Just North of Bliss

by Duncan, Alice

  Mr. Asher interrupted. Belle didn’t approve, although she was glad that he was leaping to her rescue. After all, she’d leaped to his. Still, it always surprised her when a Yankee did something right.

  “Mrs. Wiggles, I’m very sorry—”

  The large woman gasped, her eyes bulged alarmingly, and her cheek color deepened to a plummy purple. Belle experienced a spike of fear and worried that she’d antagonized the woman into a fit of apoplexy.

  “What did you call me, young man?” the woman demanded.

  Relief washed through Belle when she realized she hadn’t been the cause of the woman’s increased fury.

  Mr. Asher shut his eyes for a second and passed a hand over his brow. The boy whose photograph had been taken evidently decided people weren’t paying enough attention to him, because he resumed bellowing from in front of the pretty backdrop Mr. Asher had set up. Belle frowned at the boy, hoping to convey her disapprobation at his conduct, but his eyes were squeezed shut, almost getting lost in his red, fleshy face. Belle couldn’t recall ever seeing so unattractive a child and mother. Small wonder Mr. Asher had been pleased when he’d seen the Richmond children walking on the Midway.

  “I beg your pardon, madam,” Mr. Asher began, but the woman cut him off.

  “I must say, Mr. Asher, that I expected a more professional experience with the official photographer of the World’s Columbian Exposition.”

  The woman’s color began to recede, and Belle’s fear that she aimed to drop dead in Mr. Asher’s booth receded with it. For some reason beyond her ken, she again felt compelled to jump to Mr. Asher’s defense. “Really, ma’am. I don’t think you’re being fair. Your little boy was behaving in an extremely naughty manner, and you were doing nothing to correct his behavior.”

  Belle almost wished she’d kept her mouth shut when the woman rounded on her. Belle held her ground. She was not a native of the great state of Georgia for nothing. She knew her place in the world, and it was at the very top of the heap.

  “How dare you!”

  “Really, madam, I know most mothers consider their offspring perfect, but I was watching, and your boy misbehaved abominably. What’s more, he did it on purpose. Anyone but you would acknowledge that.”

  “I have never—”

  Mr. Asher interrupted. Irked, Belle turned to frown at him. So did the boy’s mother. “Ladies, please. I beg your pardon for mispronouncing your name, ma’am. Will you please wait by the window ma’am?”

  He’d directed the last sentence to her, Belle realized with a shock. Well! She never! Trust a Yankee to treat a person who was trying to help him with such ingratitude. She snapped, “Certainly,” and took herself off to the window with a deliberate flounce.

  “Do you think that lady’s crazy, Miss Monroe?” Garrett asked in a grating whisper.

  “I don’t know, Garrett,” Belle said stiffly. She knew she should have said no, but she was too peeved at the woman to do so.

  “That boy’s sure ugly, isn’t he?”

  Yes. He certainly was. “Garrett, please. That’s an unkind thing to say.”

  “But Garrett’s right,” Amalie piped up. “He is awful ugly.”

  Fudge. “Perhaps,” Belle granted, “but one shouldn’t say such things, dear. They’re impolite and hurtful.”

  “His hollering is hurtful, too,” Garrett pointed out grimly.

  True, true. Still, Belle knew that two wrongs didn’t make a right, and she didn’t think it was her place to encourage the Richmond children in their denigration of that revolting mother and child. “Let’s demonstrate to him the proper way to behave, shall we?”

  Although Garrett rolled his eyes, which was his customary reaction to Belle’s attempts to instill southern manners into his northern soul, Amalie wriggled back on the bench and folded her hands in her lap. Belle was ever so fond of Amalie. She was fond of Garrett, too, but Amalie was the more compliant of the two.

  She and the Richmond children watched the remains of the drama going forth before them in silence. The fat woman marched over to her roaring child and picked him up. Belle noted with disgust that she offered the offensive child another sweet to make him keep quiet. Belle’s opinion was that a quick swat on the monster’s rear end would probably straighten out the problems in his head more quickly than bribes of sweets. She’d been rebuffed once, however, and didn’t intend to offer any more suggestions. These northerners had no sense at all when it came to rearing children.

