Just North of Bliss

by Duncan, Alice

  “You look idiotic like that. People are more likely to stare at you with that jacket flung over your head than if you stopped trying to hide and just walked.”

  “I don’t care.” Since she was keeping her head down, her mouth was buried in the fabric of his jacket sleeve and her voice was muffled. “They can stare all they want because they can’t see it’s me.” She’d sooner drown herself in the Grand Basin than admit it, but she got a good deal of pleasure from smelling Win’s scent in his jacket. She presumed this was only one more indication of how morally low she’d sunk since moving to the depraved North.

  “Good God. Nobody would know who you are even if they could see your face.”

  “Ha!” A note of satisfaction rang in Belle’s voice. “Thanks to you, my face is all over the city of Chicago today. Everybody would recognize me!”

  “Huh.”

  He didn’t have an answer for that one, Belle noted with rancor, because he knew she was right. Fortunately for her, Kate had no customers in her booth when they finally, after what seemed like ten or eleven hours, got there.

  “Hey there, you two,” Kate cried cheerfully.

  As soon as the door shut behind her, Belle doffed the jacket, which had been all but smothering her. The weather was warm enough without thick tweed muffling her face, even if it did smell like Win.

  “Holy smoke!” Kate gaped at Belle, who gazed back ruefully. “What happened to you?”

  Belle would never have hooked a thumb at Win had she been in more refined company, but she knew Kate wouldn’t criticize her for the crude gesture. “He did.”

  Her eyes huge, Kate glanced from Belle to Win. Belle was astonished to see the color in Kate’s cheeks deepen. She was even more astonished when Kate cried, “Win Asher, you devil, you!” Then she burst out laughing.

  Feeling beleaguered and more than a trifle embarrassed, Belle muttered, “It’s not that.”

  “I didn’t do anything to her!” Win said furiously. Then he crammed his hands into his pockets and muttered, “Well, I didn’t do much.”

  Belle didn’t want to go into what she and Win had or had not been doing on that boat. If she related the sequence of events to Kate, she’d die of mortification. “We had a little accident,” she lied. “And Mr. Asher said you might be able to help me tidy up before I go back to work.”

  “Mr. Asher, is it?” Kate said in a voice dancing with amusement.

  Belle wondered sourly how the girl could be so jolly only a day or two after her own father had tried to murder her, but she didn’t ask. Instead, she said repressively, “Yes.”

  With a cheerful shrug, Kate said, “All right. I’ve got lots of stuff here you can use to tidy up, Belle. Happy to help. After all, you saved my life.”

  And with that, and with Belle blinking in surprise—she couldn’t even conceive of anyone taking such a brutal attack this lightly—Kate took Belle’s arm and led her to a curtain in the corner of her booth. Whipping the curtain aside, Kate revealed a small dressing table cluttered with boxes, bottles, brushes, combs, and powder puffs. A chair had been placed before the table, and a mirror hung on the wall. “I’ve got everything you’ll need here to fix your hair.” She eyed Belle with a professional’s disinterest. “And a little makeup wouldn’t hurt, either. You look as though you’ve been through a war.” She shot Win a grin. He grimaced back. Belle wished she could just die and get it over with.

  “Makeup?” She gulped. “Um, I don’t generally wear paint.”

  “Well, you’d better wear some today, because otherwise, you’re going to look like somebody just tried to ravish you.” Kate cast another humorous glance at Win, who grunted something unintelligible. Belle wanted to sink into the earth and disappear.

  “Sit here,” Kate said, pushing on Belle’s shoulder.

  Responding to the pressure, Belle sat with a plunk onto the chair before a dressing table. Curiosity began to nudge her embarrassment out of the way. “Is this where you get yourself up to look like a Gypsy?”

  “This is the place, all right.”

  The two women gazed at each other in the mirror. It was a trifle disconcerting to see her fair Southern self, in rather more than slight dishabille, cheek by jowl with an exotic, dark-skinned Gypsy maiden with rings in her ears, big green eyes, and a splashy striped scarf tying her hair back, but Belle didn’t comment on the phenomenon. Kate appeared seriously enthralled at the prospect of fixing Belle up, which Belle knew she should appreciate. She guessed it had been a good idea of Win’s that they come to Kate, although she was as yet unwilling to thank him. For anything.

