Surrender at Orchard Rest (23 page)

“It was very nice meeting you again,” she threw over her shoulder. “I’d like to stay and talk, but kitchen maids don’t have much leisure time.”

“You said you would let me call on you.” He said it as a definitive statement.

“So I did,” she replied as she descended the stairs, forcing him to follow after her.

“I’m going to visit Orchard Rest soon, Miss Forrest.”

“I’ll be glad to see you if I am home,” she answered and stepped out the front door before he could reply.

***

As she and Cleo washed dishes that night, Somerset fought to keep him out of her mind. There were many other things to occupy her thoughts. She meant to carry Joseph a newspaper that Thomas brought back from Tuscaloosa, and she laughed until her sides hurt over Victoria’s escapades with Myra in the washhouse. Myra had used an entire box of starch in the laundry, and now all their aprons had the consistency of plywood. Cleo grumbled in tired asides to Bess about Birdy’s continued usefulness around the plantation. Somerset found that her thoughts kept returning to Phillip. She thought it insensible that she could still smell his clove and pine odor on the right side of her face, and as she washed the gravy boat, she asked herself what she meant by falling out of love only to develop immediate interest in someone else.

She was fighting with the memory of the astounded look on his face as she detailed her short-lived nursing career when Myra ran into the kitchen looking excited.

“There’s a heap of things outside on the front porch for you, Somerset. The hired help from Riverside brought it up and unloaded it all just now. I’ve never seen the like of it. There’s a beautiful jewelry box and this wonderful carved chest that I’d give anything to own. All the girls in my circle would be wild to have any of it! Oh, and before I forget, this letter came with it. They said it was to be given only to you.”

Somerset, knowing exactly who the letter would be from, caressed the arrowhead in her pocket as she unfolded the thick paper.

I am happy to have had the pleasure of conversing with you once more. I do enjoy your company and hope that you will decide to stay at home to receive my call tomorrow evening.

I have sent your belongings by our servants. It is with sincere regret that I am unable to give you what you most desire, so enclosed is but a cheap reproduction.

Regards,

Phillip Royce Russell

Somerset held the second page up to the light with trembling hands.

In black ink was a perfect recreation of her silhouette with Eric. Every curve of her body, every line of Eric’s hair, and each flowing line of her dress were captured without flaw on the heavy stationery.

“Did you have that commissioned?” asked Myra as she stood admiring it over Somerset’s shoulder.

“No. Look, Bess. Do you think we might have a spare frame for it somewhere? I want to hang it in my room so I can see it first thing when I wake up in the morning. It’s thoughtful enough to make my heart ache.”

“I suppose we got a spare frame in the attic.”

“Whoever sent that means business,” opined Cleo.

“It’s about time someone did,” grumbled Bess as she wiped her hands off on her skirt and went down the hall in search of a frame.

“I want to go through your trunk,” begged Myra, grabbing Somerset’s hand. “Tell me all about this great love you had!”

Still cradling the image in her hands, Somerset followed Myra out onto the porch and regaled her with stories until long after dark about the couple in her new picture.

***

Somerset took elaborate care with her appearance that week and went so far as to borrow some of Myra’s dresses. Myra brought to Orchard Rest several dresses that Somerset imagined were only good for curtseying to the queen at court. She had teased Myra about them and asked what she planned to do with them there when she had such a profound fear of living outside the city.

“I’m prepared for anything,” said Myra who only that morning had been thrown out of the kitchen by Cleo for failing to properly lid her canning jars. “If someone wealthy and handsome wanted to see me here, I’d want to look grander than all the other girls, now wouldn’t I?”

“If you cain’t settle in Richmond, you ain’t gonna be settled here,” huffed Bess.

Myra pointed at Somerset.

“There’s someone worth dressing up for right here or she wouldn’t be asking to go through my trunk,” she said in triumph. “I want to know who it is! Oh, please. I won’t come running down the staircase to meet him when he knocks. I just want to see him, and everything I’ve said about knowing who all is worth your time holds true here, too. I can just meet someone and know. All I’d have to do is ask him a couple of questions about his family and I could tell you things that you didn’t even know you wanted to know about him. I’m connected to everyone!”

Somerset hid her amusement and asked to go through her trunk again, which Myra was proud to display.

“I wore this to a tea with Jefferson Davis’s wife. I spilled tea on it right there. Do you see the spot? Well, there’s a spot there. I know there is. This pink silk is nice, but I daresay it’s too tight in the bust for you. It’s bad luck, too. This was the dress I was wearing when Whitman ruined my reputation. I’m going to wad it up and hurl it from the window on the train ride home. Do you like it? Maybe I shouldn’t throw it away. Here, Somerset, this blue matches our color eyes exactly. It will be more striking on you with your brunette hair.”

She held up a royal blue dress with a fragile overskirt of silvery light material that Somerset thought might be woven out of fairy’s wings. Somerset grabbed it and begged Bess to lace her for it right away.

