The Uncertain Season

by Ann Howard Creel

  “In that you would be wrong. We have more in common than you think. All of us are terrified, if you must know, of displeasing our parents.”

  “How very . . . ordinary.”

  He laughed and settled back into the chair again. “Quite. Well said.”

  It was almost dusk by the time Grace appeared on the portico, dressed for dinner and fully prepared by her maid. Lovely, naturally. “I’m so pleased you’ve met!” Grace exclaimed as Jonathan rose to greet her, kissed her hand, and led her to a chair. “How long have you two been chatting?”

  “Hours,” answered Etta.

  “And yet they have passed as mere minutes,” Jonathan added.

  Grace beamed and gazed at Jonathan adoringly. “I’m so happy you’ve returned. How are you?”

  Jonathan answered, “I’ve already listed my complaints about seawall duty to your poor cousin. I’ll not bore you with more.”

  “Nothing you say is boring.” She gave Jonathan her hand again, and he grasped it, gave it what looked like a gentle squeeze, and then let go. “I’m sorry to hear you’ve been peevish.”

  “More like feverish,” Jonathan said and mimicked wiping his brow. “You young ladies may stand under a parasol, whereas we men must endure the blasted sun in its full force beating down on our brows and backs.”

  “I’m sorry for you.”

  He held her gaze and smiled. “Please don’t be.”

  As the sun slowly sank, turning blood orange, the three of them lingered and chatted on the portico, giving Etta an opportunity to assess her cousin’s relationship with Jonathan. They were kind and soft-spoken toward each other, even deferential to the other, but she found something missing. Their sweetness seemed about as valuable as penny candy. Clearly they were fond of each other, but she sensed no passion, no unspoken undercurrents, and no undying love. More troubling than that was the fact that Jonathan continued to send probing and admiring glances her way.

  This could not happen. She had done nothing! Etta hadn’t come here to cause any trouble. She’d had enough of that back in Nacogdoches. Had those glances been actual advances or simply the way the well-off entertained themselves? Either way, she would have to keep her distance from handsome, spoken-for Jonathan. On the other hand, befriending him might have its benefits.

  A brilliant idea flamed to life inside her head. Surely he knew other rich and eligible young men on the island, and if she had dazzled him, she could dazzle others. She would be ever so cautious around Jonathan, but she had learned a valuable lesson on this day: she was capable of infatuating a man who seemed to have it all.

  Soon they were summoned inside for dinner.

  Etta took one last look at the garden before going indoors. She had always loved the entrance of evening; she had always been entranced by the spread of shadows and the shifting light as each new moment took a step closer toward moonlit night. The grass had turned silver, sparkling with dewdrops, fireflies winked against the violet light, and other garden insects were tuning their instruments, beginning the night’s song with a low hum—a perfect sound to announce the opening notes of Etta’s new life.

  Chapter Four

  THE GIRL

  As the girl and Harry roamed the ruined city, he cried hard—something a sixteen-year-old boy wasn’t supposed to do—but after he got it out of his system, he had to consider his options. His family boat was gone; he had no place to sleep and stay out of the elements. He could find a sailor friend to bunk with, but it would be no place for the girl. Some of the girl’s other relations had lived on the island—a cousin and a spinster aunt, he thought—but he could find no sign of them, either.

  And the girl was but a girl, who needed a woman’s care.

  His first idea was to take her to St. Mary’s Orphan Asylum. But it was located on the far western edge of the city, almost on the beach, and later he heard that disaster had struck there as well. His choices were limited. He eventually took the girl to the headquarters of the American Red Cross. Volunteers had turned it into a goods distribution center, a kitchen, an orphanage, a dormitory for Red Cross workers, and Clara Barton’s headquarters. Thinking he was doing the best he could under the circumstances, he left her there in the care of those kind-looking women, at least until he could come up with a better plan.

