Sweeter than Birdsong (35 page)

“I have obeyed your wishes, until yesterday, when I inadvertently happened to meet him.”

Anger began to tighten her mother’s mouth and cheeks.

“I wish to behave with respect and honesty,” Kate hurried on, “which is why I am telling you of this meeting.” Was there a slight relaxation in her mother’s expression? Kate seized the moment. “However, I also have found that I disagree with your choices for my life, and I feel they are based on false assumptions.”

Now her mother’s hands clenched on her skirt. An explosion was imminent.

Kate hurried on. “I have agreed to marry him, but we will not marry without your permission. We hope and pray you will reconsider your opposition and give us your blessing.” Her voice trailed away at the end, despite her best effort to keep it steady.

Her mother remained still for a long moment. “Give you my blessing!” she scoffed, her face hard with disdain. She burst into mocking laughter. “You ask for my blessing on your disobedient action? I have forbidden you to see him and you think now I will agree to a marriage?”

Her mother stood up and began to pace back and forth across the carpet, her face trained implacably on Kate no matter how her body moved. “You think you have your reasons and your foolish arguments for getting your way. I assure you that you know
nothing
. You are a silly girl who has fallen for a—a— handsome face and a—a song!—and you will throw away your future on him.”

Kate had never seen her mother so enraged. She was grateful for the arms of the chair; she grasped them to hold herself up under the blast.

“Do you think that you are the first to face such a decision?” Her mother’s voice rose. “Do you think that my rules are idle whims, based on ignorance? No! I faced the same decision when I was your age. I made the same foolish choice, and I threw away my life for the brief thrill of what I thought was love.”

Her mother’s eyes glistened.

“You think this sentimental feeling you have will last forever, that he will always treat you like a precious angel and protect you. Well, he won’t! He will forget you, and neglect you. He will not care for your wishes. He may even be a drunk, like your father—so many of them are.” Her mother’s voice cracked. “You will not have your money to protect you, as I did. Your father has seen to that, with his failure to bring a steady income. There will be nothing left for you.”

“Mother, I am sorry for what you have suffered. But I do not think our situations are the same. I believe that I—”

“What do you think I believed?” her mother shouted. “No girl knows what marriage is really like! You don’t know how men change when the bloom is off the rose. Why do you think you have never met my mother or my father? Because they tried to warn me. They did everything they could to stop me from marrying this newcomer with a—a
charming
smile,” she said with heavy sarcasm. “They told me they would no longer have any contact with me if I went against their wishes. They pleaded with me to marry in our society, where I would be safe. We were related to the Willings and the Binghams—we had all of Philadelphia’s comforts. But no, I thought I knew better! I thought they just didn’t know the wonderful man I had found!” She paced the room, waving her arms in stiff, jerky motions. “So I eloped with your father, and lost everything. Everything but the money my grandfather had already placed in trust for me,” she said. “And that is all I have had to console me for my stupidity, all these years.”

“You are trying to protect me,” Kate said. “I honor that, Mother.” She stood up. Sitting was inadequate for what she had to say. “But Ben is not Father. I have known him for some time. I know that his family is solid, that they are good people. And I know he is a man of faith. If he were ever tempted to neglect me, he would never turn from vows he had made to God.” Her heart filled as she thought of Ben’s goodness. Her mother was incapable of seeing it.

“Your father acted like a good churchgoing man too,” her mother said with renewed anger. “Until we left Philadelphia. Any man can put on that mask when he wants to, talking about God and doing what is right. Talking is all it ever is. When push comes to shove, Ben Hanby will do exactly what he wants, and claim you drove him to it.”

“No, he won’t. He’s a humble and generous man. He is”— she searched for the word—“godly.” It sounded strange coming out of her mouth.

“At what point did you become a religious zealot? You are an idiot!”

Kate took a quick breath. “I won’t change my mind. If I can’t marry Ben, I won’t marry at all.”

Her mother regained her self-control one facial muscle at a time. She reverted to her usual cold tone. “If you do not marry, we cannot support you. You will be in abject misery. The romantic feeling you have now will fade, and in its place, what will clothe you or feed you? Only loneliness and endless menial work.”

