by Carole King
Eugenia Drexel snatched up her reticule and pointed herself rigidly toward the door.
“You are quite, quite impossible, Isabel Thackeray,” she huffed. “Frankly, I may just decide one day to stop defending you and leave you to the likes of Lucy Bennet.” She lifted her formidable chin. “I shall see myself out,” she said loftily, sweeping into the hallway. “And please do not forget the poudre blue for Saturday.” Autumn and Isabel fell into an orgy of spontaneous laughter.
“Oh, Mother,” said Autumn through her mirth, “Mrs. Drexel is absolutely right. You are quite, quite impossible. I wonder what Alistair would think of being portrayed as your doxy.”
“Alistair is nothing if not a well-humored gentleman,” replied Isabel, laughing. “And he is much too certain of his manliness to allow a silly label, even that one, to upset him.” As she composed herself, she said with some irony and half to herself, “We are sure to get a bit of fun out of the idea, though.” Autumn eyed her mother reflectively, even with a bit of envy. She’d seen the love and harmony that existed between her and Alistair. She’d seen the sharing of sentiments, the intimacy that was the keystone of their relationship.
“You and Alistair have a most singular partnership, don’t you, Mother?” she observed seriously.
“Indeed we do, my darling.” Isabel’s eyes were the color of rosewood. They shone with confidence and love. “I am very fortunate to have found Alistair. But then,” she added with elfin delight, “he has been fortunate, too.”
“Do either of you fear the law that could imprison you for your living arrangement?”
Isabel shrugged. “The law is notoriously two-sided, Autumn. One side is for the poor and unconnected and the other for the rich. Fortunately, Alistair and I fall somewhere in the middle. I’m afraid the sheriff and his posse don’t quite know what to do with us. For now anyway, Government House is turning its great head the other way. Perhaps someday the law will change, and people like Alistair and me will be able to live in peace.”
“And Alistair is comfortable waiting for the change?”
“Tradition holds tightly, my darling. Alistair asks me daily to marry him. But he also understands my feelings. Given the opportunity, most intelligent people—men and women—will make a sensible compromise.”
“Yes,” mused Autumn. “A sensible compromise.” She fiddled restively with the black moiré sash that Eugenia had abandoned.
“What is it, darling?” asked Isabel. When her daughter did not answer, she said, “It’s Cain, isn’t it?”
“Yes it is, Mother. It’s always Cain.” Her gaze dipped and then lifted. “I miss him.”
Isabel set down her sewing, though she was rather seriously behind in her work. “I know.” She stood and moved to her daughter. “Write to him.”
“I did—”
“Oh, I don’t mean that silly note asking after Carrie.”
“But I really wanted to know how she and Henry were doing.”
“You could have written to Carrie directly.” Isabel sighed impatiently. “Benign little notes are a fine way to communicate, Autumn—without emotional investment. Some might call that a ‘no risk’ way to conduct a relationship. But I call it cowardice. And I would like to think that my daughter hasn’t a cowardly bone in her body.
“You miss Cain. You are miserable without him. That’s why you refuse to accept any number of overtures by any number of young men.”
“Alright, Mother,” shot back Autumn. “I miss Cain Byron. I shall die without him! Is that what you wanted to hear?”
“Not quite,” replied Isabel flatly. She watched as her daughter fidgeted, her anger simmering. “You can go on without Cain, and you won’t die of it. You are a most capable young woman, and I welcome your help here in the shop. In fact, I should hate to lose you if you ever decide to go elsewhere to look for work. But one fact remains, Autumn, you ran away. You left Cape May without even talking to Cain.”
“How could I have talked to him? Cain hates me. He was the one who ran away. Right now he’s probably laughing with Antoinette over my little note.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Autumn swiped at her tears impatiently. “I just keep imagining Cain running off to Antoinette the minute I left Cape May. She was still there, you know, when I—”
“And what if he did? Is that really the issue?”
