Ruby & Roland

by Faith Sullivan

  As we rose up the stairs, I noted that the hem of Mrs. Lander’s challis dress ended several inches above her instep. An up-to-date woman was Mrs. Lander.

  We came to the turning in the stairway where a stained glass window cast a rosiness across the landing. Up three more steps and we were in a long, wide hallway carpeted like the stairs.

  “We have electric lighting here—a great advantage. You will share a bathroom, of course,” Mrs. Lander informed me. “As I have six of you young ladies—I don’t take men—I had a second bath put in. In a rooming house, that’s quite a luxury. Many places, you still have to use an outhouse. So uncivilized.”

  Indoor plumbing was the luxury, as far as I was concerned, though I would have traded this cushiness for a room near the rock elm with a chamber pot.

  On the center of each door we passed was a tiny metal frame holding a card with a name printed on it. “Ann Borden,” “Susan Westerby,” “June Rezmerski.”

  “And this,” said Mrs. Lander, sweeping into the last room on the right and gesturing broadly, “is what I call the Princess Room. As I told Professor Cromwell, it is my largest and airiest and has a little balcony overlooking the backyard.”

  Everything was clean and tidy, probably as Mrs. Hardwick, née Hoover, had left it. An imitation Axminster carpet awash with cabbage roses covered the center of the room.

  “I’ll go down for your trunk and bags,” Professor Cromwell said and left us.

  “He’s a lovely man,” Mrs. Lander noted.

  “Yes. He was an old friend of my parents.”

  “He can’t be all that old.”

  “Twenty-eight, I believe.” All I wanted was to be left alone to throw myself across the bed and be homesick.

  “Handsome. A bit of premature gray in the temples, but I always think that looks distinguished.”

  I opened the door to the small balcony. The backyard was mostly grass, bisected by a brick path leading to a small barn.

  “You could do worse,” Mrs. Lander observed.

  “Yes, it’s a very nice room.” I turned away from the yard.

  “I meant Professor Cromwell.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  But then Professor Cromwell was carrying in my trunk. “Where would you like this, Ruby?”

  I pointed to the foot of the bed.

  When he had left again to fetch the bags, Mrs. Lander continued, “He paid the first month’s rent. He didn’t want you worried about money.”

  “He shouldn’t have done that. I can afford the rent.”

  “Oh, don’t misunderstand. He was very proper about it. Professor Cromwell is a gentleman.”

  Had she been vetting him? Did she check up on the male friends of all her young ladies? I was to learn that Mrs. Lander was an inveterate matchmaker. That struck me as odd, for if she were successful, it would mean constantly replacing her tenants.

  “The asters are beautiful,” I said, pointing to a bouquet on the chifforobe.

  “Those are from Mrs. Bullfinch. She brought them over this morning. She hoped you’d come for lunch tomorrow.”

  Professor Cromwell came in with the two bags, and Mrs. Lander excused herself, saying, “I’ll let you get settled, then.”

  “It must be hours since you ate. May I take you to dinner?” When I looked both exhausted and dubious, he said, “I’ll have you home early. A quick dinner, and then home to sleep.”

  Home, it wasn’t. But Professor Cromwell had been kind and generous. Saying no would have been rude and ungrateful.

  “I’d like to freshen up,” I said, like a girl in a society novel.

  “I’ll be back in an hour.” At the door, he turned. “Mrs. Lander insists that male guests and escorts should be met in the parlor, so come downstairs when you’re ready.” He smiled and was gone.

  I dreaded dinner. I was sure that Professor Cromwell would want to know all about Harvester and the Schoonovers and the Allens. My heart was too raw to discuss any of that.

  I needn’t have worried. Professor Cromwell—“call me Barrett”—did nearly all the talking, telling me about his classes at the college and the laboratory work he was doing for commercial hire.

  When I asked who his clients were, he named an Oklahoma oil company and a Pennsylvania foundry. “I enjoy the lab work,” he confessed. “Maybe too much.”

  “Maybe you should work for a company that has its own lab.”

  “Maybe someday, but right now I cherish my independence. If I don’t like the commission or don’t approve of it in some way, I can say no.”

