Four of a Kind: A women's historical fiction

by Russell, Vanessa

  These were my thoughts as Mr. Phillips proposed to me late that starry evening on the front porch, and I said yes.

  What is love?

  At this point and for the first time in my life, I questioned my intelligence. I knew not where we were, where we were going, and knew little of this man I was to call husband. He knew little of his reluctant bride. I had told no one of our plan to marry, but only made excuses to Mrs. Catt and Eunice during my farewells at the station that I would take a later train to Annan. Mr. Phillips must have wondered why this secrecy but he remained silent, only his searching eyes and deep parenthesis around his down-turned mouth expressing his disappointment.

  I didn’t wish to make a big deal out of buying rings and so I had insisted on him slipping my grandmother’s wedding ring on my finger – the same ring I had previously worn on a chain around my neck.

  I did not try to analyze but merely recognize that a clandestine and unceremonious marriage at the courthouse was important to me, exciting in the beginning, frightening in the end when I realized the price to pay was that no one knew where I was any more than I did. I was completely on my own.

  If someone had asked me for directions, I might have said, “Turn left, and head straight up toward heaven”. Although heaven sounds misleading, for I didn’t think it was heaven at all. Not in the joyful way one would think of heaven, but this plateau on the top of a mountain was “pert-near” as the mountain folk would say, close enough certainly to wave to those who had passed on to that heavenly shore.

  Below us were endless rolls of hills, like giant men with fat bellies, stretched out and snoring clouds of mist.

  I looked about me as I climbed down from the truck, wondering where the cabin could be in this wilderness and worried that the truck hood would blow off from all that steam rolling out around the edges. Mr. Phillips fanned the hood with his hat as if shooing a large black fly that wouldn’t go away. Fortunately it didn’t; I would have detested the three-mile hike back down to the main road. I stood and waited impatiently for further directions, seeing no further road.

  Finally I could stand no more of the hot sun and the heated truck. “Really, Mr. Phillips, this is a poor sign of hospitality. What are we to do from here – hitch a ride on a passing deer?” Sarcasm yes, but justified; the startled deer was the only living being I’d seen for several miles.

  He walked to the back of the truck. “This is where we hoof it.” He pulled out my trunk and headed toward a small path, a dirt line marking the way further up through the trees.

  Not knowing what else to do, I grabbed my handbag and stepped in behind him, marching in step as I had done many a time down many a street for a cause. I just didn’t know what that cause was this time, however it came to light soon enough.

  We walked through last year’s leaves, swishing noisily, grateful I became for the cool shade offered by the birch and maple trees. After a few hundred feet I could hike no more of the uphill climb. My heart knocked loudly on my chest wall and the heat threatened my face. I stopped. There to my left, sticking up behind a small crest was a red-bricked chimney. Curiosity overcame my shortness of breath, shuffling me forward.

  On a plateau some feet below where I stood, sat a quaint sort of log cabin. A porch protecting its humble faded-gray front, had been painted in red to match the window shutters. A large well-tended garden stretched out to the right of the cabin, framed in cedar fencing. A clothesline connected the left side of the cabin to a shed of some sort, too small for a barn, too large for a tool shed. This structure leaned toward the clothesline, as if the weight of the many garments hanging there was more than it could bear. Spread out here and there on the grass laid bleached sheets, towels and rags, appearing as if spring’s thaw hadn’t finished yet. Blotches of white bright light caught my eye from the sun’s reflection on a creek flowing behind the cabin. Rows of lavender bushes lined the aged cedar fencing around the shed and along the side of the cabin, stirring a little homesickness for my mama’s backyard with its long row of lavender along the white picket fence. Here, somehow, around the wild of woods and daisies, the planted purple blooms looked out of place to me, like a prop on the stage of a play.

  As Mr. Phillips headed down the slope toward them, children of various ages and sizes, feet bare, dogs nipping at their heels, were running toward Mr. Phillips calling “Daddy, Daddy!” In the center of all this remained one girl in her teen years, standing at the fire pit in the front yard, her sad face gazing over at her daddy, then up to me, then quickly back down to the black pot hitched over the fire.

