Donners Bend

by Alexa V James

  He was quite dashing, Ellie agreed. With dark, dark, almost black hair that fell into his brown eyes, not a girl in the world could deny his having an incredibly handsome appearance. Like it was already mentioned, he was fairly tall and kept in good shape, though he wasn’t incredibly muscular. His bright, playful yet mocking smile could melt a girl’s heart and he had the charm to accompany it.

  Emily was the second person Ellie had heard characterize Jamie as contentious, but they both also said he was incredibly intelligent. To Ellie, it didn’t make sense.

  “If Jamie is so intelligent,” she pondered aloud, “Then why is he always getting kicked out of school? Surely he’d be smart enough to know not to debate with his instructor’s words.”

  Emily shrugged, “Well, like I said, he’s also terribly contentious. When he doesn’t think something’s right, he lets you know. So if he believes his professor has gotten something wrong, he feels free to just come right out and say it.”

  “But he’s still really perceptive?”

  Emily nodded, “Very. He can ace all his courses easily and without much effort. His father had high expectations for a while. He expected Jamie would follow in his footsteps and become a doctor or maybe a lawyer, but apparently Jamie didn’t want the same things his father did. Who knows what will become of him now.”

  They watched Phillip and Jamie fence a few moments more. Jamie was amazing. He moved with a grace and ease Ellie had never expected him to have. Easily, he triumphed over Phillip and they could continually hear Phillip say with a laugh, “Touché!” which meant, “I’ve been touched!”- Meaning that Jamie was winning.

  “From what I can see, he’s not such a bad fencer either,” said Ellie as she watched.

  “’Course not. He’s been fencing since he was but a boy of five and I must say he’s caught on to the technique well.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Hmm... I suppose he’s twenty-four now. Twenty-four or twenty-five, somewhere around there,” she paused, “He’s not married yet, I suppose. Or if he is I haven’t heard anything about her,” Emily smiled, “He did have an awful lot of girls fawning after him way back when though. You can’t blame them. I’ll bet every girl in Donners Bend fell in love with him at some time or another, though some never admitted it. He was like the intelligent, sophisticated bad boy, and oh my goodness, was he charming,” she said with a sigh.

  “The children adore him,” Ellie commented.

  “I’m sure,” Emily nodded, “Jamie’s always been wonderful with children. He’s a wonder with them. Whenever he’s home on a sunny day I can see him playing in the yard with his sisters and Wesley. He’ll do anything to please them. He loves to dress up as a pirate, or a soldier, or anything else they want. He teaches them to fence and lets them win every time if that’s what they want. I’ve even seen him sit down for a tea party with Gracie and Leah,” she shook her head with a hearty laugh; “I don’t know how he does it.”

  Ellie smiled too and watched as he fenced Phillip.

  “He’ll make an excellent father someday,” Emily added.

  “He will,” Ellie agreed.

  Their focus again turned to Jamie and Phillip.

  “Allez!” said Jamie, and they began again. Phillip wasn’t doing terribly bad this time. Their swords clashed. Phillip looked hopeful at a win, but Jamie said, “Pas de touché.”

  Phillip frowned with a laugh, “Aww, come on! That had to have hit you!”

  Jamie shook his head, “Pas de touché.”

  “Well, I’m going to be victorious this round. Don’t you worry!” Phillip assured him.

  Jamie went in for the win, but Phillip fended him off quite well. Every so often Ellie could hear one or the other say, “Pas de touché” again and she knew the game hadn’t yet ended.

  But finally, Jamie leapt forward and Phillip uneasily admitted with a voice of failure, “Touché.”

  Jamie smiled, raised his sword, and gave a bow, “Mr. Jamie Rhodes has successfully fended off all coveters of his title as the undefeated champion of fencing!”

  Phillip laughed, “I really didn’t have a chance, did I?”

  Jamie laughed along, “What do you think?”

  “Emily?” Ellie asked.

  “Yes?”

  “Were you ever one of those girls captivated by Jamie’s charm?”

  Emily smiled, “What do you think?”

  Chapter 8 - Pirates and Shakespeare

  “Ready to go, Mae?” Jon called from atop Penny.

  “Yes,” Ellie replied from inside her house, scrambling to find her hat, “One moment!”

  She found it waiting patiently beneath her bed. After grabbing it, Ellie flew right out her front door, not wanting to be late for work. Jon gave her a hand up onto the horse behind him, and she placed her bag between the two of them so that when they rode, her arms, which sat on Jon’s waist, would act as a barrier for the bag.

  “Doing anything special with the children today?” Jon asked as Penny began to canter.

  “No, not especially,” Ellie replied casually, “Just the usual.”

  “I hear Jamie Rhodes is back in town. Thrown out of whichever university he was at, I assume.”

  “You assumed right.”

  They rode through the hills and down the rugged dirt paths. The sun was shining brightly overhead, for today was to be a sunny day, though one can never be too sure of the weather in Donners Bend.

