Woman's Own

by Robyn Carr

  Her lips formed an ‘O’ that she did not utter. Of course she knew that, even if she had allowed herself to believe, however briefly, that a miracle might change their destinies. The book had slipped from her lap to the floor of the small coach, but she hadn’t noticed. She was torn. She wanted to thank him, for nothing to match the experience had ever before been hers. Still, she wanted to shout, what have you done to me? She knew she could never find those feelings again, not with another man, not now.

  “This was to be a discussion of women…and domestics.”

  “And it was, my darling Lilly. There are three reasons why women give themselves fully to a domestic life. There is the sheer love of building a home, a family. Perhaps they are few, as you say, but I think there are some women who love a domestic life. If they seem unhappy to you, perhaps it is because it is so difficult. And there is the woman who has no choice, really. Perhaps her parents have her wed, or perhaps she is too unimaginative to capture any other kind of life. But you are neither of those and if you enter a life of domestics it will be for love and desire. You will deeply love some man and soon you will see that one of you must bear the children while the other brings home the money to feed the family. For you, Lilly, if you are brave and stubborn, you will have a clear choice, and you will be happy in it because you will have love. And love makes so much possible.”

  He reached for her chin and lifted it slightly, looking down into her eyes. “Don’t marry a man before you know him and trust him. Don’t accept his promises until you kiss him. And demand much of that kiss.” He smiled. “Until then, worry the scientists and philosophers with all your grand questions, and no matter what the writers of etiquette say, tell your children all that you’ve learned and encourage them to be as free as you are.”

  A tremulous smile appeared on her lips. He reached for the bell to signal the driver to stop. “I suppose you could have taken terrible advantage of me,” she said softly. The feeling was still new with her--that feeling of welcoming him into her.

  “I wouldn’t hurt you, Lilly, because I care about you. But your curiosity is infectious. Your questions lead me to questions of my own. Now, I’m leaving you back at the square, and I’ll use this coach to get back to my own. Run along, Lilly. I’ll see you again.”

  She wanted to extract a promise about that, but she only nodded. Andrew helped her out of the coupe and left her standing by the road. He waved to her as he left, and she lifted her hand, watching sadly as the coach rattled away around the curve of the square. Lilly suddenly felt like crying--as though she had lost something. Now she was even more convinced she would never marry. She wanted a man who could draw that sense of passion from her, a passion for all the things in life. She must be encouraged to question and seek answers; the man she wanted must delight in her intelligence yet find her beautiful and desirable. And it was not enough that he be able to give her all of that, he had to take from her the way Andrew did, finding her curiosity stimulated him and caused him to ask his own questions.

  She wanted Andrew.

  “I will be alone forever,” she said, her voice distant and very quiet.

  It was then that she realized the book was gone, and she knew it was in the coach. She couldn’t have run after it even if that was her desire. Her legs would barely hold her up. She resigned herself that she would tell the librarian the book was lost and pay for it. She glumly considered the cost for what she considered worthless drivel.

  She didn’t see the coupe travel back to the library. Andrew Devon left the conveyance with the book in hand and returned it in Lilly’s name. Then he returned to the coach and the hired driver took him half a mile to where his own covered carriage waited. It was a rich trap, identical to the one Dale Montaine owned and had taken to the Armstrong residence two weeks before. The scrolled M was on the door; five people had their own rich, monogrammed Montaine gigs, all members of the Montaine household.

  “To your office or home, sir?” the driver asked. “Home, thank you. My wife is expecting me.”

  I am nearly thirty-eight years old, Emily thought. I have grown daughters who could make me a grandmother before I am ready. I must send Mr. Padgett away. I must.

  She lay in her bed, in her darkened room, unable to stop thinking about the way he made her feel. “Would it be too forward to use only our first names when it is just the two of us?” he had asked her. “Emily?”

