Woman's Own by Robyn Carr
“You,” she gritted out. “You lied to me! You tricked me!”
“Actually, no,” he said patiently. “I never pretended to want anything from you but what I just got. You made yourself believe I wanted marriage--I never said so. I only said, ‘What if?’ and ‘Perhaps.’ But you, Patricia, you lied to me. Over and over. Do you honestly think a man doesn’t know if a woman really wants him?” He laughed humorlessly. “You could hardly take your eyes off my diamond pin long enough to watch the play.”
“How can you--”
He released her abruptly. “I’m serious, darling. That driver won’t stay all night. If you are stranded here, I might develop an appetite for you after a bit.”
She moved limply toward the door.
“Be careful whom you tell about this,” he said.
“But you forced me,” she said in a breath, her voice small.
“Not exactly. You came here with me. A nice girl wouldn’t. You led me to believe you desired me--I asked you over and over. You didn’t resist until it was far too late. You were playing for a trade, Patricia. Your virginity for a life in this house, spending my money.”
Tears ran down her cheeks, but she couldn’t be in the same room with him another minute. She opened the door, tripped twice going down the stairs, and was momentarily relieved to see the coach waited. The driver jumped to attention, holding the door open. She had not been in the Montaine mansion for even an hour.
The driver hurtled her within, slammed the door, and clicked at his horses. She was underway instantly, still hardly knowing how this had happened. It was as though the coach had dropped them, she had been dragged up the stairs, been ripped open, and disposed of in moments. Tears continued to flow down her cheeks, but she made no sound. It was as if some scratchy, brutal instrument had been left inside her. Her insides ached and burned painfully, hurting more from every rut and bump the coach hit.
Her mind returned to the cold, dark place to which she had retreated in the past when she had to endure the slobbering kisses of some young man. There hadn’t been very many. Dale was the most demanding. She couldn’t think about what was happening during the pawing and petting, and she couldn’t think about it now. It was as though she wasn’t really here; this was only a nightmare and she would wake up. At some point in her journey she leaned over and vomited her dinner. She retched and choked and then pulled her cherished gown away from the mess. Her fingers trembled and her throat ached, but the tears remained soundless. The coach made a careening turn and then stopped. The door was yanked open, and she was snatched out. She stood looking at her house, the open door, the parlor light flooding onto the porch. She saw her mother come suddenly into view as though she had run to the door at the sound of the coach. And then the conveyance behind her lurched away.
Emily rushed out the door and toward her. She lifted her skirt to get down the porch steps and called Patricia’s name, over and over again, but Patricia’s ears were not working very well. It was as if they were stuffed with cotton. And her mother’s face blurred before her, as though she were looking through a veil. She felt Emily’s hands on her shoulders, but she couldn’t move.
“Mama,” she whispered. “Mama…I never even saw the largest dining table ever built. I never even saw it.”
Chapter Eight
“I know who it was, Mama,” Lilly said. “It was Dale Montaine.”
Emily blinked her eyes hard; tears squeezed through, but she willed herself to be strong. The very man she had warned her daughter to avoid, and for this very reason. She refused to give in to useless tears now.
The Swiss clock chimed the twelve bells of midnight, the kitchen door was closed, and the fire in the stove heated the room. The teakettle steamed, and Lilly lifted it, filling the teapot a second time. There was nothing for the boarders to do but go on to their beds and let the Armstrong women deal with their trouble alone. Little examination or explanation was necessary; the virgin stains and the tear-marked face told Emily more than she could bear to know.
Lilly and Emily heated the water and filled the tub. They brewed tea and helped Patricia wash herself. Lilly twice lathered and rinsed her hair, and Emily examined her daughter’s beautiful young body for further damage. Patricia soaked while Lilly, positioning a stool behind the tub, tried to pull the brush through her sister’s damp hair. The tears had stopped. So had the look of proud defiance disappeared.
“Patricia,” Emily said as gently as possible, “was it him?”
She nodded, lifting her eyes to look at her mother. “He said he wanted to marry me,” she whispered. “But…but I didn’t know he would…I couldn’t stop him, Mama. And then he…he told me to go home.”
“Where did this happen, Patricia? In the coach?”
“His house. He wanted me to see his house, and he showed me a room, a room he said was made up for his wife. He asked me if I thought the colors were right…as if it was to be my room. And then he…he…” She didn’t cry anymore, but just looked down into the murky bathwater.
Emily felt as though she had been kicked. His house! My house!
“Was his family at home?” Emily asked, the words nearly curling her lip. That household, those people! She had always thought them horrible creatures, but she had never imagined Wilson Montaine so ghastly as to allow a young girl to be raped under his own roof.
“There was no one at home…at least I saw no one. He said terrible things to me. He told me I had dined with whores, that I should be a parlor girl!”
Emily’s face grew crimson with rage. Her hands shook as she lifted the sponge from the bath water to scrub her daughter’s arms and shoulders.
“It hurts, Mama. Down there.”
“Yes, Patricia. That will pass.”
“Why do women marry if it hurts so?”
“Patricia, it is not meant to be like that. It is not meant to be forced.”
