The Uncertain Season

by Ann Howard Creel

  Everything changed one morning when Etta learned that Bernadette would be unavailable, and for an entire day at that. Up to that point, Etta had been accompanying her aunt everywhere. Even though some of their jaunts had been less interesting than others, especially trips to view the construction of the new Rosenberg Library, Etta immediately sensed how much she would miss her aunt’s company.

  When she learned of this distressing news, she and her aunt were seated at the table on the back portico, taking their morning tea before her aunt was slated to leave. Grace had already departed for the day.

  “What are your plans?” Etta asked her aunt quite innocently.

  Bernadette didn’t look up. “Business, I’m afraid.”

  Etta hadn’t spent a full day alone since her arrival. “Perhaps I might come along and be of some assistance.”

  “No, thank you,” said her aunt.

  Etta blew into her tea to cool it and then stopped when she caught a disapproving glance from her aunt. “I wouldn’t mind.”

  Bernadette sipped her tea and set down her cup with a little clink. “This is business I must do on my own, I’m afraid.”

  “Please don’t think I’d find it boring.”

  In fact, Etta imagined that her aunt’s business might be financial, and she would be ever so curious to know how much her aunt was actually worth. “Before coming here, I was preparing to take a post at a bank.”

  Her aunt finally glanced Etta’s way again. “I didn’t know that.”

  “So if you think I would find finances and figures of no interest, you’d be mistaken.”

  Bernadette closed her eyes, and for a long moment her face was different—older and more drained. “I’m sorry, but please don’t press me on this, Etta. I must go alone today. We shall have the entire day tomorrow together, I promise.”

  Etta gulped. It was the first time her aunt had declined her. And doing so without any explanation made it all the more crushing. Perhaps the day didn’t involve business or financial work at all. Perhaps it was something more important than that. Not being included was one thing, but not knowing was even worse.

  Etta said, “Where will you be? I mean, I ask only so I won’t worry and will know when to expect your return.”

  Bernadette hesitated as she normally never hesitated, and when she finally spoke there was a strange tinny quality to her voice. “I’ll be on The Strand, and I know not when I’ll return.”

  Etta sat in silence. She was convinced her aunt was lying. Very odd, very odd indeed.

  After breakfast Bernadette went upstairs to gather a few things together, but before she disappeared she ordered Seamus to bring a carriage around to the front of the house.

  An idea came to Etta. Out of her aunt’s sight, she pulled aside the new manservant, hired only a week before, and told him with urgency, “I’ll be needing the old carriage, but I want you to be unnoticed. Bring it to the side of the property at once and await me there.”

  “The horses ain’t hitched, Miss Etta.”

  “Then do it as quickly as possible.”

  “Yes’m.”

  As soon as her aunt headed out of the main door toward the carriage in front, Etta slipped out back and met the other driver. Her aunt’s carriage was long gone by the time the old carriage was ready. “Find my aunt’s carriage. It should be on The Strand,” she ordered.

  The old man turned in his seat and studied her with disbelieving eyes. Etta was tugging on her gloves. She glanced up at him. “Please.”

  Etta’s driver cracked the reins. The air was humid, and the neck of Etta’s dress clung to her skin. There wasn’t an ounce of a breeze, and as Etta fanned herself with her handkerchief, the carriage slowly lumbered onward. They made several turns, the sunlight dappled between overhanging tree branches.

  Etta’s suspicions were confirmed. Exactly as she had suspected, her aunt did not go to The Strand; her carriage was not to be found anywhere in the close vicinity. So Etta instructed the driver to comb the major streets of the city. On the bay side, they finally spotted her aunt’s carriage at Union Station, where they glimpsed Bernadette stepping out and then disappearing into a crowd of arriving train passengers. Perhaps her aunt had waited in the carriage until minutes before her train, the first one of the day, departed, perhaps savoring the shade inside before having to face the crush of other people.