  That question had come after ten evenings of sharing the porch, the cool spring nights, conversation. He whittled on the porch steps, promising not to leave his shavings for her to clean up. John had been taking his pipe, Mrs. Fairchild had retired, and the evening breeze was cool. It gave her an uplifting feeling, such a feeling of renewal. She told him it was her duty to clean up after her boarders; he paid his board on time. But he left no shavings. And he agreed, there was nothing like a spring breeze in the evening to make a man feel like a boy again.

  She felt like a girl. There had been other springs, but none that caused such a restlessness in her spirit. At least not in many, many years.

  Night after night he whittled and told stories. She could have gone to the parlor to use the lamp to mend, but somehow the mending seemed so much less agreeable than listening to Noel. When John walked Sophia home and all the others had found their own diversions, it was only Emily and Noel…and their voices quieted instinctively. Alone. Nothing untoward was even uttered, yet her heart beat more frantically when it was just the two of them. Because if he stood from the step and walked over to the swing where she sat, if he bent down and touched his lips to hers, she would embrace him. He did not. Not yet.

  I don’t want these feelings, she kept thinking. Under the down quilt her hand moved across the coarse linen of her nightdress to stretch across her flat, firm stomach and she was reminded of her body. Her flesh nearly quivered with the desire to be touched by a man. I don’t want to feel this way. I can’t! I can’t bear those kind of feelings again!

  First it was something as simple as a good scrubbing to wear away his travel dust. He shaved and bought new clothing. She could not imagine what industry allowed him to have costly suits tailored so quickly. His tastes were experienced and smart; his choice of fabrics and style was learned and yet uniquely individual. He kept a western influence; he would not give up the hat or boots.

  He was not shy of stories of his past: his mother’s death when he was small, his father’s quest for gold, his education in the East, his experiences in the West. He had a love of space and rich dirt and mountains that he brought alive in his slow, unhurried drawl. Emily was amazed by all that he had done and seen--and by the way she looked forward to the evenings.

  She was drawn to a certain sadness in him, the grief of a small boy whose mother had died and father had left him with relatives who never missed an opportunity to let him know he was a burden. That was the reason he did not stay with his family when he visited Philadelphia; he disliked them. His cousins, he said, had always considered him an outsider, always been annoyed by his presence, although his father sent enough money for his keeping to allow the family to live in style. His father had been lucky during the gold rush--how lucky he had not divulged. Emily wondered briefly how rich he was, but decided he would not be content in a boarding house, in an undersized bed and room, if he had a great deal of money.

  He said he had wanted for playmates when he was small, which accounted for his attraction to the West--out there a man could be alone as much or as little as he liked. And he appreciated good city manners, he told her, but proper manners that covered up bad behavior rankled him. Out West, he said, people spit on the street, but they did for each other. Emily thought hard on that.

  Even with that hint of sadness from a hard youth, he was not a bitter man. She felt compassion for that small boy, orphaned and left with people who considered him a nuisance, but respect for the man who lived his life simply and honestly. These were virtues Emily aspired to.

  Then she began to think him handso
me. He was so well muscled from his years of riding, ranching, mining. He made that kind of life sound so ordinary; he answered Lilly’s many questions almost shyly, making very little of himself. He’d fought in the Civil War, but in a secret detachment of frontiersmen in Colorado. His hand, so large, was gentle on her elbow when he escorted her into the house at evening’s end.

  She had no idea how he spent his days, but he returned almost every afternoon in time for dinner. Twice he had had to miss the evening meal and he had told her beforehand. She guessed he visited his family, reacquainted himself with old friends. He didn’t bring home tales of the day’s activities. He had stayed away until late one night, returning in a hired coach. A woman? she had asked herself.

  The neighbors will notice, she reminded herself. I sit on the porch swing until nearly ten, when a proper matron has long since turned out her lamp. But Noel whittles and talks, and I sit, fascinated, hungering for the evenings, for the sound of his gentle voice…a voice, given a chance, that would be so loving, so dear. I drink in the stories of the life he says no woman has yet shared.