The dress fit like a second skin. She and Myra were built almost the same way. Myra was slightly taller and Somerset had a fuller bust, but their figures were comparable enough that Somerset planned to make frequent use of Myra’s wardrobe. When the dress was on and all forty carved white pearl rose buttons were fastened, she clapped and demanded Somerset keep the garment.

“I can’t take this!” protested Somerset. “It was kind of you to loan it to me but I’m not keeping it.”

“You must. If I wear it again, I’ll feel discontented the entire time because I know that someone is better looking than me in it. Take it and keep it or Birdy will just end up making quilting squares out of it.”

Somerset seldom had the urge to hug others, but with Myra she wanted to all the time. She grabbed her around the waist on impulse and gave her a tight squeeze. Bess chuckled.

“I can’t thank you enough. It’s the most becoming dress I’ve ever worn. I’ve always wanted something to match my eyes.”

“I’ll let you borrow my slippers tonight, too. You’ll look like a doll. You girls are so nice here that I should have visited a long time ago,” said Myra, nibbling on her candy. “I don’t think a single girlfriend has ever hugged me back home.”

“Somerset, Ivy is on her way up,” called Victoria as she passed by the bedroom door, carrying a sleeping Warren.

“What is she doing here this time of day?” wondered Somerset aloud as she sat down to do her hair.

“I came to bring some of Momma’s aspic for your mother,” said Ivy. “She’s missing her in the sewing circle and thought some might give her a better appetite. Cleo is putting it on a tray for her right now.”

Somerset saw the momentary confusion on her face as she looked at Myra’s face and compared her to Blanche. Myra sprang forward with the smile of a friend, extending her hand.

“You must be Ivy. I’m Myra Marshall. I’m a first cousin from Virginia. I’d know you anywhere because Somerset has talked so much about you. She said you have eyes like the sea during a rain and you do. We’re just playing dress-up. You might as well stay and eat some candy with me. We’ll get to know each other while my better-looking cousin does her hair.”

Ivy’s face pinked up under Myra’s greeting, and she accepted her hand as well as the proffered peppermint stick.

“What is the grand occasion?” she asked, taking a seat on Somerset’s threadbare ottoman and licking her sweet.

“She has a caller coming and won’t say who it is.” Myra’s mouth pouted.

“Does it have anything to do with that silhouette on your wall by your bed?” asked Ivy, springing up to take a look at it.

Bess made an impatient sound that indicated it was so. Somerset laughed.

“Don’t pay any attention to Bess, Ivy. She hasn’t approved of a single caller since Eric.”

“You hit perfection the first time. It’s all downhill from there,” grumbled Bess.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” admired Ivy. “It’s a replica of the one in the house, isn’t it?”

“It is. Now I’ll have with me always even if I can’t live there. My hair is wild. I don’t want to tuck it in a bun, though. Do you think a chignon would work?”

“I have a net with tiny silver bows somewhere in this trunk. It will be just the finishing touch,” agreed Myra.

“That was a very personal and
forward
gift,” remarked Ivy.

“I call it thoughtful,” disagreed Somerset.

“Do you think Phillip meant the man in the picture to be him or Eric?” queried Ivy.

“Eric, of course!” answered Somerset. She lowered her head so that Myra could slip the net on her hair.

She surveyed her reflection in the mirror, craning her head from side to side. The waves of her hair were already poking through the netting, just like her mother’s hair did. She smiled at herself and pronounced her endeavors successful.

“I want to meet this Phillip,” said Myra. “He sounds like he’s worth taking a second look at.”

“He’s worth looking at,” concurred Ivy.

Joseph knocked on the open door. His face was scrubbed, and he was wearing another shirt borrowed from Thomas.

“I couldn’t help but notice a bevy of good-looking ladies and wondered if they could be persuaded to go walking,” he said.

He asked them all, but the question was directed at Ivy.

“I’d love to go,” she said. “Myra, will you join us?”

“I think I will,” Myra replied, reaching for a shawl. “I don’t think Cleo will let me downstairs—it’s such close proximity to her kitchen. I’d best play gooseberry rather than encroach on her territory. I don’t suppose you’re coming with us, Somerset.”

Somerset was on the verge of staying in but decided against it. She didn’t want to be found lounging around the parlor waiting for Phillip if he did show. Her dress proved that she expected to see him. It would be better to go out with the group. Myra was always arrayed in expensive finery, whether receiving company or failing miserably at her chores. She would look less overdressed beside her cousin.

“I’ll come along. I hate to waste this pretty day indoors,” she said.

***

She and Myra lagged several feet behind Joseph and Ivy as they walked. Joseph zealously pointed out all the improvements to the farm he hoped to make. Ivy showed absolute absorption in each word, but Somerset was bored as she had to listen to the same speeches every night over their meal and make the according notes to their finances. She drowned out the dull roar of his monologue about mending fences and finally finishing the barn and focused on the interaction between him and Ivy.