  “Your commissions paid for the roadster?” I asked, hoping he wouldn’t find the question impertinent.

  “Oh, yes.” He cast me a speculative look. “Speaking of employment, I’ve found you a job at the college. In the administrative office. Nothing exciting, I’m afraid. Mostly filing and attending to records, but it’ll pay your way. I hope you won’t find it too dull.”

  “It’s work. That’s what I need. Thank you for your trouble.”

  “No trouble,” he said. “You won’t start till the beginning of the month, so you have a few days to catch your breath and reacquaint yourself with Beardsley.”

  Over dessert, which I refused, he said, “You’ve become a young woman since your parents’ funeral. What a terrible day that was, most of all for you.”

  “I still talk to Serena and Denton. I ask them for advice. But they don’t answer so often as they once did. You understand?”

  “I hope I do. I want to,” he said with warmth. He continued, “To me, they were an example of something … sterling. Nothing I can really define, but something … well, you see, I truly can’t find the words.” He sipped his coffee.

  “I kept as many of Serena’s books as I could,” I said. “They’re in my trunk.”

  “I discovered that when I carried it up,” he teased.

  “I read them to keep in touch with Serena and Denton. And because I enjoy them. I read her Whitman—it was audacious of Serena to read him, don’t you think?”

  He nodded.

  “Some of the poems I agree with heartily, but I find him repetitive at times. Repetitive and, well, explicit. I’m not shocked—I’ve been living on a farm. Farm life is explicit. Animals are animals, but I’ve wondered about Serena, if she was shocked or what she thought.”

  Professor Cromwell waved to the waiter for more coffee and asked if I minded if he smoked. When he had lit a small cigar, he said, “Your parents were extraordinary. Not at all what one expects of small-town, Midwest folk. I don’t know where that came from. As far as I know, they were both from Ohio, some community like Beardsley, maybe. But they were open to ideas, to different ways of looking at things. Their kind aren’t easily shocked, except by cruelty.

  “Your great-aunt still refers to them as ‘Bohemian.’ I wouldn’t have a quarrel with her on that account except that, in this part of the world, ‘Bohemian’ connotes something jaded and anti-Christian, and that would never describe them.” He laid aside his napkin. “I don’t remember Serena mentioning Whitman, but, if she had, I doubt it would have been with shock. Serena was like a beautiful child, wide-eyed and full of wonder.”

  Had he been in love with her?

  Back in my room at Mrs. Lander’s, I opened the trunk. The photograph of Serena and Denton I placed on the bedside table.

  “Well, what do you think, you two?” I looked at their happy faces. “Did I do the right thing? I’ve come here to be bitterly lonesome rather than stay and be utterly miserable.”

  Turning once more to the trunk, I extracted the cups and saucers, tea pot, sugar bowl, and creamer. I arranged them on a lace doily atop the chest of drawers.

  The beautiful cowherd I hung on a nail beside the bed where I could greet him every morning and wish him good night at the end of the day. Though I’d lost the real cowherd, this one would always travel with me. I thought of Roland’s words as we lay beneath the rock elm—“You’re the wife of my soul”—and folded the w
ords into the tapestry bag with the shiny clasp.

  By eight o’clock, I had washed, brushed my teeth, and pulled on my Harvester nightgown. Life was divided into two parts now: Harvester and Everything Else. Eventually I’d acquire Beardsley nightgowns, but they would not compare.

  I went out to the balcony, closed the door behind me, and rolled a cigarette. Would Mrs. Lander object to my smoking out here? It might give her establishment a bad reputation. But for what I’d given up, the world owed me a cigarette.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The night was black, but the tip of Roland’s cigarette glowed orange from the back steps. From the watering trough came the clink of a handle and a small splash as Dora dipped a pail.

  “Why are you hauling water in the dark?” I called.

  Suddenly, from out of the darkness came a slavering panting. Again the black dog leapt at me and again I swung the spade handle. And the dog fell at my feet, as before. But this time, Roland came running. “Why did you kill him? He was only hungry!”

  Hearing Roland upset, I began to weep. “I had to. I’m so sorry.” I woke, aching with regret—the awful kind, for which there is no remedy, nor any end.

