Sweeter than Birdsong

by Rosslyn Elliott

  She turned from him, breathless. She must sit. A few staggered steps brought her to the stoop, but her skirt tangled around her feet and she fell to her knees on the wooden stairs.

  “Miss Winter.” Ben rushed to her side. She clutched at the step—its grain seemed so coarse—she dragged in a shallow breath.

  He took her hand and assisted her to turn and sit. She clung to his hand, not caring about propriety at all.

  “It’s sad. It’s sad.” She spoke through a numb glaze, as if she observed herself from a distance. But the words released something and water welled in her eyes.

  Ben sat down next to her. “I am sorry,” he said in a low voice, cradling her hand in both of his.

  “Her baby girl too?”

  “Yes.” He seemed to understand the realization was slow and awful, and had to be spoken from the head into the heart, word by painful word.

  Tears slipped down her face.

  “I regret having brought you into such circumstances. I never meant to cause you sorrow. If I could undo it, I would,” Ben said. He pulled out a folded linen handkerchief and offered it to her.

  “I would not undo it.” She blotted the tears from her face with her free hand, but her voice was still thick with them. “I cannot wish myself blind. I only wish my eyes had not been opened at the cost of their lives.” Somehow it did not matter if he saw her weeping—he looked as if he were on the verge himself.

  “But I cannot stand to see you hurt,” he said. “I love you.” The sweetness of his words stirred into the bitterness of the news like a trail of ink in water. She sat in silence with him, the ache beneath her bodice so great she thought it would split her in two. Time passed, she did not know how long—only that even in the pain, he loved her and she was not alone.

  He went to his knees on the step below her and lifted her hand gently in his, bringing the inside of her wrist to his lips. He reached out with his other hand to touch her cheek.

  She looked at him, speechless, her soul laid open by sorrow, longing for his comfort.

  “I want you to be my wife, Kate. I’ve thought of little else for months. But I can’t bring you more of this—more death, more suffering.”

  “But with you, I might help,” she said. “How many more are there like Nelly? I can’t forget her.” Her lips trembled and she pressed them together to stop it.

  He stood and lifted her to him in one fervent motion, his arms around her as she melted into the strength of his embrace, the reassurance and passion that poured from him and circled her shoulders. She breathed in his warm, clean scent in the hollow of his neck, and did not want to move, ever. She drew strength from him, as if she could face any sorrow, even the loss of the baby girl, if Ben would hold her in his arms and walk with her through it. His goodness fell on her like a fragment of heaven, an imperfect mirror giving evidence of something better beyond either of them.

  He stepped back and looked her full in the face with dark, intent eyes. “We will be honest with your mother. We won’t hide anything again.” His hands remained steady at her sides. “Will you marry me, Kate? Can you trust that God will make a way for us, if he favors what we intend?”

  She felt the purity of his intentions, his compassion, like a tide pulling her toward him. “I don’t know if it’s right to agree, given my mother’s opinion.”

  “It can’t be wrong if we are open and conceal nothing from her.”

  “But she has already stated her opposition,” Kate said. “And I confess I would be afraid to tell her.”

  “You may honor your parents and still plead with them for the righteousness of our cause.”

  She crossed her arms, torn.

  He moved closer and laid a warm hand behind her elbow. “Kate, please say you will marry me. If God makes a way.”

  He looked as if he was holding his breath. She was holding hers as well.

  She let out a sigh. “I will, if God makes a way. Which means changing my mother’s mind.”

  His face lit up, and he trailed his hand from her elbow to her wrist, brought her hand up to his lips, and kissed it with reverence. A tingle ran up her arm.

  “I will never give you cause to regret your choice,” he said, still holding her hands.

  “What do we do now?” she asked, shy.

  He was serious. “I suppose we must speak to our parents.”

  She quailed at the thought. “I will need to talk to my mother alone.” God would make a way, as Ben said.

  But it was hard to believe even the Lord himself could change her mother’s mind.

