The Barefoot Bride

by Paisley, Rebecca

  "Gilly?" his grace asked and hid his grin while rubbing his chin. "Gilly. Well..." His voice trailed off as he repeated the name to himself.

  Araminta quickly turned to her four friends. "We've made sure every person here has heard about what that girl has done since her arrival to Boston," she whispered hurriedly. "While we were spreading that gossip round, she took over the orchestra. Then there was the little scene with Cynthia, the wig and Chickadee's hot-tempered threats. I suspect it is no longer necessary for our plan to continue in secret. Everyone in this room has heard about and witnessed her crude behavior. Now, in defense of Lord Cavendish, our guest of honor, don't you think someone should... explain to the girl that nicknaming a duke is simply not done?"

  Millicent smiled spitefully and rushed forward. "Forgive her, your grace," she said to Lord Cavendish. "As I'm sure you already know, she is not from here and is unfamiliar with our way of life." Turning to Chickadee, she said, "You will call him my lord, your grace, or Lord Cavendish."

  Saxon raised an ebony eyebrow at the malice in Millicent's eyes. "Mrs. Ashbury, Keely is quite fond of nicknames and means no insult. On the contrary, it has been my observation she only shortens the names of those for whom she feels affection," he said to Millicent, hoping the duke would understand.

  Millicent's eyebrow rose higher than his. Lord Cavendish, sensing an argument was brewing, started to intervene, but stopped when Chickadee held up her hand to him. "Millicent—"

  "It's Mrs. Ashbury to you," Millicent said stiffly.

  "I think you'd rather hear me call you Millicent than what I'd really like to call you."

  Millicent gasped and looked at the shocked crowd. "Did you hear what she said to me?" she asked the guests, gratified that many of them looked sympathetic.

  "Keely," Saxon whispered directly into her ear. "Please calm down."

  Before Chickadee had time to reply, Thelma, nudged onward by Araminta, stepped forward. "I heard what she said, Millicent! Surely she deserves a piece of your mind!"

  "Thelma, she cain't spare it," Chickadee retorted and swallowed the rest of what she wanted to say.

  Eleanor decided to take her turn and went straight to Saxon. "Saxon, why—"

  "Eleanor," Chickadee broke in quickly. "I'm a-warnin'—"

  "Keely," Saxon began, "please—"

  "Saxon!" Eleanor repeated. "How can you just stand there and let her say these things to us?"

  Chickadee had had enough. Her anger raged like a swollen river inside her, and she could no longer keep the flood behind the dam. "Eleanor, I can take whatever sass you flang at me, but you say one ill word to Saxon, and I'll lay you so low yore socks is gwine blindfold you! You and them other snooty sows been a-starin' at me and Saxon all night. I been a-turnin' a blind eye to it so fur, but—"

  Saxon took her arm. "Keely," he whispered. "Remember yourself."

  She took a deep breath and held it, hoping it would smother her fury.

  "We have not been staring at you," Hester chimed in. "We've merely been observing you. We all had high hopes when we heard that Saxon was trying to teach you social graces. But after what we have all witnessed tonight, it is apparent that he has—"

  The duke cleared his throat loudly. "If I may—"

  "Hesh up, Gilly," Chickadee flared, her eyes still fixed on Hester's face, oblivious to the horrified gasps from Eugenia's guests.

  "Saxon," Millicent said calmly and confidently, bolstered by the crowd's response. "Your wife's conduct is deplorable, her appearance slovenly, her manner of speech utterly disgusting. You have failed miserably in your efforts with her, and she has succeeded in turning this ball into a circus. Please take her home."

  He drew himself up to his full height, his blue eyes flashing. "Mrs. Ashbury—"

  "Millicent, yore tongue's so long and sharp you could cut yore own throat with it!" Chickadee shouted. "And you done gone too fur with it now, lady. Either you take back that slur on Saxon, or yer gwine git embrangled with my fists!"

  "You wouldn't dare!" Millicent exclaimed, but backed away as Chickadee advanced.

  Again, Saxon caught her arm. "All right, Saxon," she said to him sweetly. "I won't bang her up none. Her face already looks like somebody done hit her with a bagful of pennies, and I ain't a-lookin' to make her any uglier'n she already is!"

