by Kay Moser
Sarah was indeed stunned when she heard Mrs. Boyd play, but she was most captivated by the look of utter rapture on Miss Victoria’s face. Her employer was transported, her spirit so obviously engaged that she looked ethereal. When Sarah followed Miss Victoria’s gaze to Mrs. Boyd’s face, she saw the same intensity of feeling splayed across the normally tranquil features, and she understood a bit more about what it meant to be an artist, especially an artist in a woman’s body, in a woman’s life.
“How beautiful,” she breathed as the Chopin washed over her. Then she thought about Mrs. Boyd’s position as wife and mother, and the tension she imagined there joined in her mind with her own struggles to be herself. How difficult. Oh! How difficult it must be for her, but I do understand a bit more why she is helping me.
***
Mr. Hayden was sitting on the verandah waiting for them when they returned shortly after five. “Well, how did it go?” he demanded before they had even climbed the steps.
“Just lovely!” Miss Victoria exclaimed. “Could not have been nicer. Mrs. Boyd’s house is beautiful, and she had filled it with flowers, and the table was exquisite, wasn’t it, Sarah?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I declare, though, I am ready for less restrictive clothing,” Miss Victoria added as she bypassed Hayden without looking him in the face and went straight to the front door. “I’m just going upstairs for a moment.”
When she had gone, Mr. Hayden turned to Sarah. “The truth,” he demanded. “How did it go?”
Sarah stared at the wide boards of the porch. “There were some difficult moments. Some of the ladies said some mean things.”
“About conformity, no doubt. That’s the Eleventh Commandment in Riverford. ‘Thou shalt conform.’ How bad did it get?”
“Mrs. Boyd ... well ... she escorted two women to the door after they said some hateful things.”
Mr. Hayden whistled. “That must have been a sight to see! Mrs. Boyd throwing ladies out of the house!”
“It wasn’t exactly like that.”
“No, it wouldn’t be, not with Christine Boyd.” He gave Sarah a long, hard look. “Are you okay?”
Sarah nodded. “There were some real nice—I mean, really nice—ladies too. They welcomed Miss Victoria and were nice to me.” Sarah paused, then added, “And some seemed kind of undecided or something.”
“Don’t worry about those. Trust me, they’ll decide in favor of Victoria. If for no other reason, they don’t want to offend Mrs. Boyd. Let’s go inside and order some tea. Sounds like Victoria needs it. Bet you do too.”
When Miss Victoria joined Sarah and Mr. Hayden in the drawing room a few minutes later, she breezed in, obviously determined to talk only about the positives of the afternoon.
“Sarah did a fabulous job,” she announced. “And she looked beautiful.”
“Thank you,” Sarah murmured. “And thank you both for my new outfit. I was so proud.”
“But the highlight of the day was listening to Christine. Oh, Hayden! She is an exquisite pianist. Have you ever heard her play?”
“No, I haven’t. No occasion, unfortunately. Not here in Riverford. This isn’t exactly a classical music town.”
Miss Victoria stared at him, her features growing more determined by the second.
“What?” he demanded. “What did I say?”
“That’s going to change!” Miss Victoria announced. “There will be fine music here, the finest, in fact.”
Mr. Hayden winked at Sarah. “Batten the hatches, Sarah! Hurricane Victoria made shore.”
“I don’t understand,” Sarah admitted.
He chuckled. “You will.” He walked over and forced Victoria down onto the settee. “Now tell me, darling, what’s churning in the wild waters of that mind of yours?”
“No,” Miss Victoria countered. “You tell me everything you know about Mrs. Boyd.”
“Well, let’s see. She’s from Charleston, the youngest child of General Gibbes. He once told me that she was born right before the War started and that he hardly saw her the first six or eight years of her life.”
“Because he was leading the South Carolina forces,” Sarah offered. “That’s what Pa told me.”
“Right,” Mr. Hayden agreed, “and he was imprisoned for quite a few years after the War. Charleston was occupied by federal forces for nearly ten years after the fighting stopped.”
