Summer Lightning

by Cynthia Bailey Pratt

  When the preacher’s wife began to talk to the other ladies about their sewing projects, Mrs. Green turned to Edith and said, “Mr. Armstrong served under General L. L. Polk in the late conflict. He was there when the general was killed at Pine Mountain. He kept the general’s little campaign chair as a memento. No one ever sits on it, but I’m just so envious of them for having it. My husband sent a substitute to the war, for which I’m very grateful but still . . ,”

  Edith was dumbstruck with guilt and shame. She sat in the corner, feeling miserable. Once or twice she raised the apron she was working as though to look more closely at the stitches, but really to block a welling tear.

  When Mrs. Armstrong again went into the kitchen, Edith volunteered to help, “I want to say . . .” she began.

  “Now, you’re not to mind what Adelia Green says. God just plain left the tact out when He made her.”

  “I’m grateful to her. Now that I know I have ruined a cherished memento, I will certainly . . .”

  “No, you certainly won’t.” The preacher’s wife cut her off. “But you could do me a favor.”

  “Anything!”

  “That girl of mine is like to drive me wild! Here, this party’s all for her and she hasn’t stirred a step outside her room. Be a dear. Go make sure she hasn’t set herself on fire trying to curl her hair.”

  “About the chair, Mrs. Armstrong . . .”

  “Coming!” she called in response to a hail from the parlor. “It really doesn’t matter, Miss Parker. First door on the right as you go up,” she said, nodding toward the small stair that rose in one corner of the kitchen. “Tell her how rude she’s being. They want to see her, even if she isn’t perfect in every detail.”

  Having destroyed a valuable heirloom, Edith couldn’t very well refuse her hostess’ commission. Though knowing nothing of young girls, Edith felt she could at least deliver a simple message. On the way up, however, Edith decided to soften Mrs. Armstrong’s command.

  She rapped on the white door in the hall. “Dulcie?”

  A muffled reply reached her ears. It sounded distressed.

  Edith knocked again, and the door opened. “Dulcie? Your mother asked me . . .”

  All Edith could see of the girl was her bustle. The rest of her was leaning out the window. “Go away,” she said.

  “All right.” Edith began to withdraw.

  “No, wait.” Dulcie drew her head in and turned.

  Edith gasped and covered her lips with her hand. Dulcie Armstrong had gone positively green.

  Chapter 9

  His face was thickly coated with a bright-green paste. Tears cut white tracks through the compound. With her nearly white hair and deep brown eyes, Dulcie looked like a wild ghost-witch preparing to cast an evil spell. Especially with the desperately angry look haunting her eyes.

  “What is that on your face?” Edith asked, closing the door instinctively.

  Dulcie pointed toward her dressing table. A bowl of the gluey substance sat on a towel. At Edith’s approach the boggy surface shivered as though alive.

  Next to the bowl sat a magazine which Edith recognized at a glance as the last issue of The Horse and Stockmen’s Quarterly Bulletin. It lay open to a page headlined, “Aunt Hermione’s Beauty Cures.”

  The letters were nearly all complaints of love unrequited. Most of the advice was the same—to be sweet and patient while waiting for the desired object to see one’s sterling worth. Edith had received many letters from “Aunt Hermione’s” disappointed correspondents who had seen their beloved drift off on the arm of one not so worthy, but far more active.

  However, “Aunt Hermione” occasionally broke down and offered concrete solutions to tough questions. This one was on “Clearing the Complexion.” Reading the ingredients, Edith realized that concrete was the proper term for this solution.

  She read the ingredient list again. “Equal parts alfalfa and clover hay, linseed oil, and gluten. Stir well. Apply regularly to the face. Morning and noon feedings stir well into nine pounds of corn and oats, equally mixed.”

  A fearful suspicion took hold of Edith’s mind. “Oh, dear. Did you read these instructions all the way through?” Dulcie nodded. “But what about this last sentence? About morning and noon feeding?”

  Shrugging, Dulcie made a strangled sound. Edith interpreted it as “misprint.” “I’m afraid you’re right, but that’s not the misprint. It’s the part about apply this regularly to the face. The Bulletin has been having trouble getting things right lately.” She looked at the magazine again to confirm her guess.

