by Lynn Austin
Then they returned to Horatio’s hometown of Roseton in a mountain valley in central Pennsylvania and Bebe’s nightmares began. Her new mother-in-law met them at the front door with crossed arms and an angry glare. “How could you do this to us, Horatio? How could you run off with some . . . some farm girl with no thought or consideration at all for our feelings? After everything we’ve done for you?”
Bebe drew back from the force of her words. Her instinct was to turn and run, but Horatio remained calm, his smile never wavering.
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Mother, but this is my new bride, Beatrice Aurelia Garner, and—”
“She’s a child! Is your marriage even legal?”
“She’s not a child; she’s merely dainty and petite.”
“I-I’m seventeen,” Bebe said just above a whisper.
Mrs. Garner ignored her. “It may not be too late to have the marriage annulled, Horatio. Your father can talk to a judge and—”
“He’ll do no such thing.” Horatio draped his arm around Bebe’s shoulders and pulled her close. “I love her, Mother. And if you can’t accept my choice, then perhaps Beatrice and I will have to move to her hometown and live with her parents, instead.”
Bebe looked up at him, wondering if he’d lost his mind. Then she remembered her manners and turned back to her mother-in-law, offering her hand. “I’m very pleased to meet you—”
Mrs. Garner whirled away with a rustle of taffeta, leaving Bebe on the doorstep with her hand still outstretched. Horatio squeezed her shoulder and led her into the house. “That went better than I expected,” he said with a grin.
“Are you joking, Horatio? She hates me!”
“She’ll get over it. She’s angry because we had a simple marriage ceremony in your church and she didn’t have the opportunity to plan a huge, lavish wedding. And also because I chose my own bride instead of marrying someone from her social circle. But don’t worry, by this time next week she’ll be planning an extravagant ball to introduce you to all her friends.”
Bebe didn’t know which frightened her more, the idea of meeting more women like Mrs. Garner, or the knowledge that it would be at a fancy ball. She didn’t even know how to dance. “Oh, Horatio . . . a ball? I-I—”
“Mother will have so much fun shopping with you, buying your trousseau, outfitting you in a new wardrobe—”
“Outfitting me?”
“Of course.” He took her face in his hands. “You’re beautiful, Beatrice. You’re like a tiny porcelain doll. I can’t wait to dress you up and show you off myself.”
Show me off? For a second time, Bebe fought the urge to turn and run. She gazed around the mansion’s soaring foyer and sweeping staircase—and noticed, for the first time, the row of uniformed servants standing like stiff, unsmiling soldiers. The man whom she guessed to be the butler gave a little bow.
“Welcome home, Master Garner,” he said. The row of maids all curtsied.
“Thank you, Robert,” Horatio replied. “I trust that you and the rest of the staff will help make my bride feel welcome in every way. You’re all dismissed for now.” The butler went to see about their luggage. The maids curtsied again and scattered. Horatio smiled as if they’d been greeted with hugs and kisses and a fattened calf instead of harsh words and unfriendly faces. “Would you like a tour of the house, my dear?”
“I-I feel a little dizzy, Horatio.” She had made a wrong turn and had wandered onto the pages of a tragic fairy tale. If only she could read the ending and find out what would happen. A week ago she’d been certain that she and Horatio would live happily ever after. Now she wasn’t so sure.
“You must be exhausted, my dear,” Horatio said as he led Bebe into an enormous parlor. It overflowed with so much overstuffed furniture, gewgaws, and bric-a-brac that she could barely see the walls. He made her sit down on a stiff horsehair sofa. “Shall I have the servants bring you something?”
“I don’t want to bother anyone. . . .”
Horatio’s laughter filled the high-ceilinged room. “My dear, it’s their job to wait on you!” He crossed to a tall cabinet in the corner and took out a glass decanter. It was like the one in his traveling case, only larger. The crystal tumbler that he poured the liquor into was larger, too. Bebe watched him take a long drink. “Would you like some, Beatrice?”