  The girl watched Harry leave. She already knew staying here without him was a mistake, and she wished again that she could get words to come out of her mouth, at least enough to say, Don’t leave me here. But instead she was led to the room upstairs set aside for orphaned girls. She was questioned, and when she couldn’t speak, the volunteers assisting her assumed she suffered from shock, from the effects of what she’d seen on this besieged island.

  But as the day turned into more days, then weeks, and the girl remained mute and strangely detached from everyone, the workers began to wonder. One, who wore a tight bun and a stiff collar with a cameo pinned at her neck, stood at the foot of the girl’s bed and said, “She’s soft in the head, she is.”

  “I’ll say,” said a second woman, who was tall and broad and just as stern of face as the first.

  But a third woman, who had a kind look about her eyes, only said, “Perhaps.”

  “No one left for her, either,” said the first woman. “No one has come to claim her. That tells you something.”

  The girl wanted to shout, That’s not true. Harry had returned on many occasions.

  But the second worker said it for her: “That teenaged boy has come.”

  The first woman stiffened her back and harrumphed. “Fine chance we’d let the girl go with the likes of him.”

  “He gave us names of other family members, but they all seem to have perished. We haven’t been able to locate a single living relative,” said the second woman, shaking her head. “So sad.”

  “The boy’s staying with a local family now and wants her back for the time being. He says he’ll look after her until a better home can be found, but it would be most improper to hand her over to him.”

  No, no! It wouldn’t be improper! the girl wanted to scream, if only she could. But instead she slipped silently under the bedcovers, as if sinking underwater. There, under the sheets, bathed in a filtered bluish-white light, she imagined she was under the sea, under the swells, in that gentle, easy part of the ocean, that dreamlike place of soft, surging waters that drifted to and fro, over the sandbars, where the tiny, almost-invisible fish chose to live.

  “But what are we to do with her, then?” asked the kind woman, but no one answered. She approached the girl, sat on the edge of the bed with her ankles crossed, and pulled away the covers. “Talk to me. Please. Tell us what we are to do with you.”

  The girl searched the kind woman’s blue eyes for something, some bit of understanding.

  The woman cocked her head to one side. “Anything? Anything at all?”

  The girl made the motions of writing, and when the women guessed what she meant, they brought her a salvaged piece of chalkboard and a stub of chalk. The girl wrote, stone in my middle.

  The women glanced at each other. One of the mean ones said, “Definitely soft in the head.”

  The kind one asked her to write something else, but it was no use. Every effort to communicate overwhelmed her. They were already speaking for her, already deciding for her, but everything about them and their words was wrong. The girl shook her head and gazed away. The kind woman stood again and then rejoined the others at the foot of the bed. Apparently resigned, she said to the taller one, “She’ll have to remain here until we figure it out, I suppose.”

  By October, Harry still hadn’t found anyone to take her in on more than a temporary basis. Therefore the girl was still living with about twenty other orphans on the second floor of the warehouse, which had been furnished with salvaged items from the damaged Galveston Orphans Home. Harry had come by many times and explained that she’d spoken normally before her family disappeared. Others were beginning to doubt the truth of that, however.
/>   So after a few more weeks, during which the girl remained silent, the volunteers at the Red Cross, fearing her either inferior from birth or permanently damaged by her losses, decided her fate. They shook their heads over the unfortunate child. The events of the 1900 Storm, the grisly experience, had turned her into a simpleton, or perhaps she had always been that way, even though Harry Gobinet denied it. It mattered little now. They had no choice but to recommend placement in an asylum. They spoke about it in her presence as if she were also unable to hear, and the girl knew that word. Asylum. A place for crazy people; a place to hide the crazy people out of sight; a place with cages.

  She watched them listlessly as they mailed the necessary papers, as they awaited a response from an asylum and made the plans to send her. Adoptive homes, however, were found for the other remaining orphans, most of them removed to Houston.

  Harry offered once again to try to find a place for the girl, but as a single young man, he was not deemed appropriate as a guardian, and Reena, the girl’s former housemaid, who had been found alive, was also turned down, because a colored woman was out of the question as an adoptive parent to someone white.