  “What you have on is a special feed for calves. At the bottom of the page begins ‘Mr. Hollister’s Scientific Remedies.’ He suggests a milk and honey mask for one’s young bulls.”

  She glanced in sympathy at the young girl, whose face was now as fixed as a granite statue’s. “I’ll get your mother.”

  Dulcie waved her arms frantically and shook her head. From a bedside table, she pulled out a white-backed Bible. Staring at Edith, she thumped the book several times with her fist.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

  Tossing the book aside, Dulcie’s eyes rolled. Edith felt stupid. Then Dulcie lifted one finger as though to say, “Ah!”

  Exaggerating every motion, she curtsied, then held up her arms as through expecting to be swept of in a waltz. She danced once around in a circle, nearly knocking over the washstand.

  Facing Edith once more, she put one hand on her hip and shook a finger of the other as though forbidding something. Edith realized her own face was suddenly saying “Aha!”

  “Your parents wouldn’t approve of this,” she interpreted.

  “They’d think it was vain and silly like dancing. Well, they’re right, you know. My aunt . . .”

  Dulcie said without moving her lips. “Help!”

  Edith tapped Dulcie’s cheek with her finger. Then she tried to scratch it with her nail. Water made no impression. An experiment with some hoarded eau de cologne brought a little green off on the dampened handkerchief but didn’t even begin to remove the thick layers.

  “Dear me, it’s really stuck. Are you sure you only used what the recipe called for? I wonder if lining a young bull’s stomach with cement is really a good idea.”

  Dulcie pointed to a nearly empty bottle also on the dressing table. Picking it up, Edith was at once struck by a strong smell of spirits of hartshorn, a well-known thickener. “I’m getting your mother,” Edith said firmly, starting toward the door.

  The young girl grabbed Edith’s arm, halting her. She shook her head frantically.

  “We must do something” Edith said. “You can’t stay like that. Besides, everyone is waiting for you.”

  Dulcie began to cry, all the harder when she realized that not even tears could now melt the plaster on her face. Then Edith said, “I have an idea. Wait here.”

  Dulcie indicated with a look that there was little else she could do.

  A few moments later, Edith opened the girl’s door again and stood back. Gary walked in, a tan bag in his hand. “Good golly,” he said. “What a mess!”

  “Please don’t gloat, Gary. We don’t have time for that,” Edith said, shutting the door. “Just go to work.”

  He set the bag down on the dressing table. Snapping back the locks, he removed his carving tools. Dulcie shrank back. “Now don’t worry,” Gary said, patting her shoulder. “You know my hand never slips. But you better hold still.”

  Forcing herself to smile, Edith came over and picked up Dulcie’s hand. Holding it awkwardly, she said, “I’m sorry, but he was all I could come up with. Are you sure you don’t want me to tell your mother about this?”

  Gary answered for his sister as he picked up his smallest chisel. “Don’t even think about it, Miss Parker. My folks are about as easygoing as you can imagine but they’re death on vanity. Why, they made my little sister Annie wear a big plaid bow on her hair most of last winter, just ‘cause she said it didn’t become her. They don
’t want us thinking about our outsides, when it’s our insides that matter.”

  After fifteen wincing minutes passed, most of the green had fallen in chips to the floor. Gary broke off in the midst of a tuneless whistle. “That’s the best I can do. Say, if you can make me up some more of this stuff it sure would make a great medium for modeling. It handles really nice.”

  “Oh, get out, Gary,” his sister said. “No, wait. I’m sorry. You’ve been a big help. I wouldn’t have gotten out of this mess without you.”

  Gary bundled his tools back into his bag. “Don’t mention it. And you better get washed up. You still look kind of green around the gills.”

  Edith let go of Dulcie’s hand. The marks of the girl’s nails were driven into the side of her palm. Once or twice it had seemed certain that Gary’s hand would slip.

  “He’s a very good carver,” Dulcie said, after the door closed behind him. “And I thank heaven for it. If he’d cut my face . . . I already have buck teeth, you know, and a scar wouldn’t make me look any better.”

