Four of a Kind: A women's historical fiction

by Russell, Vanessa

  “Then I am his slave,” I stated matter-of-factly. “And of course it wasn’t long ago that we fought a very bloody Civil War over that very thing. Do you know what Abraham Lincoln said on the subject? Let me find that quote for you.”

  “Well, now, Sister Ruby, there is no need—”

  My legion friends had given me more fodder: I returned from the secretariat while reading aloud from a newspaper clipping, one of several I had saved on the assassinated president and had discussed at our ‘tea’. Lizzie was so excited during our discussion, in remembering her sense of freedom as a child when the Civil War ended.

  “Mr. Lincoln is quoted as saying: ‘As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.’” I stopped in front of Preacher Paul and looked at his bent head, his thin threads of gray hair, his pink scalp. “Surely, you believe in democracy?” I asked. Yes, I challenged a Man of God, but I found strength in Mr. Lincoln’s words.

  He continued looking down at his Bible, his finger still on the Word. “Yes, of course, democracy is a rule of government, for all men that are created equal. But God’s Word presides over government, Sister Ruby.” His tone was of one talking down to a child and losing his patience.

  But I had another quote: “Mr. Lincoln also said: ‘Those who deny freedom for others deserve it not for themselves.’ How far must obedience go before we are denied our freedom?”

  Speaking these words of freedom somehow gave me courage and from deep within I felt a release of my own words, a power. Preacher opened his mouth to speak, but I forged ahead, sitting back down on the edge of my rocker, my elbows on my legs, leaning forward in earnest. My corset pinched my side, sitting like this, but I paid little mind to it - or to Robert and his pinched lips.

  “These women you saw me marching with are all good Christian women. But their freedom has been denied. Take Aimee, my next door neighbor, for instance. Her husband, in the name of obedience, beats her. Would you beat your wife into submission? Of course not. But what about the men who do? Must she obey a drunken husband? What if, in his drunken stupor, he told her to rob a bank? Must she obey, and thus break a government law, because God’s presiding law said she must obey her husband first? You read here in Titus ... let’s see ... here it is ... that women should be ‘teachers of good things’. Well, women are not permitted the schooling they need. How can they teach the good things to others, if they themselves are not permitted to learn? How can an aged woman teach young women, when they are forbidden by their husbands to leave their own homes, forbidden to talk to strangers or even their own neighbors? How can I teach my children of life’s lessons and struggles, when I myself am not allowed to experience it beyond these walls?”

  I clutched my hands together as if in prayer and gave both gentlemen my pleading eyes. “Please forgive me, but I see ‘obey’ as another word for control or slavery. I see the democratic law not protecting women. And I see husbands not protecting their women.” My thoughts were tumbling over one another in an effort to get out and be heard.

  “And what else does God’s law say? Why do you only read to me what women are supposed to do? Look here! It also prescribes what men are supposed to do. Let us read on here in Titus. ‘That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience ... young men likewise exhort to be sober minded. In all things shewing thyself a pattern of good works; in doctrine shewing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity.’ And does the Bible not also say, in Genesis I believe, for the man to cleave unto his wife? To love her as Christ loves the church? Well, I say that if man obeyed the commandments and did all these things, then women would be happy to obey the man. Because to obey a sober, patient, loving man would not require obedience at all, but many returns of love and honor. She would stand beside him happily and willingly, both man and woman teaching the young good things!”

  I was out of breath with these last words, my face feeling hot from my audacity. I swallowed hard, my mouth dry. In the pursuing silence, my courage slipped away from me as if caught naked and they’d discovered me. “May I offer you something to drink, Preacher?”

  Preacher Paul seemed to be at a loss. He shook his head. His cheeks had become a rash of red. His finger had not moved from his open Bible. His eyes darted over to Robert and then back to me.

