Harnessed Passions (60 page)

"It's the curses that go along with being
the mayor's wife, I suppose. There's just no chance of re-election
if you're rude to the people."

"So Rupert is hoping for a re-election?"

"He says he still has so much work to do, he
has to stay in another term, but if you ask me," Lena added,
leaning closer to the two women. "He just doesn't want to have to
return to a real job." The three women laughed softly trying hard
not to attract too much attention.

They continued chatting, exchanging stories
and tales, until the waiter came to take their order. Julia ordered
the house special; roast beef on sour dough bread with potato salad
and green beans, while Lena and Louise both agreed on a simple
chef's specialty garden salad with iced tea. Julia fell into a
silence of her own, listening with little true interest to the
women who continued their antidotes and predictions for the future
of politics and the economy, neither of which they knew or
understood.

The sun shining through the curtains had a
hypnotic effect, causing Julia to drift into a state of complete
relaxation. She found keeping her eyes open to be a true battle and
one she was quickly losing. She tried hard to concentrate on her
mother's conversation, but couldn't comprehend for a second what
she was being said. Julia turned her attention to her aunt, but
found Lena no more of a distraction than her mother had been.
Finally, the sedation of the sun and the warmth of its heated glow
through the window panes won out and Julia began to drift into a
lulling slumber.

"Wake up Julia before people start to
stare," her mother scolded. Julia's eyes popped open, suddenly
aware of the disapproving glare from the older woman. "Good
heavens, if you're that tired you should have said something."

"I'm sorry mother. It's just so relaxing
here; I can't seem to keep my eyes open."

"Don't be so hard on the child," Lena
insisted, smiling sympathetically to her. "Once she has some food
in her stomach, she'll wake up." The two women kept Julia awake,
involving her in their conversation, asking her questions and
verbally forcing her to respond until their meals arrived. They ate
with haste insisting on taking in a shop or two before returning
home.

So far that day, they had stopped at four
shops, bought two pairs of shoes and three hats, all of which were
utterly inappropriate for the life of a horse breeder's wife, and
now they were being measured for new gowns. The idea of sleep no
longer threatened Julia's composure or her mother's embarrassment,
but she was certain given a moment's rest, she could easily fall
into a peaceful coma.

She stood on a small wooden stool behind the
curtain in a room filled with fresh flowers, draped windows and a
number of bolts of material. She felt like a child's doll, first
lifting one arm than the other, turning this way and that, while
the woman measured and re-measured taking note after note of her
size.

"You've gained a whole inch in your waist,"
the older French woman said, with a sniff of disapproval. "You've
gained nearly that much in your hips as well. What have you been
doing in that dreadful one horse town you've been visiting? If
you're not careful young lady, you'll be the size of an elephant by
the year's end." Julia smiled at the woman's complaints. She had
listened to the lectures and importance of whale-bone corsets and
growing popularity for bustles for so long; her harshness no longer
had an effect on her.

"Well, Adaline," Lena stepped in, defending
the young woman's honor. "That's what happens when you get married.
Your attentions are preoccupied and dieting just doesn't take the
effort it once did."

"That's no excuse," the woman insisted
bitterly, brushing a long grey strand of hair from her narrow thin
face. "If anything, your weight should be the most important
subject on your mind. What if you become fat and lazy and your
husband no longer finds you interesting? Then you don't even have
your looks to fall back on once he leaves you for some little thing
with the shape of a goddess. You’ll be at the doctor’s office three
times a week like all the other lonely housewives in town."

"There's no danger there," Louise argued, as
a younger woman took her measurements. "Daniel is very devoted to
Julia and insists she's too thin. I'm sure he'll be delighted to
know she's gained weight."

"Ridiculous," the woman grumbled with a
heavy accent and left the room to find some fabric. Lena and Louise
snickered like school girls at her departure.