  “Okey-dokey,” Kate said, picking up a brush. “I suppose we ought to work on your hair first.”

  “Thank you,” Belle mumbled. “I have some hairpins here.” She dug in her skirt pocket and eventually came out with three pins. She sighed.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Kate said with a laugh. “I’ve got lots of hairpins.”

  Thank God for that. Belle said only, “Thank you,” in a muted sort of voice. This was so utterly embarrassing, she wasn’t sure she was going to survive. She almost didn’t want do. Drat Win Asher.

  Kate hummed softly as she brushed out Belle’s hair. “Your hair’s very pretty,” she said after a moment.

  “Thank you.” Belle felt silly. She wasn’t accustomed to anyone fussing over her. Her mother had deplored the fact that the family couldn’t afford servants, but as far as Belle was concerned, she’d rather fend for herself than have people hovering about her all the time. Belle liked her privacy.

  And anyhow, her mother had only lived a very few years with the luxury of servants—oh, very well, the luxury of slaves—so she really ought to have become used to doing without them by this time. But Mrs. Monroe had ever preferred to curse the darkness than light a candle, so to speak.

  Belle heaved a dispirited sigh.

  “What’s the matter?” Kate asked around a mouthful of hairpins.

  “Nothing. Thank you very much for doing this for me.”

  “It’s nothing. I love working with hair and makeup.”

  Belle smiled at her in the mirror. Kate smiled back. Inside, Belle wasn’t smiling. She was berating herself for once again being disrespectful of her family. Yet Belle really couldn’t understand what was so wonderful about being unable to do anything for oneself. She thought self-sufficiency was an admirable quality in a person. Look at Kate, for heaven’s sake. According to Win, she was supporting herself and her mother both, and having to fend off a brutal father into the bargain.

  As far as Belle was concerned, being dependent on a horde of hirelings or slaves to do something so simple as dress oneself or brush one’s hair seemed positively ridiculous. She’d never, in a hundred years, say so to her mother. Not unless she wanted to have to run for the smelling salts to revive her mother from a swoon. Without her consent, a giggle smote her.

  “What’s the matter? Am I tickling you?”

  When Belle glanced into the mirror, she saw that Kate had stopped brushing and looked concerned; almost frightened, actually. Strange. “I’m sorry, Kate. No, you’re not tickling. I was thinking about—something.”

  “You might tell me,” Win said bitterly. “I could use a laugh.”

  Belle glanced into the corner of the booth and saw him sitting on a stool, his chin in his hands, and his elbows resting on his knees. He looked dejected. The bounder. She sniffed.

  “I could use a laugh, too,” said Kate, resuming with the hairbrush. She gathered Belle’s hair in one hand, laid the brush aside, and twisted the shiny chestnut mass into a complicated pattern.

  “Oh, I was only thinking about my mother,” muttered Belle, watching with interest. She’d never considered anything but a straightforward bun for her hair, but what Kate was doing looked pretty.

  “Hmmm,” Kate murmured. “Lucky you, if thinking about your mother makes you laugh. Thinking about my ma only makes me want to cry most of the time.” Instead of crying, she laughed.

&nbs
p; Belle stared at her in the mirror. “Good heavens,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

  Kate shrugged. “Ma’s been sick,” she said shortly.

  Belle got the impression she didn’t want to talk about it. “I’m awfully sorry.”

  “It’s all right. Shoot, we all have to play the cards we get dealt, I reckon. So, why does thinking about your mother make you laugh?”

  Oh, dear. Belle wished she’d never started this conversation. She caught Kate’s glance in the mirror, though, and a sudden urge to unburden herself smote her. She’d never had such an urge before this very minute. With a sense of recklessness, she said, “Well, you know, I come from the South.”

  “No, really?” The mirror reflected Kate’s eyes as huge with disbelief.

  Belle almost fell for it until she heard Win snort and grumble, “Gee whiz, Kate, how could you tell?”

  Pursing her lips, Belle decided she’d hit Win later. Because she liked Kate and felt sorry for her, she smiled. “I guess I do sort of have an accent.”

  “Sort of,” Kate agreed. She was in the process of securing the elaborate French twist to Belle’s head.