  Clearing his throat, he returned to the verses. “Well, now, Sister Ruby, you may be right in some things you are saying there, but not being a minister of God, you have misquoted. You see,” he shifted in his chair and began tapping on the page of his Bible as if he were trying to keep the words down, “the verses you are reading are commandments for the pastoral work of a true minister. If you studied your Bible more, you would know this chapter does not apply to all men.” He said this last sentence sounding rather relieved at finding a rebuttal.

  I hated his condescending tone. I looked down at my own verses and nodded as if I suddenly understood. “Oh, yes, of course, I see... then that means that the quote about women being teachers of good things, only applies to women ministers?” I put my hand to my mouth as if struck by a revelation. “Oh my! Does that mean that women can preach? For truly, what is the difference between teaching and preaching? And does this mean, then, that only women ministers must obey their husbands?”

  Does he think I am stupid and cannot read?

  Preacher sat up straight, shaking his head emphatically. His eyes were dry now, heated in anger. “God did not call women to preach!” He shook his finger at me. “Jesus chose only men as his twelve disciples!”

  My eyes went wide in surprise. “Surely you are not saying that this chapter only applies to all women, and not all men?”

  Preacher looked truly confused, and helplessly directed his glares to Robert.

  Robert uncrossed his legs and then crossed them the other way. He looked reluctant to take charge. He cleared his throat. “Ruby, are you questioning a Man of God?”

  I drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Sitting back in my rocking chair, I attempted to settle, rocking to soothe. I was both amazed and a bit disconcerted at being so outspoken. Where did all that come from?

  Well, I started this petition and I will surely have to finish it.

  “I do not mean to be disrespectful,” I said to Robert. “I am only asking that Preacher Paul, as the true minister I know him to be,” and I read again, “to be ‘sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience’ when preaching to me. Preacher, please, in charity, listen to me. I have done nothing wrong! You see me marching for women’s rights and neither one of you have asked me why. Without a fair trial, I am judged and on my way to fire and brimstone. And for what? For speaking out for downtrodden women! I can speak my own mind, which surprises me as much as it may dismay you.”

  I stopped rocking and gazed at Robert. He was certainly on his best behavior in front of the Man of God. His hypocrisy made me so angry. “And Robert, while I have the courage to be so outspoken, I don’t remember you cleaving unto your wife as she slept on the front verandah.”

  I stood and extended my hand to Preacher Paul. “Forgive me but I must tend to my children.”

  Preacher half-stood, nodded his head, and sat back down. He ignored my hand, trembling as it was. He looked dazed and a little upset.

  I placed my hand over my heart, feeling the need to make peace, even feeling a little sorry for the two of them. “Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak my mind. As a Christian woman in a democratic society, I should be able to speak it. Good night, gentlemen.”

  I walked up the stairs feeling like I understood Lizzie’s use of the word ‘liberated’ for the first time.

  I found Bess sitting on the top step, chin propped in her hand, evidently eavesdropping.

  “Your mama actually spoke her mind!” I whispered to Bess with a hug.

  Bess returned the hug and smiled. “That’s good, Mama,” she whispered back. We walked hand-in-hand to Bess’s bedroom.

  B
ess sat on her bed and looked up at me. “Mama, why does Aimee’s husband beat her? What does women’s rights mean? Could we talk about that sometime?”

  That’s when I saw her immense capacity, her ability to understand.

  I smoothed the hair around her face. “There is more to talk about some day. I have so much to tell you. Perhaps some day soon.”

  I kissed my eldest daughter good night and walked to my room a lighter woman. I wanted to run across the yard and tell Aimee about tonight. And then I remembered I’d cut off all ties to my legion of friends.

  The bedroom door slammed hard. I jolted from the washstand, my camisole clutched in front of my breasts and turned toward the door. Robert approached me in three long strides and grabbed my shoulders.

  “How dare you be so rude to a guest in our home! I am ashamed of you!” He slapped my face hard with his open hand. “Is it not enough you flaunt yourself in public parades, carrying my name? Now you must do so in my home and shame me?” He shook hard enough that I dropped my camisole. I began to cry.