  I saw all this from my elevated vantage point, remaining observant as if I were here only to enquire, and then walk away to write a newspaper story.

  Mr. Phillips called me down to meet them all, seven children there were, or at least he called them his “kids”, yet two of the boys looked older than I. The girl at the pot appeared younger but obviously in charge. Petite in her torso, unusually broad shoulders, and her arms were visibly muscular in her short-sleeved calico housedress. She simply nodded when introduced as Mary Sue, and only then pulled her frown from me to a younger brother when he shouted, “She’s the bossiest!”

  Mary Sue’s first words were “Daddy, the pig’s tail stopped curling.”

  To Mr. Phillips these words meant something significant; to me this was a sign that I was someone Mary Sue didn’t want to reckon with.

  He paused in his tickling a toddler and scowled at Mary Sue. “How long?”

  “Loooong,” she drawled. “You been gone a long time.” She met his eyes and then quickly diverted her sad light blue ones to the pot. Inside this, laundry soaked and she stirred this with a broomstick. She had my sympathy. Without the aid of today’s machinery and electricity, laundry for seven children would be a burdensome task.

  He released his hold on two young ones, picked up a crawling toddler he called “Ruby”, and approached Mary Sue. “Two weeks is not a long time, honey. And I stayed here two nights of it.”

  She brought the broomstick out, thick with dripping white garments like boiled noodles and dropped these into another pot of clean water. “I was asleep when you came in at night, I was asleep when you left the next morning.” She said this in a monotone voice, her face void of emotion.

  “Well, now, whose fault is that?” Mr. Phillips asked her, his scowl deepening. “Besides, I just wanted to make sure everything was alright. And it was. You and the boys look after things just fine.” He reached over and pulled me over to stand beside him. “And now I’m back for good and with a new mommy for you. That should make you happy, Mary Sue.”

  That was my first indication that he hadn’t told his children beforehand about me. I wasn’t the only one who had held this knowledge in the dark, uneasy that exposure would show the cracks and flaws. They were handling it well, as if it were to be expected along with bad weather.

  Mary Sue shaved lye soap into the boiling pot of water. She was either concentrating or ignoring, her expression difficult to read. “Hey you two!” she called out as two boys ran by her in chase. “Help me wring these out and then go pour this rinse water on the flower bed. And don’t forget after supper to come out and pour this hot soapy water onto the porch so I can give it a good scrubbing.”

  Mr. Phillips sighed. “I’m going to go check on the pig to see why it’s sick, I guess. One of you boys take Bess’s trunk to Daddy’s bedroom. Bess go on in and make yourself at home, I’ll be in directly and Mary Sue can cook us up some green beans and new potatoes fresh from our garden.”

  He squeezed my elbow and smiled that bright smile of his until I bared my own teeth. That was the best I could do. I had convinced myself that I was accustomed to large families; my aunt Opal and her eight children, my uncle Jesse with his six boys, a woman would find her way to the Lighthouse with her long line of ducklings trailing behind her ... but this …

  The worst of it was, I was afraid to think. Thinking created questions and I was already in way over my head, a
nd questions would only prove that. As a sleepwalker might, I aimed numbly toward the front porch, toward some unknown goal, something inside me hoping I’d wake up.

  I did wake up but at the most inopportune moment, for it was just before bedtime.

  The four boys had gone up the narrow staircase to their attic beds; the three girls were in the next room, their shared bedroom, whispering and giggling loudly. I was exhausted – ‘dog-tired’ I was told - and completely ill at ease as to what to do. The flurry of events leading up to this moment had (at last!) quieted and I sat with my own thoughts on the edge of Mr. Phillips’ bed.

  In my mind’s eye seven children’s heads surfaced from dirty bath water; crying, crawling, needling, runny noses, arguing, pushing, and one talking over another. I saw again Mary Sue’s helpless expression as she attempted to keep these four small rooms and the attic clean.