“No thanks. I think . . . I think I need to lie down.” Her nerves felt so fragile that she feared she might throw up or burst into tears—perhaps both—and she wanted to be someplace private when she did. Horatio laughed again and set down the glass. Before Bebe could protest, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her into the foyer and up the stairs. She was in tears before he reached the first landing. “This . . . this is all too much, Horatio!”
He kissed her forehead. “You’ll get used to it, my dear Beatrice. I promise you.”
But for the first time since she’d met her husband, Bebe had cause to doubt him.
CHAPTER
11
Three days after arriving home with Horatio, Bebe crept down the wide staircase all alone in search of breakfast, leaving her husband asleep in bed. The first two mornings he had convinced her to stay in bed with him and sleep until much later in the day as they rested from their journey. “The maids will serve us our breakfast here,” he’d told her.
“You mean we’ll eat while lying in bed? Not at a table? I couldn’t do that.”
“Why not?” He had grinned, as if her efforts to adapt to his lifestyle were very amusing.
“Well . . . I’m just not used to staying in bed past dawn unless I’m sick—and I’m hardly ever sick.”
She had yielded to Horatio’s wishes and remained in bed for the first two days, but by the third day Bebe couldn’t sleep a moment longer. When the hall clock struck seven, she put on her clothes and tiptoed downstairs. She heard laughter and the rattle of dishes coming from the kitchen and would have been content to go through the forbidden doorway and eat with the servants. But Horatio had scolded her for socializing with the help after he’d overheard her chatting with the chambermaid.
“Servants often become lazy and presumptuous if their masters are overly friendly,” he told her. In truth, Bebe had much more in common with those simple, hardworking people than with Horatio’s family.
Except for the voices in the kitchen, the house was cold and silent. Bebe missed the sound of the rooster crowing in the morning and the cows lowing to be milked, and all of the other clanking, bustling noises of the farm. She crept into the dining room and saw steam rising from a row of silver chafing dishes on the sideboard. She lifted one of the lids and found enough bacon for a dozen people. Should she wait for Horatio’s parents? And how in the world would she converse with them without Horatio alongside her?
In the three days that Bebe had lived in the Garner home, her mother-in-law had not once spoken to her or addressed her by name. Mr. Garner had barely spoken to her, either. Horatio had carried the conversation throughout their meals, describing Niagara Falls and the other sights they had seen in such beautiful, poetic language that Bebe could have listened to him for hours.
She replaced the lid on the chafing dish and was about to go back upstairs when Horatio’s father strode into the room. He stopped short when he saw her.
“You’re up early.”
“Yes, I can’t seem to sleep past—”
“Where’s Horatio?”
“In bed—”
“What did you say? Speak up!”
“I-I said that he is still in bed.” She saw no need to mention that the three tumblers of liquor he drank last night had knocked him out cold.
“Well, he needs to get up. I need him at the tannery this morning.”
“I’ll go wake him.” Bebe turned to leave.
“Not you. Sit down. The servants can do it.” He sank into his place at the head of the table and rang a little silver bell. Servants poured through the door from the kitchen as if he had opened a spigot. Bebe jumped out of the
ir way.
“Kindly awaken my son,” Mr. Garner commanded them. “I would like my coffee and my newspaper right away. Then fix me a plate—but I don’t want any of that disgusting orange marmalade on my toast. I’d sooner eat earwax.”
The maids scrambled to do Mr. Garner’s bidding as if he were King Solomon and they were his many wives. Once he began to read his newspaper, he didn’t speak another word to anyone. Someone filled his coffee cup. Another maid prepared a plate for him at the buffet and set it before him. Bebe watched her father-in-law silently turn the pages of his newspaper and tried not to form a harsh opinion of him. Her own father had never been a talkative man, but he wouldn’t have ignored another person at the table this way. Nor would he have begun to eat, as Horatio’s father had just done, without first offering thanks to God for his food.