Kate walked past her to the doorway. She turned around to see her mother following close on her heels.

“Apparently there is only one way to ensure that you do not see Ben Hanby while I am gone to Philadelphia. I must take you with me on that journey.”

“What? What of Leah? She can’t stay here alone.”

Her mother hesitated, blinking. Then, “I will send her to the Boglers to stay.”

“But I will not be back in time for the beginning of the term. President Lawrence said I had to recite in public then or be dismissed.” Not that she wished to recite, even after her practice, but it was the only argument that might sway her mother.

“I am certain your professors will agree to hear your speech as soon as you return. We are faced with an imminent death in the family, after all. Get to your room and pack a valise,” her mother said. “And stay out of my sight until it’s time to depart.” She slammed the bedroom door in Kate’s face.

Kate stared at the door. God did not appear to be making a way.

Thirty-Seven

K
ATE HAD NEVER BEEN SO TIRED IN HER LIFE. THE
high-backed wooden bench seats of the Main Line had some padding at least, but the constant rattling of the wheels on the tracks wore on her nerves. Though the train had stopped last night to allow the passengers to sleep at a Harrisburg hotel, they had suffered from the rough vibration for ten hours a day, two days in a row. And that was only since Pittsburgh. Before that, the journey from Columbus to Pittsburgh had kept them on more primitive trains for another two days. She was sure her mother was as exhausted as she, but they had barely spoken in the entire journey. Kate kept her nose buried in the Bible Reverend Meade had given her last year. Her mind, however, drifted away with the rhythm of the wheels on the track.

Was he thinking of her? What was he doing at this moment? She closed her eyes and lost herself in the remembered touch of his hand, his words of love.

Her traveling dress stuck to her skin in the humid afternoon air. The dress might be malodorous in more polite company, but one could not even tell given the offensive smells arising from some of their fellow passengers.

Escaping steam from the mighty engine hissed, the whistle blew, and the train lumbered to a stop. Through the windows, she could see that one car away, the blue-capped conductor had opened the door and stepped to the ground.

“Philadelphia, Market and Thirtieth Street!” he yelled.

Her mother picked up her handbag and stood. She did not wait for the porter to hand their small valise down, but tugged it from under the seat and dragged it to the door. Such unladylike haste was not typical of her, but her face was as guarded as ever and showed nothing of what might be animating her sudden burst of motion. Her hair looked as if a maid had dressed it that morning, perfectly twisted and smooth. Kate’s chignon was not as cooperative, from what she had seen in the cloudy metallic surface that served as a looking glass in the washroom.

Her mother had stepped off the train without assistance— she must follow. Grabbing the brass handle on the side of the door frame, Kate lowered herself down the eighteen-inch drop to the stone floor of the platform. One must be careful. It would not do to break an ankle so far from Westerville simply because they refused to wait for the porter. Farther down the platform the station hands unloaded trunks and boxes from the baggage car. Theirs would be among them.

The station was a one-story brick building, surprisingly small for an American metropolis. Once a porter found their trunks and loaded them on a wheeled cart, Kate followed her mother through the archway.

“This is Market Street,” her mother said. “I am not familiar with this part of the city. There was no railway when I left twenty years ago.”

Kate scanned the buildings. They were wooden structures, stores marked with wooden signs advertising tobacco, dry goods, and, of course, liquor.

“Come along, Kate.” Her mother led the way to where hackney buggies waited alongside the station building. The porter followed with the cart.

“Need a cab, missus?” a young man on the driver’s seat of one buggy asked.

“Yes,” her mother said. “To Walnut, between Fourth and Fifth.”

They agreed on a fare, and he jumped down to stow their luggage in back. Her mother tipped the porter, and the cabdriver helped them up to their seats. He hopped back up to his own place, clucked to the ragamuffin brown horse, and they were off down Market at a trot.

As the buggy passed Twentieth Street, two-story stone buildings appeared alongside the wooden stores, and the signs of commerce thickened. The street was full of buggies, carriages, and even a couple of covered wagons on their way through town. Their driver whisked nimbly around the slower vehicles.