  Well, except for the Richmonds, who were an exceptionally sensible family and would fit right in if they chose to move to Georgia. Except for their accents. And a tendency to be rather noisy. And that trace of independence that often took Belle aback when she encountered it in Mrs. Richmond. And Mr. Richmond was, perhaps a trifle too hearty from time to time. Belle, having grown up with peaceful drawls in men and dulcet tones in women, still couldn’t reconcile herself to the harsh Yankee twang.

  “The plates will be ready on Wednesday, ma’am,” Mr. Asher said. “Will you be in then?”

  The woman snorted. “I shall have to discuss the matter with my husband, Mr. Asher. I’m not sure I care to do business with a man who is cruel to children.” She plopped her child, whom she’d been coddling and cooing to in baby talk, on the floor. the boy squeaked in surprise, then renewed his bellows of fury.

  Again, Belle thought the judicious application of a paddle would do more good than the woman’s tactic, which was to hand him another sweet. “There, there, sweetums. Mama will take you to get a hamburger. Will sweetums like that?”

  Although the boy didn’t stop yelling, he nodded. The woman cast one last disapproving glance at Mr. Asher and marched out of his shop.

  Belle wasn’t surprised when Mr. Asher pulled a big handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his brow when the door closed behind the mother and child. To Belle, who watched the boy and his mother waddle up the Midway, the woman looked like a battleship under full steam from the back, and her son reminded Belle of a little round tugboat. She was glad to see the last of them both. They epitomized everything Belle deplored about the North.

  After breathing deeply for a moment or two, undoubtedly in an effort to recover from his recent unhappy encounter, Mr. Asher turned and gave Belle and her charges an extensive once-over. Belle lifted her chin. She didn’t care to be scrutinized like a cut of beef, as if he were trying to decide how best to roast, bake, or fricassee her.

  He heaved a deep sigh. “I’m sorry about that, ma’am. Some mothers have no notion about how to make their children behave properly.”

  His brilliant smile took some of the starch out of Belle’s sails. She’d meant to be cold to him, since he’d sent her packing after she’d rushed to his defense, but that smile made the ice inside her melt and it set odd, warm tingles to vibrating in her midsection. It also coaxed a smile from her. “You’re right about that, Mr. Asher.”

  “That kid was real bratty,” Garrett said, adding his two cents without being asked. Belle didn’t think she’d ever get used to the way children assumed they were welcome to intrude into adult conversations as they did in the North.

  “He sure was,” Mr. Asher said, grinning at Garrett.

  “Oh, look!” Amalie cried suddenly, startling Belle. “There’s Mama!” She jumped down from the bench and raced to the door.

  “Amalie, wait just a moment!” Belle called after her.

  But Amalie was gone. Belle heard her shout, “Mama! Papa!” as she grabbed Garrett’s hand and hurried after her. Garrett held back, evidently more interested in pursuing the fascinating subject of photography than in his parents, but Belle persisted.

  Win Asher stared after the trio, scratching his head, and with a strange, sinking sensation in his middle. Had that little girl cried out “Mama!” upon spying that well-dressed couple on the Midway? Striding to the door and squinting at the reunion that was taking place a few yards off, he uttered a soft, “Damnation.”

  He remained only slightly daunted, how
ever. Win Asher was accustomed to reaching out and taking what he wanted from life and of wrestling it into submission if it didn’t oblige him of its own accord. Therefore, he followed Belle and Garrett out of his booth and up to the couple on the Midway.

  “Papa,” Garrett was saying when Win approached, “that nice Mr. Asher wants to take photographs of me and Amalie!”

  “Amalie and me,” Belle correctly softly.

  Garrett didn’t even roll his eyes, but instantly repeated, “Amalie and me, I mean.”

  Win assumed from the brief dialogue that Garrett and the woman he had assumed to be his mother were accustomed to such interchanges. From this, he gathered that the woman was some sort of employee. A governess or nursemaid, perhaps.

  “Really, Garrett?” The woman Win now deduced to be the mother of the two children had lifted her daughter in her arms and smiled at her progeny. The father of the pair, a wealthy-looking, self-satisfied sort of fellow of a type with which Win was well acquainted, beamed down at his son and heir, then glanced up to see Win walking over to the family.