Ivy glowed when she looked up at him, like the iridescent heart of a seashell illuminated by the sun. She made all the proper responses to his remarks and Joseph savored it. Somerset wondered if he began to regret his words about a woman agreeing with him all the time. Somerset rolled her eyes. She didn’t know a single man who was immune to flattery from a woman. There was mutual interest in their relationship, but Somerset saw the obvious lack of spark between them. Joseph was accustomed to other kinds of women, women with a certain contrariness to their personality and an underlying coarseness to their character. She wondered who Joseph was seeing on the side. If he wasn’t true to Fairlee, he wasn’t being true to Ivy, and she knew she could take that to the bank.

“They’re a new couple, aren’t they?” murmured Myra.

“Yes,” conceded Somerset.

“She loves him.”

“She always has. People say opposites attract, but I maintain it isn’t always for the best. How could you tell?”

“He wants to touch her but he isn’t comfortable doing it. Normally a man finds some excuse to touch a woman and get away with it. He might hand her a flower or steady her and say he thought she was about to stumble. It doesn’t really matter what excuse he comes up with. He hasn’t tried to the entire time. She really wants him to, though. She looks at him as though he thought up the idea of love and all it entails. I take it she’s a wallflower and he’s a rascal,” whispered Myra.

“Well, I don’t want to use those adjectives.”

“I thought they were. He was engaged?”

“Fairlee broke it off. She was the oil to his flame, his ideal mate. I witnessed the end of their spat. She wants some changes out of him that he is unwilling to make, although I’m in the dark about exactly what they are. They’re both prideful to a fault. She mailed back the engagement ring as an afterthought when she made it back to Tuscaloosa. I daresay she regrets it.”

“He told me he was a captive at Elmira. He might just be the most fascinating man I’ve ever met. He’s an imp of mischief one minute, a hard-working machine the next, and a temperamental brute all in the same hour. I could spend the rest of my life talking to that man and not get to what lies at his core. I see Ivy’s interest in him, but I pity her. It will never last. It’s true—I know these things.”

Somerset didn’t doubt Myra for an instant, but Myra’s mind was racing on to other courses of conversation.

“I haven’t been at Orchard Rest a week but I’ve ruined the wash and also some preserves,” she said and looked pleased. “It’s been great excitement, though, and it’s ever so nice to have a framework of what I should be doing even if I can’t put it into practice. Your help doesn’t care for Birdy making her own excellent mark, though. The one thing I can do well is sit with your mother. Her pneumonia drags on and on. It cheers me to be of use to someone, and I don’t mind to take my turn and yours too if it leaves you to do real work. I can lounge on the chaise by Auntie’s bed and make proper conversation. I’ve spent the majority of my life being served tea in someone or another’s parlor.”

“I hope you’ll stay with us always,” said Somerset.

“Oh, don’t say that!” said Myra. “I like all of this well enough, but a girl like me can’t be happy forever in this desolate place. Can you fancy me getting up at the crack of dawn to make bran mash for the chicks for the rest of my life? Or washing dishes with a smile on my face?”

“What’s that?” Ivy asked as she knelt in the dirt.

She scooped something into her palm and straightened up, offering it to Joseph.

“Would you look at that! That’s an old liberty cap half cent!” exclaimed Joseph with real interest. He took it out of Ivy’s open hand, and Myra nudged Somerset. “This kind hasn’t been minted since the last century. I wonder whose pocket it fell from as they marched across this country.”

“Whoever he is, I hope he made it home,” replied Ivy. “I think I’ll keep it as a good luck charm.”

“I have a good luck charm!” proclaimed Somerset and reached for the nonexistent pocket on Myra’s fine gown.

She carried Eric’s arrowhead everywhere. It comforted her to feel the steady rhythmic banging against her hip as she went about her day. All she had to do in a sore moment was reach into her pocket and run her thumb along the sharp flinty edge of it and she was grounded and hopeful once more.

“I forgot I can’t carry it in this dress,” she said sheepishly to the three pairs of expectant eyes facing her. “I’ll show it to you when we get home.”

“Bother!” said Myra.

“What is it?” asked Ivy.

“I forgot that I’m supposed to relieve Birdy and go sit with Auntie. No, don’t escort me back to the house. There’s no reason to ruin everyone’s good time just because I’m flighty as a June bug.”

“I’ll see you back at the house,” said Somerset. She didn’t relish being an extra wheel.

“I do like that girl,” remarked Ivy as soon as Myra was out of earshot.

“So do I, although not as well as the lady before me,” said Joseph.

Somerset fell back a few paces out of respect and because she didn’t want to hear their flirtations. Instead she focused on the smattering of pink clouds on the golden horizon and the way it looked like Bess’s strawberry preserves spread on a slice of toast. She enjoyed the heavy breeze that occasionally spattered her with a fat raindrop, although it could not be said that it was even sprinkling. For no reason she pondered how different the sunsets in the Dakota Territories might be and wiped the thought from her mind with the same vigor she might remove a smudge from her mirror.