The Stolen Marriage by Diane Chamberlain
“Thank you for telling me about Reverend Sam,” I said quietly.
She glanced quickly behind me as she set the tray on a couple of trivets and I knew “Reverend Sam” was a topic we had to keep between us.
“You seed him?” she asked, straightening up from the counter, her voice as soft as mine.
I nodded. “He talked to my mother.”
A broad smile creased her thin face. “How ’bout that,” she said, hands on her hips. Again, she glanced toward the doorway.
“It was amazing,” I said.
She opened the oven door again to pull out a second tray of cookies. “You best git on now,” she said, reaching into the oven. “Best git ready for them Homefront ladies.”
* * *
In the living room, I saw that a few rows of chairs had been set up for the meeting and Ruth was fidgeting with them, trying to make them arrow straight. I began to help, wanting something to do.
“I’m sure you’ll fit right in today,” Ruth said, and I thought she was expressing a hope rather than a belief.
“I’m looking forward to meeting everyone,” I said, nudging a chair into place.
“There.” She stood up straight and admired our handiwork. “Perfection,” she said with a smile. “Now”—she patted the lapels of the blue jacket she was wearing and looked across the chairs at me—“would you tell Hattie I want to serve tea this morning?” she asked. “I’m sure we’re very low on coffee from the rationing.”
“Of course,” I said, and headed down the hall toward the kitchen again. This time, though, I found the kitchen empty, the fragrant cookies now arranged on a platter. The window over the sink was open a few inches and I spotted Hattie standing at the clothesline near the back door, hanging laundry, Lucy and a young colored woman by her side. The three of them were laughing. I wasn’t sure I’d heard Lucy laugh in my nearly two weeks in Hickory, and I leaned close to the window to try to hear what they were talking about.
“It wasn’t funny!” Lucy was saying, though her smile suggested otherwise. “You and the boys were so mean.”
“You were just so much younger than us,” the young woman said as she handed a clothespin to Hattie from the fabric sack in her hands. She was tall and slender and wore a red wool jacket. Her skin was very dark, her teeth very white, and even from where I stood, I could see that her wide smile was dazzling. “You were just a good target,” she said.
Was this Zeke’s sister? I wondered. The one who’d grown up in the cottage where Hattie now lived? I tried unsuccessfully to remember her name. Henry had said she worked part-time at the factory. That was about all I remembered.
“But you were a girl, too.” Lucy bent over to lift a pillowcase from the wicker laundry basket and handed it to Hattie. “You should have stuck up for me.”
“Sorry, Luce.” The woman tapped Lucy on the nose with a clothespin. “I wanted to be one of the boys.”
“Them boys made you tough, Miss Lucy,” Hattie said as she pinned the pillowcase to the clothesline. “You ought to thank ’em.”
“You weren’t there, Hattie.” Lucy grinned with a good nature I hadn’t known she possessed. “You have no idea how I suffered.”
“Remember the day we put the mattresses at the top of the stairs and slid down to the pile of blankets?” the woman asked.
Lucy gave her arm a fake slap. “Y’all wouldn’t let me do it!” she said.
“You would’ve broken your scrawny little neck.”
“Nobody worried about my scrawny little neck the day y’all threw water balloons at me.”
“We didn’t throw them,” the woman said.
“Oh, you was so evil,” Hattie said to her as she lifted another pillowcase from the basket.
I heard Ruth moving around in the dining room and thought I’d better give Hattie her message. I reached for the doorknob.
“Miss Ruth was so mad,” the younger woman said, “and Mama gave Zeke a whippin’ but—”
She stopped talking when I opened the door, and all three of them turned their heads in my direction.
“Hello.” I smiled, walking onto the back steps. I crossed my arms against the chill air. “I have a message for Hattie from Miss Ruth,” I said. “She’d like tea for her group today.”
“Sure, Miss Tess,” Hattie said. She motioned toward the other woman. “This is my cousin Honor,” she said. “She took the bus out here to help me set up them chairs for the meetin’.”
“That was nice of you,” I said to Honor. “You and your brother and mother used to live in Hattie’s little cottage, right?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Honor said, sounding very formal, the joviality I’d heard in her voice moments ago completely gone. I felt guilty for putting an end to the lighthearted mood.
“What was that about water balloons?” I asked, striving for a friendly tone.
None of them spoke for a second and I stood there feeling intrusive. It took me a moment to realize I was staring at Honor. She was almost regal looking, the way she held her tall, slender frame. Her eyelashes were thick and unusually long like her brother’s and her eyes were startling, as green as jade.
“The boys and Honor put them water balloons atop the back door,” Hattie said, “so when Lucy, who was but four years old—”
“Five,” Lucy corrected her.
“When she give the door a little push,” Hattie said, “them balloons dropped down on her.”
“Oh.” I gave Lucy a sympathetic look. “It must have been hard to be the youngest.”
She shrugged, looking away from me. “It wasn’t bad,” she said.
“I’ll take care of that tea, Miss Tess,” Hattie said. “You git inside before you catch your death.”