“I’m ruined!”
“No, Patricia, not ruined. Bruised and hurt. Women survive even worse, though I don’t know how we do.”
“Mama, what will we do now?” Lilly asked.
“Now?” Emily repeated. “We’ll dry off our girl and go to bed. Sleep in my room tonight, both of you. We’ll have to rely on each other to get past this.”
“But can nothing be done?” Lilly asked.
“What would you suggest?” she angrily questioned. “It cannot be undone. I know of no man ever made to pay. I know of no woman to escape the accusation with her dignity. And you can be sure that Mister Montaine is unconcerned!” She took a breath to calm herself. “We’ll go to bed and do whatever we can to put this behind us. Pray that there is no pregnancy.”
Patricia lifted her stricken gaze to her mother’s face. She had not even considered that. Her mouth moved over the word Mama.
Emily met those terrified eyes with calm. Inside she felt a gut-wrenching hysteria, but she knew she was helpless against this monstrosity, and her only recourse was to behave as though she felt strong. For tonight her concern was that Patricia recover from the fear, the disgust, and the shock of it all. Later she would consider a confrontation with the Montaines, but only if she could think of a way that would not sacrifice Patricia in the process.
Both Patricia and Lilly looked to her for a solution, but in reality there was none. Emily wanted to slap her daughter for her foolishness, for her refusal to listen, to be helped. Yet she wanted to embrace her, cuddle her close, for every eighteen-year-old woman thinks she has more power than her mother’s advice, more wisdom than the women who have been scarred before her.
At least, Emily thought, Lilly will be spared because she has seen first-hand what her sister was always too silly to believe.
“It is too soon to worry about a baby, Patricia. And even that can be survived.”
“Mama, I would die!”
“I wish I had the strength to kill him,” Lilly muttered.
“Vengeance will only make the price we pay for this higher still. Do you think we’re th
“Mama,” Lilly said pleadingly, “don’t you want to do anything.”
“Yes, Lilly! I want to do terrible things to make him pay! But tonight all I can do is what I’ve always tried to do--take care of my daughters.”
Deep in the night Emily was awakened by urgent knocking on her door. Annie’s time had come. Six weeks more should pass before her labor. All Emily’s skill in midwifing, learned so long ago from Old Mary, was not enough. Lilly was called on to help, John was sent for the doctor, and Emily sat beside Annie through the early morning hours.
At dawn the child was delivered and pronounced stillborn. A son. And the doctor, who was paid from Emily’s penny jar, told Jamie Macintosh that his twenty-two-year-old wife should not attempt childbearing again, unless he wished to bury her as well.
The morning was lost in the chores of death. Lilly sat with Annie; Sophia and Emily cleaned the dead infant and dressed it in swaddling; John accompanied Jamie to the carpenter to have a tiny coffin made. The preacher was called to give solace to the household. Patricia did not rise from her mother’s bed, but no one noticed until late in the morning that Mrs. Fairchild had not been heard from.
Sophia and Emily stood on opposite sides of the kitchen worktable, the tiny body lying in the center, when Emily looked up, suddenly aware of the missing boarder, and breathed her name in panic. The two women ran up the stairs and burst into the old woman’s room.
They found her barely conscious, rasping and drooling. There was a blank look in the old dowager’s eyes and she couldn’t move herself. The doctor was called again, and Lilly was sent to fetch Walter Fairchild from his shoe-repair business.
“She has suffered a stroke,” the doctor whispered in the foyer of the boardinghouse. “There is little we can do but make her comfortable. She is seventy-eight years old, Mrs. Armstrong.”
“Can she be moved to her son’s house?” Emily asked.
“I can’t take her home,” Walter Fairchild exclaimed before the doctor could even answer. “My wife couldn’t--”
Wouldn’t! Emily thought in anger. Even as she dies, they can’t tolerate her presence!
All in a day. Her daughter defiled. Annie’s child lost. And Mrs. Fairchild, troublesome and cantankerous, yet still beloved to Emily, lay dying. Slowly and terribly. The old eyes that stared up at her, not recognizing her, were filled with pitiable confusion. There were tears caught in the rivers made by old skin, and Emily was not sure whether or not there was pain.
Every hand was called upon for help, except the hand most willing: Noel’s. Emily nursed Mrs. Fairchild night and day. Sophia and Lilly and even Patricia were needed to do all the cooking and cleaning that accompanied a funeral, an infirmary, and daily living. John Giddings was the only help for the bereaved Macintosh couple, the one to arrange for their priest, the funeral procession, and a decent plot so that the child need not rest in pauper’s ground. The only sleep Emily had was the little dozing as she sat through the night by her dying boarder’s bed. Dark circles hung under her eyes and she ate little.
“Tell me how to help her,” Noel whispered to Sophia.
“Ain’t no help fer all this, Mistah Padgett,” she said, shaking her head sadly. “You help enough by being as quiet and kind as you is. You jes’ go ‘bout your business and if I thinks of something you can do, I sure will say so.”
Emily sometimes thought of those nights on the porch swing as she tended her patient. It seemed as though it all had happened many years before. When she was near exhaustion, the faces of Noel and Ned blurred together in her mind. Had there been passion and intrigue? She must have been mistaken. Never again would she allow herself to be so distracted.
