Flirtation Walk

by Siri Mitchell

  “Well, I don’t have any left, and that’s the truth.”

  “If you think that, if you’re trying to find sympathy at the bottom of a bottle, then I can’t help you anymore.” He threw the flask at me.

  I had to dodge so it wouldn’t hit me.

  “Drink all you want.”

  35

  Lucinda

  Between teaching my students and helping my aunt, the second week of November was upon me before I knew it. During my childhood, my father would always take us to a city for the winter . . . or at least to a respectably-sized town. He presented us as a family, bereft of a wife and mother, that was hoping to settle in for some time. Insinuating himself into the leadership of the community, he became well-respected. Well enough that, come spring, we were always able to abscond with a small fortune donated by those very same citizens. When the air chilled and frost visited of a night, I usually got restless, ready to move on to the city.

  But not this year.

  This year, I was anticipating nothing but more of the same people, the same place, the same routine I’d had since I’d come. I’d even come to appreciate my chores. There was a joy I hadn’t expected in the finishing of things.

  Perhaps that’s why I let myself be talked into preparing Milly for her first hop. She was a clever girl, and I’d come to understand that any deviation from those things I taught her was not from a lack of understanding but rather from a lack of motivation to employ them.

  She and Phoebe were all whispers and laughter that second Saturday of the month. Phoebe brushed out her sister’s hair while I concerned myself with the fall of her skirts. Though I attempted to persuade Milly’s hair into ringlets, true to character, her locks refused to be coaxed, no matter what I tried. I finally just smoothed her hair over her ears and drew it into a bun, securing some ribbons at her crown. I stepped away, toward the back of the bedroom, tilting the hand mirror so she could see herself.

  She clapped her hands in delight. “You should see me, Phoebe! How I wish you could. You’d never guess I’ve just turned fifteen. I look sixteen, at least.”

  In her golden yellow gown and pleated sleeves, with blue velvet ribbon at her waist and neck, she did indeed look lovely. The mischievous glint in her eyes was somehow softened by her long neck and slim, white arms. If she could just manage not to roll her shoulders, to stand up straight, she would look downright regal. In just a few years’ time, those laughing eyes of hers could cause many a man to prostrate himself at her feet. Hopefully she’d get herself betrothed and then safely wed before she realized the true extent of her charms.

  When we set off, my uncle handed us into the wagon and fixed a quilt about us. Milly began to chatter, but her father promptly hushed her. “There will be noise enough at the dance. No need to have to hear it before then.”

  She obeyed with good grace, though she fidgeted quite enough to make me take her hands in my own. “A lady never gives in to a fit of anxiety.”

  “Right now, I don’t feel much like a lady. What I feel like is . . . quite a bit like Ella.”

  I smiled as I put an arm around her.

  “Everyone’s going to expect me to remember all those things you taught us, aren’t they?”

  “You’ll do just fine.”

  “But what if I don’t? What if I can’t? What if I don’t want to go anymore?”

  My uncle answered. “It’s too late to turn around now.”

  We arrived under a waxing moon. The silvery rays softened the angles of the buildings and bathed the carriages and waiting horses in light. With the sound of the band and the windows glowing with candlelight, the scene was wholly enchanting. Milly’s mouth dropped open as her father helped her down. Her eyes reflected the candlelight with wonder.

  I grabbed up her hand and pulled her along. “Welcome to your first hop.”

  My uncle offered us both an arm, and we all walked up the stairs together. Just inside the door, we handed our mantles to a man in uniform. I pulled Milly aside to adjust her skirts and the ribbons in her hair. By that time, curiosity had overcome her trepidation, and she was all but climbing over me in order to see into the ballroom.

  “I didn’t realize there were so many cadets!”

  “You’ll have no lack of dancing partners. Just try to remember all that I’ve taught—”

  “I will. I do. At least I think I do. . . .”

  “If you’re worried, I—”

  “I’m not worried. Oh, look. There’s Mr. Westcott!” She stepped out in front of me and waved as if she were trying to flag down a stagecoach.