  I couldn’t go back to sleep for fear of re-entering the dream. I still felt half in it, half out. If I heard Roland shout again, “He was only hungry,” my heart would turn to ash.

  The sky outside the window was black. I had no clock. I pulled the chain on the bedside lamp and sat up, shivering. I’d left the door to the balcony open.

  Dear Emma and Henry,

  The trip to Beardsley was uneventful, except for changing trains in Chicago. I was a bit apprehensive, but everyone was helpful and kind, not what might be expected in such a large city.

  The food you packed was delicious. I shared some with a young woman who was sitting across the aisle from me, and I still had apples and carrots to munch on later. The jars of pickles and jam I’ll share with the other women who live in this rooming house.

  Professor Cromwell and Mrs. Bullfinch found a clean, attractive rooming house on the same street where I had lived with Serena and Denton! Isn’t that amazing? A Mrs. Lander owns it and seems nice although I don’t really know her yet. Five other young women live here, but I haven’t met them. I think they are off to church this morning or are sleeping late.

  Professor Cromwell has also found a position for me at the college. He says it’s mostly filing and keeping records, but it will pay for my keep, and that’s the important thing.

  But I miss: feeding the chickens, gathering eggs, digging in the garden, milking the cows, canning, but, especially, you, I miss you. And, of course, tell Teddy I miss him and the tune he sets up whenever a wagon or buggy drives by.

  Please greet Jake for me. Have you heard from Dennis? You know, it was Dennis who taught me how to smoke, but please don’t tell him I tattled. I begged him until he finally gave in. My room has a balcony, and last night when I was lonesome, I sat out there and smoked a cigarette and somehow I felt closer to all of you.

  Before I close, I want to thank you again for my beautiful ring. I will never take it off.

  My address here is 557 Chestnut Street, Beardsley, Illinois. Please write.

  Love from your devoted,

  Ruby

  I knocked on Mrs. Lander’s parlor door, though it stood open. She emerged from somewhere in the back. “Ruby, what can I do for you?”

  “I was wondering where to mail this letter.”

  “If you drop it in the basket on the table by the front door, I’ll put it out for the mailman in the morning. I do that for all my young ladies. Any mail that comes for you, you’ll find on that same table.” She looked askance at my green cotton dress with the rosebuds, but said nothing. It wasn’t what young ladies were wearing in this bigger town, perhaps.

  “Will you be seeing that nice Professor Cromwell today?” she inquired.

  “I’m not really sure. I thought I’d walk down the street and ask Mrs. Bullfinch what time she wanted me for lunch.”

  “Well, if the professor stops by, I’ll tell him where to find you.”

  When I arrived for lunch at twelve-thirty, Mrs. Bullfinch embraced me, as earlier, like a relative long believed dead. “Little Ruby, I thought I’d never see you again, you’d gone so far away!” She fluttered a handkerchief at her throat as if the heat were perishing, though the day was cool and bright.

  She seated me in a parlor armchair, then bustled off to the kitchen, returning momentarily with two glasses of red wine. “This is Italian,” she said handing me a glass, then lowering herself onto an ornate settee the same color as the wine.

  I must have looked perplexed, because she said, “My fiancé brings the wine. I have several bottles in the kitchen cupboard. It’s not sherry.”

  Indeed. It puckered my mouth. But I asked, “Your fiancé?”

  “I thought I had written about him. No? Well, his name is Giorgio Lambini, and he travels, selling men’s shoes. Quality, expensive. A company out of St. Louis. St. Louis is the shoe capital of the world, did you know that?”

  “I had no idea.”

  “Yes. He spends one week a month in this territory. But when we’re married, he’ll move in here and operate out of Beardsley.”

  “Where does he operate out of now?”

  “St. Louis, same as the company. That’s where he grew up.”

  I took another puckery sip of Giorgio’s wine. “How did you meet?”

  “It was a hot day this past summer,” she said, settling back in her chair. “You know how hot and sultry it can get here. Or maybe you don’t remember, but it can.” She sipped her wine. “I was sitting on the porch,” she continued, “or what you might call the veranda. Over the border I believe they say ‘veranda.’” She spoke of Kentucky as if it were a foreign country.