  Supper involved a long process of stoking fire in a horribly old-fashioned stove I hadn’t seen the likes of in years, snapping beans, peeling mounds of potatoes. They had exactly eight chairs crowding around the pine kitchen table and thus a bumpy armchair with exposed stuffing was dragged from the front room into the kitchen where I was forced to sit as ‘New Mommy’, my chin only a few inches above my bowl of beans. I thought this chair befitting to my situation - I was out of place. Washing supper dishes passed to the children, but I had a sinking suspicion this was only because I was new.

  The second part of my New Mommy title would bring great expectations tomorrow. They didn’t understand how invalid this was - I could not be a ‘Mommy’, but a parody of one. I couldn’t begin to guess where to begin as I was thrust into the middle of these lives. How could I go forward with them if I didn’t know where they’ve been? Heavy thuds from the upper floor persisted, matching my aching head. If he – if we – were man and wife, he would expect marital relations, but that would bring more children. How would seven others of different blood treat mine? I was twenty-one; suddenly, clearly, too young to begin … such painful nonsense! And it would be painful. I’d heard too many pitiful stories at the Lighthouse from battered women of abusive husbands. I had helped deliver my baby sister, Little Cady, and had seen the seizures of pain and surges of blood, only to witness her death a year later. I would not subject myself to this!

  These were my thoughts as Mr. Phillips came into the bedroom from the washbowl on the back porch. His hair hung wet and loose, framing his face, and he smelled of soap. His white shirt now off, he wore only a leather vest and trousers showing off his tanned muscular arms. His bare feet frightened me the most.

  I stood up quickly, as if the bed had caught fire. I backed away from his outstretched arms and slow easy grin.

  “Come here, honey,” he said in a low, playful tone.

  “Don’t touch me!”

  He stopped and dropped his arms. “What’s wrong? What happened?” He looked around for some concealed child, but finding none, returned a confused gaze at me. “You’re frightened of me, Bess?”

  “No, I-I’m just not ready.”

  “I’ll be gentle. I promise.” He took another step toward me.

  I squared my shoulders and breathed in deeply for strength. “I simply can’t, Mr. Phillips.”

  He folded his arms across his chest and studied me carefully. “You simply can’t – what? Sleep with me tonight? Call me by my first name? Tell me what it is you can’t do.”

  “I can’t live here.”

  He shook his head and stared down at the pine floor planks. “I may not be rich, Bess, and I know the kids can get a bit rowdy, but deep down they’re good kids and I’m a good man who’d be good to you. I can build on to the cabin if you think it’s too small. Is that it?”

  “This may sound as a paradox, Mr. Phillips, but on the contrary, this small cabin is too much for me. This cabin and all it entails is simply overwhelming. I must have been mad when I said ‘yes’, but I wish – well I wish to take it back. It’s a mistake, a huge mistake. I wouldn’t make you happy – I don’t know how. I don’t know how to be a mommy either. I’ve been a suffragist, since the age of twelve. That is all I know. Now that we’ve won the vote, perhaps I believed I needed a new life, a new beginning. But not ready-made!”

  The hurt on his face was undeniable. I bared my heart, not my body as was expected. I could not pretend otherwise. I had been taught to speak my mind but my battles had always been with the government, or with other women, always beyond arm’s reach. Now here was someone reaching for me and he – and all that he entailed – attempted to enter into my personal world, my breathing realm. I gasped for breath and backed up to the wall, hugging myself instead, tears flowing. I hated myself – and him - for it.

  “Alright, Bess. I hear you, loud and clear. I just wish you’d said ‘no’ sooner … like at the courthouse before we made vows to God!” His voice became increasingly louder as he spoke. He bit his bottom lip and sighed. “Look, you sleep in my bed and I’ll sleep on the couch and we’ll talk some more tomorrow.”

