by L. S. Young
“Oh it means strongly scented or flavored.”
“You mean to say they smell bad?”
“Landra!” Daddy was glowering at me from beneath his brows. “If the lady doesn’t like a dish, she doesn’t have to eat it.”
After that, I restricted myself to throwing acre peas at Eric until one hit Colleen and we were sent to bed. When Lily was asleep, I crept down the hallway to the parlor door and eavesdropped. Granny had gone home, and it was just Daddy and Colleen sitting in the dark.
“Your children are charming, but they need mothering,” she was saying.
Daddy grunted his approval of this statement. “Ma’s done what she could with ‘em, and they got a nanny.”
“I don’t believe Landra thinks much of me. The looks she gave! Eric was taciturn as well.”
“Landra will give you the run around if you let her. That performance she gave at the piano was for your benefit entirely. Never heard her sing that a way a day in her life. ‘Don’t wear shoes till November. First time Lily’s hair’s been combed’ my foot.” He scoffed, and the fire sizzled as he spat into it.
“I’m sure it is difficult for a girl her age to be without a mother.”
Rather than feel warmed by Colleen’s sympathy, I seethed with anger. She knew nothing of my life. She could not come here and try to replace my mother and take over everything. I tried to send my spirit out and cast her from the house, but the evil powers of darkness Granny was always hinting lurked beneath my surface when I was naughty seemed lacking that day.
Neither did they aid me in the future. Within the month, Colleen had married Daddy in a small ceremony at the Methodist church. They were gone for a week on their honeymoon in White Springs, and she returned to supplant me as mistress of the house. I had hoped the fact that she was a “Yankee”—a word that to me represented everything strange and unknown—meant she would have little knowledge of farm life and could be made a fool of.
I was wrong. It was true she had small knowledge of soap making or gardening or cane grinding, less of shoveling manure or milking a cow, but she had the ability to cook and sew and run an orderly house. Still, I intended to thwart her at every turn. The first morning, I rose before sunrise to do my chores and begin breakfast before she was out of bed. I had not been idle in the year since Mama’s death; Granny had taught me nearly everything she knew in the kitchen, and Lenore did not believe in idle hands. Colleen had spoken the evening before of making us a hasty pudding and buckwheat pancakes, but I threw the sour-smelling yeast batter she had prepared out the back door.
By the time she entered the kitchen, I had the table set and laden with food and coffee brewing in the percolator. There was a tureen of grits swimming in butter; a plate of leftover ham, sliced and fried; sunny-side-up eggs; and a basket of biscuits. The biscuits were burnt, and a couple of the yolks had broken, but I was proud of my work nonetheless.
“Good morning, Colleen,” I said. “Coffee?”
She looked about her in bewilderment. “Who did all this?’
“I did.”
“You?”
“Who else?”
She took in my bedraggled appearance. My nightie was dirty around the hem from walking through wet grass to milk the cows, and my hair was loose, flecked with flour. There was a flash of temper in her calm, blue eyes. She took a ribbon from her apron pocket and gave it to me.
“We never work in the kitchen with our hair down,” she said. “Look at you, Landra. I told you I would make the breakfast this morning. You’re not ready for school! Where is Lily?”
I pointed to the table where Lily was eating a biscuit with molasses, her fingers sticky and her black curls tangled. “I helped!” she piped, beaming.
“I don’t attend school,” I said, matter of fact, “and it isn’t my fault you lay abed half the morning.”
“Don’t attend school? I find it difficult to fathom your father keeping a girl your age from schooling. Surely the county will be after you for truancy?”
“He told them I learn at home. Daddy says it’s too far to walk to school. It’s nearly eight miles to walk there and back in a day.”
“What do you do, then?”
“I learn at home,” I repeated impatiently, “when I’ve time.”
“Can you read and write? And cipher?”
I shrugged. “Not much.”
This was a lie. I had learned to read with Eric at my mother’s knee but felt no need to share this with Colleen. She threw her hands up in exasperation. “This is too much for me,” I heard her mutter, but she pointed at the door. “Go comb your hair and dress. We’ll discuss your education later.”
After the noon meal, when the dishes were cleared away, Daddy retired to the parlor to rest a moment before returning to the field. He insisted I sing for Colleen again, this time without any nonsense. I did so reluctantly, remembering my mother’s words at my first singing lesson as I walked to the piano. “Your voice is fine, but mild. You must fill your lungs and tighten your belly to make yourself heard over the sound of the music.”
I struck the first few notes and then began to sing, allowing the true tone of my voice to come through, sweet and resonant. Years later, Lily would surpass me in her playing, but my voice was my own. I would never have the depth of an opera singer or the perfect pitch of a proficient, but it was enough to me that I possessed this one beautiful trait. The performance was far from flawless, but it was as different from my first as could leave no doubt to what I had done. When I returned to my seat, Colleen was looking at me fixedly. I caught a glimpse of shrewdness in her eyes that I had not seen before. I had miscalculated her.
She turned to Daddy. “Landra ought to attend school,” she said. “Eric, too.”