  Thirty-Six

  SHE COULD NOT AFFORD TO LOOK WEAK OR CHILDISH. The glass showed Kate that her eyes were puffy from lack of sleep, her cheeks pale. She moved to the washstand and poured some water from the porcelain pitcher into the washbowl. After wrapping a towel around her neck to protect her dress, she cupped the cool water in her hands and bathed her hot face. When she dried off and looked in the mirror, she approved of her altered appearance.

  Her mother was in her own bedroom, odd for this time of the afternoon when she would ordinarily go to the homes of other prominent townspeople to visit. But since the arrival of the letter from Philadelphia, she had kept to her room. She had been quiet and withdrawn instead of assuming her usual commanding demeanor. But her mother’s lowered brow and snappish tone did not bode well for her general state of mind.

  Kate opened her door and walked along the upstairs hallway. Midway on her short journey, she had to pause and steady herself with one hand against the wall. God would make a way. She continued to the closed door of the bedroom and made herself give three sharp, confident knocks on the wood.

  Her mother opened the door. She was clad in a rust-colored day dress, her dark hair pulled back, her white face impassive. “What is it?”

  “I must discuss something with you.” Kate kept her chin up and her gaze steady. “May I come in?”

  Her mother’s eyes narrowed in irritation, but she moved back to let Kate enter.

  Kate seldom went in her parents’ bedroom. There was something uncomfortable about it, with its massive mahogany bedposts, dark green bedcoverings, and a heavy rug that suffocated any sound. It was more like a mausoleum than a place where people slept. Kate crossed to one of the two high-backed chairs placed against the walls. “Would you like to sit?” she asked her mother. “This will take some time.”

  Her mother’s eyebrows rose, creating the wrinkles in her forehead that she had managed to stave off for so many years. She glided to the other chair and sat with controlled grace, regarding Kate, daring her to begin.

  “You have forbidden me to associate with Ben Hanby.” Quite a feat that she had even managed to say his name in this house without stammering. Her mother’s lips curled in derision, but she still said nothing, her hands folded atop the tiers of her skirt.

  “I have obeyed your wishes, until yesterday, when I inadvertently happened to meet him.”

  Anger began to tighten her mother’s mouth and cheeks.

  “I wish to behave with respect and honesty,” Kate hurried on, “which is why I am telling you of this meeting.” Was there a slight relaxation in her mother’s expression? Kate seized the moment. “However, I also have found that I disagree with your choices for my life, and I feel they are based on false assumptions.”

  Now her mother’s hands clenched on her skirt. An explosion was imminent.

  Kate hurried on. “I have agreed to marry him, but we will not marry without your permission. We hope and pray you will reconsider your opposition and give us your blessing.” Her voice trailed away at the end, despite her best effort to keep it steady.

  Her mother remained still for a long moment. “Give you my blessing!” she scoffed, her face hard with disdain. She burst into mocking laughter. “You ask for my blessing on your disobedient action? I have forbidden you to see him and you think now I will agree to a marriage?”

  Her mother stood up and began to pace back and forth across the carpet, h
er face trained implacably on Kate no matter how her body moved. “You think you have your reasons and your foolish arguments for getting your way. I assure you that you know nothing. You are a silly girl who has fallen for a—a— handsome face and a—a song!—and you will throw away your future on him.”

  Kate had never seen her mother so enraged. She was grateful for the arms of the chair; she grasped them to hold herself up under the blast.

  “Do you think that you are the first to face such a decision?” Her mother’s voice rose. “Do you think that my rules are idle whims, based on ignorance? No! I faced the same decision when I was your age. I made the same foolish choice, and I threw away my life for the brief thrill of what I thought was love.”

  Her mother’s eyes glistened.

  “You think this sentimental feeling you have will last forever, that he will always treat you like a precious angel and protect you. Well, he won’t! He will forget you, and neglect you. He will not care for your wishes. He may even be a drunk, like your father—so many of them are.” Her mother’s voice cracked. “You will not have your money to protect you, as I did. Your father has seen to that, with his failure to bring a steady income. There will be nothing left for you.”