"You have to forgive Adaline," Lena
explained after a moment's humor. "She was married to a very vane
man once. She thought he loved her for herself, but found out quick
enough it was her money he loved. She comes from a very wealthy
family, don't you know. Well, when she found out she had married a
whoremonger, why she became quite snippy. She felt certain it was
because she was unattractive, so she stopped eating and nearly
killed herself with starvation. She was sick for weeks in fact, and
when she finally regained her strength, she learned her husband had
run off with a perky little tramp, barely sixteen years old. She
hasn't been the same since." Louise nodded silently at the woman's
discomfort, understanding exactly how it felt to lose the man you
loved to another woman.

Julia listened to the
women’s gossiping with only half an ear, as she looked carefully in
the mirror, examining her shape with scrutiny. She had noticed the
slight weight gain, but she hadn't thought it was so bad; in fact,
Daniel really did seem to like it. She frowned as she turned this
way and that, smoothing the material of her thin chemise across her
narrow hips and slender waist. She didn't look any different to
her, she still had a small waist and her hips were as firm as ever.
Perhaps it was just Adeline’s complaints that made her worry; the
idea of losing Daniel to a thinner girl frightened her and she was
anxious to make certain it never happened.
That did it
, she scolded herself with
strong determination. No more deserts and no more rich foods for
her. She would just have to learn to say no.

"We'll stop by Ronald's
next," Lena began, making a mental note of their day. "He's the
best hairdresser in all of New England. After that we'll take
in
Petite's
, that's
the new jeweler's not far from here; I've wanted an excuse to stop
in and have a look around since they opened, and then we can stop
for an ice cream soda and sandwich before going home. I'll have to
be back before long, little Walter will need feeding and I don't
think it would look very good to have my dresses stained with
milk."

"If we do all of that today, there won't be
anything left for us to do the rest of the time we're here," Julia
insisted, feeling the desire for a nap beginning to call out to her
again.

"Nonsense," Lena insisted. "This is Boston,
there's plenty to do. The Mitchells are having a party the day
after next and I promised to bring you both, so we have to shop for
that; then there's the Hansen's ball this weekend. Their daughter
is coming out and we just have to be there for it. There's the
opera and the ballet next week; Rupert and I have box seats for the
season, and we can't forget the Arndell’s tea party a week from
Sunday. Heaven's, there's so many things still to do I can't
imagine having enough time for it all." Louise and Julia glanced at
each other and smiled their weariness. The woman's itinerary made
them both feel dizzy and exhausted. The next month couldn’t pass by
fast enough, for either of their sakes.

As promised, the remainder of the afternoon
was spent with Lena dragging her sister and niece through the town
of Boston. They visited shop after shop, stopping and talking for
what felt like hours with those she knew who happened to be in the
same vicinity as the woman. They bought so many clothes and
accessories; they had to send the carriage driver home twice to
unload their packages. Each time he returned, he would look at the
three and shake his head, going back to the shops they had visited
to pick up more of their purchases.

By the time supper rolled around, Julia and
Louise were exhausted. They retired to their rooms to freshen up
before eating, encountering a large supply of packages as they
entered their private chambers.

Julia tossed the boxes off the bed and onto
the floor, slipping her shoes off and throwing herself to the satin
duvet. She didn't remember shopping to be so totally exhausting.
The idea of moving made her legs ache, her head pounded and every
muscle in her tired body screamed for a reprieve, begging to remain
in complete limbo. All she wanted to do now was sleep until it was
time to catch the train back to Kentucky.

A soft knock on her bedroom door brought
Julia's eyes open and a moan of disbelief from her overly tired
body. She couldn’t stand listening to more of her aunt's rambling.
At first she thought about not answering it, but knowing she
couldn't ignore her visitor for long, she sat up and padded her
tired feet across the room. Instead of seeing Lena or even her
mother as she had expected, Julia found the small figure of her
four year-old cousin, Marybeth, standing timidly outside in the
hall.

"Well hello there," Julia greeted the child,
hoping her voice sounded more cheerful than she knew it did.

"Are you awake?" the little girl asked, her
tiny feet twisting under her lacy skirts.