  Lately, Jon came to Ellie’s every morning. He’d come in just as she had finished dressing and while she sat down and ate breakfast, he’d have a little snack too, even though he’d already eaten his own morning meal. Then, he’d prepare Penny while she got her things together and when they were both ready he’d take her over to the Rhodes’ house before heading to his own workplace, Ol’ Smith’s.

  “Johnny, were you ever friends with Jamie?” asked Ellie.

  He shrugged, “We went to school together as boys, but I wouldn’t say we were great friends or anything. Of course, we’d play together at recess time sometimes and he was always willing to help me out if I needed it. That Jamie is one smart cookie. He really made the rest of us feel stupid sometimes, though he’d never mean to do it.” Jon smiled as he remembered times in his childhood, “The teachers despised him. He knew what they were going to say before they even said it, or at least that’s what I heard. I was rarely in a class with him. Because of the age difference Jamie was always six levels ahead of me. I’m eighteen now so he must be twenty-four, or I suppose he could be twenty-five, depending on when his birthday is.

  “I always thought he’d be a lawyer. He’d make a good lawyer. Smart as a whip and he loves a great debate; he certainly knows how to stand his ground and defend whatever he believes is right.”

  They’d reached the Rhodes house by this time and were riding up the cobblestone way. Ellie slid off Penny’s back, took her bag, and gave Jon a friendly kiss on the cheek.

  “Goodbye, Mae!” said Jon as he turned Penny around.

  “Goodbye Johnny!”

  Jon rode off again, and Ellie walked up to the front door and used the golden doorknocker, engraved with the Rhodes’ name, to announce her presence.

  Instead of Juliet answering the door, like usual, Ellie was greeted by Jamie. He looked slightly different though, for at this encounter he owned a small mustache and his dark hair was even slightly more askew than its usual messy ways.

  “Good morning, Miss Henderson,” he said with a slight nod of recognition as he allowed her in.

  “Good-morning, Mr. Rhodes,” she replied.

  “Might I ask something of you, miss?”

  “Well of course, sir.”

  “I remember Jon Smithton from my school days. Are you involved in a courtship, Miss Henderson?”

  “Why no, sir. We’re only friends.”

  “Ah, I see. Just wondering,” he said with a nod and a shrug, “Well, the children are still eating their breakfast in the sunroom. You may go and wait f
or them if you like.”

  “Thank you, I’ll do that, sir.”

  “Have a nice day.”

  “I shall.”

  At playtime that day, the children decided to go outside for it was a beautiful day. Jamie decided to come out, too. He wanted to play pirates; he said he’d grown a mustache especially for the occasion of the first game of pirates since his arrival. The children agreed with this idea and the game was set up.

  On one side of the lawn hidden behind a propped-up board that served as their “ship” were Ellie, Leah, and Demi and on the other side of the lawn were Jamie, Gracie, and Wesley. Wesley, dressed in a black cape and cap, came in front of his side’s board with a grave face.

  “We, the men,” he began.

  “And lady!” Gracie called out.

  “Yes, yes, and lady. We, the men and lady of the ship the Black Diamond, hereby declare war on you, ship of fools. What? What Jamie?”

  Ellie could now see Jamie’s dark head come above the top of the board and whisper something to him. He’d been telling Wesley what to say since the beginning, she now realized.

  “Oh, o-tay,” Wesley continued, “And we’d like to know if you accept our gracious offer, but if you don’t, we don’t care because we want to fight anyway.”

  Demi came around to the front of Ellie’s board wearing a navy cape and white bandana and said as she shot her fist madly into the air, “We, the ladies of the ship the Sapphire, hereby accept your offer for we too, would like to fight.”

  Wesley smiled, “Well then, shall we first introduce ourselves?”

  Jamie smiled at the young boy’s idea of war, but went with it anyway. He was dressed in a white-collared shirt, black pants, black cape, and he’d tied a red bandana around his head.

  “Oh of course, of course,” he said with a forced straight face as he came out to the area between the two “ships”, “I, Black-beardless James, would like to introduce the Queen of the Kingdom of Gracie-shire...”

  Gracie came out, clad in a lavender cape with a crown of daisies upon her head. She was the only one who didn’t like to dress up as a pirate; her feminine side dominated any tomboyish side she’d once had and she didn’t like to dress boyishly at all.

  Jamie went on, “And the swarthiest pirate of them all, Westy Ray-man.”

  Wesley took a little bow.

  “And from the side of our enemies, the Sapphire, we have the audacious Demi-Annie, the vivacious LeLe, and the nimble Every-Henderson.” After each girl had been introduced, Jamie lowered his voice to a pirate’s gruesome tone and called out, “Now, this is not to be a clean fight, nor will it obey any laws you’ve ever known; to the victor go the spoils ...and that’s just the way it is, savvy?”

  “Can’t we just fight already?” Demi asked.

  Jamie screamed, “We’ll fight!” he paused and lowered his voice to a calm and rational one and finished, “When we’re good and ready. Are all armed with their weapons?”