  She told him about herself when he asked. The replies she had given to innocent questions had begun to sound like excuses even to her. Why had she never remarried? There were two daughters to raise; that alone took all the energy she had. Had she never been in want of companionship? In a house filled with boarders and children and work? she had laughingly countered. Oh, she said, she had often prayed to be lonely.

  I am so lonely, she thought now. So hungry. So weary.

  It had been years since she had thought about Ned’s skilled seduction with any emotions other than guilt, shame, or fury. Now she remembered all too well how she had fallen his victim; his touch was fiery, his male scent intoxicating, and the words he had plied her with were so convincing, so tender. She had been only a girl, and, not knowing the dangers, she had let Ned show her the secrets of her own body; the carnal thrill of his possession and the blinding joy of that intimate completion had once bound her to him.

  Then there was shame. The cost had been high because he had only used her. Desire, once a driving force in her, turned to repugnance. Even the casual touch of a widower’s hand on her elbow could make her shiver with apprehension and anger. No woman, knowing her mind and body, would willingly allow a man to blind her with the momentary gratification of intimate pleasure. She had not considered her loneliness, nor thought of the physical wanting that had once, so long ago, so briefly, felt natural and right to her. No one since Ned had awakened any feeling in her. It had been painless to send those few bachelors and widowers away.

  Then Noel Padgett. Her hand moved under the quilt to touch the firmness of her own breast. Emotion had been reborn in her. Everything that passed through her mind brought a bodily response. She had begun to doubt her own sanity, for she watched him hungrily, listened raptly to his every word. Then he said the precious words that thrilled and terrified her. “I’ve grown very fond of you, Emily. You’re a remarkable woman in so many ways, and our evenings are more special than any I’ve ever had.”

  It had taken her a long, dangling moment to reply, “Thank you…Mr. Padgett.” She wanted another chance, a chance to say she felt the same way…or at least to use his given name. But she couldn’t. She had felt fear.

  I am a woman of nearly eight and thirty, she told herself again. These feelings belong to young girls, new brides. Why has no one told me about this rebirth? Why did no one mention this dilemma? I thought it was over for me by now. Does a woman of virtue wish to be touched by a man? Does a woman of dignity allow herself to be reduced to this longing?

  But as she listened to the night sounds through her opened window she was filled with a tender pull she could recognize from her youth. It frightened her, yet her body welcomed the sensations, the spiraling yearning, and the power of her great discipline was useless. She wanted a thing she had denied herself for many, many years. Pleasure.

  Chapter Four

  The tea for Mary Ellen had been sufficiently ghastly to convince Patricia to proceed with her plans in secrecy. No one understood her, not even Lilly. Emily, had she tried, could have impressed Mary Ellen, but she made no effort; she would not purchase new tea linens or borrow a better service, and she insisted on including Lilly, though Lilly was bored by such pastimes. Then Emily conversed on the drab subjects of temperance, recipes, and even household economics.

  Still, Mary Ellen had delivered as promised and Wilbert Kennesdow had agreed to escort Patricia to the fancy reception and ball at the home of Senator Williamson. On the tenth of May, dawn would break to the chiming of all the bells in Philadelphia, and President Grant would open the Centennial Exhibition. The senator, a patron of the event, was hosting an extraordinary party for honored visitors and guests and the president would be there. The city was already brimming with the rich and famous; with inventors, artists, and craftsmen who would be displaying their creations; with politicians from all over the country and dignitaries from foreign nations. There was simply no better environment in which to meet and intrigue a rich husband.

  Until now Patricia had only misled her mother without actually lying. But this was an occasion, and she was not willing to test Emily’s strict, prudish behavior against such an opportunity. Emily might prohibit her from attending the party, using the excuse that Patricia did not know these people. Or perhaps Emily would be honest and admit she did not like Mary Ellen.

  “Your friend could use some lessons in grace,” Emily had commented.

  “Whatever do you mean, grace?” Patricia had returned peevishly. She had counted on her mother employing her knowledge of the delicate tastes of the well-to-do to make the tea elegant. Instead, Emily flaunted her ordinary, working-class existence.