John Giddings dug into his own purse to bring food to the Armstrong household. Sophia noticed his generosity, but no one else knew. Emily was not completely without money, since Walter Fairchild guiltily paid more than the usual board for his mother. But John knew that there might be money problems ahead, for the Macintosh couple had decided to leave as soon as Annie was strong enough to travel. They could not tolerate the tiny room where three children had been lost; they needed their families, and their money was gone. All that they had saved for their own tenement was still not enough to bury their child. Jamie had purchased the coffin and paid the priest. John bought the burial plot so that they wouldn’t have to see their child taken away by the Sanitary Commission.
He noticed that Patricia was getting around the house more, doing more chores, but he knew she was a long way from recovering. No one had been told the circumstances, but John thought he knew them. He didn’t have the vaguest notion who had done this thing to her, but he didn’t care. He had known for a long time that the men who pestered her would only hurt her.
The household was in turmoil; there was no time to take a stroll or find Patricia sitting alone in the parlor. He did the only thing he knew how to do. Although he was afraid she might rebuff him, he could not delay another day. He wrote her a letter and passed it to her late one night before he took his evening walk with Sophia.
Dear Patricia,
Forgive my presumption. I find my pen easier than my voice. I do not always suffer from shyness, only when confronting someone I so admire. In all these years in your household, watching you grow into a beautiful and graceful woman, I have wanted to compliment you, but I could never find the courage. And I have wanted to warn you; your beauty should be your greatest gift, your greatest attribute, but it will create envy in others, and vengeance and cruelty. Few will know how to admire you in ways that you deserve.
Now, I must somehow find the words for you. I know you’ve been wronged. I do not have the physical strength to avenge you, but you need not be alone in this troubled time. Your grace and charm have given me years of joy. Whatever pains have been placed on you, I am still your willing admirer, your servant, and in any way I can, I would help you overcome your trials. Just to be allowed to sing your praises would fill me with joy. Just to see you happy once again would be my greatest reward.
Humbly,
John
When his shaking hand passed that letter, he did not know that Patricia kept a journal and shared a rare trait with John. Her words and feelings also came more easily by pen. The next day she passed him a letter, but she did not meet his eyes.
Dear John,
I had always thought that I wanted so little from life. I only want to be happy. I trusted all the wrong people, and I never will again! Your letter gave me solace. How could you know that I cannot meet your eyes or speak of the horrors I have suffered? Some sense deep inside you prompted you to know the way to soothe my injury with your pen, and I am so grateful. No one has understood as you seem to. I need a friend who truly admires me and does not wish to hurt me. Write to me again. I will write to you. In secret. You might be the only friend I will ever have who does not ask more of me than I have to give.
P.
John’s heart nearly exploded with relief and turmoil as he sat down at his desk to pen another letter, longer and more flattering. He knew better than to speak of love, for Patricia had been hurt by a man and would be a long time in trusting another. But he believed time would heal her wounded soul and he would be there, close at hand, to offer himself as the only man who could love her properly, worship her as she deserved to be worshipped.
Notes became letters; letters became long cathartic essays of hopes and dreams. John admitted his writing ambitions, told her that a novel, partially written, had been inspired by her beauty. Patricia lamented her future and all that she had dreamed she would one day possess. She never did tell all that had happened to her, but John encouraged her toward her desires. He believed he was leading her calmly toward choosing him.
One night, near midnight, a strange and acrid odor filled the house. He pulled on his pants and went in search of a dangerous fire. Emily left Mrs. Fairchild and was ahea
Emily embraced her daughter. “Patricia, why are you doing this? It has never been said that marriage is no longer possible!”
She looked between her mother and John. “I’m starting over, Mama,” she said stoically. “All that is from before.”
John felt a hope that left him feverish with desire.
On the tenth day of August Emily reported to the household that God had mercifully taken Mrs. Fairchild. Another trip was made to the carpenter. Mrs. Fairchild was taken by an undertaker’s cart to the cemetery to lie beside her husband. Food was prepared for Walter Fairchild’s family and the neighborhood and congregation. Emily thought it only right that those who loved her even when she was at her worst provide her final passage. She did not trouble Walter Fairchild much with his mother’s burial, nor did she present him with a bill for her nursing care. She accepted his envelope containing money and put it in her armoire without counting it. She bid him a tight-lipped farewell, almost unable to look at the young man who took all that his parents had to offer, yet turned his back during the final days.
The Macintosh couple remained long enough to bid farewell to Mrs. Fairchild, then packed their meager possessions. Annie wept on the morning of their departure. She promised to visit, but Emily doubted that she would find the strength to return to the place where her fondest dream had died.
“Life is harder for women, Annie,” she whispered. “Try to remember that there were glad times here as well.”
Glad times! When her devoted husband made love to her, a thing that she would risk her life to enjoy again. Emily had no doubt Annie would remember the glad times, the love, hope, and joy of sharing that tiny room with her handsome young man. And no doubt she would weep from memories, or die trying vainly to bring them to life.