“I shall never forgive him if he consorted with that, that—”
“Oh, honestly Autumn Thackeray,” exclaimed Isabel, stalking back to her sewing machine, “you are torturing yourself so bloody needlessly.” She sat down and regarded her daughter squarely. “It angers me to see you acting so . . . so . . . ordinary, when I know you to be an extraordinary woman. Why are you creating such ugly thoughts when you have no idea what’s happening at Byron Hall?”
“But what if he married Antoinette? They were engaged, you know.”
“Do you really imagine that possible, Autumn?” asked Isabel kindly. “Loving you as he does, can you really picture Cain marrying Antoinette? He gave up everything for you, my darling. Is it logical to imagine him throwing away his life on that silly imitation of a woman?”
“I don’t know anymore,” Autumn replied earnestly. “I’m not sure Cain understands his own feelings right now.”
“Then you must try to help him do so. Fight with him if you must, but for the love of God, don’t simply remain silent.”
“Why should I help him? He has been cruel and insensitive. He has caused pain to everyone around him. Why should I coddle a bloodless male whose arrogance has made so many people miserable?”
“Because Cain Byron is not bloodless,” returned Isabel quietly. “He is a decent man—one of a growing number of men who are bound by tradition, but who are trying to make their way in a changing world. Oh, Autumn, these men need our help so desperately. Cain will find his way eventually, but he will find it so much sooner and with so much less pain with you at his side.” She waited for her daughter’s answer. When none came, Isabel smiled ruefully. “I feel a bit like Eugenia Drexel, seeing things so clearly while the other party remains so dense.”
“I am not dense, Mother, only hurt. You paint a grand Utopian picture of women helping men over the barriers of tradition, but I am one woman. And right now I feel very much alone and rejected by the man I gave my heart to.” Autumn picked up a hat pattern and laid it out against a length of russet velvet. She began to pin. She was not nearly the seamstress her mother was—nor the visionary. Cain’s image imposed itself on her memory. His face, the cobalt blue of his eyes, the firm mouth, the jet tousle of his curls floated before her like a watercolor mist. Before she could stop them, tears fell on the little paper pattern she held so tightly in her hands.
“I’m not lettin’ him in,” said the little serving girl, Maura, her tinge of a brogue becoming thicker in her anxiety. The people, sitting in great wicker chairs in the back first-floor parlor of the house on Walnut Street, looked up. “He says he knows Miss Autumn, but I’m not lettin’ him in.”
Autumn’s brows furrowed. “Who is it, Maura?”
“Says his name’s Doctor Byron. He says he knows you—but I’m not lettin’ him in. I told him just t’ get himself down off the front stoop and wait on the street. Him comin’ about this late at night, lookin’ all tagrag like he does; he can’t expect decent folk t’ just let him in their houses on his own say so.”
Autumn rose, the book she’d been attempting to read falling from her lap. “Oh, Mother,” she said on a breath. “What’ll I do?”
Isabel looked up from her hand stitching. “You might want to answer the door,” she said mildly.
“But it’s Cain.”
Alistair, strumming studiously on his banjo and intermittently sounding out the tune to “Cruising Down the River,” regarded her with concern. “Would you like me to go, Autumn?” Isabel placed her hand on his and offered a warning glance.
“Autumn might wish to greet
her own callers,” she said quietly. Both people regarded the girl. Her eyes, like Maura’s, were filled with uncertainty.
“All I know,” said the Irish girl, “is I’m not lettin’ him in.” She turned with a swish of her dimity skirt and bumped through the door leading back into the kitchen, her objections to such a caller fading with her progress into that part of the house.
Autumn looked from Isabel to Alistair. Then, leaning down, she retrieved her copy of Miss Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Wordlessly, she set it on a table and withdrew from the room.