  Eleanor shook her finger at Saxon. "This disastrous evening, what is left of it, is on your head. Look at that person you married! Listen to her! How could you bring such a woman to our peaceful city? How—"

  "And as fer you, Eleanor," Chickadee said, the green volcanoes in her eyes erupting at this latest slander of Saxon, "you ain't much better lookin' than Millicent! Yore face is so creased, 'pears to me somebody plowed it! The onliest thang on yore face that ain't wrankled is yore mouth, on accounta it's allus stretched open so wide it don't never get no chance to git no creases. Now, use it to say yore sorry to Saxon, or I'll find a way to make shore you cain't never open it again!"

  Thelma rushed to defend Eleanor. "Now see here—"

  "And here we have Thelma," Chickadee interjected smoothly, yanking her aim from Saxon's grasp. "I reckon you thank I ain't fine-haired enough to be around you Boston folks neither. You-uns is allus a-makin more noise'n a mule in a tin barn about ever'body's looks and a-doin's. You say Bunny's fat, you say another lady's got on the wrong color, you say so-and-so's a-showin' off with her jewries, and you say Saxon's mizzled fer a-marryin' me! But you don't never take no looks at yoresefs, huh?"

  She walked closer to Thelma, so close they were eye to eye. "Thelma, yore eyes is so cross-eyed, I reckon when you cry, yore tears run down yore back! But it don't differ nary a jag that thur messed up, huh, Thelma? Crossed or not, you still see ever' dang-blasted gwine-on you want to see. Why, I reckon ever'body's doin's tickle you more'n they do anybody else on accounta you git to see 'em double!"

  Saxon, as dejected as he was at seeing Chickadee's debut end this way, couldn't help but smile. His plan had failed, and there was nothing he could do about it now. These snooty sows were getting exactly what they so richly deserved, and though this night would mean Chickadee's return to the Appalachia, he was sadly comforted by the fact that she would be leaving a city that, try as it might, had never beaten her.

  Hester noticed his smile and took full advantage of it. "Saxon, are you as idiotic as this wife of yours, allowing her to insult us like this? Good heavens! Has being with her for so long made you as savage as she?"

  Whatever answer he might have given her was lost as Chickadee whirled on Hester. Hester melted into the crowd when she saw Chickadee stalking her.

  "Afeared, Hester?" Chickadee taunted. "Well you been a-askin' fer the rope I'm a-fixin' to hang you with all evenin'. Yore nasty enough to vomit a buzzard, lady. A God-burn stampede cain't run down as many people as you do. And even though yore a-actin' skeered o' this back-cussin' I'm a-givin' you, you ain't really got no reason a'tall to worry. After all, the onliest thang that gits the last word when yore around is yore echo!"

  Exhausted, she panted with fury at all the people who had maligned Saxon's name, who had forced her to forget all the things Saxon had tried to teach her, who continued to hate her despite his best efforts to change their opinions. She was never going to be accepted by these people no matter what Saxon did. All his efforts had been for naught. And the glimmer of melancholy she saw in his azure eyes echoed that sentiment. She'd let him down. He'd had such high hopes for this night, and those hopes had disappeared like stars falling from the sky. Biting back her tears, she lifted her skirts and left the room with the regal stride of a true princess.

  Saxon turned to the silent crowd. "I thought I could make her one of us. I now thank God I failed in such a ridiculous undertaking. My wife is already perfection. I will not apologize for a thing she said or did. In fact, I think I will applaud her," he said and clapped, the noise bouncing off the marble walls for several moments before he went to Desdemona and helped her up. "With or without your leave, I bid
you all farewell."

  "Saxon, where are you going?" Eugenia queried loudly as she entered the ballroom and saw him leaving. "Where is Chickadee? My goodness, what has happened here?"

  He gestured toward the crowd. "Ask them. I'm sure they'll relate every word of the tale as soon as I am gone. Goodbye, and thank you for a lovely—thank you for the invitation."

  "Mr. Blackwell, please wait," Lord Cavendish called. "I would like to say a few things I believe you will enjoy hearing." He clasped his hands behind his back and walked among the guests, soon stopping in front of Millicent.

  "Mrs. Ashbury," he said in his most imperial tone, "you believe Chickadee's manner of speech to be utterly disgusting? That is what you said, is it not?"

