by Jane Steen
“I could practice my music, I suppose.” Lucetta’s glance strayed to the room adjoining the Calderwoods’ parlor, where we were sitting. We could see Dr. Adema’s piano, its inlaid woods catching the golden glow of the afternoon light.
Dr. Calderwood saw where Lucetta was looking and responded immediately, baring his huge teeth in a gallant smile and bowing obsequiously. “If you wish to make use of my piano, my dear lady, you are most welcome, most welcome. It will be a pleasure to hear you play.”
“I’m more of a singer than a pianist, although of course I can acquit myself reasonably well at the instrument,” Lucetta replied. She looked at Martin, seemingly waiting for him to say something.
“My wife has a voice worthy to compete with Patti’s, although in my opinion it is even richer,” Martin drawled obediently.
“You've seen Adelina Patti?” Mrs. Calderwood was breathless with excitement.
“At the Academy of Music in New York,” Martin replied, and for a moment his glance flicked in my direction, the same unreadable expression in his eyes. I wondered whether he wanted to see if I was impressed with the Academy of Music in New York—I wasn’t—or whether he was sharing the joke that he, Martin Rutherford, the draper from the small town of Victory, could now sit talking about Patti with his heiress wife.
“Dr. Calderwood plays the pianoforte extremely well,” Judah obligingly supplied the next round of compliments. “Perhaps he could accompany you while you sing, Mrs. Rutherford?”
This remark set off a small fireworks display of protestations of too little talent from Dr. Calderwood, interjections to the contrary from his wife, and polite noises of assent from Martin, who was playing the part of the city sophisticate well. He was definitely amused now, I realized, watching the alert lift of his eyelids and the delicate flaring of his nostrils as he suppressed a grin.
Lucetta, on the other hand, seemed to take the offer seriously. She peppered Dr. Calderwood with questions about his musical experience and preferences. It surprised me to find the man really did know music. For a moment, he seemed quite sincere, the constant darting of his eyes ceasing as he fixed them on Lucetta.
Before another quarter of an hour had passed, the three of them—Dr. Calderwood, as always, deferred to his wife’s brisk management of his schedule—had arranged a trial hour or two of practice together the next day.
“We’ve quite left Mrs. Lillington out of the conversation,” Judah remarked. He took my teacup from me and handed it to Mrs. Calderwood, who raised inquiring eyebrows and asked if I would like more tea. I declined. My English Grandmama had raised me to appreciate a well-brewed pot of tea, and the Calderwoods’ potion left much to be desired.
“I’m not musical,” I admitted. “My talents lie more with my needle and my pencil. My grandmother encouraged me to play the piano, but somehow I never found the joy in it that I’ve observed other people do.”
“Martin is the same,” sighed Lucetta. “At least he was until I undertook to give him a musical education. Did you never hold musical soirées in that little town of yours?”
“I worked too hard in that little town of ours to have the energy to attend soirées,” Martin said. His tone was equable but held just a hint of annoyance. I had the impression that a well-worn marital discussion of his faults lay behind Lucetta’s remark. “Idleness and extravagance weren’t traits that my parents encouraged. Musical fripperies came under both categories, I believe.”
His eyes darkened, and I shot him a sympathetic look. From what Mama had told me, Martin’s childhood hadn’t been particularly cheerful even before his father’s mind had begun to falter.
“I’m quite enraptured by the idea of hearing you sing,” Judah said to Lucetta, diverting the conversation away from the dangerous path it had decided to take. “Perhaps it would be possible to arrange a small concert or two for the benefit of the better folk of Springwood? We have so few interesting entertainments out here on the frontier. Patti herself would barely create less excitement than you would.”
The Calderwoods exclaimed in unison over this notion, the doctor’s bass rumble a heavy counterpoint to Mrs. Calderwood’s excited squeaks. The ensuing conversation prompted a general move to the piano to rummage through the sheet music stored inside the footstool. Martin and I, as the nonmusical members of the party, stayed behind.
“Pray tell, Mr. Rutherford—what are you going to do for three weeks?” I put four of the small sandwiches and a soft, dainty little cake onto my plate; the tea was foul enough, but Netta’s cooking never failed.