  Etta sat back into the upholstery and pondered her options. She had taken no money with her, and the train to Houston cost one dollar. She was unprepared to follow her aunt any farther, and she couldn’t risk being seen on the train. Etta therefore returned to the house. Before she exited the carriage, however, she informed the driver that should he say anything about her little jaunt, she would deny it, and no one would believe him. She told the manservant the same thing.

  She made a tactical decision then and began questioning her favorite servant, Dolly. Etta asked where her aunt went, how often she went there, and for what purpose, but to her dismay, she found out only that her aunt frequently took day trips by herself, but no further information.

  Dolly even said, “She don’t catch no train,” which was very interesting. Either the servants didn’t know, or they were protecting Bernadette, a possibility that Etta found even more fascinating, as well as baffling. Etta wondered what could command such silence.

  “I’m mistaken then,” said Etta. “Please don’t mention my inquiry to my aunt.”

  “No, ma’am,” Dolly said with wide eyes. “I’m fixing to stay outta your way.”

  That evening over dinner, both Bernadette and Grace seemed preoccupied. After they had eaten most of their meal in silence, Etta, who had spent the day unable to nap, unable to sort through her correspondence or write a single letter, who had wasted the day feeling unappreciated and abandoned, asked her aunt, “And how was your day?”

  Bernadette silently set down her fork. “Productive.”

  Etta had been concocting these questions, to be so innocently asked, all day long. “Did you complete your business?”

  “Yes.”

  “You were gone for so long, I became worried.”

  Bernadette lifted her napkin to first one and then the other corner of her mouth. “I had a meeting in the morning, then lunched with friends at the hotel, and concluded more business in the afternoon.”

  “You didn’t return until nightfall.”

  “Yes. I got carried away, I suppose. I lost track of the time.”

  But Bernadette never lost track of the time.

  Etta held this new information quietly inside her. Her aunt had lied. She hadn’t been to The Strand at all, and no mention had been made about the train depot. In the five weeks that she’d been in Galveston, Etta had found her aunt to be the most honest person she’d ever known. So whatever had taken her away today must have been vastly important and personal for her to feel she must lie about it. And deception, when it was aimed her way, drilled into her like a nail.

  Jonathan came over for a visit with Grace later that night, and he appeared as forlorn as Grace had been looking lately. Etta found him on the front portico, waiting for Grace, who had insisted that she change her dress yet again before receiving him.

  Remembering her aunt’s advice, Etta had decided she should remain friendly and on good terms with everyone, including Jonathan, maybe especially Jonathan. After exchanging the usual pleasantries, they remained standing, facing the front lawn and the balmy night.

  “Grace is coming down soon,” Etta said, “though Bernadette is otherwise engaged.”

  Jonathan smirked. “All is as it should be then.”

  Too bad Grace’s fiancé was actually an agreeable young man. Although he wasn’t interesting enough for her, and he was off-limits to her, he often made her smile. She said, “Jonathan, I owe you an apology. I was much too hard on you the other night.”

  A wretched smile spread across his face. “I won’t defend myself. I have been curious about you, perhaps too much so. You’ve managed
to beguile almost everyone. I suppose everyone wants to know you better.”

  “I’m entirely knowable. You may ask me anything you wish.”

  “I don’t want to pry.”

  “I’m inviting it. Go ahead. Free yourself of what is bothering you.”

  Hesitantly he darted a few guarded glances her way and then finally said, “All right, you’ve convinced me. Tell me then: Do you ever reveal your true self?”

  She stared at him harder. “Yes. You already know this. I opened myself up to the wrong person. I told Grace something that I hadn’t wanted spread as common gossip.”

  He was facing her now. “Yes, she betrayed you. But I was talking about opening up your heart.”

  Etta shrugged. “Of course.”

  Jonathan seemed to be dancing around another question, looking over at her, moving his mouth as though about to speak, and then stopping himself.

  “Go ahead. Ask me what you’re thinking.”

  “Did you love the circus man?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why are you here then? Even if your family sent you, you could still leave. You’re not a prisoner.”