  I took hold of her arm and pulled it down. “A lady does not wave down an acquaintance as if signaling a carriage.”

  “Then how does she do it?”

  “She either begs an introduction from a mutual acquaintance—”

  “I already know him.”

  “Or she waits until he looks in her direction, and then she may nod.”

  “Oh, look! He’s looking!” Her arm shot out once more before I could stop it. I grabbed hold of her other one and turned her around. “Perhaps you don’t know this, or maybe you don’t remember, but Mr. Westcott is no longer an approved guest in your father’s house.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’s not.” I wish my uncle would have told her about the parade. At the moment he was engaged in conversation with one of his fellow instructors.

  “But he’s the best cadet at the Point!”

  “Not any longer.”

  “Then who is?”

  “Mr. Conklin.”

  She pulled a face. “Why?”

  “Because he engaged in inappropriate behavior.”

  “Mr. Westcott did? Are you sure?”

  I nodded.

  Curiosity peaked her brow. “What did he do?”

  There was no way I could demand her compliance without telling her why, so I leaned close and whispered into her ear.

  “He did? I would have liked to have seen it!”

  She was incorrigible. “The point being that you are not to recognize him.”

  “How can I not recognize him? It’s not as if he’s wearing a disguise.”

  I was going to throttle her. “You’re to pretend that you don’t know him.”

  “He’s not pretending as if he doesn’t know you.”

  I was well aware that he had not stopped looking in my direction since we’d entered the ballroom. “Be that as it may, I need you to do as I, and your father, request.”

  She scowled. “Fine. I’ll try. But I’m warning you—I might forget.”

  I tried to be good, to take the advice I’d given Milly. I really did. But I couldn’t keep myself from glancing across the room to where Seth stood with his friends. When our eyes met, I looked away. Feeling as if I ought to instead be searching for Mr. Conklin, I swept the room for his familiar form. There he was, at the far end of the room, standing alone, staring at his cup of punch with a sour look on his face.

  I can’t spend the rest of my life with him. I won’t.

  The thought had come uninvited, but that didn’t make it any less true. I didn’t like him. As a person or as a man. And here, on my own, there was no one to make me seek his attentions. My father didn’t figure in to decisions like this anymore. My uncle was a kind man; my aunt had a generous heart. If I were to tell them I just didn’t wish to marry anyone, then . . . that wouldn’t exactly be true. I did wish to marry someone, I just didn’t want that someone to be Mr. Conklin. But if I made my wishes plain, then I was almost certain they wouldn’t push me into it.

  For the first time since that awful parade, I felt as if I could breathe again.

  I wasn’t going to marry Mr. Conklin.

  I wouldn’t marry Mr. Conklin.

  My eyes strayed back to the man I preferred. The man I admired. The one who was regarding me quite miserably.

  What about Seth?

  Maybe . . . maybe my instincts were right. Maybe Seth really was the truer, nobler
man. And if he was, I needed to know why he’d done what he had. Not that I was a shining example of what any woman should be, but I’d put my past behind me. He could too, if that’s what he wanted. But I needed to know why he was so set, all of a sudden, on becoming the worst example for a cadet that there could be.

  It didn’t make sense.

  My uncle was still engaged in conversation. Milly was whispering over in the corner with some other girls from Buttermilk Falls. I decided to speak to Seth. Although I would be expressly violating my uncle’s wishes, could I not be forgiven if Seth could give me an explanation for his behavior?

  Sending one last glance in my uncle’s direction, I crossed the floor toward Seth.

  His eyes widened as he saw me coming. Handing his cup to Mr. Hollingsworth, he bent to say something to him and then came toward me. “Lucinda! If I had thought you would agree to a dance, I would have asked you for one. Do you—”

  I took hold of his hand and pulled him toward the door. “There’s no time!” Once I tugged him outside, down the steps, beyond the reach of the ballroom’s light, I turned and put a hand to his arm.