  “Not so high and mighty now, are you?” He pushed me back and I fell halfway onto the bed. I crossed my arms across my exposed breasts, afraid to rise.

  He placed his hands on his hips and looked down at my vulnerable state with some degree of satisfaction. “Preacher’s last words, before he left were, ‘You better get control of your wife, Brother Robert, better bridle her and break her in or she’ll just buck again and run off.” He pulled his suspenders off his shoulders and unzipped his pants. They fell to the floor and he fell on top of me.

  He pinned my shoulder down with one hand as his other hand jerked at my pantalets. Somewhere in my mind I knew they were tearing, but the sound was muffled by my sobs. Foolishly I struggled, until I gasped for air as he pressed down on me harder. He whispered names in my ear, names I blocked out, could not comprehend. He grabbed the back of my hair and held on tightly as if holding onto the mane of a galloping horse, and I felt my braided updo, along with my body, unravel across the quilt. I could no longer sob, no longer breathe, everything melted in my mind, until, finally, he pulled away from me.

  He stood and kicked his pants away from his feet, unbuttoned his shirt and threw this onto the floor. He did not look at me but shook his head as if in disbelief. “You are not the woman I married. I don’t know you anymore.” His voice now weak, shaky, his anger now spent.

  I gathered enough air into my lungs to move again, to crawl up to the head of the bed, to puff my pillow, to feel its soft substance. I felt deflated as if his weight had pressed me paper-thin, my only substance being his fluid he’d released inside me. I hugged my arms in my fetal position and faced the window.

  “And the man I married is only a dream,” I murmured.

  In the early morning, I awoke with his words still there, as if written on the window I faced. By the window’s light, I wrote in my diary:

  “You are not the woman I married.” Had I changed? At what point did I become a woman in the first place? When did my smile turn upside down, as if the weight of the world bore down on these muscles?

  Was it my wedding night? Did the loss of virginity’s blood take with it the naive girl and her dreams of sweet romance (ah, he kissed her lightly, ever so lightly – directly on the lips! – gazing into her eyes as if she was too good to be true!)

  No, my naiveté did not suddenly harden on my wedding night. I vividly remember the heated flush, when my mother-in-law returned home the next day from a night at her sister’s. How terribly awkward and apologetic I was, as if the residue of my lost blood was visible on my face. That his mother was secretly shaming me for it. And a week later, facing my family. That somehow they were looking at me differently, a knowing smile twitching at the corners of their mouths. How I had trouble, like a naughty girl, looking them all in the eye for months!

  Did motherhood, then, bring me into womanhood? Was it my unspoken pregnancy and its public proof of what Robert and I were doing in the privacy of our bed? Why keep it so private, I remembered wondering. What difference did it make if the outcome was protruding obscenely from your belly, as an invisible banner that read, ‘Vulgar acts performed here!’

  No, I had not changed then, because as the doctor lay my newborn baby in my arms, my first thoughts were the same as when I held my first porcelain-faced baby doll to my six-year old breast: ‘Mine, my own’. Its painted cheeks were etched in my memory as clearly as my breathing babies’ warm cheeks were. I felt no different, only that this was the next natural step.

  Was it gradual then, this becoming a woman? Was it the days, the weeks, the months, the years, that added bits and pieces of womanhood, like the birds add to their nests, one twig at a time, until one day you realize, as you fly toward home with yet one more twig - can’t stop, must keep going! - you realize the round nest is there, intact, precariously clinging to its tenuous branch, for better or worse, in windstorms, and in sunshine. The nest is holding four babies, their faces turned up to you expectantly, dependent on you for food and protection. You must keep holding on. Is that what womanhood is all about? Just keep holding on, going on, take your duties one twig at a time, don’t look beyond the task at hand. For if you saw the end of the day, and that this day and its efforts only brought night ... and your husband ... in the privacy of your bed ... more pregnancies to labor, more children to feed. An endless cycle. Why ... why would it be worth it all?