  “Your brother is right. You are still greenish,” Edith said, not knowing how to answer. Dulcie’s front teeth did stick out and not all the polite nothings in the world would make them go in. “Where’s that cologne? Maybe if we scrub extra hard with that ... it took some off before.”

  “I can only thank you again. I was so mortified for anyone to see me like that!”

  “Oh, well,” Edith said, pouring cologne on a handkerchief. “I’m not anyone.”

  Downstairs, the ladies were working hard on the delicate underthings and bed linen that a new bride required. Mrs. Armstrong, her starched apron brilliantly white, fussed over the refreshments in the dining room. “There you are, Dulcie. What a time you’ve been! Thanks for getting her, Miss Parker.”

  “It was a pleasure, Mrs. Armstrong. Can I help you with . . . anything?”

  “No, no. Go along and talk with the others. Dulcie, be nice to everyone. They’re working for your sake, you know.”

  “Oh, Mother! I’m not going to snap their noses off, for goodness sake.”

  Dulcie nudged Edith who stood with her mouth open in the middle of the doorway. “C’mon. I want to see what I’m getting.”

  Haltingly, Edith followed as Dulcie went ahead, prattling. “Of course, it’s very good of them to do nice things for me, but I want to get married without all this fuss. After all, people get married every day. And if you really love someone, you don’t need linens and aprons and pillowcases and all the rest, do you?”

  She held the door open for Edith to follow. Her tender smile firmly in place, Dulcie said, “Hello, everybody!”

  Edith sank into a vacant chair near Mrs. Green. She blinked and passed her hand over her eyes. Then she stared, fixing her inner vision strongly on Dulcie. She failed to make out the slightest glimmer or glow about the young bride-to-be.

  As a test, Edith looked at the others in the room. Neither Miss Climson, Miss Albans, nor Mrs. Green gave off any light at all. Several of the women with rings on their third finger, left hand, had a certain incandescence about their figures but it was by no means brilliant.

  Her gaze dropped to the carpet. Edith’s chest felt hollow, as though something were missing. It was as though she’d been suddenly struck blind. Surely, a young lady approaching the height of her existence must be sending out rays of light radiant enough to dazzle even casual observers.

  Then Mrs. Armstrong entered and it was as if a comet had blazed around the room. Edith sat upright, wishing she had a pair of glasses with smoked lenses to protect her outer as well as her inner eye. Knowing a relief that left her limp, she basked in the glow of Mrs. Armstrong’s affection for her husband.

  “Thank goodness,” she whispered.

  “I beg your pardon,” Mrs. Green said.

  Edith merely smiled at her in meaningless apology. If her “vision” hadn’t been working properly, she would, of course, have had to resign immediately from Jeff Dane’s employ. The risk of matching him with an unsuitable lady would have been too great. She could not act without seeing the hidden emotions of others.

  Actually, she had matched up letter writers without using her talents, and those matches had, apparently, worked as well as those she’d “helped” along. Yet a regular choice would not do for Jeff. Edith knew she’d not be satisfied until he and his children were completely happy with the perfect wife and mother.

  She glanced around. Miss Clemson continued setting stitches with machinelike precision. Miss Albans had laid her work aside for the moment, deep in conversation with two other ladies. From the way they held up their hands and exclaimed, Edith guessed they were discussing scandal. Mrs. Green was also sunk in conversation with a married lady. They had a comfortable look, as if they were talking of cake recipes and furniture polish.

  Then her eye fell upon Dulcie, who was showing off her amethyst engagement ring to her friends. The only glow Dulcie wore came from the tiny gem on her finger. Edith feared that a merely material flash would not outlast the bridal year.

  Dulcie sat beside her. “What an elegant apron. I’ll save it to wear it for company, or when Mr. Sullivan calls.”

  “Mr. Sullivan?”

  “My fiancé. Victor.” Dulcie dropped her eyes, her lashes shading her cheek. If Edith had been a normal person, she might have sworn to Dulcie’s blush. As it was, however, she could only marvel that such acting talent ran in a family determined not to use it for profit.

  “Have you known him long?”

  “Oh, no. Ours is what you might call a ‘whirlwind’ courtship. He only came to town two or three weeks ago. It was love at first sight. For both of us.”

