The Storm (36 page)

She had planned to spend the night in Natchitoches, and she'd looked forward to doing a little sightseeing in the old Louisiana town. She and Patrick had been walking down Church Street when she spotted Clyde's truck parked in front of the courthouse. Thank goodness for that silly Confederate flag on the tailgate. Mother Russell must have discovered that they'd run away and sent him after them.

She didn't want Patrick to know what was going on, so she pretended everything was fine as he said, “Okay. I wish I could drive too, so I could help you out. I'll remind Miss Jacqueline to teach me.”

She'd never been so tired. She had to get some rest. She'd tried to memorize the directions from Logansport to New Orleans and hoped she'd jotted them down right, but she couldn't keep up this pace all the way to New Orleans. She couldn't stay in a hotel now, because that's the first place Clyde would look. A woman traveling alone with a child would be easy to locate.

It was almost dark and had been pouring rain all day. She could barely see the outline of the huge trees on both sides of the road. Then she spotted a big house sitting a ways off the road and remembered Esther Harris mentioning a friend of hers, Florence, who had married a Mr. Conway and settled in a big plantation south of Natchitoches. Maybe she could stop here and get directions to her house.

She knocked gently, not knowing what to expect. An older, white-haired woman opened the door, and when she explained who she was looking for, the woman said, “Well, my dear, you've reached the right place. I'm Florence Conway. Won't you come in out of this bad weather?”

After she and Patrick were settled and had eaten a huge meal of leftovers, she put Patrick to bed then sat with Florence in the parlor. It turned out that her husband had died the preceding year too, of a cerebral hemorrhage. “I've raised eight sons and a daughter,” she said, “and now my friend Caroline and I plan to restore this old run-down plantation and turn it into a refuge for artists in the area. From what you've told me about your love for music, you're my very first artist guest.”

The next morning over an early breakfast, Molly explained her situation, surprised at how understanding Florence was. But they were both educated women, so they spoke the same language.

“I have friends scattered from here to New Orleans,” Florence said with a smile, taking off her wire-rimmed glasses and rubbing her eyes. “We'll help you reach your friend Jacqueline.”

Molly drove away from the plantation humming, having made a new friend. The sun had even peeked out. To think that she could have made it this far by herself. Every day she got a little nearer to Jaq, and every day her heart beat like a bass drum, pulling and pushing her toward the woman she loved.

“You miss Molly, don't you, Nellie? I'm ready for her to get back too. My hands are cramping.” She stretched out her aching fingers and wiggled them.

“Who'd have figured she'd pull a stunt like this. Running away with Patrick! When Clyde catches her, he'll bring her home and we'll get back to normal. Sure hope she didn't poke around and see that deed. If she had a mind to, she could snatch this land right out from under us and leave us on the side of the road. Something must have set her off, though, to make her light out of here with nary a word.”

Nellie mooed, and she started milking again.

“My husband and I worked like slaves, day and night, to make this land ours. I've watered it with my sweat and the lives of my husband and most of my children.

“It's people like Molly that drug us into the War Between the States in the first place. Always building up the Greeks and Romans in their minds like they had a corner on things—a perfect society with all the frills. That's what the plantation owners and their fancy wives who had slaves at their beck and call did. All those lazy women thought everyone should play the piano and read all the classical books, sew fancywork, and dress in the latest Paris fashions. From the very beginning James must have thought Molly fit the bill as a planter's wife, and that's why he wouldn't take no for an answer. Wanted to live the way his pa did before we lost the War, with her the proof he could do exactly that.”

She finished milking and picked up the heavy buckets, then turned back to Nellie. “I don't aim to let any smart-aleck girl waltz in here and spend more time on the piano stool than this milking stool, then steal my property just because James was unlucky enough to die and I was foolish enough to sign a gol-dern deed giving most everything to him. She can keep Patrick and that automobile, but I want my land.

“I sure will miss Patrick though, and I won't be able to do what James asked me to.”