Martin’s eyes were on the party gathered round the piano. His expression was strange, a mixture of wariness and derision that puzzled me. But as soon as I spoke, he turned back toward me, grinning when he saw my loaded plate. He reached over to the platter and disposed of one of the tiny sandwiches in a single bite before settling back into his chair.
“I’m here to see the frontier and to spend time with old friends. That’s a pretty dress, Nellie.”
I looked down, brushing a crumb of cake off the gleaming faille silk. “Not as grand as Lucetta’s. I would swear hers was from the House of Worth in Paris.”
“It is. So are several of her gowns. I could see you looking at it out of the corner of your eye. I wish I could show you our workshop. We have a client—whose name I’ll never divulge—who gets gowns from Worth’s. She wears them only once and then sells them to us so my couturières can see exactly what Paris is doing and use them for inspiration. We don’t copy, of course—we’re above that.” Martin leaned forward a little to see the details of my dress more clearly. “But what you’ve done, with only the fashion journals and your own imagination to guide you, is quite remarkable. You know how to cut for the best drape as well as any of my own ladies, and several of them hail from Europe and have a high opinion of themselves.”
“I so wish I could meet them.”
I meant it. The sight of Lucetta’s gowns had awakened a longing in me to see a city again—to see Chicago, with its newly built shops and thoroughfares . . .
A thought struck me, and I looked up at Martin. “Martin—you haven’t actually been to Paris, have you?”
“Well, yes, as a matter of fact.” Martin looked abashed. “In May. I didn’t tell you because—well, I felt you were in such a tranquil and healthy spot, and I didn’t want to make you feel restless. Now I’ve seen this place though,” his gaze roved around the ornate parlor in its shades of red and brown, “I don’t feel nearly so sanguine about leaving you here. There’s something odd about this institution, something secretive. It’s like when you’re certain there’s a worm in your apple, but you can’t for the life of you see a hole where it got in, and it makes you uneasy about taking a bite.”
And yet, I thought, Martin was happy keeping secrets from me. It hurt me more than I cared to admit that he had been to Paris—sailed across the ocean—without telling me about it. What else had he kept from me?
My face must have fallen because a look of deep concern spread over Martin’s.
“I’ve made you unhappy,” he said softly. “I’m sorry.”
I was trying to formulate a reply when Judah emerged from the adjoining room. Martin saw the direction of my gaze, and his anxious look changed back to the polite, indifferent one he’d worn earlier. “I intend to ride out to the Lombardi mission—what do you think of that, Nell? And I’ll have to make a trip to Wichita to meet Fassbinder there. I wanted him to accompany us, but he planned another route. He’s prospering mightily in the leather and dry goods trade and tells me he can make a much higher profit by extending his chain of stores as close to the frontier as possible. I have a stake in his business, as you know, so his profits are my profits—I must go about with him a little and hear his ideas.”
“Mr. Fassbinder is a longtime business associate of Mr. Rutherford’s,” I explained to Judah, who had seated himself beside me.
“I read about Mr. Fassbinder occasionally in the papers,” Judah replied, lo
oking interested. “He has some powerful political connections among the German interests, I believe.”
“He lived with Martin for a while after the Great Fire,” I said. “But he moved to Saint Louis—he has two daughters who have settled there. And their husbands are successful in their own right, so Martin tells me.”
“You have an exalted circle of acquaintance, Nell.” Judah’s voice was soft, intimate, almost possessive. “We’ll have to make sure you don’t remain a seamstress for much longer.”
“I agree with that in principle,” Martin said, “although our methods may differ.”
He looked hard at Judah, and I felt like a bone lying between two large dogs. I sat up straighter, feeling indignant. What did Martin—what did either of them—think they were doing, presuming to arrange my life for me?
“I think it’s for me to determine at what point I cease to be a seamstress,” I said. Again I heard Mama’s—or was it Grandmama’s?—patrician English accent ringing in my own voice.
I rose to my feet, smoothing down the bodice of my dress. “After all, the power of decision is entirely mine, is it not?”
I gave both of them what I hoped was a quelling look and made my way toward the Calderwoods to make my excuses and get back to my workroom. I had had quite enough of society for one day.
