The Courtship

“Used to be Rafe Mercer’s feed storage room. Looks kinda worse for wear, don’t it?”

Jane’s mouth was as dry as field cotton. “It looks like the darky quarters back home in Marion County. Only not as clean.”

“Miz Jane, I jes’ gotta say this. This ain’t no kinda place for a lady. Why don’t you take your momma and go back where you come from?”

She bit down hard on her lower lip. “I cannot, Mr. Springer. My mother is…unwell at the moment, and…”

And she had no money for train fare, other than what Mr. Wilder had lent her. Besides, even if her mother could travel, she couldn’t leave Dixon Falls with Papa’s debts still unpaid, and now, on top of that, there was the bank loan to pay back.

The old man’s eyes narrowed in unspoken understanding. “I bet you’d hightail it outta here if’n you could find a way.”

“I’ll find a way,” Jane said quietly. “And the first step is to take down that awful sign and scrub that window.” She nodded her head politely. “Good day to you, Mr. Springer. I’d best visit the mercantile and purchase an extra bar of lye soap.”

“You tell Mr. Mercer I’ll tote yer supplies on over to your store for ya. Meanwhile, I think I’ll mosey on down to the Silver Cup and have some words with an old friend.”

“Dell, you outta be horsewhipped fer what you’re puttin’ that gal through. This ain’t no way to court a lady like Miz Jane.”

Rydell downed the last of his whiskey and looked at Lefty across the oak table. “The courting part comes later. First, she’s got to give up that fool notion about supporting herself and her mother by making dresses.”

“You gonna let her work herself to the bone so’s you kin pick up the pieces? Dell, her hands ain’t never done nothin’ but play the pi-anna and embroider tea towels.”

Rydell looked straight at his friend. “I want a wife who’s a partner, not a decoration.”

“Then choose some other gal. Lord knows you’d have yer pick.”

Rydell ignored him. “Jane’s got more inside her than she knows,” he said. He smoothed one finger around the rim of his glass. “I’ve waited for ten years. I’m willing to wait some more.”

Lefty plunked his beer glass down so hard the liquid sloshed over the side. “You waited ten years cuz her daddy ran you off. Now that he’s gone, why’nt you jes’ grab her? I seen you do that with plenty of other women, so don’t say you don’t know how. Jes’ do it!”

“Lefty, you ever think about a man and a woman? What it means for them to be together?”

“Hell, yes, all the time. Nuthin’ complicated ’bout that. Hug ’em, kiss ’em, and rope ’em quick.”

Rydell grinned. “You’re a smart man, Lefty. How come you’re so dumb when it comes to women?”

“I’m a good forty years older’n you, boy, so I know what I’m yakkin’ about. Women is women.”

“There’s more to it than that. Jane is…Jane. She’s not ready.”

The older man groaned. “You’re a smart man, too, Dell. How come you’re so dumb when it comes to Miz Jane?”

Rydell rose and clapped his friend on the shoulder. “She’s a spinster. Overeducated. Underexperienced. But I like her. Always have. She deserves the chance to learn who she is.”

Tossing a coin on the table, he strolled toward the saloon doorway. “Besides,” he said over his shoulder, “she won’t suffer long. As green as she is in the ways of the world, inside of a week she’ll drop into my hand like a ripe peach.”

“I don’t think so,” Lefty muttered. “I think you’re the one who’s gonna learn the lesson.”

But his words, punctuated by the swish-whap of the swinging doors, echoed in an empty barroom.

Chapter Three

“Here’s your tea, Mama.” Jane lowered the silver tray onto the table next to the upholstered settee. “I fixed it just the way you like it.”

“Why, thank you, dear. Such a nice custom, don’t you think? Whenever Ah am in a tizzy, Ah just have my tea and soon it’s all better.”

Jane gazed past her mother’s pale blue eyes to focus on the rose-flowered wallpaper on the wall behind her. How Mama clung to the past, especially when things upset her. Her entire day was made up of rituals from when she had been a belle—hot cocoa served to her in bed, roses arranged in crystal vases, tea every afternoon. Then the War came, and their lives were shattered. Until the day he died, her father referred to that dreadful fighting as The War of Northern Aggression.