  “And along came Giorgio, lugging his sample case and looking ready to shuffle off this mortal coil, as they say. He stopped at the bottom of the walk, removed his panama hat, and inquired if my husband could use a pair of the world’s finest shoes. The very best leather, no expense spared in their manufacture.

  “Well, a single woman doesn’t tell a traveling stranger that her husband’s been dead for over ten years. If you take my meaning.” She waited for me to nod, so I did. Continuing, she explained, “But I could see that the poor man was ready to expire from the heat, so I asked if he’d like a glass of iced tea. You’d think I’d offered him nectar of the gods—‘nectar of the gods’ was one of your dear mother’s phrases—actually, God rest her sweet soul. He said iced tea was the grandest offer he’d had all day.

  “I told him to sit down in the wicker rocker and I’d fetch a glass. He kept saying, ‘Grazzi, grazzi,’ and kind of bowing. Very courtly, Italians.

  “Well, that was the beginning. He was in town a week, staying at that awful hotel near the depot.”

  I nodded again.

  “He’s very fond of music. Italians are, you know. I played the piano for him and sang ‘Whispering Hope,’ and he wept, Ruby, he truly wept. I’ve always been of an artistic turn, as you may recall. I think that’s what attracted him. After that, every time he came to town, he brought sheet music from St. Louis with the latest songs. And he even found a book of Italian songs with the words translated into English. We have the grandest times.”

  She gave her head a gay, girlish toss as she added, “Giorgio is a wonderful cook. I’m not so fond of garlic as the Italians, but, as they say, ‘when in Rome.’” Her sigh was fond and reflective.

  “And now you’re engaged,” I said. “I’m so pleased for you.” I set my glass on a side table, hoping the remaining wine would go unnoticed. “When is the wedding?”

  “In a year.”

  “Not sooner?” Having known Mrs. Bullfinch more or less all my life, I felt free to ask.

  “Well, you know how it is. Giorgio has so many details to settle in St. Louis. All his family is there, so you can just imagine.”

  When I didn’t resp
ond, she went on, “Little Mrs. Pedersen, next door in your old house, thinks that Giorgio is stringing me along. She says, ‘Imelda, serve that man his walking papers. He’s making a fool of you.’ She has very strong opinions.

  “But Ruby, I don’t see it that way. Maybe I’m too philosophical, but Giorgio brings me wine and sheet music and he cooks wonderful meals when he’s here. He bows and kisses my hand and we laugh and sing and talk late into the night.

  “If he was to disappear in a year, as Mrs. Pedersen says he will, well, I say, ‘Weighing things on a scale, I think there’s more good than bad about the situation.’ What do you think, Ruby?”

  “Won’t it break your heart if one day he doesn’t come back?” I was not so sanguine as Mrs. Bullfinch.

  “I suppose it will. Yes, I suppose it will. But what’s the alternative? Serve him his walking papers, as little Mrs. Pedersen says? Fine. And then what? No wine, no sheet music, no talking late into the night?”

  She rose, indicating I should follow her into the dining room where the table was set for lunch. I admired her for leaving unsaid, “I’m not young. I dye my hair, have for years. Maybe there won’t be any more Giorgios.” And I admired her fortitude, but, with my heart in pieces, I didn’t have her philosophical turn when it came to love.

  At a quarter to three, I said goodbye and started back to Mrs. Lander’s, pausing in front of the house where I had lived with Serena and Denton. It was as it had been, if a bit sprucer. A boxwood hedge had been planted along the walk, and new steps led up to the front porch. This was where “little Mrs. Pedersen” lived now. One day I would knock on the door, introduce myself to “little Mrs. Pedersen,” and ask if I might have a sentimental look around.

  By three o’clock, I was back in my room. Professor Cromwell arrived soon after the tall clock in the foyer chimed three-forty-five. Mrs. Lander did not like having to climb the stairs to deliver messages to her young ladies; fortunately, a dumbwaiter allowed her to ring a bell and shout up to announce a guest. The dumbwaiter owned a resonance such that the very walls around it reverberated with the ding-a-ling and her “Yoo-hoo, up there!”