Brooklyn Rose (3 page)

Rene said I was to call him that. By his first name. "If we're going to be friends, I insist," he told me.

Daddy had half his people picking cotton and the other half gathering wood. Rene had never seen cotton being picked, so I took him by those fields first, then we rode to the water. The day was a bit warmer, with bright sun. I explained to him how when the moon is in its first and third quarters, the tides rise six to eight feet around Saint Helena's Island. These are called neap tides.

"When the moon is new or full, the water rises eight to ten feet. And those are spring tides," I explained.

He listened carefully, nodding.

"Saint Helena's is fifteen miles long and three to five miles wide. It protects the mainland from the sea."

"You've learned your school lessons well," he said.

"Those aren't school lessons. School is dull," I told him. "I've learned these other things just from living around here."

He asked me if I liked living here, and I said yes. Then he asked if I would ever leave. The way he said it, with those blue eyes of his looking so intently at me, I couldn't answer. "I don't know," I finally said. "It would depend."

"On what?"

"On why I was leaving." I felt bold saying it. He did not reply.

Then we rode on farther. I took him through salt marshes, up dunes. I showed him massive oak trees, twisted cedars and crooked pines, and palmettos with leaves that rattled in the wind like the drums of the Yamasee Indians.

We got back in time for afternoon tea. I was red faced from the wind. Rene's tawny hair was mussed. He told Daddy he'd like to go fishing with him sometime. And Daddy said yes.

BACK TO
school after the winter break. Amelia Caper was waiting for me with a wide smile on her face. "Your daddy told mine that you went riding with Mr. Dumarest," she said.

"Rene and I are just friends," I said.

But when I called him Rene instead of Mr. Dumarest, her grin got sly. "He's looking for a wife, you know," she said smugly.

"Well then," I told her, "you ought to get in line. I understand half the girls between here and Charleston are lying in wait for him."

"And you've got him."

"I've got nobody, Amelia. I don't want anybody. Why, he's older than Josh Denning, and he's twenty-four."

I wouldn't hear any more about it. Amelia thinks she is so smart because of her daddy the banker. I hate being back in school. Before he was eight years old, Daddy was sent to school 150 miles from home. To Richland. Sometimes, when people annoy me, I wish I could go 150 miles from here and from everyone. Other times I don't want to leave home at all.

Daddy went to the trial of skill with his rifle company today so was not home for supper. It's been very windy all day. Wind has whipped the sand in all our faces. Mama and Heppi and I had supper alone and discussed the wedding. All Heppi wants to do is talk about the wedding. She says blue silk is all right for my dress, and Mama said she'd send a note around to Mr. Dumarest. I have not told them yet that I call him Rene.

I HAVE BEEN
getting teased in school about Rene. It seems Amelia Caper has told everyone about him taking me riding. My daddy told her daddy. I am so sick of this school and have asked Daddy if I can go to Normal School in Beaufort. Or the Female Institute. He always said he wanted me to go to one of them to get a better education before I go to any female institute up north. But when we talk about it, he never pursues the subject. He lets it lie like a dead fish between us. I think it is likely that he does not have the money. I am beginning to wonder if he is more in debt than he allows.

RENE HAS
sent around the silk for Heppi's wedding gown and it is absolutely gorgeous. Mama cried when she saw it. So is the blue for my dress. And I fear it is of a more expensive quality than Daddy can afford, but he said nothing.

On the weekend, Mama and Heppi and I had meetings with the dressmaker in Beaufort. We stayed at the hotel. I know Mama was half distracted wondering after little Benjamin, but Lilly and Opal do a wonderful job with him. I missed him, too.

On Saturday evening Rene came to town and took the three of us to supper. He told us all about the silk-importing business. He owns a fifteen-ton schooner called
Elizabeth.
He paid mind mostly to Mama, because she was really the prettiest of us there. My mama is really beautiful. We have a portrait of her in the front hallway and she is painted in profile. Her hair is piled on top of her head and her shoulders are bare and the gown puffs around them.

