Four of a Kind: A women's historical fiction

by Russell, Vanessa

“Sorry. I’m half Cherokee. I sleep light, I walk light.”

  I stepped away from his closeness and waited for my heart to return to its rightful place. Reaching for the lavender blooms, I pinched one off and turning to him, held this up to his nose. “Who does that remind you of? Anyone we know?”

  He closed his eyes for a moment, inhaling deeply. The rooster’s crow broke the silence somewhere near. He opened his eyes to that, and to my condemning posture. “I think I’m searching for someone else through you. Are you related to her?”

  I nodded. “I’m Ruby Wright’s daughter.”

  “Oh dear Lord. I honestly wasn’t sure and I was afraid to ask. If you don’t like the answer, don’t ask the question, my Daddy used to say.” One hand reached out tentatively and touched my hair falling around my shoulders, not yet combed back and pinned. “This morning you look so much like how I remember her from ten years ago, only your hair’s a little lighter I think and hers fell down to her waist.” He spoke softly, the light from the rising sun behind me accenting his native features of square jaw line, wide mouth, prominent nose and cheekbones, giving his face a red-man glow. I was shocked in wondering when and how he saw Mama’s hair down; I had only seen it so at her bedtime.

  “She had such beautiful long hair.”

  “You bastard,” I said, slapping his hand away. “I’m leaving.”

  He raised that same hand in peace. “When I saw you here in Tennessee, how was I to know who you were? I just thought God was giving me a second chance to be with the one I love. And you have not only her looks but also her spirit. I couldn’t pull myself away from you.”

  “You married me because you want to be with my mother? Do you have any idea how that makes me feel?” I trembled from this revelation of being a second-hand rose. Wings of anger that I hoped had settled around my shoulders as a suffragist, were now flapping hard enough for me to lift ground.

  Another thought jolted me like a bolt of electricity (which is perhaps not a good simile because there was no such thing as electricity ‘in these here parts’). “Ruby! You named your youngest daughter after Mama?”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter now, does it? You were leaving anyway.”

  I refused to allow him to get off that easily. “If I wanted to stay, didn’t you think I would have figured it out? After all, you would eventually meet my parents!” My composure gone now, my trembling had raised my vocal chords up a notch or two. “Or was that the whole purpose? A reason to be around Mama again?” I threw the lavender down and walked further away. This was just too much.

  He silently followed me up to the grassy knoll I had stood on the day before, surveying my future home. Seemed like a month before. This time I stood there with my back to the cabin, facing the trees, ready to run, only more questions kept me in place. I folded my arms across my chest and faced him, ready to attack again. “And Mama! Was she in love with you too? Was she?”

  Pain was plainly there on his face and I was inflicting it and happy to do so. I behaved as a jealous woman.

  “It’s not right that I speak for Ruby.”

  “Did she tell you she loved you?”

  “That’s for your mama to say, not me.”

  “Did you seduce her?”

  He raised his eyebrows in surprise and then frowned. “Good Lord, woman! Remember who you’re talking about. Ruby was a good woman! You should know that better than me.”

  “Fine, Mr. Phillips. I’m a woman; she’s a good woman. As you said to me last night, I hear you loud and clear. It’s ironic, isn’t it? I lived my life to please her, to do what she couldn’t do and stand up for women’s rights. Now I find someone else who couldn’t shake her. And she calls herself powerless! Well, you should be happy to know that Papa is very ill.” I waited for that last bit to sink in but Mr. Phillips was better than I at keeping his emotions in check. He simply watched as if waiting for further instructions.

  So I decided to give him another stab. “And as for you, for us, this marriage is over. It was never consummated and it never will be.” I wanted to say more but I stopped. Drained of emotion, or numbed by too much emotion, but at least my mind stopped questioning and I prepared to move on. I smiled bitterly at that one. I did what I was trained to do. Trained to stand and fight, trained to state my position, and then move on. I was not a lavender flower like Mama, growing roots, but much more like tumbleweed, moving with the wind.