  His own hand dropped to cup my elbow, drawing me closer.

  “My uncle has forbidden me to talk to you, but I want to ask you one last time. I know he would welcome you back to the house if you would just tell us why you’re trying so hard to be someone you’re not. Please. Tell me.”

  36

  Seth

  “Why, Seth?” Lucinda’s voice was low. Insistent, pleading. It felt as if a weight had been lifted from my heart. She knew me. She believed in me. She understood I was not the man I’d been pretending to be. “Whatever it is, I’ll understand. I promise you I will. And I won’t think any less of you.”

  “It’s rather complicated . . .”

  I wanted to tell her, I really did. I just . . . I didn’t quite know how.

  She let go of my arm and my hand fell from her elbow.

  I wanted to take her hand back, to hold on to it, but I didn’t have any right to do that.

  “I’ve never told anyone this before, but my father was not a good man.” She glanced away. Swallowed. When she looked back up at me it was with resignation and guilt. “And I’m not . . . I’m not a very good person either, Seth.” She’d tipped her chin down, as if in shame.

  But whatever her father had done wasn’t her responsibility. I put a finger to her chin and lifted it so I could look into her eyes. “He’s dead now. He’s gone. Whatever happened, it’s not your fault, Lucinda.”

  Moonlight glinted off the tears that had pooled in her eyes. She glanced off toward the hall where the dance was taking place. “But Seth, that’s what I want to tell you. I want you to know the truth. I want you to know that whatever it is that’s making you this way, you can tell me. I’ll understand because my father—”

  Making her relive her father’s mistakes wouldn’t make me feel any better, so I stopped her from talking by taking her hands in mine and threading my fingers through hers.

  She looked from our hands up toward me. “Seth . . . ?”

  “This summer my mother died.”

  “I know she did. You told me.” She took a step closer to me.

  “That left my sister, Elizabeth, alone on our farm.”

  “I remember.”

  “I asked the commandant and the superintendent for leave so that I could go out and settle things. So I could take Elizabeth to stay with relatives until I could come get her after graduation. But my request was denied.”

  “How could they! That’s . . . that’s inhuman!”

  I tightened my grip on her hands so she wouldn’t drop mine and move away. “This isn’t a regular university; it’s the army. As long as I’m in the army, it will always be like this.” I was trying my best to tell her what army life was like. Trying to warn her away, if truth be told. “My sister had to sell the farm. Sell the livestock. She did it all herself.”

  Her eyes searched mine. “She must be very brave.”

  “She is. But while she was preparing to leave, her money—our money—was stolen.”

  “You mean . . . you mean all of it?”

  “Everything. That’s why she’s stranded at Fort Laramie until I can go get her.”

  “And that’s why I had to do it. You’ve heard your uncle. If I’m assigned to the engineers, I’ll be shipped off to England as soon as I graduate. I wouldn’t have the chance to go get her.”

  “Surely you could still send money to her. Engage someone to take her from Fort Laramie.”

  “But I wouldn’t be able to track down the man who did it. That’s why I had to find a way to lower my grades and make it to the bottom of my class. If I can force the army to assign me to the cavalry, I’ll be sent out west. Then I can find him and make him pay for what he did.”

  “But he must be long gone by now.”

  “Turns out his swindles are widely known. My sister was told Mr. Pennyworth has been in Texas and Kansas and everywhere in between.”

  She swayed.

  I caught her by the elbows.

  “Pennyworth?” The name came out in a whisper.

  “That’s the name of the man who took the money. He sold my sister some hotel in a made-up town.”

  “Your sister . . .”

  “She’s about the same age you are. Can you imagine someone taking advantage of a girl that way? Or taking advantage of you? That’s why I’ve been doing all those things. If I want to make it to the bottom of the class, I have to do it quickly. It’s the only way to rescue my sister and find Pennyworth. I have to head west. I have to be assigned to the cavalry.”

  Tears were coursing down her cheeks. She was shaking her head as if begging me to assure her none of what I’d just said was true. “But you can’t throw your life away for that man. He’s not worth it!”

