Just North of Bliss

by Duncan, Alice

  “Calm down, Belle,” Win begged gently. “I’m sorry your family doesn’t appreciate you.”

  “Nobody appreciates me!” Belle whimpered. She was appalled by how pathetic and whiny she sounded. Nevertheless, the words felt right, and it was a relief to say them.

  “I appreciate you.”

  “Ha! You hate me.”

  “I don’t hate you.” She felt Win take a deep breath. “Not at all.”

  “You th-think I’m a simpering Rowena because I don’t dress like a slut!”

  “What?” He sounded honestly astonished.

  Belle realized she’d just been vicious about Kate, and despised herself. Since she’d already been despising herself quite effectively, this additional dose of self-loathing about finished her off. She hated herself for being a mean-spirited fuddy-duddy, and for finding such pleasure, however hot and sweaty, in Win Asher’s arms.

  She buried her face in the convenient hollow of his shoulder, glad he’d removed his jacket because she could smell him better this way. A hint of bay rum added spice to the aroma of Win himself, and she wished she could drink it in for the rest of the evening, tomorrow, and a couple of months thereafter, although she wasn’t sure even then she’d get enough.

  “You’ve been right about me all along,” she said, trying to decide if she wished she were dead or if she’d prefer remaining exactly where she was for all eternity. “I’m horrid. I’m judgmental and hateful. And spiteful.” She tried to come up with some more critical words, but her mind went blank.

  “I never said that.”

  “You thought it.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “You think I’m a silly belle from Georgia who hates everything.”

  “Well . . .”

  Belle grabbed on to his hesitation and flayed herself with it. “See? I’m right. You hate me.”

  “I do not hate you!”

  Again, Belle felt Win’s chest expand as he sucked in air. She wanted to crawl onto his lap, curl into a ball, and stay there, like a fat house cat. What a shocking hussy she’d become! The North was playing havoc with her sense of propriety. Her mother was right about her. Belle said, “Ohhh!” as the truth struck her, painfully, smack between the eyes. “She’s right!”

  “What the hell is going on in that lovely head of yours, Belle?” Win asked at last, sounding moderately frustrated. “Who’s right? And I don’t hate you. Jeez Louise!”

  She finally found the moral and physical strength to pull herself out of his arms. What a blithering fool she was being. Scooting over to the other side of the bench and clutching her handkerchief, not to mention her moral worth, in a death grip, she said, “I beg your pardon, Mr. Asher.”

  Win said, “Win.”

  Belle said, “Win,” and blushed.

  He scooted after her, and she jumped up from the bench. She’d made enough of an ass of herself for one day. Unfortunately, she’d left her mother’s letter behind. Win picked it up. Belle made a grab for it, but Win lifted it out of her reach.

  “Your mother must be even worse than my Aunt Theo, if she created that kind of reaction in you.”

  “Don’t you dare read that letter!” Belle made another swipe for the missive, but again Win eluded her.

  He sprang up from the bench, too, and jigged out of her way, reading as he did so. “Shoot, she really has it in for us Northerners, doesn’t she? You’d think we all burned down her barn personally.”

  “Stop it!” Belle realized with horror that she’d started to screech. “That’s my private correspondence!”

  “Applesauce,” said Win, grinning like the Cheshire Cat in Alice In Wonderland. “You started telling me about it. I’m just taking it another step.”

  “Ooooooh!” Understanding at last that she was doomed, and that Win Asher was going to read her letter whether she wanted him to or not, she flopped down on the log atop the platform and sank her chin in her cupped hands. She supposed this was no more than she deserved, after allowing Win to take such liberties with her person.

  It was distressing to realize that she had allowed the heathen North to subvert her southern morals and standards. Yet that was exactly what had happened to her. Never, ever, would she have allowed a man to put his arms around her when she lived in Georgia. Well, except for her father and other male relatives, but that was an entirely different matter.