  The girl understood what was happening; she listened to everything discussed around her, particularly those comments uttered by people who thought her deaf. And then she stared out of the white-framed rectangle of the second-story window, watched oleander branches swaying in the night breeze, then followed thin, fast-moving clouds as they threaded across the moon’s face, and she decided, in one moment, not to wait any longer, not to leave her fate in the hands of others.

  When all was quiet, the girl slipped out the window, slid down the outside trellis like a drop of oil, and then crept down the city streets. She imagined it a game and not so terribly real as she held her body close to walls and tried not to be scared. She slipped into shadows when people drew near. Finally she reached the city’s alleys, where the Negroes worked and many of them lived in backhouses.

  Only then did she realize that she’d been formulating this plan for some time. She didn’t know where Harry was staying. And even if she could find him, the shelter volunteers would also be able to find him, and she’d never be allowed to stay. She had heard it discussed and dismissed many a time.

  Reena had visited her once and had told the girl she was now working in a bigger, fancier house. She lived in an alley house behind the mansion. So the idea came to the girl. Even at her age, she knew that life in the alleys was difficult and often unruly—Reena had told her about it once—but a person could be left alone there. This was her new life, her new plan. In the alleys, she could hide quietly, eat and breathe and live out in the open, and few others would again be bothered by the small matter of her.

  Chapter Five

  GRACE

  After Etta had been with us for almost two weeks, Mother and I hosted an evening party on the large back lawn to introduce Etta to choice friends and acquaintances. I wore an ecru tea gown with a high choker collar and Renaissance sleeves. Before any guests arrived, I asked Seamus to set up my easel on an open spot on the back portico overlooking the open lawn, where the men and many of the women so inclined would later play croquet during the cooling hour as the sun went down.

  I had excelled in art at the Ursuline Academy and then had continued my studies with lessons from the court painter of Austria-Hungary, and later still from the American artist William Merritt Chase, who had instructed me in the latest methods. I particularly liked the new fast-brush technique, which was bolder, quicker, and more self-assured. Some people would say that art was an extravagant hobby, but for me it was a necessity. In front of the easel, I was confident, full of ideas and floating color and wise thoughts. Even the old empty feeling inside me was eased when I made the perfect stroke on my canvas.

  Mother’s guests included the entire Sidney Sherman Chapter of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, and I in turn felt obligated to include the members of the Girls’ Musical and Literary Club. All of the ladies were invited to bring a gentleman guest to ensure that the party would be balanced with a near-equal number of men and women. I finalized the list with Jonathan, of course, his family, and my closest friends, Viola Waverly and Larke McKay, both of whom I’d known since my first year of studies at Ursuline. In addition, I sent an invitation to Larke’s brother, Wallace, who, with his curious nature and gregarious ways, could always be counted on to add verve to a party.

  Under my mother’s guidance, the preparations had been under way for days, and on the morning of the party our cook, May, brought over her cousins and nieces to help. They clucked and fussed over the main entrée slated for dinner, a roasted pig with an apple in its mouth, which they were cooking long and slow in a big brick oven in the outdoor kitchen. In between peeling cucumbers and potatoes, frosting cakes, and whipping meringue, they checked on the pig and polished everything, from silverware to floors, gave even the stair railing a final dusting, and arranged all the flowers.

  Jonathan arrived ahead of the other guests and suavely offered his assistance to my mother, deferring to her directions since he was well used to seeking her favor by now. Dressed in a suit with a printed oxford vest underneath, he watched over the tables being set up on the back portico as the maids carried out the flower arrangements and left room for deviled crab, dishes of salted almonds, and other tidbits to entice us before we would be served dinner later indoors. Many of our guests had responded favorably to their invitations, despite this being the season for much overseas travel among our set; therefore, the maids had to arrange a third long table in the large dining hall to accommodate everyone.