“Mmm.” Daddy was paring his nails with his knife and did not look up. “I need Eric’s help about the place.”
“What of Landra?”
“Don’t you want her to help you cook and clean if Lenore’s to go? There’s a sight more she can do around here than you can, I’ll wager.”
Her lips tightened. “I can manage.”
“Lenore, go?” I cried. “No! She has to stay. She looks after us!”
They ignored me. “School in town is too far,” said Daddy. “Ain’t no school in Willowbend.”
“I have understood from your mother that the children were taught, before Elizabeth’s death, by the governess of the Monday children.”
“Yes’m.”
“That contract was dissolved?”
“After she died I didn’t see the point.”
“Point? Solomon, it is not right nor lawful to keep these children from an education if it is afforded them. Surely we can work something out, some form of payment.”
Daddy paused for a long moment, and I thought he would say no. Instead he murmured, “I reckon.”
That was the end of it. With those two words, Colleen had won.
“No!” I cried. “I won’t leave Lily alone with her.”
Daddy’s look after I said this convinced me I was in for a licking, but once more Colleen stayed him. “Let me,” she murmured, giving him a smile. “A woman’s hand is needed here, not a man’s. Come here, Landra.”
I obeyed, but I stared at my bare feet as she spoke, grinding my teeth.
“A girl with talent like yours ought not to waste it.
“Talent?”
“Yes, it seems you have talent for many things. Cunning, first and foremost. I went into your bedroom to see if it was tidy this morning and saw the books in your windowsill. You told me you couldn’t read.”
“I said not much.”
“They looked fairly well worn to me. That seems nearly to be proof of a falsehood. Then I went and visited your grandmother and spoke to her about the plans your moth
er had for your education. She doesn’t seem to like me very well, but I learnt the truth from her. And now I’ve heard you sing. A girl like you, with potential for accomplishment, ought to be educated.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Why?”
“Several reasons. Perhaps one day you’ll have need for an income. You can become a schoolteacher with your accomplishments, or a governess to a fine family. Perhaps you would like to go to college. There are colleges that take women now. And even if you do neither of those, a comely, accomplished woman can always attract a husband more easily than a plain, ignorant one.”
“I’m not comely,” I stated. “I’m plain and skinny. Letty Hamilton says red hair is the ugliest shade there is.”
“You shall not always be plain.”
I chewed my bottom lip. Daddy harrumphed. “Don’t give the girl false hope, Leen,” he murmured. “Lily’s set to be a beauty when she blooms.”
I glanced up and saw Colleen dart a look of reproach at him. She leaned forward and spoke softly to me.
“Even if Lily grows to be the most beautiful woman alive, do not allow it to invalidate you. A girl with a bit of beauty and a lot of wit can go far. I’ve only small measures of both, yet I’ve done well for myself. There is more to be said for dimples and large gray eyes than you might think.”
I neglected to tell Colleen that I thought marrying a farmer in the middle of nowhere was the opposite of “doing well.”
I said instead: “Granny says dimples are the devil’s fingerprints.”
Colleen gave a short, barking laugh that startled me.
“I’ve never met a gentleman who would agree with that!” she cried. “And I don’t know who this Letty Hamilton is, but you tell her your hair is auburn. It’s too dark to be called red.”
Thus, I returned to my lessons on the Monday estate three days a week. For some time in my teens, I went to them as a ward and lived full time. In my mind, Colleen was disposing of me, getting me out of her way. I was a grown woman before I fully understood the great favor she had given me that day, but I began to understand it as I continued my tale to William Cavendish.
“I guess Miss Northrop figured with our mother gone and our father remarried, we were liable to end up illiterates. Besides, she liked us better than the Monday children, for we were better behaved. It’s because of her Eric is studying law. When the school opened in Willowbend, she convinced Daddy to let Eric go and get his diploma. He earned a scholarship that way.”
“And what about you?”
“I remained where I was. I boarded at the Monday estate as a ward for three years.”
“For the benefit of their society, and as a companion to Ida,” interrupted Colleen. “Following that, we thought it best Landra remain at home. She’d gotten all the instruction she could ever need by then, and I’d been very ill and needed her help.”
“If you had a governess, then you must play the piano and speak French.”
“I do not play very well, but my French is not inconsequential.”
“She sings divinely,” said Colleen.
“Eight years of lessons is a long time. She had to teach me something after I’d learned long division.”
He laughed. “Well, I find that intriguing. And what about you, Lily?”
Lily shrugged. “Landra taught me some, and I walked to school any time I couldn’t get out of it till very recently.” She smiled at him. “Four miles both ways.”
“Learning isn’t her favorite pastime,” said Colleen. “I’d say her favorite thing is her beau.”
“Mama!”
“He’s been your beau for two years, hasn’t he? I think it’s all right I mention him in passing. Lily’s beau is from here, but he lives in Columbus. He’s a dockworker there. We all think well of him.”
“All of us except Daddy,” said Lily.
No one disputed that.