  Mr. Phillips insisted we have breakfast with ‘the younguns’, before heading back to Nashville. He said he would also need some time to try to repair whatever went wrong with his truck. I relinquished; what else could I do? I was dependent upon this traitor or march the twenty miles back to the Nashville train station.

  My armchair, or my ‘throne fit for a queen’ as his boys called it, still sat in the kitchen and I obediently sat in it to face biscuits and gravy. Giggling and whispering continued around the table from the night before, as if no time had passed in between. While chewing my biscuit, I suddenly realized that they were deliberating how their father and I had done something naughty ‘in Daddy’s bed’ and my face flushed crimson.

  The baby, little Ruby, I nonetheless found enduring, perhaps even endearing, for when I smiled at her, she hid her eyes behind her hands shyly. When I removed her hands and said, “Peek-a-boo!” she gave a glorious, straight-from-the-stomach cackle. It was this child who took her mother’s life in birth. I empathized; she would no doubt have this taunted at her by her older siblings as she grew up, giving her personal blame.

  I looked around the table and wondered how they would fare without a mother here for sometime longer, perhaps forever, since their father, with his drawn face and shadowed eyes, would likely not attempt this again, especially since his heart was evidently not in it.

  I gave credit to Mary Sue, a great deal of credit as I watched her stir and serve and scold. She was their mommy now, and although she made it known this was a burden, she carried the burden well; her shoulders squared for whatever life threw at her. All the more reason to admire her and I did. What better hero than one who didn’t want to do it, but accepted the responsibility bravely? And she would rather do it all, then to pass it on to a stranger, someone who didn’t belong here. She became my heroine for that short time at breakfast. Could I somehow reciprocate and bring light into her tired disappointed eyes? Naively, I resolved to help her but in my own way, through my own strengths. Goodness knows, I showed only my weaknesses ‘in these here parts’.

  Not to mention, revenge would be sweet for Mr. Phillip’s and Mama’s deception.

  Mary Sue looked across the table at me and I gave her a promising smile. Her eyes hardened and she returned a look that could kill.

  I returned to Annan with my tail between my legs, my virginity intact, my mouth shut. I started where I left off and joined in the celebration for winning the women’s vote.

  Like I said, I was supposed to be happy. I walked in my place in the celebration parade, smiling and waving, tiny pieces of paper falling down around me as if the white fluffy clouds above me had burst. But with the chill in my heart, they might as well be snow. I wanted to step out of line but I didn’t know where else to go, so I did what I always did and followed behind the others.

  “Okay, Mama, I’m here,” I muttered through clenched teeth, truly hating her. I hoped my face favored a smile, and while doing so, wondering how to get even with her. I didn’t want the other women in my group to think I was unappreciative. After all, we had worked hard for this. Yet, the one woman I struggled through this for the most, didn’t show up yet again. She made it clear to me under no uncertain terms that it was my duty to march in her place. But to marry in her place – that’s a bit extreme. I had gone as far as I would go with that woman – damn hypocrite!

  Yes, I festered, even with such festivity, complete with the high school band, zigzagging, tooting, booming, some blowing so hard into their wind instruments, their faces were red and blown round as beets. All were celebrating
something that many in our midst had fought hard to prevent, or at the very least, had scorned and mocked.

  I was reminded of the Henny Penny story where she could find no one to help her plant or harvest the wheat but plenty showed up to eat the bread.

  My fellow suffragists looked genuinely happy, some letting white doves out of baskets along the way. We all wore banners that declared boldly, “Women Won the Vote!”

  How many times had I petitioned for this moment? After nine years of hard lobbying, if my group knew how I felt now, if Mama knew how I felt … well, it couldn’t be helped – my heart wasn’t in it. Mama had spoiled my one day in the sun.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton predicted rightly when she wrote, This is winter wheat we are sewing and other hands will harvest.

  This was harvest time and women were finally declared as people, but instead, my head inflamed with complaint. In solace, I wrote a speech and was asked to give this speech after the parade. Poor timing.

  In remembrance of Annan’s first Women’s Rights Convention of 1910, we used the large gazebo in the City Hall Park for the open-air ceremony. We ‘women-folk’ sat along the back bench, taking turns in speaking. The crowd numbered five hundred, I’d say; another implication of 1920’s open-mindedness to women’s advances.