“How awful,” Miss Victoria murmured.
“Apparently, Christine’s mother recognized her musical talent when she was quite young and somehow managed to get her musical instruction. Beats me how she did it in the midst of all the mayhem, but she did.”
“How did she come to Riverford, of all places?”
“Her marriage to Richard Boyd brought her here, of course, but for several generations before that, the Boyd family were business associates and social intimates of the Gibbes family back in Charleston. Like many younger sons of Southern planters, Richard Boyd’s father came west to Texas to enlarge the family land holdings. The Gibbes family had also invested in Texas cotton land, but they steadfastly refused to leave Charleston. Richard was born here, and when he was old enough, he returned to Charleston to attend the Citadel. He was there when the War broke out.”
“So he served under General Gibbes.”
“Right. And after the War, General Gibbes was imprisoned for five years and stripped of his South Carolina lands. During that time, he entrusted the safety of his wife and daughter to Richard. In fact, the young man stayed in Charleston after the War to care for them.”
“But that still doesn’t explain how she came to Riverford,” Victoria noted.
“I don’t know all the details, but I’m sure there was a practical element. When Richard returned to Texas, he managed the Gibbes land, which adjoined his own, but he frequently visited Charleston. He watched Christine grow up and loved her from a very early age. At the same time, he accumulated wealth and power in Texas to make himself worthy of her. Eventually, Christine’s mother died, and General Gibbes was persuaded to leave his beloved Charleston.”
“I wonder what her real dreams were,” Miss Victoria mused. “I wonder what the War took from her.”
Mr. Hayden gathered her into his arms. “I don’t know exactly, darling, but I suspect you two have much in common.”
“Yes.” A sad smile floated across her face, but she curtailed it, and her eyes brightened as she looked up at him. “I’m very glad to find her here. There are others I know I can be friends with, but Christine is special.”
“She’s a remarkable woman, really. As you are seeing, this town is a closed society that rejects anything new, but somehow Christine made herself a beloved lady quite soon after arriving.”
“But she has not had her music,” Miss Victoria said, and Sarah was shocked to see tears flood her employer’s eyes. Tenderly, Mr. Hayden wiped them away.
“Well, that’s going to change!” Miss Victoria jumped up, walked a few steps and pivoted back. “Hayden, we’re going to hold regular musicales in this house. We’re going to bring in musicians from Galveston and Dallas, wherever we can find them. Furthermore, we’re going to sponsor a concert for this town.”
“We are?”
Miss Victoria fell silent and tapped her lips with her fingers until an excited smile lit her face. “Antonio Santoro!” she exclaimed. “Do you remember him?”
“Of course. England ... Sidmouth ... Empress Hotel. How could I forget such an evening?”
“Antonio is touring the US.”
Mr. Hayden laughed. “Darling, he’s touring New York, Boston—places like that.”
“And San Francisco! And what’s between New York and San Francisco?”
“Not Riverford, Texas.”
“It could be.” Miss Victoria smiled mysteriously.
He cocked his head. “What are you planning?”
“It’s late, Hayden, and Sarah’s sure to be in trouble if she isn’t home in time for supper. Quick, Sarah
, run upstairs and change. Hayden will take you home—or almost home, if you prefer—in the buggy. Won’t you darling?”
“Of course, but while she changes, why don’t you tell me—”
“Good gracious! I must speak to Frances about supper. You must be positively starved.” Miss Victoria swished across the room, and, as she exited, she called back over her shoulder, “I’ll see you Monday, Sarah.”
Sarah apprehensively searched Mr. Hayden’s face, but he chuckled and winked at her. “Hurricane Victoria is moving inland, and Riverford is about to change.”
CHAPTER 9
Sarah rose early Saturday morning to start the arduous task of washing the family’s clothes. Her mind full of the events of the tea, she automatically hauled logs and buckets of water to the huge iron pot in the yard, built a fire, and stirred the boiling lye-saturated clothing. Through it all, one word controlled her thoughts—conformity. Mr. Hayden had used this new word, and sensing its importance to her understanding of the social struggles she had seen in the last week, Sarah had looked it up in the dictionary. She now had a word for her own personal struggle, a way to describe herself. I am a nonconformist. She rolled the word around in her mind. That’s what’s wrong with me. Or maybe that’s what’s right about me.
