splinters.”

The longing in her expression gave Nancy an uneasy feeling. “Did he ask about me?”

“He wasn’t given time. I told him straightaway.”

Nancy forked a hard carrot in the pot. “Told him what exactly?”

“That Mr. Foreland’s jar had broken, that you were bereft over the loss.”

Nancy put down the fork and turned to her.
“Bereft?”

“Are the girls still up in our room, Nancy?”

Nancy brushed a damp curl from her eye. “
Bereft
, Margaret?”

Margaret said without emotion, “Are you not?”

“You left him thinking I was sobbing away over a vase? He pictures me inconsolable? Unable to come to my senses?” Nancy bobbed forward, coming nearly nose to nose. “Boo-hoo, Margaret!”

Margaret stepped back, staring without comment, working her wedding band up and down. Her composure set Nancy’s back teeth on edge and caused her voice to rise another shrill octave. “Boo hoo hoo hoo!”

Margaret distanced herself farther. “You’re overwrought.”

“
Overwrought!
Heavens to Betsy! You’d best go run and tell Henry!”

“Whatever is the matter with you, Nancy?”

“
You
are, Mrs. Oades!” Nancy sank to a chair, instantly regretting the outburst. What was happening to her? “I’m sorry, Margaret. I don’t know what gets into me.”

Margaret sat down beside her, patting her shoulder in a motherly way. Nancy looked at her. “Would you consider giving Henry a divorce?”

Margaret calmly stopped petting, her expression as placid as a cow’s. As if she’d been expecting the request all along. Such an obvious solution. Nancy congratulated herself. They’d have Mr. Grimes draw up the papers, and then put the entire sad past behind them. They’d go on as before. Nothing would change. Their situation could only improve. They’d do something special to celebrate the end of their problems, take a trip maybe, a long train trip to the East Coast. What she wouldn’t give to visit New York City and Niagara Falls. Nancy had their future perfectly planned in the moment before Margaret said, “Most assuredly not.”

Margaret stood and went to the stove.

“Do you loathe him that much?” asked Nancy

Margaret answered coldly, “I don’t loathe him in the least. He is my husband.”

“In name only,” said Nancy.

“Granted.”

“Do you still have feelings of affection?”

Margaret repeated herself. “He is my husband.” She came away from the stove, the blood drawn from her pitted face. “Have you once considered our innocent children?” She leaned into the table, fists down. “Girls who have come to regard you as a second mother? You sewed with them, laughed and joked. They told me all about it. Such a gay afternoon, Martha said. I was beginning to think you truly cared for them.”

“I do!”

“Yet you’d have them suffer the disgrace of divorce in order to appease the almighty Daughters of Decency?” She looked Nancy directly in the eye. “How about
you
, Mrs. Oades? Would
you
consider giving Henry a divorce? No? I thought not!”

The earth rumbled as she spoke. They stared at each other for half a moment, frozen, poised to flee. When nothing occurred, Margaret returned to the stove. She peered into the simmering soup and changed the subject by complimenting the aroma. They courteously discussed the ingredients like two strangers, debating whether or not to cut up an onion, which added nice piquancy but gave Nancy gas. Josephine came into the kitchen and went for her apron.

Nancy scraped back in her chair and started to rise. “Do you want me to stay? Or will I only be in the way?”

“Do stay,” said Margaret, with some authority. Nancy sat back down like a schoolgirl. Margaret presented her with a knife and onion, having unilaterally decided to spike the soup with indigestion.