  “What I mean, dear,” her mother had replied, “is that money cannot disguise bad manners. Your friend was very obvious--she thinks herself high above us.”

  Well, Patricia had thought, she is. Patricia was so disappointed in her mother. Didn’t Emily see the possibilities? If Patricia could “marry up,” above her class, then the whole family could rise above this mundane environment and enjoy prosperity. Doing so only meant attracting a man of means through influential friends. They could live fashionably again, as Emily had in her youth, for Patricia would share her good fortune. But Emily actually resisted this opportunity. She told Patricia very sternly, “Don’t be fooled by money, Patricia. My mother, who was once extraordinarily rich, taught me early that money is no guarantee of quality.”

  Mary Ellen’s comments after the tea had been likewise disparaging. “My goodness, your family has been humbled. How sad. I asked my mother if she remembered the Bellmonts and she said she did. They were simply the most prestigious family in all Pennsylvania. She would never believe--”

  “You didn’t tell her?” Patricia asked.

  “Of course not, I only asked about the Bellmonts. I can see why your mother is silent. How perfectly humiliating for her!”

  Patricia had been tempted to defend her mother, but only briefly.

  Truthfully, she preferred Mary Ellen’s pretentiousness to her mother’s strict doctrine of a simple life and hard work.

  Since she couldn’t risk telling her mother that Wilbert Kennesdow had invited her to the reception and ball, she had asked permission to spend the night at the home of her new best friend. There they would dress their hair, don their frocks, and be called for by Wilbert and Thomas. Patricia would wear Mary Ellen’s scandalously low-cut lavender satin. Mary Ellen had promised they would dance and drink champagne.

  She carried a bag holding a few overnight articles and horsecar fare. She left the modest clapboard house and picked her way down the dirt road, stepping carefully around garbage and muddy patches from kitchen drains. The sour, telltale odor of outdoor conveniences rose in the heat of the afternoon. Soon she would be leaving for good; no more muddy shoes or smelling garbage piles. She looked back at the house, Emily’s pride and joy.

  Patric
ia had been ten years old when they had moved in. It had seemed like a mansion. She had been overpowered by its size and many rooms. Then she visited with Mary Ellen and her home became smaller, poor, shabby, and embarrassing. Even the chintz curtains she had prized looked dowdy to her now compared to the immense, luxurious satin brocade draperies in the Jasper home. She, Lilly, Sophia, and even Mrs. Fairchild had sewn the braided rag rug in the parlor; the Jaspers had woolen, manufactured carpet in every room, soft, deep, and artistically patterned.

  How could her mother keep herself from longing for riches and prominence? Had the years since she had been wealthy damaged her memory? How could she argue that simple and uncomplicated things could mean a great deal? It was beyond Patricia’s ken; one had but to look down the trashy, muddy street at the neighborhood to see it was nothing.

  She turned away from the house. She walked away from her neighborhood and knew she would not miss it, not for a day. Tonight was just the first of many, many wonderful nights.

  Noel Padgett ran a finger around the collar of his silk shirt. He recalled the look on Emily’s face as she looked at his formal attire.

  “My goodness, Mr. Padgett, what a magnificent costume,” she had exclaimed. And he had replied, “A might too fancy for my tastes. I’m happier just sitting on the porch step.”

  That comment had caused her to smile in a way so warm he felt as though his heart melted within him. She could be here, he thought, looking around the senator’s ballroom. If he could have invited her without causing offense, he would have done so. But he knew she had no fancy dress. He could buy her dozens, but she would decline even a lace hanky. Not only was she proud and proper, theirs was not a formal courtship.

  Noel played his hand close to his chest in this precarious business of pursuing Emily. She was a complex woman, obviously suspicious of money, maybe even frightened by it, as she showed through her disdain. The things she claimed to admire, simple and uncomplicated things like a man looking for Sunday services or honest labor for honest pay or an evening on the porch were free of any risk.