Rose (Suitors of Seattle) (5 page)

She hurried down the stairs at exactly seven
, the time he’d said in his note he would arrive, but he wasn’t there yet.  She was surprised.  She was right on time, but he was late?  That was certainly the opposite of how things usually were for her.

She went to the parlor to wait for him, noting that only Amaryllis was there again.  “Do I look okay, Rill
y?”  She smoothed her skirt as she asked.

“Beautiful,” Amaryllis answered without even looking up from her book.  “Just wonderful.”

“Rilly!”  What did Amaryllis enjoy so much about books anyway?  And wasn’t that book one she’d read just a few weeks before?

Amaryllis tore her eyes from her book, blinking behind her spectacles.  “What?”

“Do I really look okay?  This is my first time to go anywhere alone with Dr. Shawn.”  She’d gone for walks in the park many times with other boys, but Dr. Shawn was different.  She couldn’t put her finger on how he was different, but he was special.

“You look fine.”  Her eyes went back to her book.

“Rilly, I’m nervous.”  She knew her voice sounded like a wail, but she needed her sister to actually listen to her.

Amaryllis carefully put a bookmark in her book and stared at Rose with wide eyes.  “What did you just say?”

“I’m nervous!  I’ve never been this nervous.  My stomach is doing flip flops, and I worry that I won’t know the right thing to say to him.  What if he doesn’t like me?”

Amaryllis just stared for a moment, obviously not believing her sister was talking this way.  “You really like him, don’t you, Rose?”

Rose nodded emphatically.  “That’s what I’ve been saying!”

Amaryllis waved her hand as if to say she hadn’t believed her.  “You’ve said that about so many men over the years that it’s easy to see why I didn’t believe you.”  Her eyes searched Rose’s.  “This time it’s real?”

“Very real.”  Rose clutched her hands together to keep from wringing them.

“What are you doing this evening?”

Rose shrugged.  “I have no idea.  I’m happy to do anything as long as I’m with Dr. Shawn.” She’d never thought she’d say that.  She’d probably even put on a pair of Lily’s britches and climb trees with him if that’s what he wanted her to do.

Amaryllis raised an eyebrow.  “When are you going to call him by his first name and drop the whole doctor thing?”

“I like thinking of him as Dr. Shawn.  I feel like he deserves the respect that comes with his title.”  She smiled.  Even after they were married, she’d call him Dr. Shawn.  It was a term of endearment in her mind.  She imagined them old, with white hair, their grandchildren playing around them. She’d still be calling him Dr. Shawn.  Would the grandkids call him Dr. Grandpa?

“That’s a little strange.  You know that, don’t you?”

“Probably.”  She looked fully at Amaryllis.  “Do I really look okay?  How’s my hair?”  She’d had one of the maids put her hair up in a new style that evening.  She thought it made her look more sophisticated, and she hoped Dr. Shawn agreed with that.

“Your hair is fine.”  Amaryllis squeezed Rose’s hand.  “You look beautiful.  He won’t be able to help but fall in love with you.”

Rose breathed a sigh of relief.  All her life she’d been surrounded by boys.  Dr. Shawn was the first real man in her life.  She needed to make a good impression. 

She glanced at the clock.  It was already quarter after seven.  Where was he?  “He’s late.”
  She couldn’t remember ever waiting for a man before.

Amaryllis looked at Rose.  “You’re usually late.  Why aren’t you late?”

“I don’t want to waste a single minute that I could spend with Dr. Shawn.”  She looked down at her hands.  She hoped he felt the same way, but what if he didn’t?

“You’ve got it bad.”  Amaryllis got up off the floor where she always laid to read and sat on the sofa beside Rose.  “I’ll wait with you.”

Rose nodded.  “Thank you.  I’m glad you’re my sister.”

Amaryllis smiled.  “Me too.”

The butler, Stevens, came to the door then.  “Miss Rose?  Dr. Henry is here to see you.”