  “Mother, I am sorry for what you have suffered. But I do not think our situations are the same. I believe that I—”

  “What do you think I believed?” her mother shouted. “No girl knows what marriage is really like! You don’t know how men change when the bloom is off the rose. Why do you think you have never met my mother or my father? Because they tried to warn me. They did everything they could to stop me from marrying this newcomer with a—a charming smile,” she said with heavy sarcasm. “They told me they would no longer have any contact with me if I went against their wishes. They pleaded with me to marry in our society, where I would be safe. We were related to the Willings and the Binghams—we had all of Philadelphia’s comforts. But no, I thought I knew better! I thought they just didn’t know the wonderful man I had found!” She paced the room, waving her arms in stiff, jerky motions. “So I eloped with your father, and lost everything. Everything but the money my grandfather had already placed in trust for me,” she said. “And that is all I have had to console me for my stupidity, all these years.”

  “You are trying to protect me,” Kate said. “I honor that, Mother.” She stood up. Sitting was inadequate for what she had to say. “But Ben is not Father. I have known him for some time. I know that his family is solid, that they are good people. And I know he is a man of faith. If he were ever tempted to neglect me, he would never turn from vows he had made to God.” Her heart filled as she thought of Ben’s goodness. Her mother was incapable of seeing it.

  “Your father acted like a good churchgoing man too,” her mother said with renewed anger. “Until we left Philadelphia. Any man can put on that mask when he wants to, talking about God and doing what is right. Talking is all it ever is. When push comes to shove, Ben Hanby will do exactly what he wants, and claim you drove him to it.”

  “No, he won’t. He’s a humble and generous man. He is”— she searched for the word—“godly.” It sounded strange coming out of her mouth.

  “At what point did you become a religious zealot? You are an idiot!”

  Kate took a quick breath. “I won’t change my mind. If I can’t marry Ben, I won’t marry at all.”

  Her mother regained her self-control one facial muscle at a time. She reverted to her usual cold tone. “If you do not marry, we cannot support you. You will be in abject misery. The romantic feeling you have now will fade, and in its place, what will clothe you or feed you? Only loneliness and endless menial work.”

  Kate walked past her to the doorway. She turned around to see her mother following close on her heels.

  “Apparently there is only one way to ensure that you do not see Ben Hanby while I am gone to Philadelphia. I must take you with me on that journey.”

  “What? What of Leah? She can’t stay here alone.”

  Her mother hesitated, blinking. Then, “I will send her to the Boglers to stay.”

  “But I will not be back in time for the beginning of the term. President Lawrence said I had to recite in public then or be dismissed.” Not that she wished to recite, even after her practice, but it was the only argument that might sway her mother.

  “I am certain your professors will agree to hear your speech as soon as you return. We are faced with an imminent death in the family, after all. Get to your room and pack a valise,” her mother said. “And stay out of my sight until it’s time to depart.” She slammed the bedroom door in Kate’s face.

  Kate stared at the door. God did not appear to be making a way.

  Thirty-Seven

  KATE HAD NEVER BEEN SO TIRED IN HER LIFE. THE high-backed wooden bench seats of the Main Line had some padding at least, but the constant rattling of the wheels on the tracks wore on her nerves. Though the train had stopped last night to allow the passengers to sleep at a Harrisburg hotel, they had suffered from the rough vibration for ten hours a day, two days in a row. And that was only since Pittsburgh. Before that, the journey from Columbus to Pittsburgh had kept them on more primitive trains for another two days. She was sure her mother was as exhausted as she, but they had barely spoken in the entire journey. Kate kept her nose buried in the Bible Reverend Meade had given her last year. Her mind, however, drifted away with the rhythm of the wheels on the track.

  Was he thinking of her? What was he doing at this moment? She closed her eyes and lost herself in the remembered touch of his hand, his words of love.

  Her traveling dress stuck to her skin in the humid afternoon air. The dress might be malodorous in more polite company, but one could not even tell given the offensive smells arising from some of their fellow passengers.