  Yet this gazebo also felt like poor timing for me in that while I sat inside there waiting my turn, I pictured us as colorful birds trapped in a large cage, while many people sauntered by looking at this strange species of females.

  I had been instructed to speak for three minutes on my favorite topic of Susan B. Anthony, with the purpose of reminding our audience of sacrifices made, and to end this on an inspirational note.

  I did this. And then ended it in writing, “As my mama wrote ten years ago and I sang so proudly here as an eleven-year old, ‘Women are people too; we are no less than you. Equal rights will see us through; to share where freedom reigns!’ To my mama, Ruby Wright, who could not be here.” I paused dramatically. “To the Ladies Legion, to Mrs. Catt, to Miss Anthony, to so many others, many of whom are here today, thank you for your courage. For standing strong. Now we must move forward. Don’t let us stand still. Ladies, be sure to cast your hard-earned vote in November!”

  That was the last of my written speech and I should have stopped there, but the crowd’s standing cheers spilled over into an act of foolishness. I shouted like there was no tomorrow, “The corset of social injustice has been removed, so you must continue to remove all that binds you! Be free, ladies! That is the law of progress. Be passionately interested in yourselves. We must catch up to the men because our rights are not as developed as theirs. We must fight against child labor, women’s low wages, and men’s superiority, to name a few. Women no longer cling to the old separation of ‘charity and church work for women, politics for men’. We’ve waited seventy-two years for this! Celebrate our victory and our freedom!”

  The crowd became more and more subdued as I rattled on, with only the rebel women left standing at the end of my speech.

  Pearl had her fun with it as we walked home. “Oh dear sister. You said the word ‘corset’!” She placed the back of her hand to her forehead and pretended to faint, right there on the boardwalk. Such a public display made me wish we had taken a taxi to Mama’s rather than walk there for dinner.

  “Behave, sister.” I cautioned.

  “Well, it is an undergarment,” she said, wrinkling her powdered nose. “‘Remove all that binds you’. I love that line. Sounds like we should now walk nude in the streets. And this comes from someone worried about my knees showing. You are just too kippy!” Her bright red lipstick spoke louder than her words. She tucked her bobbed hair behind her ears and slowed her pace beside me, her bangs oddly concealing her forehead. Why she wanted to look boyish passed all my understanding. I remained quiet, awaiting her theatrics to end.

  She shook her head. “You don’t know if you’re a reformer or a stiff, do you?”

  “Pearl, when I spoke of freedom, I did not mean it physically. I meant freedom of choice in occupation and economic independence. That should clearly be our goal.”

  “My goal is not so high and mighty,” Pearl said. “I’d be happy if I could just earn a decent wage at that textile factory I sweat in. Ohhh, a dincher!” She bent down to a half-smoked cigarette and picked it up daintily from the grass with two red fingernails.

  “Don’t you dare, young lady! We’re almost home. Are you trying cigarettes, too? Next thing I know, you’ll be drinking alcohol. And don’t bend like that. You’re displaying more than your knees in that loose sack you call a dress, sister.” The waistline dropped to her hips and her chest looked flatter than before, from the loose fabric, I supposed. That was before I discovered she tightly wound her chest with strips of cloth to hide her womanhood. She dropped the dirty thing and straightened to face her foe, someone who no longer knew her, and she no longer knew.

  “Yes, I’m a smoke-eater. You know, sister, while you’ve been preaching on future freedom, us common girls have been living real times. Sweatshops, penny pay, and men bosses with roaming hands. I don’t live for the future, I live for today. And I’m going to have fun. And that includes hootch and smokes and petting parties. Damn the Prohibition, is what we say! You duds don’t dance! Do you think I’m going to live like you? A stuck-up Ritz living Mama’s dream? Don’t criticize my life until you get one of your own!”