  “Oh, Lord,” she moaned, staring at the toes of her little white boots peeking out from beneath her skirt. It had been she who’d thrown her arms around him, hadn’t it? First it had been her corset. She’d thrown that out without giving it a second thought—or a third thought. She had worried about it at first. Hadn’t lasted long.

  But she’d sunk fast from there. Perhaps she ought to quit her job and go home again.

  Everything inside her rose up in protest. “I’ll be damned if I will,” she muttered to her boots, and immediately cringed when she heard a profanity leave her mouth. She glanced with trepidation at Win. To her consternation, she saw that he was staring at her. Her letter, she noticed, lay limp on his lap. She sat up straight. Even though she’d sunk beyond redemption in the morals department, he didn’t have to know it. She said, “What?” sharply.

  “I don’t understand why she wrote all this guff.” Win lifted the letter.

  Belle sighed heavily. “I don’t, either.”

  “I mean, it doesn’t make any sense. You’d think she’d be overjoyed that you’re trying to better your family’s lot in life.”

  Her family’s lot in life. “Hmm.” Belle thought about that. For the very first time, it occurred to her that if she managed to increase her family’s overall economic welfare, her mother wouldn’t have anything to talk about any more. Neither would her father. Or Granny and Gramps. Or Uncle Stephen and Aunt Mae Scudder. Or the rest of her siblings, cousins, aunts, and uncles. They’d have to stop whining and improve themselves.

  “Well,” she murmured musingly, “they wouldn’t have to.”

  “They wouldn’t have to what?” Win’s smile this time was different from any of the others he’d smiled at her.

  Belle thought she detected sympathy, and she resented it. Defiantly, she said, “They wouldn’t have to stop talking about things.”

  Win’s befuddlement was clear. “I beg your pardon?”

  Belle threw up her arms. It was, perhaps her very first spontaneous gesture she’d ever given that was not rendered in defense of another human being but only done because she felt like throwing up her arms. “If they didn’t have their poverty and old family traditions of hating the North to talk about, they’d still be able to find topics of conversation. If they really wanted to.” She realized she’d sounded every bit as bitter as she felt and wasn’t even sorry about it. Not very, anyhow.

  She didn’t appreciate the expression on Win’s face, which was smirky and oh-so-knowing. “Drat you, Win Asher! Your whole way of life wasn’t wiped out by a bunch of invading monsters, as ours was!”

  He held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I know, I know. I’m sorry, Belle.”

  “You don’t look it.”

  “Well . . .” He shrugged. “I guess I don’t understand, is the main problem. My family never, ah, did stuff like that. You know: moan and groan about the past, I mean.”

  “Why should they? They didn’t have to.”

  He thought about it. “I guess you’re right, although my father fought in the war.”

  “On the winning side,” Belle said acerbically.

  “Yeah, but lots of Union men died, don’t forget.”

  “Your entire way of life wasn’t destroyed.”

  He remained silent for a moment. Belle at first thought he wasn’t going to respond to that sharp reminder, but he did at last.

  “You know, Belle, you’re probably going to hate me for saying this, but I have to admit that the notion of slavery appalls me. Any way of life that depends on slavery to support itself deserves to be destroyed, in my opinion.”


  She stared at him, wishing he hadn’t said that. She’d always been secretly ashamed that in her heart of hearts, way down deep where nobody could see, she felt the same way. She dropped her gaze until she was again peering at the toes of her little white boots.

  What kind of a disloyal daughter of the South was she, to harbor these feelings? She knew the answer to that one: The worst kind. And yet she couldn’t condone slavery. Always before she’d consoled herself with the vague notion that the South itself would surely have done away with slavery eventually. Sooner rather than later, in all probability. At any rate, she liked to believe it was so.

  Nevertheless, because she was possessed an honest soul, even though it felt as though it was being tried viciously hard of late, she grumbled, “I think so, too.”

  Belle didn’t relish Win’s ecstatic cry of, “You do? Good God!”

  She was about to respond with something cutting and sarcastic when she heard a thundering noise and glanced up. She was just in time to realize the thundering noise had come from Win’s boots racing across the floor. She cried, “Win!” when he swept her up from the log and hugged her in a bruising embrace.