But I’m not the only one, and it’s different for different women. She considered Miss Victoria’s determination to be herself and the lengths to which she had gone to be free. I am not that brave! Sarah concluded. She pondered Mrs. Boyd’s passion for music and wondered how she had been able to settle for marriage. Was marriage “settling”? Sarah was quite confused about that issue. It would be settling for me. And what about her own mother’s life? Hadn’t she made it obvious that she understood Sarah’s need because she herself had wanted more?
Sarah brooded as she searched for stains that would need hand scrubbing. She found plenty on her brothers’ and father’s clothes, and, wincing from the scalding water, she rubbed them across the metal washboard until her hands were raw. She sighed. “They will only stain them again.” She plunged the garments back into the boiling water and, leaning over the steaming pot, stirred until she felt so dizzy she sank to the ground and held her head in her hands a few moments.
“You ain’t gonna get those clothes washed sitting on that ground, girl!” Pa’s sharp rebuke brought her back to the present, and she staggered to her feet. “You ain’t sick, are you? I told you that job in town was too much for you.”
“I was just waiting for the clothes to boil clean, Pa.”
“Thinking about them books of yours, I figure. I saw your lantern was lighted long after bedtime last night. You get yourself to sleep early tonight. I don’t want you missing church tomorrow.”
“Yes, Pa.”
“Well, get on with it then! Your mama needs your help in the kitchen too.”
Pa strode off, and Sarah reapplied herself to the steaming pot.
When she finally had the clothes rinsed and hung on the line to dry, she joined her mother in the kitchen to help with the baking.
“Tell me about your week, honey,” Mama said as she gently pushed her daughter down on a bench.
“I better knead the bread for you, Mama. You’ve got to make pies and everything for tomorrow.” Sarah tried to rise, but her mother stopped her.
“No. I can do all that.” She came to the table with a jar of salve and took Sarah’s hands in her own and massaged the ointment in them. “I want to know what you’re thinking about so hard.”
“Conformity,” Sarah answered. “It’s a new word I learned yesterday, and I realize I’ve been watching people struggle with it all week.”
“And you have your own struggles with it too.”
“I just never knew what to call it before.” Sarah looked down at her mother’s roughened hands and thought of Mrs. Boyd’s smooth ivory hands dancing across the piano keys. “I heard Mrs. Boyd play the piano at the tea yesterday. It was music straight from heaven, Mama. I’ve never heard anything like it before, not even in church.”
“Yes, I’ve heard her play,” Mama said. “A long time ago, when she first came to town as a new bride.”
“You did?”
“Yes. She is more talented than anyone I’ve ever listened to, but then I guess I’m no judge.”
“The thing is, I don’t quite understand how she gave up her music to marry; I mean, Miss Victoria ran away to Europe to be an artist. Do you think Mrs. Boyd is real unhappy in Riverford? If I could play the piano like that, I’d want to be playing concerts all over the world.”
“We don’t always get what we want, Sally. You know that. All kinds of things can get in the way.”
“Like having no money and not being able to get an education. I know about those things, Mama. And I know, too, that it matters whether you’ve got somebody to help you, somebody like Miss Victoria—and you too, of course. But the thing is, Mrs. Boyd had all those things, and she’s real talented—I mean, ‘really.’”
“The War, honey, that was the problem for Mrs. Boyd. You can’t begin to imagine what it was like for her. Neither can I really, but I do know that her family lost almost everything, and General Gibbes was even in prison after the War.”
“So after she grew up, she married Mr. Boyd and came to Texas.”
“I’m sure she thought that was her best option.”
“And somehow she’s found contentment,” Sarah mused. “But the thing I don’t understand is, why did Riverford accept her but they don’t like Miss Victoria just because she’s an artist.”