  I watched all of this out of the corner of my eye, and after he apparently determined that all was proceeding well, Jonathan found me on the portico in the shade as I was readying my oils. He came up behind me, took me by the shoulders, and spun me around.

  “My dearest,” he breathed out. He kissed my cheek, and then after looking around to make sure we were alone, he planted a softer, longer kiss on my lips. Jonathan’s kisses were urgent enough to assure me of his desire but not so heady that either of us would abandon our senses or cross any lines. “You’re ravishing as usual.”

  Playfully pushing him away, I said, “Jonathan, you cad!”

  He growled and grinned, then grabbed me again. “I get so little time with you alone now.”

  After I allowed him to hold me for a few more moments, I stepped back. “If my dress is in disarray, Mother will notice at once and admonish us. And I do hope this party goes well, especially for Etta.”

  “Ah, yes, Cousin Etta.” His voice hinted at annoyance. “Why must she always be around during our precious evenings together?”

  He valued our private moments, and I loved that. “If all goes well tonight, she’ll receive so many invitations that she’ll be much too occupied to spend time with us.”

  Jonathan put his hands together and gazed up. “And so I pray.”

  I swatted at him.

  Jonathan appeared hesitant and then asked, “When will she come down?”

  I hadn’t seen Etta yet that afternoon, so I could only assume she was still dressing. “She’ll come when she pleases.”

  “That didn’t sound like my usual generous Grace,” said Jonathan. “You’re not fond of her?”

  “On the contrary. When we were girls, I wasn’t impressed by her, but now I think highly of her.”

  Only that morning Etta had joined me in my room for coffee, and together we had perused my jewelry chest. She had selected some earrings and a matching pendant necklace to wear to the party tonight, and only then did I understand that she usually wore no jewelry because she didn’t own any. Her dresses were inferior, too, but Mother was quickly remedying that situation.

  Bright sunlight had poured in through my bedroom windows, and we had complained about the heat. Etta told me that she often dreamed of seeing snow. She placed a triple-strand bracelet on her wrist and was holding it in front of her, examining it. I didn�
�t tell her that I had seen snow—many times, in fact.

  Bringing me back from my reverie, Jonathan said now, “What have you found to like?”

  His eyes were genuinely inquisitive, but there was something else, too, something that looked like shame. Had he spoken ill of her to our friends? I doubted that. “Did you not enjoy the evenings we’ve spent conversing with her? The night you first met her, you told us the hours had passed like minutes.”

  Jonathan rubbed his chin. “Oh, that. I did say that.” His face was flushing. “I was being polite.”

  I gave him a glare. “She surprises me. And she’s mysterious.”

  “Well, you know her much better than I do. Shall I prepare myself for a surprising evening? Do I need any special directions or warnings?”

  “I’m sure you’ll be your usual fascinating self.”

  “Very well.” Jonathan reached into his pocket. “See what I’ve managed.” Cupped in his palm were some salted almonds. He selected one and brought it to my lips. “May I?”

  He slipped the treat onto my tongue and fed himself two or three at a time. Then, simply to amuse me, he tossed the last one high in the air and managed to catch it in his mouth. A funny thought came to me, of Etta’s circus man. Was he more handsome than Jonathan?

  I turned back to my painting, a landscape inspired by the lawn in front of me, a montage of greenery and flowers. On my palette I had placed smears of molten gold, sage green, and jewel blue that I would use to add touches of color tonight.

  But there was something missing, something unsatisfactory. I couldn’t name it, however, nor could I point to a particular area and say for certain what it lacked. Often the more I thought about my art, the less I could see what I was trying to accomplish. Jonathan was sitting now and whistling softly, a habit he exhibited when he was feeling rested and pleased.

  I couldn’t remember the first time I met Jonathan. Our parents had traveled in the same social circles and were better friends than most; therefore, Jonathan had always been a part of my past. Even from a young age he had a habit of whistling some little tune while we played together under the supervision of our mothers or the servants, and because he was three years older than me, as we grew older and began to venture out on our own a bit more he took on the role of older brother and protector.