Outside, Cain watched the house as if it might move or speak at any moment. He watched it from the sidewalk that passed along its front garden. Having been nearly bodily tossed from the stoop by a tiny wisp of a girl who seemed to have some authority in the matter, he dared not move beyond the wrought iron gate lest the girl make good her threat to “call the cops.” Glancing down at himself, he realized he should have taken more care with his appearance and the manner of his arrival in Philadelphia. He’d not bothered to outfit one of the well-appointed coaches, but instead had merely saddled one of the horses for the trip. He looked up toward the porch. That snippy girl would not have treated a liveried groom as disdainfully as she’d treated him, Cain reflected. But, of course, Cain had to admit that he was not dressed so tidily as a liveried groom. His overcoat and the shirt and jodhpurs beneath it were stained with road grime, and his boots were caked with mud. He unknotted the scarf around his neck and used it to swipe at the dark curls that clung to his forehead. Despite the chill of the November night, he was perspiring—whether from apprehension or the exertion of the long ride, he did not know.
His reflections were interrupted as the door to the house swung open. A wash of warm golden light lit the steps and the garden. In the midst of the light stood that all-too-familiar, all-too-loved silhouette. Hesitantly, Cain pushed past the gate. He stood tensely for a moment in the fringes of the light, wondering whether he would be welcomed or shunned.
“You inquired after Carrie,” he ventured huskily. “I . . . I thought I would deliver the message of her well-being in person.” Autumn could not contain her smile. She beckoned him, her hand arching out in sweet welcome, and Cain realized the fullest relief, the fullest freedom his heart had ever known. In a few bounding strides, he was up on the stoop and Autumn was in his arms. “Oh, my love,” he intoned as he clung to her. And Autumn, yielding to the yearnings of her heart, melted into his embrace.
“Cain,” she whispered, “you’ve come to me at last.” She brought him into the house, into the lighted warmth. “I have missed you so.”
“And I you, love.” They stood for long moments in the front parlor before Isabel and Alistair joined them there.
“Cain,” Isabel greeted him. “It is so good to see you. You remember Alistair?” The two men shook hands.
“I remember you, sir,” said Cain. “How are you?”
“Better than I’ve been in years, lad.”
“Me, too!” Cain assured him. He took Autumn into the cradle of his embrace. It seemed he could not be close enough to her, could not hold her near enough. He seemed to fear she might disappear. Autumn, too, wondered if these happy moments would evaporate. She had waited these long weeks for Cain to come to her, feared that he would not, and dreaded that he might.
It was decided that sandwiches ought to be prepared, and as everyone headed for the kitchen—and the disgruntlement of Maura—Autumn recalled those first terrible days after she’d left Byron Hall. Hanging back from the gay preparation of a late supper, she recalled her sad journey away from Cape May and her certainty that nothing would ever be right or good again. And she wondered what had changed Cain from the glowering autocrat of her recent memory to the ardent lover of tonight.
Alistair exuberantly grabbed a paper-wrapped item from inside the newly acquired apparatus called an icebox. The new contrivance offered the dubious convenience of allowing left-over food to be stored for several days. Alistair invited everyone to guess what might be in this particular package. Isabel guessed that it might be a lamb chop from last evening’s dinner. Maura snatched the leftover, assuring everyone that it was, in fact, a breast of chicken from that afternoon’s lunch. She then directed everyone from the kitchen, telling them that she would make the sandwiches.
Once back in the parlor, the couples sat laughing, Isabel complaining that she was not sure she liked being shooed from a room in her own house.
“And a fine house it is, too,” observed Cain, as he glanced around. “I am glad your business is going well. I must tell you—”
“That you expected me to fail miserably,” interrupted she, finishing Cain’s thought. “Well, don’t let it get around, but I, too, thought I’d be out on the street by Christmas.”
“I assure you, my sweet,” said Alistair, “that I’d never have let you starve on the street.”
“A noble claim, if an empty sentiment,” returned Isabel archly, “since I am not starving on the street.” The couple shared a chuckle. “Actually,” continued Isabel, “my business has burgeoned due to a marvelous device. It is a machine that produces an even, single-thread chain stitch.”
“It is called,” interjected Alistair excitedly, “a sewing machine, appropriately. It was invented by a perfectly unsavory gent from Boston by the name of Singer. He’s a bigamist, you see.” He sat back, laughing genially at Cain’s expression of astonishment. Alistair continued with an explanation of the intricate workings of the machine, and Cain’s brows furrowed.