  “Aye! Aye!” both sides called as they raised their sticks.

  “Then let the war begin!” Jamie yelled as he ran back behind the Black Diamond’s board.

  Ellie couldn’t help but smile. Jamie, somewhere around the age of twenty-five, could act youthful and charming all at the same time. She’d never seen a man his age get so into a game of pirates as Jamie did.

  And so the war of pirates began. Each side ran out from behind their board screaming war calls with their weapons raised; Jamie was the biggest child of them all.

  Each person took an enemy to fight. Jamie fought Demi, Wesley fought Leah, and Ellie was against Gracie. The children were better at fencing than Ellie had expected; Jamie must have taught them. Although Ellie knew Jamie could have triumphed over Demi in a second, he played down his skills so as to let her win. Ellie did the same for Gracie so that the children’s confidence was boosted because they thought they’d been the victors of challenges with their elders: Jamie and Ellie.

  So, Jamie and Ellie lay “dead” on the ground. Jamie scooted over to Ellie slightly and asked with a small smile, “Having fun, Miss Henderson?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Have you ever played pirates before?”

  “No, this is my first time.”

  “Well if you continue working for this family it certainly won’t be your last.”

  “We’ve won!” Wesley suddenly shouted, “I beat Leah! We won! The Black Diamond won!”

  “But that’s no fair,” Demi pouted, “Can’t we play again, Black-beardless James? I want to win.”

  “Another game?” Jamie asked Ellie as he got to his feet and held out a hand for her.

  “Love to,” Ellie replied as she took his hand.

  For the next war, Demi quickly took Wesley as her competitor, Leah took Gracie, and Ellie was left to take on Jamie. Demi, maddened at her team’s last loss, won her match instantly. She helped out Leah and Gracie was also taken down. The only two left were Jamie and Gracie.

  Jamie smiled slyly, “I’m not going to go easy anymore, missy. The battle’s on!”

  The children cheered and Ellie blushed, knowing she wouldn’t be able to defend herself against Jamie. She did well at first, surprisingly blocking all his attacks easily, but then she began to realize that he hadn’t really stopped going easy. He was letting her win, for Demi’s sake.

  “Go Ellie!” Leah and Demi shouted.

  Jamie and Ellie began walking in a circle, their eyes never parting. Jamie gave a small smile as their swords began to clash again. Finally, after a fierce fight, Ellie pushed her sword into Jamie’s chest and he fell to the ground with a dramatic death.

  “We’ve won!” Leah and Demi exclaimed, “We’ve won!”

  Ellie laughed; she’d never imagined she’d have so much fun working as a governess.

  * * * * *

  Later that day, Louise Rhodes came home from work early with her seamstress’s daughter Sarah Walsh. Sarah also lived in Donners Bend and worked for her mother by taking measurements and orders from customers. Louise called Ellie and the girls in, while Wesley practiced fencing with Jamie outside.

  While Louise got fitted for a few new everyday dresses in a sitting room upstairs, the younger girls flipped through fabric strips nearby and Ellie suggested a few she might choose if she were to get some new gowns. Gracie, Leah, and Demi took all her suggestions very seriously for they trusted in their nanny’s opinion.

  When Louise had finished her fitting, Gracie stepped forward, then Leah, and finally Demi. Louise and Gracie now sat on a settee and decided which fabrics to use for Gracie’s dresses. Ellie and Leah were out on the balcony, getting a breath of fresh air and letting the wind blow through their hair. They watched as Jamie and Wesley fenced playfully.

  “Hello down there!” Leah shouted, leaning over the balcony’s white railing, “Jamie! Wes!”

  Ellie came to stand beside her, but suddenly Sarah called for Leah to come inside for a moment and only Ellie was left. Jamie stopped his game and came beneath the balcony to stare up at her. He still hadn’t shaved off his little black mustache and his hair was disheveled from a rough game.

  Reaching up his hand, he said in a dramatic voice, “But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Ellie Mae is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon.”

  Ellie, instantly recognizing the lines, skipped a few of the famous play and returned, “Oh Jamie, Jamie, wherefore art thou Jamie? Deny thy father and refuse thy name, or, if though wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I’ll no longer be a Henderson.”

  Jamie smiled, “Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?”

  “'Tis but thy name that is my enemy; Thou art thyself, though not a Rhodes,” Ellie replied as she began walking across the balcony, running her hand across the railing; Jamie followed her as she moved and she continued, “What's Rhodes? It is nor hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man. O, be some other name! What's in a name? That which we call a rose
by any other name would smell as sweet; So Jamie would, were he not Jamie call'd, retain that dear perfection which he owes without that title. Jamie, doff thy name, And for that name which is no part of thee take all myself.”

  “I take thee at thy word: Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized; Henceforth I never will be Jamie.”

  Their reciting was interrupted as Wesley banged the door as he ran inside the house for some lemonade.

  Jamie looked back up to Ellie.

  “Very well done, Miss Henderson,” he said, “I don’t believe you missed one word.”