  Afraid to make noise and disturb the sleeping beast I heard snoring behind me, I had held my bladder but could do so no longer. I slipped off the bed and tiptoed behind the screen to the chamber pot. Sitting down fully on the thin cold rim, I sat practically as naked as my plucked chicken from yesterday. I winced at my soreness and bruises. Merciful Lord, there was my robe hanging over the screen. I was never so happy to see any object. I put the robe on quickly before someone could stop me, could hold me tight as he’d done most of the night … and during the night, in the blackness, again, more demands … spread, on your knees, touch … another stranger, and me with no gown, feeling strange and detached like a mishandled rag doll. I hugged my sleeved elbows in the robe’s generous protection.

  As usual, I would not wash and change until Robert had finished washing, had eaten his breakfast and left for the shop. Accordingly I tiptoed lightly to the door to prepare the morning meal. I could hear the boys’ footsteps above us.

  “Ruby.”

  My hand froze on the doorknob. I pressed my forehead to the door. Please dear Lord, he is not going to make me—

  “Yes, Robert?”

  “About last night,” Robert began, and then cleared his morning throat, “I have gotten past my anger and am thinking about some of the things you said to Preacher Paul. You made some good points. I watched in disbelief as someone else spoke passionately through my passive wife.”

  I turned slowly around in surprise, to see him addressing the ceiling, his hands linked at his bare chest.

  “I was disjointed,” he said softly, as if pondering it all. “Somehow unassociated with the only woman I’ve ever known, in the only home I’ve ever known. Odd. Very odd. Where did these ideas come from? Ah yes, the parade of women! Well, I must put that all behind us now. You did go a bit over the edge though, when you directed your disfavor of wrongful doings toward Preacher, then toward I, but ... well ... in all fairness ... I reacted inappropriately.”

  He was apologizing! My spirits lifted in spite of myself.

  “Robert, could we talk sometime about – all that?”

  The window light had not yet reached his side of the bed and he lay in a long shadow. He stretched and yawned. “I think I’ve heard all there is to say, haven’t I? There is more?”

  “Much more.” My hopes moved up one more step.

  He breathed in deeply and let his air out slowly. “Perhaps some day soon.” The same answer I’d given Bess. Man’s dominion, steps of descending order …

  Robert sat up and ran his fingers through his hair. “Please heat some
water for my bath. I wish to bathe before breakfast.” The sheet slipped away as he moved his bare legs over the side of the bed and I exited hastily.

  The kitchen was too warm for summer as usual, the stove still heated from the night before, bubbles popping through the lid of the kettle of simmering chicken bones broth. I opened the window and shoveled red-spotted gray ash from the stove’s belly into my ash bucket, fed it more wood pieces, and then added coal to feed its never-ending hunger. I pumped water into the kettle and placed this on the stove. I walked out to the small scullery between the kitchen and backdoor and pulled out the large round gray bathing tub I stored beside the bricked and copper laundry tub. I sighed, hearing the grit of coal dust move across the floor under its heavy weight. I wondered once again if my mother-in-law and Robert had decided the right thing in installing the sink pump in the larger kitchen. This scullery was once used as a back kitchen for washing dishes, and a sink pump would have been handy to wash both dishes and laundry. I started a fire in the grate under the laundry tub to finish that chore.

  As I poured boiling water into the bathing tub followed by cold water, he entered the room behind me. I flinched involuntarily in memory to last night. I silently handed him his soap and scrub brush from the shelf above me, draped a towel over the tub and exited. He pulled the cotton curtain across the kitchen doorway and I heard his robe land on the floor.

  “Now he is being modest!” I muttered under my breath, already in a bad mood from the heat.

  “More cold water, please,” he called.

  I pumped more water into the bucket and carried it through to the tub. His five-foot-four frame sat on his haunches in the tub, his knees drawn up to his hairy (beastly!) chest, his buttocks not yet touching the water. I didn’t wish to see more. I drew back the curtain at the backdoor window to look outside while I continued to pour.