“Will you be at the meeting today, Lucy?” I asked.
“Can’t,” she said, lifting her hand to study her pink fingernails. “I’m meeting some friends at the country club.”
“And I need to get back to my babies, Hattie,” Honor said, handing the sack of clothespins to her cousin.
“Nice meeting you, Honor,” I said, reaching for the door.
“You, too, ma’am,” she said.
I shut the door behind me and walked toward the kitchen window, listening, wondering if they were going to talk about me, but now the three of them spoke only in whispers. I felt ever so slightly betrayed by Hattie. Maybe, though, whatever she was saying was in my defense.
* * *
I expected the Ladies of the Homefront members to be around Ruth’s age, so I was shocked when I opened the front door to find Violet and several of her girlfriends standing on the landing. Violet looked equally surprised to see me. We simply stared at one another for a moment. I was first to recover.
“Please come in,” I said, stepping back with a smile. Although I’d seen Violet the two times I’d attended church, these were the first words I’d spoken to her. I felt bad for her and wanted to treat her kindly. “Miss Ruth and the others are in the living room.”
They walked past me without a word and I followed them into the living room. I doubted they realized how close I was behind them, because I heard Violet whisper to one of her friends, “I didn’t think she’d be here.” Her friend squeezed Violet’s shoulder in sympathy. “Just ignore her, dear,” she said. “Pretend she’s not even here.”
I wished I hadn’t agreed to come to the meeting, but it was too late now. I walked into the living room and sat down on the edge of one of the folding chairs that Hattie and Honor had set up. I sat there alone, my own false smile plastered on my face.
When all sixteen of the women were seated, Ruth took her place at the front of the room. Her navy blue skirt and jacket fit her slender body perfectly. Her white hair was freshly coiffed and she wore a pearl necklace as well as a small gold brooch that formed the initials LHF. Ladies of the Home Front. All of the women had one of those brooches, I noticed. All of them except me.
Ruth gave the women a welcoming smile as she stood in front of them, her ha
“As always,” she began, “it does my heart good to see young women at a Ladies of the Homefront meeting.” She smiled directly at Violet, who sat in the row in front of me and to my right. “Congratulations for recognizing the importance of maintaining our femininity in the face of the many modern forces trying to turn us into men,” she said. “We are the fortunate ones, of course. The ones who don’t have to put on trousers and do men’s work. But we all know that many other women are not so lucky. They’ve had to go to work in the factories and offices, taking over jobs our brave men cannot do right now. Through Ladies of the Home Front, we’re doing our part to prevent these girls from becoming hardened, chain-smoking women who’ve turned away from their Christian values and who will have forgotten their gentle natures by the time their poor husbands come home.” She prattled on and on about how we “Ladies of the Homefront” needed to help the hardened women hold on to their feminine values even as society seduced them to become more masculine.
I kept glancing at Violet. I couldn’t help myself. She seemed enraptured by every word from Ruth’s mouth. With that pale, silky hair and delicate features and ivory skin, she was simply one of the most stunning creatures I’d ever seen. Despite Henry’s denials to Ruth about caring for Violet, how could he not be captivated by her? I thought of how easily he had fallen into bed with me. Had he also slept with her, perhaps many times over the years? She’d probably been much smarter than me, finding a way to protect herself from getting pregnant.
One of Violet’s friends raised her hand and Ruth acknowledged her with a nod.
“I saw a girl I used to pal around with the other day,” the girl said. “She used to be so lovely, but she had to go to work in one of the hosiery mills and I barely recognized her. She was wearing dungarees on the street and smoking. Her fingernails were actually yellow. I talked to her for a while and she said she likes her job, that she has no intention of quitting when her husband comes home. Isn’t that worrisome? Sometimes I think this is a flood we can’t stop, Miss Ruth.”
“Well,” Ruth said, “I don’t pretend to think we can stop it in every case, but we can let women know we’re here for them and they’re not alone.”
Another woman, this one middle-aged with short salt-and-pepper hair, raised her hand. “My niece is a nurse,” she said, and my ears instantly pricked up. “Now, the truth of the matter is, we need nurses, don’t we? We need nurses and teachers and librarians and other female occupations. So I think our challenge is helping those women—the ones who do the jobs we desperately need—we need to help them resist the pressures that come along with being a working woman as well as a wife and mother.”
I didn’t hear the conversation that followed because I wasn’t really listening. I was caught up in the fact that this woman had a niece who was a nurse. Did she live nearby? I would love to meet her, someone who would probably be more like me than anyone I’d met so far.
Everyone gathered in the dining room after the meeting, pouring themselves cups of tea and nibbling cookies from china plates.
I approached the woman with the salt-and-pepper hair. “Excuse me,” I said to her. “I was curious about your niece. Is she an RN? A registered nurse?”
“Oh yes,” she said. “I believe she is.”
“I wonder if I could meet her,” I said. “I have my nursing degree, though I still need to take the licensing exam to become an RN. I’d enjoy getting to know—”
“Tess, dear.” Ruth was suddenly at my side, her perfume at war with the scent of tea and cookies. “Could you come into the kitchen with me for a moment, please?”