  I felt hugely relieved and my shoulders relaxed. Smiling gratefully, I stepped away from the wall and reached out a hand but he only turned and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

  Now saddled with guilt, I sank heavily onto the bed. My intentions were not to wound but as always I had said too much too quickly. I certainly thought I could care for him but something inside had blocked the way. Conceivably, too much time had been spent trying to break down women’s wall to equality, and I suppose I used those leftover bricks to build a defense against men. Maybe the wall was too high for any man. Where was the love? Not here, where my heart felt as diminutive as this cabin, and that thought cut me to the core. Why did I allow this to happen? I thought myself smarter than this. Tears returned but I brushed them away angrily.

  I was spared this night but now what? Making my toilette would give me some time to think. But there was no running tap, no sink, only a basin of water on a roughly made cabinet with a small door. Inside I found frayed but clean rags and a hand towel. My blouse off, the scarring on my wrist and arm looked grim and brown in this light, the skin puckered and wrinkled in spots like it needed a good ironing. Another reason not to expose my body; another reason not to live here. I was terrified of the type of old stove they used here. When I was eleven, the sleeve of my dress caught fire trying to cook from one at home, causing this scar. During that one summer, Mama had been petitioning and marching for suffrage, leaving home duties to me. I had since stayed away from wood burning stoves as much as possible. No one knew about these scars, save perhaps Mama and her guilt, and long sleeves were always there to cover.

  My nightgown on, I felt more at ease and could notice my surroundings. Mr. Phillips’ wife had died a year or so ago, but her woman’s touch remained in the room. A hand-stitched quilt stretched over the pine-posted bed, crocheted doilies on the bureau. Lined along the back of the bureau, the mirror reflecting their backsides, were several hand-carved wooden birds: a cardinal, a robin, and a dove. I inspected the cardinal, then the robin and put them back, but the dove I kept in my hand, not able to let go. Something about its red-colored eyes, gems like ruby that looked oddly familiar. I carried it over to the oil lamp next to the bed for a closer inspection and held it under the light. Yes, I had seen one very much like this, but where was it?

  Then I remembered that at about age fifteen I had discovered one hidden in the back of Mama’s wardrobe. With the help of her coveted key I had snooped amongst her personals hoping to borrow one of the beautiful dresses Aunt Opal had fashioned and given to Mama. Same size dove, same smooth head and neck, with intricate etchings in the tail and wing feathers. Did he sell these and how would Mama – but then I remembered him saying that he had driven Mrs. Catt to my hometown of Annan about ten years ago during a women’s convention, around 1910. I thought back to that year and recalled how Mama had allowed me to go to the convention with her. I had a vague recollection of the speakers but at my height I could only get a gl
impse here and there and then Papa made me leave. Yet now I remembered an Indian there. A younger version with longer hair, pulled back in a ponytail – I dropped the dove. Him. Deep laugh lines were etched here now; gray streaks in shorter hair that tucked behind his ears, but this had to be the same man.

  And another memory linked: Right after my stove accident, I remembered calling for Mama from my bedroom and when she didn’t answer I came down the stairs looking for her. As I stepped into the parlor, the window revealed a strange sight to me. Mama stood on the boardwalk several houses down, talking with a man next to his horse. I thought he might be the same man who spoke at the convention. As I watched, he gave her something brown, yes, about this size, which she enclosed in her hand and clutched to her chest as she walked back to our home. Intuitively I understood I wasn’t supposed to see this - something about their movements appeared too private – and so I slipped back up the stairs before she returned. Of course I wouldn’t dare ask her about it, and eventually the scene faded in my mind, but obviously not entirely, because for the first time since, the scene had refocused. Mr. Phillips knew Mama and had given her a dove. Why? You look very familiar to me, he had said in our introductions. Indeed – I looked very much like Mama!

  I could not sleep that night for thinking. I finally gave up in the early morning light and dressed. Slipping out the back door, I walked around the cabin and along the fence, breathing in the delicious scent of the lavender. They reminded me of home and of Mama’s lavender sachets and lavender oils, and her scent always of lavender. It made me wish she was here – and then I froze.

  “You’re not running off already, are you?” I felt his breath on my neck when he said that, and I was startled beyond reason.

  “Really, Mr. Phillips, is it necessary to sneak up on me like that?”