*

Jaq closed her worn leather suitcase. She was traveling light because she didn't want to have to worry about managing a lot of bags on the liner to Europe. Her stomach fluttered with excitement, as it always did before she set out on a new adventure, but the excitement came mainly from thinking about the first stop on her long trip. Hopefully Molly would still be in New Hope and would welcome her with a kiss and a promise to go with her. She could picture the surprise on Molly's face and her gleaming eyes as she stopped at the Russell farm. The thought of any other reception made her scalp tingle.

Of course it would be good to see her aunts and Miss Paul again. They'd almost won the fight for suffrage, so she'd probably sail for France this summer. But would she sail alone, or would Molly and Patrick stand beside her on board the ship and watch the Statue of Liberty fade into the distance?

They'd both talked about visiting Washington with her, and Molly had seemed to think that a trip to Europe would be a dream come true. If she couldn't have them along to share her adventures, would she enjoy this trip, or would she do nothing but long for Molly? Had being with Molly ruined her? She couldn't imagine laughing with anyone else the way she and Molly had, or simply sitting or working near one another as their long silences calmed them both and bound them even closer.

The doorbell rang and she stopped fastening one of the straps on her brown bag. Who could that be this time of the day?

“Please come in,” the maid said. “Mrs. Bergeron will receive you in the parlor.”

“Jacqueline, you have company,” Mother called. “You'd better come quick.”

She raced down the stairs and couldn't believe her eyes. Molly wore the same green dress as she had last Easter, the day Jaq had first seen her. Where had she sprung from, like a sapling in spring, fresh and willowy and oh, so lovable? Jaq wanted to rush to her, to take her in her arms and never let her go.

Patrick stood beside her, in his new long pants, beaming. “You better teach me how to drive pretty soon, Miss Jacqueline. Mama just about wore herself out getting us down here. It rained almost the whole way. We got stuck three times.”

She rushed to the door and, sure enough, the Overland sat in front of the house, spattered with mud. “What on earth, Molly—”

“I'll go away if you don't want me here, Jaq. I have some money—”

“Go away? I haven't thought of anything but being with you since I had to leave New Hope. Father was sick and you were unconscious and I gave Mrs. Russell the phone number here…She didn't give it to you? That's why you haven't called?”

“That's not all she didn't give me,” Molly said, and told her everything that had happened.

As they were talking, Jaq's mother took Patrick's hand and led him to the kitchen, and the doorbell rang again.

Clyde stumbled in. Sometime later, after Molly and Jaq informed him that Mrs. Russell had no claim on Patrick, but that Mrs. Russell could keep the farm and he could have the Overland, he left.

And they were blessedly alone at last.

Molly stood still for a minute, then sank onto the sofa. “Well, that certainly turned out a lot better than I thought it would. Did you mean what you said about not thinking about anything but being with me, Jaq?”

She sat beside Molly and took her hand. Slowly peeling off the white glove, she raised Molly's hand to her lips and savored its fragrance of rose water and Ivory soap. She couldn't focus on anything but how this hand and its mate would feel as they stroked her all over. “I don't think I'm capable of thinking of anything else.”

Molly removed her other glove and ran both of her hands through Jaq's hair, as if she were playing the piano, her long fingers drawing the music from the depths of Jaq's being where it had lain forgotten for most of her life. Then Molly lifted Jaq's bangs and ran a strong finger over her scar. “It's almost faded completely, Jaq,” she murmured. “No need to hide that beautiful forehead any longer.”

Waves seemed to crash through Jaq and wash her clean. The Storm, Sister Mary, Helen, the War, Henry—everything that had haunted her floated on the waves and disappeared into something much larger than she was. She looked at the front window, and the sun streamed through.

Taking both of Molly's hands in hers, she asked the question that had been on her lips for months. “Would you and Patrick like to go up East and on to Europe with me, Molly? And wherever else we want to go or be for the rest of our lives?”

Molly gazed at her for such a long moment, Jaq almost couldn't bear it. Would she say no?
Please say yes
. Time disappeared and only Molly's lips existed.
Say yes
.

“Well.” Molly's eyes glistened. “If you're sure you don't have any other women stashed away, vying for your attention.”