"It looks that way," Julia answered with a
smile. "Would you like to come in?" The dark ringlets bobbed on her
head as she nodded, skipping into the room. Julia chuckled to
herself as she closed the door behind the child. The energy she had
endured all day with Lena was nothing compared to what was pinned
up inside this little version of her mother, now bouncing on the
end of her bed.

"Would you like some chocolate?" Julia
asked, knowing the child's weakness and also knowing the new nanny
rarely allowed the children sweets. Marybeth nodded her head
excitedly and began bouncing harder on the firm mattress, watching
as Julia rummaged through the boxes on the floor until she found
the bag of gourmet candy she had purchased.

"Don't tell Beatrice, okay?" the child
asked, taking a piece from the bag as Julia sat down next to
her.

"It will be our secret," Julia promised,
taking a piece for herself. Another knock echoed through the room
and before Julia could get up to answer it, the door swung open and
in walked William and Lucy, both as dark headed as their sister.
They spied the bag in Julia's hand and quickly shut the door
hurrying over to the bed.

An hour passed while the cousins and a bag
of chocolate eagerly became better acquainted. By supper time,
there were four less hungry people to feed, but much happier
knowing their little picnic was shared with the promise of
secrecy.

That night Julia slipped her diary out of
her nightstand and marked off another day. Forty-three left to
go.

Day after day Julia and Louise found
themselves dragged from one event to another. Each new invitation
had to have a special gown, matching shoes and of course a
different hair style. All of this meant days on end of shopping,
buying, measuring and fittings, while they prepared for yet another
festival, outing or ball. Julia felt like a child's yo-yo; pulled
in one direction only to wind back up and extended in another; but
what was worse was her growing exhausted. She felt as though there
just weren’t enough hours in the day for sleeping.

Thirty-two days had passed, each one
highlighted with a red mark on the hidden calendar in her diary.
Two weeks remained before she could go home and fall back into a
quiet routine - and Daniel's arms. Julia made herself a silent vow;
once this vacation ended she would never again complain of how
boring Kentucky was.

Breakfast was served later than usual the
mornings after their parties and Julia found herself waking to
pangs of hunger, only to be followed by grumbles from her stomach
that quickly worsened with each day. Her throat would tighten in
spasms until she was forced to flee to the private bathroom and
vomit whatever was left in her stomach from the night before.

For five days now Julia had awoke to these
aliments, each starting off as the day before. Spells of nausea and
vomiting in the mornings disappearing by lunch, followed by an
afternoon of total exhaustion that lasted until early evening, when
- if she wasn't up to her neck in a ball gown and yet another
endless social gala - she could escape to the quiet confines of her
bedroom. She didn't think there was any real reason for alarm,
since she had no fever or any other symptoms to go along with her
morning rituals.

It wasn't until the Friday evening before
she was scheduled to return to Kentucky, that Julia slipped her
little diary out of the drawer and began glancing back across the
pages. The marks she always made in the book to keep track of her
monthly period were absent for that month and there wasn't any
indications for the two months before, either. This was when Julia
realized the gravity of the situation. She had seem her Aunt Lena
go through two pregnancies and remembered when her mother was
expecting Jeremy; but never once had she considered it happening to
herself; yet it all added up. The sickness that lasted until
midday, the fatigue, the hunger pangs, even the thickening
waistline and hips her tailor had scolded her for. She wasn't
getting lazy as she had silently accused herself of, she was
pregnant!

The thought echoed around her head the rest
of the evening, and into the break of day the next morning. Julia
tossed and turned sleeplessly in her bed, thinking about Daniel and
their lives together. She thought of how he would react when she
told him he was to be a father, and what he would think of her as
she began to grow larger. She thought of the baby lying asleep
within her, wondering what it might be, what it would look like and
the color of its eyes. She wondered if it would have her quick
temper or its father's even control and good nature. She calculated
how far along she was and how many months she still had to go, and
then she considered how far away she was from her home - and her
heart.