  His blank expression told her nothing. Was he agreeing with her? "Her grammar is not correct, your grace," she said shakily. "I realize I am not a linguist as you are, but I am educated enough to know—"

  "And you, Mrs. Rush." The duke cut off Millicent and went to Thelma. "Do you agree with Mrs. Ashbury?"

  Thelma twisted her ruby ring. "I do. The girl has no idea what proper grammar is. She uses double, triple, quadruple negatives in one sentence, and—"

  "Yes, she is rather fond of negatives isn't she?" Lord Cavendish walked to Hester, his mahogany eyes searing into her. "Mrs. Eliot, what have you to say about Chickadee's speech? Do you feel the same as your friends?"

  "Oh, most assuredly, your lordship! The way she speaks—why, it hurts my ears! Her habit of adding a in front of some words—like a-dancing, a-walking—it is most regrettable you were forced to—"

  "My dear lady, I do not allow anyone, save royalty, to force me to do anything," the duke snapped.

  Saxon watched Hester's face fall, and observed that Araminta, Millicent, Eleanor, and Thelma looked disturbed also. In fact, the whole assemblage seemed to be apprehensive. He felt the lash of hope whip through him. The duke was going to defend Chickadee, he realized, but would his defense sway society's opinion? Would it mend the damage done?

  Lord Cavendish accepted a glass of champagne from a servant, went to a chair, and sat down. "'Thou hast spoken no word all this while, nor understood none neither.'" He sipped at his champagne, giving his words time to sink in.

  His audience was baffled. Why was his lordship speaking in such a fashion? people whispered to one another.

  "A line written by Shakespeare," the duke announced. "A line containing no less than four negatives, if my counting is correct. Our dear Chickadee would say the same line like this—'You ain't said nothin' in a right long spell, and you ain't understood nothin' neither.'"

  No one in the crowd spoke. Saxon knew everyone was waiting for the duke to finish his point, but he himself had already realized what it would be. He smiled broadly.

  Araminta looked on with apprehension. Lord Cavendish was standing up for the mountain chit!

  Already many guests were gathering around him with great interest, and if the duke succeeded in swaying society's opinion... Damn the heathen to hell and back!

  "'Now might I do it pat, now he is a-praying,'" the duke continued. "That was a line from Hamlet. Shakespeare, it would seem, spoke much like Chickadee. Is it right for us to condemn speech so closely related to Shakespeare's? Speech, my learned listeners, that is the closest to Elizabethan English I have come across in all my years of studying dialect?"

  Max, thoroughly intrigued, stepped forward. "And what of her trouble with diphthongs, your lordship? She cannot seem to say going but always says gwine."

  "Ah, yes," the duke said, nodding his head and smiling. "Let me see if I can think of an example to give you of that." He closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them, their gleam rivaling the lights in the room. "Alexander Pope. I'm sure many of you have read his works. For those of you who have not, let me assure you his poetry is fine indeed.

  "One couplet in particular comes to mind," he continued. "It is from 'Essay on Man,' written by Mr. Pope in 1732. It goes: 'In praise so just let every man be joined and fill the general chorus of mankind.'"

  He set his glass on the floor and leaned forward. "When I recited that, it didn't rhyme, did it?"

  Max shook his head.

  The duke smiled. "But Mr. Pope meant for it to rhyme, Mr. Jennings. Thus, we must think about the diphthong in joined, wouldn't you agree?"

  Max nodded.

  Again, the duke grinned. "Therefore, we must say jined' in order for the couplet to rhyme. Jined rhymes with mankind, and that is how Mr. Pope meant for the words to be pronounced. So you see? Again, we can compare Chickadee's speech patterns to another great writer."

  He scanned the doubtful faces in the crowd and saw that many of the guests were still unwilling to give credit where credit was due. But he wasn't through yet. Before he left Boston, he would do all he could for the marvelous mountain girl who had been ridiculed so unjustly.

  "I heard Chickadee say the word argufy," he pressed on firmly. "That word is archaic. And the word afeared dates back to Middle English—the English of about seven hundred years ago. Chickadee's habit of using compound descriptive words such as biscuit-bread, ball-party and ocean-sea is characteristic of Anglo-Saxon English. Chaucer himself used these self-explanatory words. Indeed, in his narrative poem Beowulf, you will find the word un-living for dead and bone-box for body. Do those words not sound like those Chickadee might use?