Jaq grinned. She supposed she had that coming. “I'm sure.”

“And if you're sure you won't think I'm a country bumpkin when we meet all those sophisticated women in Europe.”

This time Jaq beamed. She loved Molly's gentle teasing. “I'm positive.”

“In that case, we'd love to go with you.”

“And be with me forever?”

“I can't speak for Patrick, but I can't think of anywhere else I'd rather be forever. I love you, Jaq darling.”

The storm inside Jaq vanished as a calm she'd never before experienced engulfed her.

“And I love you too, Molly. With all my heart.”

The Storm
began as a family memoir, and a lot of the characters that appear in it are based on actual people. Molly and James Russell, inspired by my maternal grandparents, did live on a farm with my great-grandmother for many years, and prior to that my grandmother did attend the university and study music, which helped her cope with her mother-in-law. My grandfather had a third-grade education, loved
The
Iliad
, and built his mother a house.

Mrs. Russell, modeled after my great-grandmother, did travel from Georgia to Texas after the Civil War, and almost all her memories of her husband and her life as a single mother are historically accurate. In addition, my grandmother's father did save a woman during the Galveston Storm, and her grandmother did die young in West Texas. Patrick is patterned after one of my maternal uncles, Wendell, who had a hard life, so I decided to give him a brighter one in fiction.

Our collection of family letters dating back to 1864, several of which were written on the battlefield near Atlanta, Georgia, was invaluable. Oral history from my mother and her seven siblings, two of whom were college librarians, provided the majority of the stories included, such as my grandmother returning my grandfather's ring, her first attempt to learn to drive, the death of her older sister, and her always playing the piano at church and planning the special music services. My great-grandmother really did burn her new rolling pin. Reunion picnics such as the one described are still common in East Texas.

Three of my characters from the world outside East Texas appear by their real names: Anna Wessels Williams, Helen Fairchild, and Willie Piazza. Anna W. Williams did try desperately to find a cure for the influenza pandemic, but failed. As far as I know she had no relatives in Louisiana, but the rest of the information about her in the book is based on fact. A pioneering US medical researcher, she left a large collection of papers ranging from 1846 to 1954, currently housed in Radcliffe Institute's Schlesinger Library at Harvard. Helen Fairchild did serve as a nurse during World War I and lost her life in the process. She left a hundred pages of letters to document her experience in Europe, available online thanks to her niece, Mrs. Nelle Fairchild Rote. Finally, Willie Piazza, an octoroon madam in New Orleans, did reputedly go to Paris after World War I ended.

Two of my minor characters, Eric's friend Dick and Florence Conway, who helped Molly reach New Orleans, are based on the pilot Eddie Rickenbacker and Cammie Garrett Henry, best known as a patron of the arts during the Southern Renaissance of the 1920s. Her extensive collection of manuscripts, both fiction and nonfiction, regarding the history, culture, and literature of Louisiana, is housed at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana, in the Cammie G. Henry Research Center. Eddie Rickenbacker's autobiographical
Fighting the Flying Circus
provides an exciting glimpse into the experiences of the US's most famous WWI ace.

Jacqueline Bergeron McCade is entirely my own invention, though her stories about Radclyffe Hall, Ladye, and Toupie Lowther (reputedly the model for Stephen Gordon in Hall's
The Well of Loneliness
) are accurate. Jaq's alma mater in New Orleans is based on an actual school there, but Sister Mary Therese and Sister Celestine are products of my imagination.

Several poems posted on my website provide additional information about my family's history. If you would like to know more about the local or family history touched upon, feel free to contact me at [email protected].

Shelley Thrasher, world traveler and native East Texan, has edited novels for Bold Strokes Books since 2004. A PhD in English, she taught on the college level for many years before she retired early, and still teaches one fine-arts course online. She has published numerous poems and several short stories and essays, as well as one scholarly book. Shelley and her partner Connie, with their two dogs, cat, and parrot, live near Dallas in the piney woods of East Texas, where her first novel,
The Storm
, is set.