  The father disengaged himself from the portrait of familial reconciliation and took a couple of steps toward Win. He held out his hand. “How do you do—Mr. Asher, is it? I understand from my son that you’ve been entertaining my children.”

  “I don’t know about the entertaining part,” Win said with a laugh as he shook the man’s hand. “But, yes, my name is Winslow Asher, and I’m the official photographer of the World’s Columbian Exposition.” Win had fought long and hard and had won the title over hundreds of other aspiring photographers. Thanks to a good deal of brashness, loads of talent, and oodles of self-promotion, he’d succeeded where the others had failed, and he never let an occasion slide by without mentioning his status. He aimed to make a lot of money with it.

  “George Richmond,” the father said, returning Win’s hearty handshake. “You’ve met my children, Garrett and Amalie and, I presume, the children’s nanny, Miss Belle Monroe.”

  Belle sniffed. “We haven’t been properly introduced.” She held out a small gloved hand. “How do you do, Mr. Asher?”

  “I’m fine, thanks.” He shook her hand and wondered if she were the perfect embodiment of true American womanhood after all. She seemed a little prissy at the moment.

  “He wants to take photographs of us, Mama,” Amalie said happily. “He thinks Garrett and me are charming.”

  “Garrett and I,” Miss Monroe muttered, as if she didn’t expect her correction to take hold and stick.

  Nevertheless, Amalie parroted, “Garrett and I, I mean.”

  “Is that so?” said Mrs. Richmond.

  She smiled with interest at Win, and Win took heart. While she didn’t come anywhere close to the image he’d created in his mind’s eye of the female subject in the series of photographs he’d envisioned, he might be able to talk her around to lending him her children. And her children’s nanny.

  “Yes, indeed, Mrs. Richmond.” Win gave her one of his best professional smiles. “I’d love to talk to you about it, if you’d care to come with me to my temporary photographic studio.” He waved toward his booth.

  Mrs. Richmond looked doubtfully from Win to her husband. “Well, I don’t know. I’d love to have portraits taken of my children, but. . .”

  Mr. Richmond took over from there. “We’ve just come from a concert conducted by Mr. John Philip Sousa, Mr. Asher. It was a splendid concert. Then we took in the grand inventions to be seen in the Machinery Hall.” He shook his head in a gesture meant, Win imagined, to convey Mr. Richmond’s sense of awe and admiration. “The American genius is well represented there, let me tell you.”

  “Indeed, it is,” Win concurred. “I’ve taken many photographs of the exhibits in the Machinery Hall. You’ve probably seen them in newspapers here and there.” Not to mention periodicals, fair brochures, posters, books, and publicity flyers. Win was so proud of himself and his own brand of American ingenuity.

  “I’m certain we’ve seen them,” Mr. Richmond assured him. “We’re from New York City, and there have been many photographs reproduced in the Times.”

  Win didn’t even try to suppress a cocky grin. “Yes, indeedy. I’ve sold several photographs to the Times.”

  “We were about to have luncheon at the Mexican Cantina,” Mr. Richmond said. “Why don’t you join us, Mr. Asher? Perhaps we can discuss the matter of photographs of our children over luncheon.”

  “Sounds great,” said Win. “Let me just lock up.”

  They’d been walking in a desultory manner toward his booth. Win dashed inside and gabbed the jacket he’d taken off while he’d struggled with Mr. Wiggles, shrugged it on, and locked his door. “The Columbian Guards keep a vigilant eye on all of the booths in the Fair, but I don’t want to take chances with my expensive camera equipment.”

  “No, indeed,” concurred Mr. Richmond.

  Mrs. Richmond set her daughter down on the Midway and wiped her brow with a handkerchief pulled from her small reticule. Miss Monroe, Win noticed, took Amalie’s hand as if she wanted to make sure the child didn’t wander off. Personally, Win didn’t imagine she had much to worry about in that regard. The Richmond girl seemed complacent and obliging to him, and not at all the type to get herself lost. The boy was another matter. In fact, Garrett Richmond reminded Win of himself at that age, and he decided it wouldn’t hurt to play up that angle.

  With a wink, he said, “Want me to teach you the rudiments of photography, Garrett?”

  “Oh, yes, sir!” the boy cried. “Please!”