  Escaping steam from the mighty engine hissed, the whistle blew, and the train lumbered to a stop. Through the windows, she could see that one car away, the blue-capped conductor had opened the door and stepped to the ground.

  “Philadelphia, Market and Thirtieth Street!” he yelled.

  Her mother picked up her handbag and stood. She did not wait for the porter to hand their small valise down, but tugged it from under the seat and dragged it to the door. Such unladylike haste was not typical of her, but her face was as guarded as ever and showed nothing of what might be animating her sudden burst of motion. Her hair looked as if a maid had dressed it that morning, perfectly twisted and smooth. Kate’s chignon was not as cooperative, from what she had seen in the cloudy metallic surface that served as a looking glass in the washroom.

  Her mother had stepped off the train without assistance— she must follow. Grabbing the brass handle on the side of the door frame, Kate lowered herself down the eighteen-inch drop to the stone floor of the platform. One must be careful. It would not do to break an ankle so far from Westerville simply because they refused to wait for the porter. Farther down the platform the station hands unloaded trunks and boxes from the baggage car. Theirs would be among them.

  The station was a one-story brick building, surprisingly small for an American metropolis. Once a porter found their trunks and loaded them on a wheeled cart, Kate followed her mother through the archway.

  “This is Market Street,” her mother said. “I am not familiar with this part of the city. There was no railway when I left twenty years ago.”

  Kate scanned the buildings. They were wooden structures, stores marked with wooden signs advertising tobacco, dry goods, and, of course, liquor.

  “Come along, Kate.” Her mother led the way to where hackney buggies waited alongside the station building. The porter followed with the cart.

  “Need a cab, missus?” a young man on the driver’s seat of one buggy asked.

  “Yes,” her mother said. “To Walnut, between Fourth and Fifth.”

  They agreed on a fare, and he jumped down to stow their luggage in back. Her mother tipped the porter, and the cabdriver helped them up to their seats
. He hopped back up to his own place, clucked to the ragamuffin brown horse, and they were off down Market at a trot.

  As the buggy passed Twentieth Street, two-story stone buildings appeared alongside the wooden stores, and the signs of commerce thickened. The street was full of buggies, carriages, and even a couple of covered wagons on their way through town. Their driver whisked nimbly around the slower vehicles.

  “This was nothing but open acreage when last I saw it.” Her mother’s voice bore a note of wonder.

  Pedestrians walked past the storefronts, men in top hats and derbies, working men in caps. Kate spotted a few working women in worn dresses, but no ladies yet.

  The hack turned right on Twelfth Street.

  “Look there.” Her mother pointed down a side street. “Girard Row. I went there often with my mother.”

  The street boasted splendid facades—white stone, high steps, and columns on the ground floor with three stories of brick above. Dark shutters flanked the windows and set off the white of the lintels. Rows of trees conveyed order and beauty: black cherry, maple, crabapple. Two ladies moved sedately down the walk in their bright silk gowns and graceful hats festooned with feathers.

  “What took you there?”

  “Tea with friends. The Binghams.” Her mother’s mouth was tight, as if she held in something more private. Her eyes were misty. It was odd to see her like this, a shifting and reordering of all Kate knew. Her mother had never been at home in Westerville, but here she fit.

  The driver guided them around the corner, passing a sign marking Chestnut Street. Kate drew in her breath at the sight. Four-and five-story buildings, squeezed wall to wall without interruption. Luxury businesses proliferated: engravers and stationers, entire establishments devoted to fine gloves and hosiery.

  “There’s the College Hall,” her mother said, gazing at a two-story building with classical lines. “And the Fine Arts Academy. I remember the garden as larger, but perhaps I was smaller then.” Her face was open, vulnerable in a way Kate had never seen. “The Chestnut Street Theater is still the same, I see.” The building she pointed out was all arches, columns, and placards announcing the latest dramatic offerings. After it came a vast lawn, gorgeous spire, and the white-trimmed windows of what had to be the Statehouse. Kate kept silent—she did not know what to say to this mother she barely knew.