34
Revelation
“When’s Martin coming back?”
Sarah carefully copied the r in “October” on her slate, making a good job of it.
It was the first day of that month. Martin had been gone for five days, visiting the Lombardis’ mission. He intended to ride around with the pastor to see the “real frontier” of homesteaders and prospectors.
I’d wondered how Martin would get on with so much rough riding until I saw him dressed in well-worn denim britches and scuffed chaps, looking for all the world as if he’d spent his whole life on horseback. He had laughed at my evident astonishment, reminding me that he now often went hunting with his business acquaintances.
“You should call him Mr. Rutherford,” I admonished Sarah, but I knew she wouldn’t. She had taken to Martin, behaving with him much as she did with Teddy—demanding piggyback rides and chatting to him about her real and imaginary worlds. She’d climb into his lap to smooth her small hands over his freshly shaven cheeks when he visited our workshop in the morning, just as I’d done as a small child—except then his cheeks had barely needed shaving.
“Pinch and a punch for the first of the month, Momma!”
Sarah ran to me and administered a vigorous pinch on my hand, followed by a punch to the arm that would not have disgraced a prize boxer. I yelped and rubbed the sore spot. Sarah laughed and ran to Tess, who threw her hands in the air, shouting, “White rabbits!” to ward off the attack.
A great deal of foolishness ensued, culminating in a mad chase around the workroom. Sarah had the distinct advantage of being able to duck under the tables. She was successfully eluding capture when she suddenly squealed, “Martin!” and launched herself at the tall figure who had appeared in the doorway.
“Good heavens, did you ride all night?” I collapsed breathlessly into a chair and squinted at the watch pinned to my shirtwaist. “It’s only a quarter past ten.”
“I left well before dawn; Lombardi thinks we’ll have rain, and there’s nothing worse than the chafing you get from riding in wet clothes.”
Martin dropped into a chair in his turn, removing his Stetson, which was much newer than the rest of his outfit. He placed it well out of the way of the length of black cashmere spread across my cutting table. He smoothed a hand over his hair, which had a dent in it from his hat, and winced as Sarah vaulted onto his knees. The bridge of his nose was sunburned, and dust had settled into every crease of his clothing and much of his skin.
“Oooooh, your face is all prickly.” Sarah rubbed a hand over the pale stubble on Martin’s chin, making a faint rasping sound. She held up her palm to assess the resulting dirt, then wiped her hand on Martin’s sleeve.
“And you smell of horse.” Tess, her round face rosy with joy, came to drop a light kiss on Martin’s cheek, wrinkling her nose. “But I missed you, Martin, and I’m glad you’re back.”
“I suppose I do smell somewhat.” Martin squinted down his long length of leg, eying the dust on his boots critically. “I’ll have to wash up before I face Lucetta; she can’t abide me when I stink. But I thought the circus was in town—I had to see what all the ruckus was about.” He poked Sarah in the side, causing her to shriek with laughter as she doubled up.
“What are you working on?” he asked me, gesturing to the spread of black on my table. “Looks funereal.”
“It is.” I ran a finger over the cashmere, enjoying its dull sheen and delicate softness. “Mrs. Addis’s mother passed yesterday—she lived with them. After Mrs. Addis had finished talking to Dr. Calderwood about a funeral service, she came straight to me to order her mourning. It’s as well I’ve caught up with my work for the seminary.”
“And we won’t be going out this afternoon.” Tess stood on tiptoe to shut the window. The pastor had been right about the rain, which was already splattering on the panes of glass and bringing a smell of wet dust to our nostrils. “So we can get lots done, Nell. Mrs. Addis said again and again and again how black would look terrible on her,” she added to Martin, “but Nell made such a pretty drawing—see?” She held up a piece of paper on which I had sketched a design that would flatter Mrs. Addis’s well-kept figure. “So she stopped crying about wearing black and cried about her mother instead. Then she made Andrew drive all the way to Wichita and back for the cashmere and some silk and some black fringe. I don’t know how she can do that because he’s not her servant, but he didn’t mind because she gave him two dollars.”