Still, Heppi flirted with him like mad. It is just her way. She made me so angry I wanted to cry. She placed herself right across the table from him so he could look directly at her and monopolized all the conversation. But several times I saw Rene sneaking looks at me. And I blushed. I wonder: Why is he paying all this attention to us? Heppi is spoken for and Mama is nobody's flirt.

We came home this evening. Rene is invited to the wedding, of course.

A VERY NICE
day with almost springlike weather. Daddy's people planted Irish potatoes today, and finished ginning the cotton. Little Benjamin is very cranky. I just discovered that we are invited to go with Heppi and Josh to the Eckelses' on Saturday night for a program of sacred music. Rene is calling to take Mama and me. Daddy has a dinner at his club. I don't know if I am pleased or not. It seems that all kinds of things are being done to throw me and Rene together, and I wonder, sometimes, just what Amelia Caper knows. Somehow I feel that she knows something.

WELL, WE WENT
to the Eckelses' and Rene couldn't have been nicer. He fussed over Mama just as much as he fussed over me. I am starting to look at him differently, though. I am asking myself very stern questions, like, "Is he acting like a suitor?" and, "What am I supposed to act like?" and, "I must put a stop to this. But how can I?" I wouldn't want to hurt him, and somehow I think I'd be hurting Mama and Daddy, too, because by now I know they want him for me.

Next week Rene is going hunting on one of the other islands with Daddy. Josh was pleased with the Negro music at the Eckelses'. Daddy sent a load of cotton to Beaufort for sale. The boat was piled high with cotton.

Two of the two-year-olds have been broken to the saddle and bridle by Jimmy. I watched. He is so good with the horses. I told Daddy he has to have Jimmy teach somebody else, though, in case he ever decides to leave. Daddy just laughed. "My people never leave," he said. "I treat them too good."

Of course, I know it is unthinkable, but I have watched Jimmy in the paddock with the horses so much that I know I could break a two-year-old if push came to shove. Only, I would never say it to either Daddy or Mama. They think I'm enough of a hoyden the way it is.

MAMA IS ALL
upset because a steamer arrived in San Francisco and there are forty-one deaths from the plague on it. These things upset Mama terribly. She worries so. I suppose the city officials in San Francisco were upset, too, because to stop the spread of the disease they burned down a whole block in Chinatown and the fire got out of control.

Went to Beaufort with Mama for a final fitting of our gowns. I declare, Heppi is acting like a five-year-old now, who has just been given candy. All she talks about is her wedding. She wanted to have it in church, but Daddy and Mama want it in our front parlor. Mama says she always dreamed of her daughter marrying in that room, because it faces the rising sun and that is good luck.

Well, much discussion about this. Church or home? Home, of course. What other way? Mama says. This is tradition. So now Mama is directing the help (or Opal is letting her think she is directing) in cleaning and polishing and shining and washing everything in sight. The house is turned upside down. I hate it.

DADDY AND RENE
never did take their hunting trip. Everything seemed to interfere. The
Elizabeth
dropped anchor in Charleston waters with a new load of silk and Rene couldn't get away. One of Daddy's workhorses came down with distemper and had to be nursed. So they are going when they both have time. Probably not until after Heppi's wedding now. I wish I could go, not to be with Rene but because I've never been on a hunting trip with Daddy.

Why do I have the feeling that something is about to happen?

THE HOUSE
is all in order and the cooking and baking have begun. Opal has an army of people under her in the kitchen, including Mama and me. Heppi is nowhere to be seen. She is up in her room, dreaming of the great day. I chopped nuts all morning for one of Opal's cakes. Heppi dreamed of a gray horse last night, and Opal says that means an upcoming happy marriage.