  "And what of her you-uns?" he went on relentlessly. "Wouldn't you all agree that you-uns sounds suspiciously like the ye ones of Chaucer's time? It is apparent to me, as it should be to all of you, that Chickadee's English is purer than that of anyone here, myself included."

  He stood and looked at all the faces around him. "I am the Duke of Amherst, as you all know. You have all treated me royally, going out of your way to show me the respect you deem I deserve. I am grateful to you all for such. However, though it may be quite rude of me to say this, when I return to my estate in England, it is not this glittering ballroom I will remember. The sophisticated chitchat as well as the elegant music the orchestra performed tonight will all be forgotten."

  He smiled. "Instead, I will recall toe-tappin' fiddle songs. And when I remember them, they will bring to mind the beautiful music of mountain speech. A melodic dialect so picturesque, I will carry its sound with me forever. I will always cherish my memories of this night, and never will I forget the Appalachian girl who created them for me."

  Chapter 22

  As Chickadee left the Preston mansion, she turned, fully expecting to see Saxon behind her. But he was nowhere to be seen. Was he trying to put together the broken pieces of the fairy tale? The question stung her eyes with tears she refused to let fall.

  "Chickadee!" Gallagher hurried toward her and kissed her cheek. "'Twas hoping we'd see ye tonight, we were! And ye look like a princess, aye that ye do, lass!"

  "We came to take Bridget and Nevin home, but they're nae ready to leave yet," Killian said, bending to embrace her. "Bridget told us about all ye did with the meal. 'Twould seem yer quick thinkin' saved the night."

  Brusquely, she wiped at her eyes. "Killian, I tole you to be keerful with that low bush lightnin'. I know you didn't know nothin' about Nevin a-takin' it, but—"

  "What's this I see, colleen?" Shane asked and brushed a tear from the tip of her nose. "Are ye weepin'?"

  The vision she had of him blurred as more tears came to her. "Iffen you-uns got a wagon, will you ride me 'round fer a while?"

  The three men glanced at the mansion, each of them wondering what had gone on inside it to make their dear friend cry. They gathered around her, surrounding her within a wall of brawny Irish muscle should she be threatened anew. Together they murmured their assurances they would, indeed, take her anywhere she wished to go.

  And when Saxon finally appeared, Desdemona in tow, there was nothing left of her but the gold slipper she'd lost in her haste to be gone.

  *

  Desdemona clung to Saxon with every pitiful ounce of strength she possessed dur
ing the ride home. She shivered and wept so hard on his shoulder, his heart broke for her. "Desdemona, you'll see Keely soon," he said as tenderly as he knew how. "It could be that she's already home waiting for us. Don't cry anymore, sweetheart."

  But when they arrived home and Candice informed them that Chickadee wasn't there, Desdemona's tears increased. She refused to walk and hung on to Saxon as he carried her up the staircase to her room. Her cold hand remained pressed tightly against his cheek, and though Saxon was anxious to go out and search for Chickadee, he remained with his sister until sleep finally relaxed her hold on him. The clock was striking three when he finally raced to his own room, tore off his elegant apparel, and dressed for riding.

  Candice met him as he prepared to leave the house. "Mr. Blackwell, you'll search in vain. She's hurting, and you must give her time to do whatever it is she has to do with herself. She's different from us and sorts things out in her own way. Let her come home of her own free will."

  He gave her a furious look, but she refused to relent. "I speak to you not as your employee, Mr. Blackwell, but as someone who cares for her as much as you do. And it would never do if she returned needing you and you weren't here for her. Let her be, sir."

  His shoulders slumped. Candice was right, and he knew it. Besides that, if Chickadee didn't want to be found, a pack of bloodhounds wouldn't find her. He nodded to the maid and went directly to the parlor, Khan trotting along behind him. There he grabbed a bottle, sat down, and sought some answers in the burning liquid.

  But the brandy gave him no solutions. The only hope, the sole prayer he had was the effect Lord Cavendish's speech might have had on Boston's elite. He could do nothing but wait.

  When Araminta, upon her return, entered the parlor and poured herself a sherry, wolf and man were still waiting in that dark corner for the missing girl they loved.