“I can tell you the answer to that. From the moment she arrived, Mrs. Boyd quietly helped people in Riverford. It didn’t matter to her whether someone was poor or had the wrong color of skin or came from another country. If she saw someone who needed help, she helped. And she never talked about her good deeds either; she just helped.”
“Then how do you know about it?”
“Because she helped me. Your pa wouldn’t have this farm if it weren’t for Mrs. Boyd.”
Sarah’s mouth flew open. “Really?” She pulled her mother down beside her. “I’ve never heard anything about this. Will you tell me?”
“Only if you don’t talk about it. I’ve never even gotten Mrs. Boyd to admit how much she helped us, but I know she did because of the timing.”
“Timing?”
“When you were a little girl, your pa was just a laborer on another man’s farm, and that man wouldn’t pay him his wages, and we were terrible hard up. I don’t know if you can remember any of that.”
“I remember watching you cry and being afraid. I remember being out in the cotton fields in the sun with you. I remember a different house where we all slept on the floor.”
“That was the shanty we lived in on the other farm. No matter how hard we worked, we couldn’t get ahead. I worked in the fields with your pa; I had to. The older boys helped your pa pick cotton, and you helped me as much as you could. It was a bad time, honey, but it got worse. I got sick ’cause I was expecting another baby, and I couldn’t work in the fields any more. Besides, the overseer still hadn’t paid us, and we were desperate. So I decided not to work one day. I left little Josef under the tree, and I took you and walked into town. I was determined to get some kind of work in town, any kind of work.”
“I remember that. It was so hot, and I got sick.”
“Yes, it was September, and the sun was beating down on us something fierce by the time we got to town. The streets were covered with dust, and they were mostly deserted. You got sick, and I knew I was gonna faint. I was afraid for you, so I carried you to the shade of the nearest tree. I’ll never forget that tree; it was a great big old sycamore, and its leaves were rattling in the dry wind, and the cicadas were screeching in the top of it. I sat under that tree and listened to those bugs; it sounded like the end of the world to me. But before long, I began to hear another sound. It was beautiful piano music, real gentle and soothing. I looked around me and realized it was coming from
the church behind us. It was calling me.”
Sarah’s mother choked up as tears streamed down her weathered cheeks.
“It was Mrs. Boyd playing the piano,” Sarah guessed.
“Do you remember any of it, honey? I figured if I was gonna die, the best place I could leave my baby girl was in a church, so I took you inside—”
“Yes,” Sarah murmured, “it was so bright outside it hurt my eyes, but inside the church it was shadowy.” Sarah paused as she combed her memory for more images. “Water ... you put water all over me.”
“Yes, they had a stone thing full of water to baptize babies in, and I sat you in it. I knew I shouldn’t, but I didn’t care. I held on to that stone bowl, fighting not to faint, but I lost that fight. When I woke up, Mrs. Boyd was bathing me in cool water, and you were fanning me.”
Sarah’s mother stopped as tears slid down her cheeks again. “Mrs. Boyd saved us, honey,” she managed to whisper before she dropped her head into her hands.
Sarah slipped across the bench and held her mother. “Yes, she would do that,” Sarah whispered into her mother’s hair.
“In no time, she had us sitting in a pew, drinking cold well water and nibbling at some food. There was no way to keep from telling her everything, and before long she had us back at the cotton field with a carriage full of food. Later that evening, Richard Boyd rode up in a fine buggy and asked your pa if he would be willing to help him out. ‘One of my tenants has left me in the lurch, and I could sure use your help, Mr. Novak.’ Those were his very words. I’ll never forget them.”
“And that’s how we came here,” Sarah concluded.
“By dusk, we had moved. The house wasn’t as fine as it is now, but your pa started farming this land as a tenant farmer with an option to buy the land.” Sarah’s mother looked her in the face and smiled broadly. “Our whole world changed. So you see, I know how Mrs. Boyd became the most loved woman in town, ’cause I know she’s been helping people ever since she got here.”