  Win held out an arm, and Garrett obediently hurried to his side. “If your mama and papa agree, I’ll be happy to do that, Garrett. Photography is one of the marvels of our time. Why, just imagine being able to capture images of real people and real events for all time.”

  “Yeah,” Garrett murmured in clear wonderment. “Before cameras, I guess people had to draw stuff that happened.”

  Win chuckled. “I guess they did. And people’s memories aren’t as accurate as cameras.”

  “I suppose not.”

  “If Sitting Bull had had had a camera at the Little Big Horn, he could have taken a picture of Custer’s Last Stand,” Amalie said brightly. “And then we’d really know what happened instead of having to look at that picture the Indian gentleman drew afterwards or watch it in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West.” She added pensively, “I loved the Wild West. I wish we could see it again.”

  “Amalie,” muttered Miss Monroe in a shocked voice. “Really.”

  Although he didn’t want to engender Miss Monroe’s enmity, since he figured he might need her good will if his plan was to succeed, Win couldn’t help but send her a slightly sour glance. “But she is right, Miss Monroe. You must admit it.”

  The look she gave him back pretty much told him to make her admit it if he dared. Win decided that, while a tussle with the pretty Miss Monroe might be fun if she possessed a more friendly disposition, he’d be better off dropping the subject of Custer and Sitting Bull.

  Fortunately for them both, Mr. Richmond intervened at that point. If Win was correct about the gentleman, he rarely paid attention to his family except when showing them off or taking them to various interesting places. Win recognized the breed. Mr. Richmond’s attitude was fairly universal in this last great decade of the nineteenth century.

  Win’s own family didn’t fit this mold of patriarchal indifference. His own father was a physician, and Dr. Asher paid a lot of affectionate attention to his children of both sexes. Win loved him dearly for it. Both Win’s brother Carlton and his sister Victoria were physicians, although it had taken a great deal of applied pressure to get Victoria admitted to medical school. She’d ultimately attained her doctorate in France, where more enlightened attitudes toward female physicians prevailed. Win himself had begun a course in medical training, but his interest in photography had subsumed his interest in medicine during his second year in medical school.

  Although Win had accumulated enou
gh reasons to appreciate his mother and father before this episode in his life, his profound appreciation of them was solidified when they supported his decision to leave school and enter into photography as a profession. It was perhaps more for his parents’ sake than his own that he’d worked so hard to become successful in an enterprise that must have looked like a chancy one, at best, to his parents when he’d first started out.

  Now, as he strode along the Midway Plaisance and glanced around at all the marvels on display, he felt on top of the world. Already his reputation as a splendid and artistic photographer had spread. If he could talk the Richmonds into letting him borrow their children and nanny for a series of photographs, Win knew he’d become famous. He felt it in his gut, and his gut had never yet lied to him.

  He cast occasional glances at Miss Monroe as he walked. She seemed more stiff than she’d been when he’d first glimpsed her among the crowd of fair goers, and when she shot him a glance once, she instantly averted her gaze. It was as if she didn’t like him, which was stupid. She didn’t even know him. She did seem to disapprove of him, however. Maybe she was still holding his precipitate entry into her life against him. Maybe she was just a fussy prude. That would be a disappointment, but Win could stand it. He didn’t want her for herself; he wanted her for her face and body. He wondered what her first name was.

  “Ah, there it is.”

  Mr. Richmond’s satisfied pronouncement jerked Win out of his contemplation of Miss Monroe’s lovely face and form. Lifting his gaze, he espied the Cantina. He’d eaten there once and had found the food offered therein tasty. “They serve good food,” he said, opening the door for the ladies before Mr. Richmond could reach it. “I’m sure you’ll like it.”

  Miss Monroe waited for the Richmonds to enter the restaurant, then herded the children inside, girl first. She murmured, “Thank you,” as she sailed past him.

  “You’re quite welcome.” He thought he heard her sniff, but wasn’t sure.

  # # #

  Belle stared at the menu and wondered what it all meant. She’d never heard of the things listed on it. Bother. She hated not knowing things. It was a normal state of affairs for her these days, however, and she guessed it would be wise to acknowledge it. Far better to admit ignorance than to pretend and be found out.