  “Huh,” said Win.

  “My mother and father grew up in Blissborough, before the Great Conflict.”

  “The great conflict? Which conflict was that?”

  “Don’t get her started,” suggested Win. “She means the Civil War.”

  Instantly, Belle bridled. “It was not a—”

  “Right. Beg pardon. It wasn’t a civil war,” Win said, throwing up his hands as if he thought Belle was being more than usually absurd. “It was a whole bunch of euphemisms for it.”

  “Oh,” said Kate, sounding uncertain.

  As well she might, Belle thought ill-naturedly. “You may think what you like, Mr. Win Asher, I know it wasn’t a civil war. It was a catastrophe for my people.”

  “Oh,” Kate said again.

  Belle saw Kate and Win exchange a glance in the mirror and gritted her teeth. “You northerners can never understand,” she said bitterly. “We lost everything.” With a sniff, she added, “My mother never got over it.”

  Silence spread like a mist through the booth for a minute, then Kate said, “Gee, that’s too bad, Belle. You mean she went nuts?”

  “Nuts?” This was a Yankee-ism Belle hadn’t heard before.

  “You know, looney.”

  “My land, no!”

  “Oh. Then, I guess I don’t know what you mean. Did she lose family members? That’s terrible, too.”

  “Two of her cousins were wounded, and an uncle was killed, but that’s not what crushed her.” Belle tried hard not to frown at Win in the mirror. He was gazing at her as if he considered her southern relations just short of Kate’s nuts.

  “They lost the family farm,” he said, as if it were nothing.

  “It wasn’t a farm,” Belle said through her teeth. “It was a tobacco plantation, and it was a terrible loss.”

  “Oh.” Kate stuck one last hairpin in Belle’s hair and stood back to observe her handiwork. “I guess that must have been pretty hard, to lose the plantation.” With a grin, she said, “I guess it pays to be poor sometimes. We never had anything to lose. Good thing, too, or my pa would have pawned it.”

  “Mercy sakes,” muttered Belle. “That puts my family’s losses in a rather new light.”

  Kate laughed. “Aw, Belle, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. It’s got to be awful to lose a way of life, which I guess happened to a lot of you folks in Georgia.”

  A sense of triumph swept through Belle. Kate understood! Win Asher might treat Abraham Lincoln’s War as a mere nothing that happened and ended, but Kate understood. “Yes,” she said. “It did. And it was awful.”

  She sat still as Kate began rummaging on the table, lifting pots and boxes and peering at them critically. “Gotta find the right shade here. I’m sure we have some lighter stuff that you can use. You’d make a lousy Gypsy.” She laughed.

  Belle wasn’t quite up to laughing yet.

  “For Pete’s sake, it might have been awful, but it’s been over for thirty years!”

  Win’s bellow made both Kate and Belle jump. Kate dropped a powder puff. As she stooped to pick it up, she frowned at Win. “Who put a bug in your ear, Win? There’s no need to shout.”

  “I should say not,” Belle said.

  “Applesauce.” Win lurched up from his bench and began pacing in the confines of Kate’s booth. He bumped a table and Kate’s crystal ball fell off its stand. Win caught it before it rolled off the table and crashed to the floor. Remembering how Kate had used that ball a few days earlier, Belle shuddered.

  “It’s not applesauce,” she said stiffly.

  “It is too!” He slammed the ball back onto its stand. “Your family’s wallowing in the past. Why don’t they get off their duffs and go to work, is what I want to know? You did!”

  He left off hollering at Belle and commenced shouting at Kate. “And do you know what her mother wrote her? She said Belle was wrong to get a job and move to New York! No thank-you’s. No ‘You’re a very good daughter for sending us all your money.’ Nothing like that. She wrote that we damned Yankees are ruining her morals!”

  “Shoot. Really?” Kate decided on a box of powder and a pot of rouge and moved to face Belle. “Shut your eyes for a minute, sweetie.”

  Belle didn’t want to shut her eyes. She wanted to use them to show Win Asher what a rat she considered him. Nevertheless, she did as Kate said. Trying to keep her lips from parting enough to admit powder to seep in, she murmured furiously, “You’re a lout, Win Asher! That was my private correspondence!”