When we had finished tea, Colleen invited Mr. Cavendish to join us for dinner the following Sunday, and he took his leave. Lily and I accompanied him to the door, and I followed him into the yard.
“I’m sorry you didn’t get to meet my father.”
“It’s all right. I’ll meet him another time.”
I instinctively reached out and held his stirrup as he climbed into the saddle. I’d been holding my father’s stirrup since I was a girl of ten, and it came second nature.
“You needn’t do that,” he said curtly as his horse nickered at me. “She’s liable to spook.”
I stepped back, embarrassed.
“It’s no matter,” he said more gently. “She’s a trifle skittish is all! Good afternoon!”
He put on his hat and wheeled the horse around. She did a quick little step as he touched her with the reins and began to canter toward the pine lane, and I saw that I had been right about him not needing the crop.
At supper that night, Colleen told Daddy about our new neighbor.
“What sorta feller is he?” he asked, sopping up giblet gravy with his cornbread. He tended to be suspicious of anyone who wasn’t from the surrounding counties.
“Fairly well-dressed, and his manners leave nothing to be desired,” answered Colleen. For her, this was plenty recommendation, but Daddy looked unconvinced.
“He a farmer?”
“I didn’t catch his trade,” said Colleen.
“I believe he has been a foreman and a traveling salesman,” I put in, “but now that he’s inherited the Macready place, he intends to farm.” Ezra was in the seat next to me, and as he had taken to turning his yams into mush, I was pushing acre peas into his mouth.
“Huh,” Daddy murmured.
“He’s from Alabama,” added Lily.
“Hmmm. Pass the acre peas, Landra girl.”
I did so. “South Carolina, originally,” I added. “Studied agriculture at the state University.”
“He seemed quite taken with Landra,” continued Colleen, “although it was impossible to tell if she reciprocated.”
I looked up in surprise.
“I didn’t notice his being taken with anyone,” I stated, smiling at Ezra as he opened his mouth for a piece of ham.
“Don’t do that,” said Colleen. “He can feed himself.”
“The question is if he will,” I said. “He’s like a will-o’-the-wisp. Grow some meat on your bones!” I poked him in the ribs, and he shrieked, giggling. Daddy glowered at me. He did not like horseplay at table.
“He was taken with you,” said Colleen with finality, “but too polite to let on very strong.”
I tried not to take her words to heart, remembering how foolish I had made myself by holding his stirrup like a common stable hand, but I couldn’t help wishing she were right. He had been so handsome and so well-bred.
Chapter 7
Incorrigible Ida
Ida was my dearest friend in the world. Monday was her surname, and I never could seem to separate the two, they went so well together. We cemented our friendship early on, having known one another since babyhood. At the time, our parents associated with one another. The Mondays’ quail hunting estate was situated on the outskirts of the village, while ours was some miles away, but in those days they were some of our closest neighbors.
Ida’s folks were upstarts who took advantage of the upheaval of Reconstruction, buying acres of land on which the wealthy could hunt quail amongst the longleaf pines and wiregrass in which they thrived. In my teens, I often tried to convince Daddy to do this with some of our unplanted acres of longleaf pine, but he was stubborn. He informed me I knew nothing of money or making it.
When we were children, our parents got together as often as they could, in spite of the social and economic differences, so oft referenced in my mother’s journals, which stood between them. The source of t
he Mondays’ money before they arrived in our neck of the woods was an object of some speculation, as was the fact of how they had met. Apparently there was some idle talk that Mr. Monday had found his wife in a brothel at the age of seventeen.
As girls just out of babyhood, Ida and I were generally kept at home to learn women’s work, while our brothers ran rampant, but sometimes we escaped.
On such a day when I was five or six, I managed to tag along with Eric and Henry as they were traipsing through the extensive deer woods on the Monday estate. They paused in a clearing to let loose a special birdcall that was reserved for Ida’s brother, Clyde. He appeared moments later with Ida in his wake. Eric and Henry set up an outcry against this, which he firmly quelled when he shouted, “Yore dang sister’s here too! What was I to do? She give her nanny the slip. Sly little thang.”
“Send ‘er back, Mondee,” said Henry. “She’ll ruin that silk frock she’s got on.”
“She’ll scream fit to wake the dead if I do, and Mama’s got one of her headaches on.”
Eric groaned. “All right, come on, but both you girls better keep up.”
I did as I was bid and trotted right along behind them, catching frogs, grasshoppers, and fat green hornworms to store in a mason jar or picking flowers as they plotted imaginary treks across the game-laden woods to the fish pond. Ida, on the other hand, was hot and miserable in her silk pinafore, and she whined about every little mishap. When she set to shrieking over a dragonfly landing on her shoulder, Eric and Henry were fed up.
“She’s gotta go back,” said Eric in his most persuasive tone. “Every quail round here for miles is gonna get scared off.”
“You’re not gonna kill a quail,” I said pointedly. Eric was nearsighted. “You’re a heap more likely to get mistaken for one.” The boom of rifle fire had accompanied us throughout our travels.