  “Hmm. I didn’t love him enough, I guess. My mother panicked for no reason. He loved me—that I know—but he didn’t ask me to go with him.”

  “What a fool.” His face showed that he was serious.

  “Maybe he was wise. Maybe he knew something better would come along for me. And here I am.”

  “What do you foresee for yourself here?”

  “I’m not sure yet. I’m looking for someone who fascinates me, and so far the only person who does that is my aunt.”

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “Not at all. You’ve spoken as if I am a mystery. She is the mystery.”

  Jonathan scoffed. “You must have an overactive imagination. There’s nothing mysterious about Bernadette. She’s the most domineering woman I’ve ever known. That’s her most overriding quality—the ability to direct others.”

  “But there must be a reason for that.”

  Jonathan looked away. “I don’t care to know. I simply can’t wait to take Grace out of this house.”

  Etta found it appalling that he was enamored of her and yet still planned on marrying Grace. But maybe his infatuation with Etta was already fading. That was a bit disconcerting, but it was also necessary. “Now, may I ask you a question?”

  He blinked a few times. “Of course. Fire away.”

  “How much does it cost to go to Yale?”

  He seemed surprised. “My classmates would say it costs one’s sanity.”

  “Funny.”

  Most of the time Etta acted as if money were of no consequence to her anymore, but with Jonathan she was taking a different tack. She didn’t care if he knew she was curious about wealth. “Seriously, what does it cost Daddy?” Then she bit her lip; maybe she was being too mean and letting him see too much. She was giving him little glimpses into hidden compartments of her mind that she didn’t want others to know about. Oh well. She was beginning to long for a nourishing exchange of unbridled ideas.

  Jonathan rocked back on his heels. “Ah, contempt.”

  “You’re avoiding the question.”

  He waited a moment, then, “How much does it cost to attend Yale? About nine hundred dollars a year.”

  Etta let that sink in. “My sister and her husband bought a farm for a hundred and twenty-five dollars.”

  “Am I to be impressed?”

  “They had to borrow the money.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not,” said Etta. “I’m just stating the facts.”

  He seemed to choose his next words carefully. “I doubt you’re ever sorry about anything.”

  Etta smiled. “Sorrow is a waste of time. Look at Grace. It’s eating her alive.”

  Jonathan’s expression darkened as his arrow eyes perused her. “She has a heart.”

  “Maybe she’s getting an introduction to the harsher realities of life.”

  “I hope to shield her from some of those.”

  “Like a father. Like the father she never knew.”

  Jonathan’s face paled and then opened up with what looked like sudden comprehension. It was as if something was thrusting up from the slush of his brain, like a fish surfacing out of a murky swamp. One didn’t see something that should’ve been obvious—Grace needed a fatherly type—until it was right there.

  After that he made no more comments. They stood, each lost in the warmth of the night and the emergence of insects, in those heart-plucking hums and rumbles. Alone with private thoughts, and yet a bridge of sorts had been built. They were starting to understand each other, beginning to speak freely to each other. Perhaps even becoming friends.

  All was going well except for her aunt’s secret, eating at her like termites.

  That night Etta considered questioning Clorinda, her aunt’s favorite maid, a tall, muscular woman who quietly commanded the rest of the servants and carried out Bernadette’s wishes as if they were royal decrees. Surely she would know where Bernadette went on these jaunts of hers, but Etta hesitated. There was a fierceness about that woman. She would probably tell her aunt about her inquiry. Clorinda was intelligent and, even more dangerous, she was loyal. So Etta decided it would be less risky to find out through her own means. She was planning a long stay in Galveston, the rest of her life, in fact, so there was plenty of time.

  Chapter Fifteen

  THE GIRL

  Reena fed her fried chicken, butter beans, and baked tomatoes left over from the meal she’d cooked in the main house, a nice dormer cottage on a front street, and later, as the sun was just beginning to touch the mass of sprawling land behind them, the girl finally took her leave and wandered back to her shed in Madu’s yard.