Tess ran out of breath and leaned on the edge of the table, pink with pleasure at being the deliverer of the latest news.
“So I do have rather a lot of work.” I stood up and moved around to the end of the table where I had started arranging the pattern pieces. “But you can stay there as long as you like, Martin; Tess was going to read to me.”
“Out of the Bible?” Martin was beginning to look sleepy. Sarah had laid her head on his chest and curled up on his lap, her skinny little legs in their practical black stockings half-hidden under her petticoats.
“We’re reading a novel.” Tess held up a volume bound in lilac and gold with a lavishly illustrated cover. “It’s called Around the World in Eighty Days, and it’s full of adventures.”
“A man jumped out of the fire,” Sarah said lazily, patting Martin’s vest. Then, a little more alert, she asked, “What’s this?”
Martin fished a lumpy shape out of his vest pocket and gave it to Sarah. “I found it in a gully when I stopped to rest the horse,” he said. “It’s a shell that’s turned all to stone—it’s called a fossil.”
“I know what a fossil is.” Sarah turned the petrified shape over in her hands. “God made them to make the world look old, that’s what Dr. Calderwood says in his sermons. They’re very long, his sermons.” She yawned, gazing at the shell. Then she straightened up, fetching Martin such a punch on the arm—fortunately not with the hand that held the fossil—that he grunted and swung her down out of his lap, frowning. “What was that for?” he asked.
“Pinch and a punch for the first of the month.”
Sarah, with a cheeky grin, tried to pinch his thigh—he moved his leg in time—and then skipped backward a few paces. “Can—may I have this?” she corrected herself with one eye on me, holding up the fossil.
Martin groaned and rubbed his arm in an exaggerated fashion. “You may,” he replied, “especially if you behave yourself for a while.” He settled back into his chair again, watching as Sarah sat at her table and cleaned her slate in preparation for some drawing.
I busied myself with the placement of the remaining pattern pieces while Tess found her spot in the book and commenced reading. We had discovered that when she re
ad out loud she did not stutter much, as long as she concentrated fiercely on the page. I was grateful for her newfound enthusiasm, as Sarah, who loved stories, would play quietly as Tess read and thus leave me free to work.
I didn’t find Mr. Verne’s story all that fascinating, to tell the truth, and listened with half an ear, letting my mind wander over the task ahead of me. I had designed the dress with a diagonally cut overskirt over a tiered underskirt. It had close-fitting sleeves and a high neckline since Mrs. Addis’s neck gave away her age much more than her figure did. How best could I use the silk she had bought, which was surprisingly delicate? And I didn’t have time to add overmuch detail. Martin would know . . .
But Martin’s eyes had closed. His head rested against the high chair back, showing his beaky nose in profile. His arms were folded over his body, his long legs stretched out in front of him. He did not, for a mercy, snore or sleep gape-mouthed, but dozed quietly, his hair falling forward over a forehead which showed a faint line of grime where his hat had been.
My hands faltered at my work, and I found I was regarding Martin with an almost avid concentration, as if I were a painter setting out to paint his portrait. His hands, large and long-jointed but sensitive-looking, had relaxed in sleep, a fresh, shallow gash marring the knuckles of the left hand with a stripe of brownish-red. The skin on his hands and face was faintly bronzed, his eyebrows wirier and darker than I remembered them. The eyelashes that lay on his cheek were as I had known them, light—almost white—at the ends but shading to brown near the eye. This made them look short, but I knew that up close they would be longer than they appeared.
I had a sudden memory of being perhaps nine years old and deeply repentant about something I had done or said. It was during the war—around the time of Shiloh, I realized, the name of the battle leaping out of my memory as if significant. Martin had been sitting in a high-backed wooden chair, much like the one he was in now, but in a state far from relaxation. Every line of his young man’s body, his long, thin limbs, was expressive of impatience and fury, his mouth clamped shut in a tight line and his eyes storm-dark with anger. He was so easily angered in those days. He was a man of twenty, forced to cling to his mother’s side to protect her from his father’s violence while his friends were away at the war, living the life he would have chosen. I had lit the fuse somehow with my careless teasing and felt sick inside, desperately searching for a way to bring a smile to Martin’s face.