Mr. Garner rang the bell once again when he wanted more coffee, pointing mutely to the empty cup. Then, when he’d finished his breakfast, he folded his newspaper, laid it aside, and rang for his carriage.
“I don’t have time to wait for Horatio,” he told Bebe. “Tell him I left without him.” The front door thumped shut behind him.
“Can I get you something, ma’am?” the serving girl asked as she cleared away Mr. Garner’s breakfast dishes.
“No, thank you . . . I’m waiting for Horatio.”
“If you please, ma’am . . . he told us not to disturb him again for another hour. And then he would like his breakfast upstairs, as usual.”
Bebe stood to serve herself from the chafing dishes, swallowing a knot of tears as she remembered standing at the stove with her brother Franklin, tussling over the scrambled eggs and biscuits.
It didn’t take long to eat breakfast alone. She longed to carry her plate into the kitchen, where she would feel more comfortable and where there were other people to talk to, but she didn’t dare. She was trying to decide where she should go in this enormous house, and what she should do until Horatio awoke, when Mrs. Garner swished into the room in her ruffled dressing gown, carrying a stack of books.
“Do you know how to read?” she asked.
“Yes, of course, Mrs. Garner. I—”
“Then you’ll need to study these.” She dropped the pile onto the table in front of Bebe. “They’ll teach you proper etiquette and other important social conventions. I don’t have time to teach you all of the things you failed to learn on your rustic little farm. And your first social engagement is in a few weeks.”
“My first—?”
“When you’re finished reading these, I have several back issues of Godey’s Lady’s Book for you to peruse. Have you heard of it?”
“Yes, it’s a magazine for women that—”
“You’ll need to begin reading it regularly. Otherwise, heaven only knows what you’ll find to talk about in polite company. My dressmaker will be coming to measure you at nine o’clock this morning. Kindly be prepared for her.”
Bebe wondered what in the world she had to do to prepare to be measured, but before she could ask, her mother-in-law said, “Once you are properly educated and outfitted, you’ll be included in the regular round of social duties.”
“Social duties?”
Mrs. Garner rolled her eyes toward the ceiling as if beseeching the Almighty for patience. “Your ignorance is astonishing.” She turned and swished away, her chin in the air.
Bebe swallowed another knot of tears as she looked at the pile of books in front of her, scanning the titles: Good Morals and Gentle Manners; The Manners That Win; Our Deportment; The Complete Book of Etiquette. She opened one of them at random and began to read: Never loll, fidget, yawn, bite the nails or be guilty of any other like gaucherie in the presence of others. She had no idea what gaucherie meant, but she suspected she would find out after studying all four books. She opened to another place and read, The proper form of introduction is to present the gentleman to the lady, the younger to the older, the inferior to the superior.
The inferior to the superior? She thought of the Scripture verse that Lucretia Mott had quoted at the anti-slavery meeting back home: “There is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Bebe thumped the book shut. Trying to memorize all these trivial things seemed daunting and useless. She recalled, with great regret, the advice her mother had offered: “If you would determine in your heart to put that same amount of time and effort into Bible study and prayer, you would find the purpose and contentment that you’re seeking.”
Bebe was still sitting alone at the table a while later when a maid came in and began preparing a breakfast tray from the food in the chafing dishes. “Is that for my husband? Horatio Garner?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’ll bring it up to him.”
“Oh, no, ma’am. Mrs. Garner would never allow such a thing.”
Instead, Bebe waited until the tray was ready, then followed the maid upstairs, lugging the stack of books. Horatio was awake but still in bed. “Why are you dressed already, Beatrice? What time is it, anyway?”
She walked over to his dresser to look at his pocket watch. No one had ever cared about the time of day on the farm, following the rhythm of the animals and the sun and the seasons. But Horatio and his family scheduled everything according to the clock. There were several of them scattered throughout the house, including the tall case clock in the foyer that chimed four times every hour. It made Bebe uneasy to hear regular reminders of the passing of time, especially since so far she had not accomplished anything useful.