  “Was it? I believe that’s very rare.” Edith turned the subject back to the apron she was working. “Most of this was made by the late Mrs. Samuel Dane. I’m just finishing it so you can have it.”

  “Really? I liked Mrs. Dane a lot. I’m glad I’ll have something of hers.”

  Tending closely to the heart of one of the embroidered flowers, Edith asked, “What was Mrs. Jefferson Dane like?”

  “Didn’t you meet her?”

  “No, never.”

  Dulcie said, “I liked Gwen. She seemed like a real happy person, always laughing and flirting.”

  “Flirting?”

  “Oh, yes,” Mrs. Green entered their conversation easily. “Gwen Dane was a dreadful flirt. She must have had half a dozen beaus on her string before Jeff came back.”

  “Came back? Where had he been?”

  “Like so many young boys, he was lured away from home by temptations we women never suffer. What, dear?” Mrs. Green rose to answer Mrs. Armstrong’s summons.

  Seeing perhaps that Edith looked shocked and intrigued, Dulcie laid her fingers on Edith’s arm. “I heard that Jeff Dane went to a gold strike on the Trinity River in California when he was eighteen. To hear some of these folks talk, you’d think that was a sin. I think it’s an adventure. I’d love to be able to just pull up stakes and chase a dream. Wouldn’t you?”

  Edith didn’t mention that she rarely had to chase dreams. Usually, she had to frighten them off. Even now, as she worked her needle through the fabric, she was thinking of dawn above a silvery river. The rampant scents of wildflowers filled her spirit as she opened her tent flap and stepped out into the cool lushness of a California morning.

  Wildcat Hawes they called her, as quick on the draw as any man jack. Little did the grubby miners know that under her buckskin vest beat a heart ablaze with love for only one man, the man she’d followed to the primitive conditions of the gold-fields. She fought to conceal her love, knowing that he didn’t want her as much as he wanted that gleaming devil, gold.

  The time passed quickly, as it always did when she was lost in daydreams. Wildcat was just showing her beloved the error of his ways when she looked up to find Jeff grinning down at her.

  “Where are you?” he asked. “A million miles away?”

  Edith looked around. Half the ladies had le
ft. She only hoped she’d been civil in her farewells. Sometimes when she was lost in thought, people could speak to her and she wouldn’t hear them. Like Mrs. Webb, several people in the boardinghouse had considered her insufferably stuck-up when she’d only been fighting Tartars during dinner, or taming tigers at noon.

  She tied the final knot in the last flower. “I’m ready,” she said. “Just let me say my good-byes.”

  Jeff waited for her until the bracket clock on the mantel chimed the quarter hour. Then he went in search of her.

  He heard the bass rumble of the preacher’s voice before he entered the kitchen. Pushing open the door, he heard, “To cling to possessions is folly, Miss Parker. Some of the best men who ever lived have taught us that.”

  “That’s true. But there is a difference between sharing your goods with the poor and having them smashed to bits by clumsy guests.”

  Jeff thought, What’s up now?

  “The message is the same. I should remember General Polk for his faith and good works rather than for his talents as a military leader. That chair was the wrong thing to remember him by. I can see that now.”

  “Don’t tell me . . .” Jeff muttered.

  Edith said, “Will you tell me more about him, Mr. Armstrong? I should enjoy learning about such a noble gentleman. Maybe if you share your memories, you will keep them all the brighter.”

  Mrs. Armstrong said, “There now, Ezra. Stop making the girl feel guilty over a chair.”

  Jeff coughed and walked in. “If there’s anything I can do ... Maybe I can fix it, though if Gary can’t, I guess my skill won’t pay toll.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve wrecked it utterly, Cousin Jeff,” Edith said, hanging her head. She would have told Jeff about her mishap once they were private. Then only she would see his disappointment. Perhaps he would decide he didn’t want such a bumbling nincompoop handling his delicate liaisons. If that were the case, she’d want to hear her dismissal in private too.

  “The chair was old,” Mrs. Armstrong said. “And it didn’t go with any of the furniture.”

  “I think,” Mr. Armstrong replied, “that will be the last word on the subject. Jeff, do you want some coffee?”