“I went to town today, Mama. To the bank and the mercantile.” She forced a gaiety she didn’t feel into her tone.

“I trust you were properly chaperoned?”

Jane hesitated, her hand on the handle of the silver teapot. “No, Mama,” she said softly. She lifted the delicate painted china cup and tipped the pot forward. Her hand shook as she poured.

“Your father spends entirely too much time fussin’ over those peach trees of his. We’ve already got a cellar full of jams and jellies, and Ah can’t bear the thought of another crop comin’ on. We must ask Jonas to bring his darkies to help.”

Darkies! Jane met her mother’s dreamy gaze. Jonas had been her father’s overseer at Montclair. Numb, she tried to think what to say.

“Mama? We haven’t laid eyes on Jonas, or his darkies, for over a decade. Are you feeling a bit tired?” She set the teacup down and took hold of her mother’s soft, cool hand. The skin was so transparent a tracery of blue veins showed through.

A dull pain pressed near her heart. Her mother was growing frail. Washing the kitchen floor and changing the bed linen, as they had done together each Saturday morning since they’d come west, would soon be out of the question. From now on, Jane would have to manage by herself.

“Mama, I spoke to Mr. Wilder at the bank this afternoon. I—I’m going to start a business.”

“Wilder? I don’t recall the name, dear. Who are his people?”

Jane let an inaudible sigh escape through her lips. As far as she knew, Rydell Wilder had no “people.” Anyway, she didn’t want to think about him.

She moved toward the kitchen. “Finish your tea, Mama, while I fix our supper.”

She concocted a sandwich of sorts using sliced tomatoes and cheese melted on the biscuits left over from breakfast. Jane wasn’t the least bit hungry, and her mother ate both portions.

After washing up the dishes, she opened all the windows and the front door to catch the cooling evening breeze, then pulled the cherrywood sewing cabinet into the front parlor. Tomorrow she’d have to find someone to load it into a wagon and haul it down to her store. But first, she had to scrub the place six ways to Sunday with a bucket of hot soapy water and a broom.

Her mother settled on the settee, propping her feet on a crewelwork-covered hassock to relieve the swelling in her ankles. The kerosene table lamp sent a pool of light over the book open in her lap.

“Jane Charlotte, just listen to what Mr. Tennyson writes. “The old order changeth, yielding place to new…. Whatever does he mean?”

A sob bubbled up from Jane’s throat, and she clamped her jaws tight shut. She thought of Papa, lying cold and still in a grave behind the orchard, of Montclair before the Union army came, the way the sun lit the tupelo tree as they drove the buggy down the drive for the last time. The old order.

“It means that things change,” she murmured. “That we must look forward, not back.”

Right then and there she decided she detested Mr. Tennyson. Things weren’t supposed to change, especially if they were beautiful things—peaceful summer days and evenings so quiet you could hear the darkies singing from their quarters beyond the stables, a father who was strong and brave, a mother like a small exquisite bird entertaining dinner guests dressed in shirred emerald satin and petticoats so wide she had to move sideways through doors. Why, why did such lovely things have to be destroyed?

Worst of all, why did she now find herself beholden to that aggravating know-it-all Mr. Rydell Wilder? Merciful heavens, he looked at her as if he owned her already!

She frowned as something stirred her memory. There was a boy once, who looked something like Mr. Wilder around the eyes. He’d walked her home from school that first day, and she noticed first that he was tall, with a shock of unruly dark hair tumbling over his forehead, second that he was barefoot. He had shoes, he’d told her…. He just didn’t wear them except in winter.

He had a gentle voice, she recalled. He explained about being new in a town and said he would watch out for her. She remembered that his shirt was clean and pressed, but the sleeves were so short his wrists stuck out. When he saw her staring at them, he unbuttoned the cuffs and rolled them up. His knuckles were scraped raw from a fight he’d been in. She wanted to cry at the sight of those bony wrists.