  In the air was the scent of summer flowers—jasmine, honeysuckle, magnolia, and gardenia. If she turned her head toward the wharves, the smell of barnacle-encrusted dock timbers, salt-caked planking, cotton warehouses, and fish.

  She ducked inside the shed. Someone had been inside! She caught a scent, a decidedly feminine scent: maybe lavender with a hint of vanilla. And the girl’s notes, all of her scraps of paper on which she had practiced her handwriting, had been disturbed, too. The girl picked up a scrap, one written with words recalled from her days of reading poetry with her mother. Obviously whoever had invaded her shed had read it. Now she would know that the girl had at one time gone to school. That was dangerous.

  The next day, a cloudy and drizzling afternoon ruining her fun, the girl was sitting in her shed in Madu’s yard with her scraps of paper, using a candle for light. With a stubby pencil in her hand and her brow furrowed, she drew the outline of a fish. After staring at it for a few moments, she thought, It looks flat. She closed her eyes and imagined how the fish appeared when they swam in the shallows where she could see, and then she began to shade the underside and tail of the fish to be darker than the rest of its body. She drew curved gills and a large dark eye. Sitting back on her heels, she thought, Could you teach yourself to be an artist?

  A knock sounded on the door. The girl blew out the candle and didn’t move. Few people knew where she slept, and even those few never entered her space. Harry never came to see her here—she always found him—and Reena and Madu simply shouted for her to come out.

  “Hello,” called the voice, a woman’s sweet, lilting voice, but that didn’t make it any less frightening to the girl. In years past, it had been women who were the most determined to seek her out and put her someplace else.

  The door creaked open, and a wedge of muted light streamed inside. The drizzle had stopped. The girl scooted back into the corner of the shed, her back pinned against rusting tools, old pots and pans, and spiderwebs.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to disturb you,” said the woman as she crouched over and stepped inside. Her skirt and shoes were wet. “My name is Grace. I’ve come to hand over a dress I thought you might like. You appear clos
e to my size.”

  The girl stayed huddled in the corner while the rich woman reached out her hand into the semidarkness.

  The girl had no place to go. Her only exit was blocked. The hot oppression became overwhelming, as if melted candle wax had filled the room, and then her lungs filled with it, overwhelmed her, as if she were choking. She cowered.

  So fast, so fleeting. Her freedom over.

  The woman named Grace said, “May I see what you’re writing? I saw that you can write when I came to visit before. You weren’t home.”

  The girl had been right. This woman had been inside her place before. But the girl’s tension eased a bit. If Grace had known for days where the girl lived and not done anything about it, maybe she was safe, like Reena and Madu. She let the fish drawing fall out of her hands.

  Grace picked up her drawing and her face broke into a smile, showing perfect teeth. “Why, you’re an artist.”

  The girl shook her head.

  “This is good. The proportions are right, and you’ve shaded it well. Do you want to become an even better artist?”

  Reluctantly the girl nodded.

  “This is wonderful news!” the Grace woman said. “I’ll bring you supplies. I’m an artist, too. I have an entire studio filled with paints and charcoal pencils, chalks, canvases, and tablets.”

  The girl said nothing, although she wished she could request a charcoal pencil and some paper. She had no idea what to do with paints.

  “Would you like that?” asked Grace.

  Reluctantly the girl nodded again. Was she making a mistake? Was she letting her guard down when she shouldn’t?

  But it seemed the young woman did in fact want only to hand over the dress and be friendly. The girl took the dress, stuffed it into a ball behind her back, and gestured for the young woman to leave, which she did.

  After Grace backed up and vanished beyond the door, after her light footsteps could no longer be heard, the girl finally exhaled. She retrieved the bundle from behind her back and unfolded it. The dress was of yellow cotton, with white eyelet trim on the collar and cuffs. Rolled inside the dress was also a petticoat, and even a pale-yellow bonnet to go with the dress.