  Mr. Phillips came to mind and I thought, Oh and you only know the half of it. Pearl walked off ahead of me, her shoulders up, her hips swinging angrily. Familiar with her temper, I simply waited until her shoulders relaxed and she slowed her walk. We were soon walking side-by-side again. I hid my hurt – part of what she said was true. But I worried about her careless live-for-today philosophy and told her so.

  She shrugged her shoulders. “No need. Soon enough I’ll marry a snuggle pup and live happily ever after.” She quickly changed the subject. She extended her leg to show mesh stockings and slip-on shoes. “Aren’t I just fluky? How do you like my dog kennels? I told our dapper dad he should rename his shoe store from Walk Wright to Dog Kennels. Wouldn’t that be the cat’s pajamas?”

  “Speak English!” I said, having enough. That seemed more than she could do at the time so she fell silent.

  We arrived at our destination and Pearl pointed toward the front verandah of my childhood home, brighter nowadays, recently painted in pastel blue and yellow, gone were the brown and green colors. I wondered briefly how she could convince Papa to make any changes around there. Mama sat there in her eternal rocker. “As long as I can remember, she has sat out there rocking, rocking, rocking. I think I was born there.”

  Mama must have heard Pearl. “I’m out here where it’s quiet,” she said as we walked up the verandah steps. “Your papa listens to that radio constantly.” She clapped her hands together and squeezed, her face lighting with a grin. “Hello my suffragist daughter!”

  “Just call me Henny Penny,” I answered glumly.

  She paused, looking puzzled, but I waved it away.

  She pointed toward the wicker settee. “Sit and tell me everything. Did you notice? I’m wearing my Ladies Legion colors today. My original white blouse and black skirt to honor our victory! Can you believe I kept it all these years? I remember cutting up a white sheet for the pattern and using the bone buttons from your father’s old vest. Isn’t it the dog’s pajamas?”

  “Yes, I believe it is,” I said dryly. The blouse was ill-fitted and worn thin at the elbows and cuffs, and had yellowed a bit from old age. Thank goodness she hadn’t shown up for my speech in that garment.

  Pearl rolled her eyes. “It’s cat’s pajamas.”

  “Pardon?” Mama once again looked puzzled, as if now both her daughters spoke in another tongue.

  “It’s cat’s pajamas, not a dog’s.”

  Mama waved the comment away, just as I had done.

  Her grin came back quickly. “How did your speech go? I wish I could have been the
re. Perhaps you will recite it for me later. Women make the best speeches, don’t you think? We’re more timid and decent, and less bothered with the obsession for public speaking.”

  My attention shifted to Pearl, expecting her to cackle over my inappropriate public verbiage, but she was either repentant over her earlier tantrum or more docile now at home. She only smiled sweetly and sat still. Mama’s eyes sparkled with anticipation as I described the ratification and final countdown in Tennessee and the speeches of today, having decided to leave out my personal drama until we were alone. She always delighted in hearing of my conversations with Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, whom Mama had idolized since her own days of suffrage campaigning.

  “Mrs. Catt asked about you, Mama. She said that during the early days of suffrage, women such as you were the backbone to the cause. Her words were ‘we needed more women like your mother, Ruby, because she could communicate to the common woman, whereas the educated woman was difficult to understand when coming to the masses.’” I paused for affect. “It’s a shame, really.” I enjoyed twisting that knife of guilt once in a while.

  As Mama slowly took in my meaning and grimaced, Pearl’s eyes dulled and she excused herself to check on Papa. She paused at the door. “Be prepared for Papa, Bess. He blames me on you.”

  “Yes, let me guess,” I said. “The suffragists, those men-haters of the world, have degraded and spoiled those green seedlings of female youth who needed a role model to light their way, to grow, but instead received the rain of dirty rhetoric and dark clouds of hot air blown about by hot-headed women who do not understand their place is in the home, caring living breathing for their husband, that master of the house, that god of good and godly greatness.” I said this last with my hand over my heart, breathless at the end.

  Pearl laughed loudly in only that careless way Pearl could, doing a little dance step and wiggling her hips - then resumed her hunched over position, poor posture – likely my fault too – from non-restrictive garments and no corset to keep her straight. “Yes, but you’re so good at dirty rhetoric!”