“This was nothing but open acreage when last I saw it.” Her mother’s voice bore a note of wonder.

Pedestrians walked past the storefronts, men in top hats and derbies, working men in caps. Kate spotted a few working women in worn dresses, but no ladies yet.

The hack turned right on Twelfth Street.

“Look there.” Her mother pointed down a side street. “Girard Row. I went there often with my mother.”

The street boasted splendid facades—white stone, high steps, and columns on the ground floor with three stories of brick above. Dark shutters flanked the windows and set off the white of the lintels. Rows of trees conveyed order and beauty: black cherry, maple, crabapple. Two ladies moved sedately down the walk in their bright silk gowns and graceful hats festooned with feathers.

“What took you there?”

“Tea with friends. The Binghams.” Her mother’s mouth was tight, as if she held in something more private. Her eyes were misty. It was odd to see her like this, a shifting and reordering of all Kate knew. Her mother had never been at home in Westerville, but here she fit.

The driver guided them around the corner, passing a sign marking Chestnut Street. Kate drew in her breath at the sight. Four-and five-story buildings, squeezed wall to wall without interruption. Luxury businesses proliferated: engravers and stationers, entire establishments devoted to fine gloves and hosiery.

“There’s the College Hall,” her mother said, gazing at a two-story building with classical lines. “And the Fine Arts Academy. I remember the garden as larger, but perhaps I was smaller then.” Her face was open, vulnerable in a way Kate had never seen. “The Chestnut Street Theater is still the same, I see.” The building she pointed out was all arches, columns, and placards announcing the latest dramatic offerings. After it came a vast lawn, gorgeous spire, and the white-trimmed windows of what had to be the Statehouse. Kate kept silent—she did not know what to say to this mother she barely knew.

The driver turned a corner onto a road marked Fifth Street. Her mother’s face grew white and tense. What must she be feeling, as she waited to see her sister and her mother for the first time in twenty years? Even Kate was nervous. For her mother, it must be a kind of agony.

The brick house where the driver pulled up boasted lintels even more ornate than those of Girard Row, though the front steps were low and dark. The driver helped them down and deposited their trunks on the curb. Kate’s mother dug in her stocking purse for his fare and he drove off, the horse’s hooves thudding softly on the road.

“Come along, Kate.” Her mother marched up to the oak front door, maintaining her perfect posture as she rang the doorbell. Kate stood behind her.

Locks slid and clunked and a middle-aged manservant opened the door, his face blank and neutral. “Madam?”

Her mother cleared her throat, a small nervous sound. “I’m Ruth Morris Winter, a daughter of the house.”

“Good afternoon.” He stood aside and opened the door. “Mrs. Cadwalader is in the parlor, to your left.”

Mrs. Cadwalader. It had to be Aunt Mary, her mother’s sister, who had married into a prominent family and was now widowed. Her mother had drilled Kate in family names and relations on the train.

Following her mother’s lead, Kate gathered her skirts and stepped over the threshold into the foyer. The floor was a deep black-brown, with the look of wood polished not only by the labor of servants but by the passage of feet over decades.

The manservant went out to get their bags. Head held high, her mother turned and walked into the parlor.

The woman standing there looked very much like her mother, as they faced one another, but with heavier lines around the eyes and mouth. She was still refined and slim in her pewter silk gown, but her once midnight-black hair had gray threads too.

“Ruth,” Kate’s aunt said, “I’m so glad you’re here.” The simple statement held a world of regret. Her aunt crossed the room with the same perfect carriage as Kate’s mother, her hand outstretched. The sisters took each other’s hands, her mother a bit awkward.

“And this is your beautiful daughter?” Aunt Mary took Kate’s hand as well, then released it to gesture to the low mahogany table topped with a tea service. “Would you like tea? Are you hungry?”

“Tea, if you please,” her mother replied. She seated herself on a green brocade chair in the style of the previous century. Kate sat on another of the chairs. The parlor was bright and warm, covered in layers of beautiful red and blue rugs. The marble of the fireplace was snowy white, carved into columns that had been popular when the house was built forty years ago. The lamps were tasseled, the glass-fronted cabinets filled with books and curios from foreign lands.