Rose shot Amaryllis a nervous glance and stood, taking a deep breath.  “Thank you, Stevens.”  She walked sedately out of the room and toward the front door.

Dr. Shawn handed her the long-stemmed pink rose that he held in his hand.  “A rose for my Rose.”  He offered her his arm.  “I thought we’d go for a walk through the park and get to know one another.  Will that work for you?”

Rose nodded.  He hadn’t apologized for being late, but she never had when she’d kept a suitor waiting either, so she couldn’t say a word.  “That sounds lovely.”  She turned to Amaryllis
, who was watching them with a frown.  “Will you put this in a vase and make sure it goes in my room, please?”

Amaryllis nodded as Rose turned to the door.  “Have a nice time,” she called hesitantly.

Rose smiled up at Shawn as she took small steps beside him toward the park.  “How was your day?”  Now that they were finally together, she wasn’t altogether sure what to say to him.

Dr. Shawn shrugged.  “It was fine.  Busy as usual.”  He looked down at her.  “What did you do today?”

“I spent the morning working at the battered women’s shelter my aunt started.  I spend most mornings there during the summers.  Now that I’ve finished school, I’ll probably go there year round.” 

“What do you do there?”  He couldn’t imagine her doing any kind of manual labor. 

She shrugged.  “I sit with the women and talk to them.  They need people to listen to their stories.  I sometimes play with the children.  I’m just a familiar face who helps out.  Most of the women there are trying to find jobs so they can support their families, so I take care of the children while they go on job interviews.  Or I help serve lunch.”

“That sounds like interesting work.”  He was truly surprised she was willing to help supervise the children and serve lunch.  That she would sit and talk to the women didn’t surprise him at all.
  She seemed too self-absorbed to be willing to do any real work, though.

“It is.  My mother insisted Lily and I volunteer there as soon as my aunt opened the house to the public.  She said I needed to learn what it could teach me.”  She paused for a moment
, looking straight ahead.  “Amaryllis goes there now, too.”

“Do you feel like you’ve learned anything working there?”  What kind of lesson could a home like that teach?

“I do.  I feel like I’ve learned that people aren’t always what they appear to be.  The women there have stories that frighten me sometimes.  It never occurred to me that men would hurt their wives the way some of those women have been hurt.  Many of them need medical care for broken bones when they first arrive.”  She sighed.  “And the children are usually afraid of their own shadows.  It was hard working there at first, but now I think it is good for me.”

He shook his head.  “Men who beat women need to be beaten themselves.”
   He’d never personally known a woman who had been abused, but he knew it happened.

She nodded.  “I agree.  I guess I knew men sometimes hurt their wives, but I always thought it was something only the lower class would do.  Some of the women who come in are of our class.  Sometimes they’re people I’ve known my whole life
, and the whole time I’ve known them, they’ve experienced this abuse.  And hidden it!”

“Why would a woman hide the fact that she was abused?” 
He was surprised to hear that a woman would hide it.  Why would she hide her husband’s shame that way?

“I wondered that, too, so I always ask, and the answer is always the same.  Shame.  The men make them feel like they’ve done something wrong to deserve the way they’re being treated.  So they put up with it.”  She shook her head.  “I couldn’t put up with being treated that way.”

“What would you do?”  He knew there weren’t many options for women who had been abused.  He wished there were.

She shrugged.  “I’d go back to my parents, to my aunt’s house, or to the shelter.  I wouldn’t let a man hit me even on
ce.”  She stared straight ahead as they entered the park, afraid to look at him as she said the next words.  “I think that’s the lesson they wanted me to learn by working there.  That I didn’t have to stay in a situation like that.  That I had the right to get out and should get out.”

“Every woman should.”  He looked down at her, so tiny beside him.  He was a tall man and muscular.  If he ever decided to hit someone her size, he could do considerable damage.  “Do you think you’ll continue to work there after you marry?”
  He knew it would be good for her to stay busy, but wasn’t sure how he felt about her being so close to abuse.