  “That letter was bothering you, damn it! I wanted to know what was wrong and how I could help you. Your mother’s a pain in the neck,” he shot back. “You deserve better.”

  His outburst caused Belle to forget her eyes. They popped open, admitting a few grains of rice powder. Instantly her eyes watered.

  “Belle,” said Kate, sounding both resigned and amused, “this will never work if you don’t cooperate.” She shoved a clean hankie into Belle’s hand, and Belle carefully wiped away the tears, trying to be delicate so as not to ruin any more of Kate’s artwork on her behalf.

  Before Belle could respond with an apology for neglecting her duty, Win stomped up to the two ladies. “Belle? Cooperate? Be serious, Kate. She doesn’t know the meaning of the word.”

  “That’s not true! And it’s not fair!”

  “Try to keep your mouth closed, Belle. Otherwise you’ll be eating the rice powder, and it’s supposed to go on your face.” Kate laughed softly.

  Belle didn’t think it was funny. She felt herself at a tremendous disadvantage. How could she fight effectively if she had to sit in this chair with her eyes and mouth shut?

  “Huh,” Win huffed.

  Belle heard him plop back down onto the bench. Her mind’s eye pictured him slouched there, looking gloomy, his long legs splayed out in front of him, and his lovely, windblown hair falling in gentle waves over his temples. Win Asher looked like Belle’s notion of Lord Byron, only without the limp. If one were only to look at him, one might think he was a romantic poet. If he didn’t look so healthy, one might even pass for a romantic poet with consumption, thus magnifying his broody good looks. Drat him. He had no business looking so good.

  “I think you two ought to stop fighting and make up,” Kate said after a few moments of peace in her booth.

  For the first time, Belle was glad she couldn’t open her mouth. She might have shouted again, and such behavior was both unladylike and atypical.

  Win, as might have been expected, said, “Huh!” again.

  Kate’s sunny laugh kissed the air. “Face it, you two. You were made for each other.” She placed a restraining hand on Belle’s shoulder so she couldn’t hurl herself out of the chair and throw things. “It’s true, Belle.”

  “Good God.” Win was clearly horrified.

  “Phoo,” said Kate. “Win, you�
�re an artist in photographer’s clothing, and Belle is the most perfect human subject you’ve ever encountered.”

  A splutter from Win drowned out Belle’s own muffled “Mercy sakes!”

  “Hush up, both of you. Win, you’ve never created anything as wonderful as that picture of Belle. You’ve never wanted to. And Belle, if you think just anyone could create that vision in this morning’s Globe, you’re loony. That photograph was a perfect act of love, if you ask me.”

  “Nobody asked you,” Win pointed out, sounding as if he’d stiffened up considerably during Kate’s speech.

  Belle envisioned him sitting up straight, grimacing hideously. Still being powdered, she couldn’t respond with words, but she did manage to shake her head once before Kate put a stop to that.

  “Fiddle,” said Kate. “You two just haven’t figured it out yet, is all. I think you make a perfect couple. I’d like to meet a nice man someday,” she added wistfully. “Somebody like Win, only not Win.”

  Belle couldn’t stand her own silence any longer, especially since Kate’s words and caused a river of anxiety to flow through her. “Why not Win?”

  “Hush! You need to sit still, Belle.”

  “You’re crazy,” growled Win.

  Belle didn’t think she’d ever get out of that cursed chair. When she did, she saw that Kate had done a masterful job on her. She was so surprised, she forgot about Kate marrying Win, the thought of which had about caused her a spasm only moments earlier. “Oh, my! I thought you were going to paint me up like a scarlet woman.”

  Kate’s grin twisted slightly. “Oh, no, Belle. I’m the only scarlet woman in the room.”

  Aghast, Belle whirled around and threw her arms around Kate. “I didn’t mean it that way! I meant that I’d never used makeup because I thought proper women didn’t. My mother taught me that. I don’t know how to thank you! For heaven’s sake, Kate, you saved my life.”

  “Well then, we’re even,” said Kate.

  Belle’s conscience smote her. She gave Kate another impulsive hug. “Thank you so much. I’m looking perfectly decent and able to meet the Richmonds now.”

  Win slouched up to them. “Yeah, Kate. Thanks a lot.”