I smiled at the woman. “I’ll be back,” I said, and I followed Ruth down the hall.
I was still smiling when we walked into the kitchen, but as soon as Ruth turned to face me, I knew I had nothing to smile about.
“Tess,” she began, “you need to get the idea of being a nurse … of working at all … out of your head.” Her voice dripped with false kindness. “You’ll be too busy being a wonderful wife to your husband and a devoted mother to your children. In time, perhaps we can find a role for you on the board of the factory, if you want to be involved. That will be plenty for a good Christian woman. All right, dear?” She smiled, resting a hand on my arm.
“I liked nursing,” I said. “I think I’m good at it.”
“Listen to me, Tess.” Her voice was tighter now. “You don’t know this new social landscape you’re in and it’s up to me to help you negotiate it, so that’s what I’m trying my best to do. The last thing you want to do is let Mrs. Wilding out there think you’re anything like her niece Grace,” she said. “Grace is a very selfish, wild party girl who refuses to settle down and everyone in town knows it. She drinks, for heaven’s sake. So now they’re all in there talking about how Ruth Kraft’s daughter-in-law is a party girl. Surely that’s not what you want, is it?”
How ridiculous, I wanted to say. I felt as though she was waiting for me to agree with her. Maybe to apologize. But I wasn’t going to kowtow to this woman. “I don’t see the harm in meeting another nurse,” I said. “I’m just going to ask Mrs. Wilding how I can get in touch with her niece. That’s all.”
“Don’t you dare,” Ruth threatened, but I walked past her, through the hallway and into the dining room, only to discover that the meeting had disbanded in my absence and Mrs. Wilding was nowhere to be found. The only people who remained were a few of Ruth’s close friends and Violet and her entourage. As soon as they saw me, they headed for the front door. Already riled up from my conversation with Ruth, I followed after them. It was time to put an end to this chill between Violet and myself.
“Violet, wait,” I called. “Please.”
She had reached the open door, but she stopped as her friends continued out onto the front steps. She turned to face me. “Yes?” she asked.
I smiled at her and spoke quietly. “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry if my marrying Henry hurt you in any way,” I said. “We both have to live here, and we’ll be seeing each other all the time. I’d really like it if we could at least be friendly with one another.”
She tilted her head to one side. Her pale blond hair spilled to her shoulder and the blue of her eyes was translucent and arresting.
“You are in way over your head,” she said.
I’m sure I looked puzzled. I had no idea what she was talking about. Did she mean I was a girl from modest means trying to fit into a wealthy family? In that case, she was right. “I don’t understand,” I said.
“Henry told me everything.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Just what I said.” She put one hand on her hip. “He told me how you seduced him. How you trapped him into marrying you.”
I was too dumbfounded to speak. I was sure I was gawking at her, my mouth agape.
“I guess my mistake was not letting him have his way with me,” she said, tipping her head to the other side now. “I thought he’d like a girl who valued herself enough to save herself for marriage,” she added. “Apparently I was wrong.”
She flounced her skirt as she turned to walk down the steps, and she didn’t look back. Her friends surrounded her as they sailed down the brick walkway toward the road. If she had turned around, she would have seen me standing immobilized on the top step, stunned, humiliated … and very, very angry with my husband.
25
Henry actually laughed that night when I told him what Violet had said. “She’s angry,” he said. “She’s trying to hurt you. Ignore her.”
“Did you really talk to her about us?” We were in our bedroom and I was sitting on the pineapple bed in my robe.
“Briefly.” He stood at the dresser lighting his pipe, enjoying his last smoke of the evening. “But I never put the onus on you,” he added. “What happened was a mutual decision. A mutual mistake. And that’s what I told her.”
“It really isn’t any of her business,” I said.
&nbs
“I can’t help but feel that I derailed your well-planned-out life, but really, Henry, it’s a noble thing you’re doing. Giving our child a name.”
“Nonsense,” he said, getting into bed. “I don’t deserve any medals.” He sounded annoyed and I knew he wanted to be finished with this conversation. I wasn’t quite done, though. In spite of Violet’s attitude toward me, I felt sympathy for her. She’d wasted years on a man who didn’t love her and suddenly lost him to a stranger. No wonder she seemed to detest me.
“I wish you hadn’t told her I was pregnant.”
“Folks are going to know soon enough, Tess,” he said, lifting his book from the night table. “And on another subject, you should never have walked out on Mama when she was talking to you.”
Ruth was furious with me. She was so angry, in fact, that she hadn’t spoken to me since the meeting that morning. I saw that as a bit of a blessing.
“She told you, I guess,” I said.
“Yes, she told me,” Henry said. “I know she can be a challenge, but you’ve got to endure it until we move out. Speaking of which, let’s go see how the house is coming along tomorrow morning before I go to the factory, all right?”
I nodded. I’d been to the property only once since arriving in Hickory. All there had been to see at that time was the foundation, and it had been impossible to envision the finished house. I’d been disappointed, knowing it would be a long, long time before we were able to have a place of our own.