“It’s ten minutes past eight,” she told him. Horatio groaned and closed his eyes. Bebe waited, wondering what to do. “Your father said he needed you at work this morning.”
“Too bad. Let him wait. I have a pounding headache, and the last thing I need is all that racket at the tannery. . . . What are all those books for?”
“Your mother loaned them to me. She says I need to read them so I can learn proper etiquette and prepare for my social duties. And a seamstress is coming before long to measure me.”
Horatio smiled and stretched out his hand to her. “Come here, my love. Why so glum?” The tears that Bebe had held back all morning spilled over as Horatio pulled her close. “Are you sorry you married me, Beatrice?”
“No! Never! But I wish . . . I wish it could just be the two of us, and that we lived all by ourselves so that I could cook for you and take care of you myself and—”
“It will be that way soon. Didn’t I promise to build you your very own house?” He tried to kiss her, but she freed herself from his embrace. “What’s wrong, dear one?”
“Your breakfast is getting cold, and your father needs you at work, and I need to get ready for the seamstress. She’s coming shortly.”
The woman arrived promptly at nine and made Bebe strip to her chemise and drawers while Mrs. Garner and one of the chambermaids stood right there in the room with her, watching. Then the seamstress measured every inch of Bebe from head to toe, shaking her head and muttering as she bemoaned the fact that Bebe was so small.
“I may have to use children’s patterns,” she told Mrs. Garner, “and even then they may not fit her properly.”
“I’m not a child,” Bebe tried to explain. “I’m seventeen.”
Mrs. Garner and the seamstress exchanged looks. While Bebe put her clothes back on, the two older women paged through pattern books and examined fabric samples and discussed lace and trim. Neither of them bothered to consult Bebe or ask for her opinions as they planned an entire wardrobe for her. If she had tiptoed out the door, she doubted anyone would have noticed.
“The girl doesn’t have a single decent thing to wear,” Mrs. Garner told the seamstress. “I’ll need to take her shopping for shoes and hats and gloves—and undergarments, too, from the look of hers.”
Bebe pressed her lips together and tried not to cry.
Their shopping trip a few days later was an exhausting affair. Back home in New Canaan,
Bebe could have purchased everything she needed at Harrison’s General Store, but Roseton had so many stores to choose from that she and Mrs. Garner spent two long days traipsing from one to the next. Mrs. Garner made all of the decisions. When Bebe first arrived in Roseton, all of her belongings had fit inside two modest-sized carpetbags. But by the time she finished shopping and her new dresses had arrived, she needed a bureau, an armoire, and a vanity table to hold everything. It seemed like a sin to own so much.
“Tomorrow you will receive callers for the first time,” Mrs. Garner told her when she and Horatio had lived there for a month. “Be dressed and ready to greet our guests by two o’clock sharp. Wear the blue taffeta gown. My maid will arrange your hair.”
“You’ll do fine, my darling,” Horatio assured her as he kissed her good-bye in the morning. “There’s no reason in the world to be ill at ease. You will win over the other women with your charms in no time, just as you captivated me.”
Horatio’s confidence seemed unfounded to Bebe. But as she gazed at her husband’s handsome face, she decided that she would walk through fire and flood for him. Surely a simple tea party wouldn’t be so difficult.
That afternoon as Bebe sat in front of her looking glass watching the servant arrange her dark hair in an elaborate knot, all of her confidence suddenly evaporated. What had ever made her think she could transform herself from a simple farm girl into a society woman? Laboring like a man alongside her father had been easy compared to facing a roomful of women like Mrs. Garner. What would she say to them? And how would she ever manage to pour tea with shaking hands?
“All finished, ma’am.” The maid had secured the last hairpin in place. “You have lovely hair, ma’am. So full and thick.”
Bebe stared at her reflection and saw a stranger. “Life is always changing,” her mother had said, “always flowing forward like a stream.” It was time for Bebe to wade into the current and change, as well. She rose from her seat at the dressing table, gracefully lifting her skirts, and went downstairs to the parlor to face her guests.