“I’m not sure I like the idea,” he said at last. “The concept of involving women with treadles, pulleys, knobs, and gears is unsavory to me.” Cain regarded Autumn fondly. “I am more used to the sight of a lady with her needle and her thread, her thimble on her finger, and her work arrayed prettily on her lap. That, after all, is the point of her sewing.”
“I’m afraid,” Isabel said wryly, “that is not at all the point of my sewing. By luck or accident, the adulterous Mr. Singer and I have become irrevocably hitched.” Autumn watched Cain’s bemusement deepen as Maura brought a tray laden with the evening’s refreshment.
“Actually,” said Alistair as they ate their supper, “Isabel has become enthralled with many of the technologies that have become available to the average person over the years. We’re thinking of getting a telephone, and we’ve already had a bathroom installed on the second floor.” Cain arched a dark brow. Not only was the subject not fit for supper conversation, the idea of indoor bathrooms was something that many people considered repugnant. Imagine people attending to their most private and repulsive needs inside the house. Despite his happiness at seeing Autumn, Cain felt that he had entered a somewhat alien atmosphere—a place where time seemed to be speeding along at a velocity that left him mentally gasping for breath. His mental breath was to be quite taken away within minutes as Isabel and Alistair bade the younger couple good night. Together, the two people made their way to the stairs leading to the second floor. Cain watched in bewilderment as, together, they started to ascend.
“Congratulations,” he said hesitantly. “I had no idea there had been a marriage.”
Isabel stopped mid-ascent. “There hasn’t been one, Cain,” she said quietly. “And there will not be one.” As Alistair continued up the stairs into the softly lit hallway above, Isabel remained to regard Cain with some sympathy. “I know all this is hard to absorb,” she offered, “but the fact is, I have decided to live an honest life. And my resolve is strong as steel.” Cain quirked a puzzled glance toward Autumn as Isabel followed Alistair up the stairs.
“What does she mean?” he asked.
Autumn looked up from a studious regard of the carpet to find Cain’s face a mask of incomprehension. He gathered her to him, looking down at her quizzically. “She means,” said Autumn, “that she and Alistair are living together openly. Mother, it seems, has decided to be one of those pilgrims we talked about so many nights ago. The ones who will help to build a perfect
world. Do you recall that discussion?”
“I remember everything we have ever said to each other, Autumn.”
“And everything we have not said?” she asked him.
“That, too,” Cain said solemnly. “And I curse my own foolishness for the silences I have caused between us.”
“We all act foolishly sometimes.”
“I have acted more foolishly than you know,” Cain ventured. “Antoinette, you see, was the one who told me about the wedding, and I suppose I thought for a time that she was in sympathy with me—”
Autumn shook her head and laughed softly. “Antoinette Fraser is a small piece of your history, Cain, and an even smaller piece of mine. She has no place in our future.” She paused, drawing away from him. Standing and pacing, she continued. “I assume it is our future that you have come here to discuss.” Cain nodded. “Then the first thing that you must know is that I would do exactly what I did before in helping Vanessa and Robert with their marriage plans. But I would not do it in secret. I want to marry you, Cain. And I shall be as proper a wife as it is within my power to be, but I am never, ever, going to hide behind a mask of dishonesty again. No matter how dangerous honesty may be, it is far less damaging than deception.”
“I am not sure I understand, Autumn. You give me hope and a sense of foreboding as well.”
Autumn nodded. “I know, love, I feel it, too. I wish I could promise absolute obedience to you, as the marriage vows suggest, for I know it would make you comfortable. But I cannot. You told me once that I had a choice of living with you in harmony or discord. Well, I can only make that decision day by day. I pray you will have patience with my choices; they will not always please you.”
“You issue a challenge, Autumn,” said Cain, rising and standing before her, “even as you offer conciliation.”
“It is a challenge to both of us, Cain. I think we’re up to it, don’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Cain said quietly. “I honestly don’t know.”