THERE IS NO
time to think of anything but the wedding. Josh's family arrived in Charleston and we all met in Beaufort. Daddy arranged it. We had supper at the hotel in their famous dining room. Josh's parents are nice, and he has a sister my age named Alice. They are all very proud of Josh. His father looks like a captain of industry, which he is. He owns many coal mines. Josh refused to go into the business and went into studying music instead. His brother, Jeff, is in business with their father. Rene was not there. The hotel had an orchestra and I danced with Jeff. He asked me about the Gullah people, and I explained to him how we are still under Reconstruction here in Beaufort. "We're different from the rest of the South," I told him. "Reconstruction here is still going on because most of the people who lived here before the war are gone. And the blacks own a lot of the land. And we have a lot of newcomers. There are a few old planters, like my father."

With the next dance he told me about the Amish in Pennsylvania, and I was fascinated. And a feeling came over me that there are so many different kinds of people in this world whom I shall never know. And they are interesting and good and I will never get to meet them. And I felt small and useless.

We came home this night and didn't stay at the hotel.

OPAL THINKS
it awful of us that we are not having Heppi's wedding in church. She calls it a "praise house." She told me how her people were converted to Christianity after the war, by missionaries, although they kind of mix Gullah traditions and songs in with it.

She says she has the praise-making spirit. I explained to her how, while we are good Episcopalians now, our ancestors were Huguenots who came here in 1685 when Huguenots came from all parts of France, and we came because we were persecuted. And that's why we are free of spirit.

We had a rehearsal for the wedding and a grand supper. Heppi put up my hair so I will have proper curls tomorrow. While she was doing it, I asked her how it felt to be going away with a man on a wedding trip.

"I trust Josh and I love him and that's all that is needed," she said. "And it will serve you right to remember that when your time comes."

WELL, HEPPI GOT
married. She is now Mrs. Denning. Oh, the wedding was so beautiful. Heppi and I had made an arch of paper flowers, red and white, under which she and Josh stood. She looked so lovely in her gown. I cried when she said the words. To think that you say a few words and your life is changed forever!

We ate a sumptuous wedding supper. Opal really outdid herself, bringing dish after dish to the table. And Mama made the same wedding cake that she and Daddy had had. Later we danced in the front parlor, which had been cleared of furniture. I danced with Rene, and he said I looked wonderful in my blue silk dress. Somehow I felt that I did when he said it.

Heppi and Josh are on their wedding trip to Savannah. I can't believe it. My sister isn't my sister anymore. She belongs to someone else now. Opal sprinkled dust at her when they left, for good luck. I hope it wasn't goofer dust, because that comes from the graveyard.

SOMETHING
has happened. Something changed. I felt it when I came in from riding this morning. The slant of light itself was changed inside the house.

Then Mama told me that Rene was in the library with Daddy last night after the wedding. The door was closed a long time after Heppi and Josh left. I had gone to bed and thought nothing of it until today.

At lunch today, with one daughter scarce gone and still surrounded by the Chinese lanterns strung for the wedding, and all the other furbelows, Daddy told me that Rene has asked for my hand in marriage.

I could not speak. My jaw fell open. And yet I know, deep down, I had been expecting this. I knew something was about to happen. Still, it came as a shock.

Daddy smiled. "I think the spirit of the wedding seized him," he said.

Opal was standing over me, about to pour my coffee. "He be a good man," she said. "I have many a talk with that young man." Which was true. Rene had made friends of her. She had served him many a cup of coffee when they were alone in the kitchen.

"But I'm only fifteen," was the first thing that came to my mind.

"Your mother was fifteen when we wed," Daddy said.

Mama looked so happy, still beaming from the spirit of the wedding, that I hated to ruin it for her. "Mama?" I said.

She smiled at me. "Follow your heart, Rose," she told me. "Just don't let fear into it. There's nothing to be afraid of."

"But where would we live?"

And there was the trick. They both said Brooklyn. I asked, "Where is this Brooklyn?" And they told me it is in New York. So far away! Why, it would mean leaving here, leaving Mama and Daddy and little Benjamin. He'd grow up without me.

Then Mama said, "You like Rene, don't you, Rose? I've seen how you look at him."

"Yes," I answered lamely, "but not as a husband. I mean, I'm not in love with him."

"That will come later," Mama answered, "like it did with your father and me. He was sixteen years older than me. And we made a good marriage."