She thought about that for a moment.  “For a while at least.  Maybe not after I have children, but I wouldn’t want to stop going right away.”  She looked up at him.  “Would that bother you?”

He shook his head.  “Of course not.  I’ll be working anyway.  You’ll have to fill your days somehow.”

She frowned slightly at that. She hadn’t thought much about what marriage would be like beyond the wedding reception.  She’d somehow pictured living with him and spending all their time together, even going to the office with him on occasion.  She realized then that was a silly and childish thought.  “I guess you’re right.”

They walked for a few minutes without speaking.  He stopped at a park bench and they sat down.  “What do you like to do with your spare time?” he asked.

Rose thought about that for a moment.  What did she like to do?  She spent a lot of time practicing just the right face to show a boy in a mirror, but that couldn’t really be considered an interest
, could it?  She did all the things a young lady was supposed to do.  She embroidered and knitted and crocheted.  She didn’t like doing them, but she was willing, because that’s what was expected of her.  She usually gave whatever she made to the battered women’s shelter.  “I like to help others,” she improvised.  “I make scarves and hats, and then give them to the children who live at the shelter.”  She didn’t add that she only gave them to the shelter because she had nothing else to do with them when she was finished.

He was impressed.  He hadn’t expected that from her.  “That’s nice.”  Maybe she wasn’t as shallow as she’d seemed.  “That’s something else you could continue doing after you marry.”
  He liked the idea of having a wife who helped others.

She nodded.  She probably would.  Because ladies knit
ted and crocheted, and she needed to do something with the finished product.  “I probably will.”

They got to their feet and finished their slow walk through the park.  Rose nodded to several of her school friends, smiling at the envious looks on their faces when they saw who she was with.  Yes, marrying Dr. Shawn was exactly what she wanted to do.

Shawn smiled down at Rose.  There was so much more to her than he’d first realized.  She would make an excellent wife for him.  So what if he had no feelings for her?  They’d grow with time, wouldn’t they?  And if they didn’t, he’d still have a wife who would keep him company and bear his children.  Nothing much mattered beyond that.

*****

When they arrived back at her front door, Dr. Shawn stared down at her for a moment, and Rose smiled up at him.  She’d let one or two of the boys who had courted her when she was sixteen kiss her, and she’d found it pleasant enough. Would Dr. Shawn try to kiss her?

Shawn looked down into Rose’s upturned eyes.  She was obviously expecting a kiss goodnight.  He wondered if anyone had ever kissed her before, but decided it didn’t really matter.  It was obvious she was innocent in the ways that did matter and that’s all he really cared about.  He leaned down and kissed her softly, not trying to deepen the kiss, just a brush of his lips against hers.

She sighed softly and leaned into him, happy he was finally kissing her.  She couldn’t wait until they were married and they could spend all their days and nights doing nothing but kissing.  She would be in heaven.

After a moment, he lifted his lips and stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers.  “Good night, Rose.  Sleep well.”

As he walked away, he thought, “I’ll send her another bouquet of roses tomorrow.  She certainly seems to think they’re her due.” He laughed to himself at the silliness of naming daughters after flowers.  He wondered if all seven of her sisters would expect the flowers they were named after from the men who courted them.  He was glad she was named Rose.  He had no idea what a hyacinth even looked like!

*****

Lily was already in her nightgown when Rose entered their room.  Rose’s dreamy expression had Lily sighing inwardly.  Rose was going to want to talk into the wee hours of the morning about her perfect dentist.  Again.  It would be okay if she didn’t say the same things over and over.

“Aren’t you going to ask me how my evening was?” Rose asked.

Lily shook her head adamantly.  “I’m not.”

Rose sighed.  “Don’t you care that I’ve finally found the only man in the world that God made just for me?”

“Not particularly.”  Lily said a silent prayer that her sister would get the hint and not talk about Dr. Shawn forever.