  “Wouldn’t you do the same? If it were you?”

  She kept right on talking as if she hadn’t heard me. “What if you never find him? What if . . . what if he’s dead! What if . . . what if he died and all your plans are useless? How can you do this, all of this, for him?”

  I pulled her into my arms, trying to comfort her. Trying to calm her. “It’s not for him. It’s because of him. I have to do what I have to do. I have to try. Don’t you understand? Wouldn’t you do the same?”

  “But if I had known. If I had just known. . . . My father . . .”

  She was taking my words much too personally. “It’s not your fault. Your father has nothing to do with this.”

  I felt her flinch.

  “The man who swindled my sister has nothing to do with you.”

  37

  Lucinda

  “Nothing to do with you.”

  My father had everything to do with this. And so did I.

  I could picture Seth’s sister. I’d seen dozens like her. It was easier to take advantage of a woman when she was bowed by grief. She was looking for hope. She was willing to believe in anything that seemed to offer her a better life or a way out. If I knew my father, he hadn’t even had to work very hard to take her money. He’d offered her an opportunity with very little time to make a decision. Like all those other widows and orphans before her, she might as well have just thrown her money into his lap.

  If I had been there with him, I would have helped him do it just the same as I had so many times in the past. I would have recognized that forlorn, frozen, worn look that those in the throes of grief always wore. I would have seen her red-rimmed eyes. I would have gotten her to tell me all about her sorrow . . . and then I would have given all that information to my father.

  I would have betrayed her.

  What a despicable creature I was. What a wretched, loathsome, hateful creature.

  And Seth must never know.

  I’d come to Buttermilk Falls, expecting my mother’s family would receive me. And they had. But they’d given me so much more than I had been looking for. They’d given me themselves. Seth had done the same. And n
ow I’d come to know how little I deserved any of them.

  “It’s not your fault.”

  Oh, how I wished that were true!

  I stepped from Seth’s embrace, not able to bear being comforted by a man whose life had been ruined by my father. If Seth had known to whom he spoke, he would never have been so generous with his love. Nor with his understanding.

  I put a hand to his chest when he would have taken me back into his arms.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take any liberties.” He dropped his arms as he took a step away from me.

  I wiped at my eyes with the back of my wrists. “I have to go. I have to go back now.” If God were truly kind, I would never have to speak to Seth again. I’d never have to see the admiration in his eyes when he spoke to me. I would be able to forget how I’d felt in his arms.

  “I know you do.” He handed me a handkerchief. Just one more way in which he was a gentleman—always thinking of others, never for himself. That thought brought a new torrent of tears to my eyes. “Thank you, Lucinda. For believing in me. I know it’s asking a lot of you. You can’t know how much it means to me.”

  “I-I have to go. I have to go now.”

  Finding a dark corner along the edge of the building, I turned my face to the wall and wept.

  My father had always insisted that he only took from people who could afford it. From those who had more than enough to spare or from those who were so stupid they didn’t deserve to keep what they had. He told me the exchanges he made were generous, even philanthropic, because he was giving people hope. But Elizabeth and Seth hadn’t received any hope. They’d been disheartened and demoralized. He’d taken their money and left them with nothing.

  And now Seth had destroyed his career because of it.

  I’d never imagined our victims to have lives. Never thought that our schemes would jeopardize their futures. I’d known they had names, of course, but I’d never known they could be Elizabeths. Or Seths. Never even considered they could be people I might come to love.

  By the time I rejoined the crowd in the ballroom, I’d gained control of myself. It was a terrible coincidence that my father had taken advantage of Seth’s sister, but I had to remind myself that the past was in the past. I was still safe. No one would ever be able to connect my father with Mr. Pennyworth. I would say nothing to my uncle of the reasons for Seth’s poor behavior and failing grades. Seth would simply think him unreasonably strict and would attribute my reluctance to speak with him to my wanting to obey my uncle’s wishes.