  “By God, I never thought you’d admit the heroes of the South had ever done anything wrong, Belle Monroe! This is cause for a celebration! And I have a great idea on how to celebrate. Let’s give your parents something really interesting to talk about besides the damned Civil War that ended thirty years ago!”

  She didn’t even have time to protest his calling the War of Northern Ignorance by the inapt and, naturally, Northern name, Civil War, before she discovered she was being kissed, deeply and thoroughly, and her shaken senses switched from utter panic to absolute delight.

  Throwing her arms around Win’s neck, Belle held on for dear life while Win imparted unto her so many of the lessons she’d felt were lacking in her life until this minute. She melted, she throbbed, her heart soared, her soul rejoiced, and she kissed him back with all the intensity in her body. God alone knew what might have become of her if the door to his booth hadn’t burst open. She and Win jumped apart as if an ax had hacked them into two pieces.

  “Oh!” she whispered, covering her burning lips with her hand. She blinked fuzzily at the person standing in the sunlight pouring in through the open door.

  “Damn.” Win, too, appeared befuddled. Or bedazzled. Belle couldn’t tell.

  “Whoops!” Kate Finney stood in the doorway, grinning like an elf, her fists on her hips, her throat livid with fingerprint-sized bruises. “Sorry,” she said in a voice that, although hoarse, held more than a hint of laughter. “Didn’t mean to interrupt anything.”

  On the whole, Belle guessed she was glad she had.

  Chapter Eleven

  The next morning, Belle was more certain about her gratitude toward Kate Finney’s interruption of that spontaneous and improper kiss. Even as she’d saved Kate’s life a couple of days ago, so Kate had saved Belle’s own life last night. God alone knew to what depths Belle might have sunk had she and Win not been interrupted.

  Oh, but his kiss had been heavenly. Beautiful. Just what the doctor would have ordered, if Belle had visited a doctor of low moral character and asked for a strengthening tonic. She heaved a huge sigh.

  She was sure there was something wrong with her that she should harbor in her soul a feeling of emptiness and the consciousness of something in her body—indeed, in her life—that remained unfulfilled. Those unsuitable and assuredly immoral feelings were shades of the evil Belle Monroe surfacing. Although until she’d arrived in New York City, Belle hadn’t known that side even existed, it had been given more than enough freedom recently.

  She rummaged through her bureau drawer until she found her corset, put it on, then laced it as tightly as she could before going downstairs to breakfast with the Richmonds in the lovely and very expensive restaurant attached to the hotel. In a chastened mood this morning, she appreciated the fact that Gladys and George treated her as if she were a member of their family, and not an outsider merely working for them. Then she wondered if this easiness with the hired help was another Yankee tradition that was being used to subvert all of her early childhood training.

  Since her head ached—she hadn’t slept at all last night—she decided to worry about subversive Yankee influences later. At the moment, she appreciated the Richmonds a lot.

  “Good morning!” She put on her cheeriest demeanor in order to counteract the misery within her breathlessly corseted body. She hoped she’d be able to fit breakfast between her corset stays and her ribs, because she was sure food would held ease her headache.

  “Good morning,” Gladys responded, smiling sweetly.

  Gladys always smiled sweetly, Belle thought with a pinch of contempt and the rebellious speculation as to whether Gladys had ever been forced to think for herself. Yet Belle knew Gladys’s sweetness of temper existed because the woman possessed a truly good heart, and she was ashamed of herself all over again.

  “We had fun last night, Miss Monroe!” Amalie said, bouncing in her seat. “I wish you could have gone with us. Cousin Fidelia has a real pony!”

  “My goodness.” Belle offered Mr. Richmond a smile, but since his head was hidden behind the morning edition, he didn’t see it.

  “I want a pony,” said the little girl wistfully.

  “I want a horse,” said her brother. He sounded scornful, as he generally did when talking to or about his sister.

  Belle smiled at both of them. She enjoyed the children. Even Garrett, although she believed she’d prefer to have girls than boys. Men always wanted boys, though, so she guessed she’d be willing to produce a couple of boys for her husband. If she ever found a husband.

  The notion of marrying one of the young men in Blissborough gave her a slight pain in her midsection that matched the one in her head. Unless that was only her hunger torturing her. It was difficult to tell with the cursed corset strapped around her midsection like a portable jail cell.

  A waiter came over to their table, looking ever so genteel and proper. Waiters, in Belle’s experience, were the most proper-appearing individuals in the northern states. She waited until the Richmonds had given their orders before she gave hers. She knew her place in this family’s life, even if she sometimes acted as though she’d forgotten it. So did the Richmonds, which didn’t help any.

  “We could have a horse, couldn’t we, Pa?” Garrett asked his father before George could retreat behind his newspaper after giving his order.

  The paper crackled as George gave it a shake and lifted it to cover his face. “We’d need a stable in order to have a horse,” his father pointed out, one eye peering at his son around an edge of newsprint.

  “Robert’s father bought him a horse, and the Arbuthnots don’t have a stable.”

  Belle saw Gladys look at the newspaper and the newspaper tilt her way, and presumed the Richmonds were exchanging a glance. She grinned inside. Child-rearing was a ticklish business. Belle knew that Robert Arbuthnot’s father was one of Mr. Richmond’s business rivals, although the two men were supposed to be friends. This was one of the pitfalls of parenthood, she reckoned.

  It was Gladys who answered her child. “Just because Robert’s parents bought him a horse, that doesn’t mean we need to buy you one, Garrett. Robert’s horse lives in the country on their summer estate. That arrangement wouldn’t do you much good, if you wanted to ride your horse in Washington Square, would it? We don’t have a summer home.”

  “Why can’t we have a summer house in the country? Everybody does!”

  Would that it were true. Belle wouldn’t mind having a summer home in the country. She’d be willing to live there year-round actually.

  “I don’t like the country.” Mrs. Richmond spoke firmly. “Your father would be happy to oblige us if we wanted one, but the country makes me sneeze.”

  “Well, then, why can’t I have a horse in town?” Garrett’s voice took on the sniveling quality of a child thwarted. “We can use the
carriage house. It’d be better than riding those pokey old horses of Mr. Betteredge’s. Besides, Robert’s father says it’s good for a boy to have a horse.”

  Belle knew that Mr. Betteredge, who must be ninety years old if he was a day, was the only person residing on Washington Square who still kept a stable. The neighborhood was grand, and in the old days all the residents had their own stables and carriages. These days, however, New York City had grown so much that keeping one’s own stable in the City was impractical and wildly expensive.

  Besides, cabs and carriages for hire were plentiful, so most folks kept their horses, if still owned any, in the country. It was a sensible way to live, in Belle’s considered opinion, although the point was moot to her, since she couldn’t even afford to keep a horse in Blissborough, much less in a the big city.

  Folding his newspaper with an aggrieved sigh, George took over the argument. Leaning toward his son and frowning—Belle suspected he regretted having to lay the newspaper aside—he said, “If Robert’s father thought it was good to throw his son off a bridge, would you want me to do that to you? Be your own man, son. If you want to succeed in life, you need to break away from the pack and do things on your own.”

  Look who’s talking, Belle mused in mild vexation, although she knew the thought to be unjust. George might be a stuffed shirt, but he was a comparably good-natured one—when he bothered to remember there were other people in the world.

  “But—”

  George didn’t give Garrett a chance to further explain his desire for a horse. “Look, son, I know you think it would be grand fun to have a horse or two, but if I ever buy you an animal, it would have to be in the country, where it can live a decent life, and since your mother can’t abide the country, it’s most unlikely. Don’t forget, too, that if you ever do get a horse, you’re the one who’s going to take care of it. I expect Mr. Arbuthnot has also hired stablemen and grooms to take care of Robert’s horse, and that’s not what I want for my children. I want them to develop a sense of responsibility.”