by Jan Watson
It’s a good thing I squirreled some of my work clothes in here before Mam gave them all away. I guess she thinks people don’t do wash in the city. Adjusting her sunbonnet, she decided to forgo shoes. She always worked faster when her feet were free.
Down the stairs and out the back door on the run, she approached the quick-moving woman who stirred the laundry and stuck out her hand. “You must be Searcy. I’m Copper, and I’m so sorry to have overslept on washday. Why, Mam would have my hide if I did that at home.” She let her hand fall, hefted a basket to her hip, and started across the yard to the clothesline.
Searcy nearly dropped a box of bluing into her kettle of rinse water. “Ma’am? Miz Corbett? We can’t be having none of this now. Folks be saying Searcy can’t take care of her fambly.”
Searcy jerked the basket away more roughly than she’d meant to and shooed the new Mrs. Corbett toward the porch. “You all be going back in the house now. Searcy done left you some biscuit on the sideboard. They’s honey or blackberry jam—your wish.”
The girl halted halfway in the screen door, looking like she didn’t know what to do next.
“You be wanting to change before Mr. Doctor comes home. Searcy put your pretties in the closet. Sure do like that green dress; sure would look good with them black boots with all them little buttons. You call you need help with anything.”
Copper closed the screen door. The blue- and white-tiled floor was cool to her bare feet. The kitchen was big. A huge cast-iron stove with two ovens and a warmer dominated one corner. Painted shelves held various green and blue enamel pots and pans. Four cast-iron skillets, graduating in size, hung from hooks below the bottom shelf. The walls were white beaded board below the chair rail, like the indoor outhouse, but above they were painted a soft blue the color of a robin’s egg. The ceiling was punched tin. Against one wall, a double sink with a funny-handled thingamajig sat under a window.
Leaning against the sink, Copper retrieved a bar of lye soap from a small wire container. She closed her eyes and breathed in the clean scent of it, the only familiar thing in the room. Tears sprang to her eyes as she pictured Mam and the boys doing their Monday wash without her. She pumped the handle with vigor, figuring it would gush like the bathroom sink, and let the water flow to splash away her tears.
A quiet voice and a hand on her shoulder startled away her momentary homesickness.
“Here, now, Miz Corbett,” Searcy said. “Let’s set you down and get you something to eat. ’Spec everything’s right strange to you this morning.”
Soon Copper was seated at the kitchen table, her bare feet perched on the chair rung, a plate of biscuits, butter, and jam before her, a cup of hot tea in her hand.
The housekeeper’s heart melted. She had been in a stew of apprehension for weeks, not knowing what manner of mistress Mr. Doctor was going to bring into the house. Would she be bossy and haughty like Miz Alice, never satisfied with anything, or whiny and needy like Old Doctor’s wife, Miz Lilly, had been? Why, that woman had been so frail that even after Mr. Simon’s birth half the time Searcy had to blow her nose for her. But no manner of imaginings could have prepared her for the teary-eyed little creature in the black bonnet and shapeless dress sitting there as puny as a newborn mouse at Mr. Doctor’s kitchen table.
“You set and rest a spell,” Searcy instructed before she turned toward the hallway, her arms full of sun-drenched bedding, her brown leather house slippers, castoffs of Mr. Doctor’s, slapping out her steps.
“Oh my, oh my, Searcy’s corns be killing her today,” the housekeeper said as she climbed the stairs to the second floor.
Finished with her biscuit, Copper followed.
“Pardon me, Miz Corbett, would you be wanting these sheets ironed? Mr. Doctor likes them right off the line. He likes the smell of fresh air. Onliest time his linens is pressed is when they ain’t no sunshine about.” With a jerk of her arms, Searcy snapped the top sheet in place.
“Whatever Simon wants,” Copper said, reaching out to help. “Mam likes everything ironed to a fault, but in the summer we put the pillowcases to dry over the lavender beds. Oh, they smell so good.” She helped tuck the heavy, rose-colored bedspread up over the bolster. “May I ask you something, Searcy? How do you empty that funny chamber pot?”
“Come on in here, Miz Corbett. This be easy. You get hold of this here chain and pull down. Just like that.”
Whoosh . . . whirl . . . Copper watched, mouth agape, as the contents of the toilet drained away, replaced by clean water. “But where does it go? Won’t the ceiling below be ruined?”
Searcy understood. When the newfangled fixtures were first put in, she’d refused to enter the room to clean it. Seemed like voodoo to her. It was only after Mr. Doctor patiently explained the pipes and faucets and showed her how it all connected to the buried tank out back that she had lost her fear of it. Now she did the same for Copper, leading her down the steps and out the back door to the prized septic system.
Working in a house with conveniences elevated Searcy’s position among the other housekeepers on the street. Her Mr. Doctor was always the first with anything new, and there had been a flurry of new things since his trip to the mountains last summer. So far, she liked the gaslights and the boiler system with radiators in every room but the kitchen best. They still used the fireplaces but not nearly as often. Sure made her work easier.
“How do, Searcy,” Mallie, the Lauderbacks’ housekeeper, called over the fence. “That a fine-looking wash you got out today.”
“Good day for laundry, Mallie,” Searcy replied loudly. “Yours be white as snow.”
Searcy stepped between Mallie’s prying eyes and her new mistress. She didn’t want that nosy Mallie to fetch Miz Lauderback to come out and gawk at Miz Corbett, dressed like she was, barefoot and all. Miz Lauderback would report everything she saw back to Mr. Doctor’s sister, Alice. They were as thick as cold molasses.
“I’ve never seen so many pretty flowers in my life.” Copper followed the housekeeper through the flower garden and back into the kitchen. “I brought some seeds from Mam’s garden. I can hardly wait to plant them.”
“We’ll get Reuben to dig you up a spot,” Searcy replied. “Reuben, he’s good at growing things. We got the best truck garden on the street, and when he ain’t planting vegetables he be pinching flower heads and pruning lilacs.” She filled the teapot at the sink, then pointed out the window. “That’s him digging new potatoes, there under that straw hat.”
“Simon told me that Reuben is your husband and that you have been married for a long time. He said he didn’t know what he would do without the both of you.”
“We been taking care of Mr. Doctor’s fambly these many years.” Searcy looked thoughtful. “Old Doctor, he bought Reuben when Reuben just a boy, then give him his freedom when he turned eighteen. Reuben, he frame them papers. They on our kitchen wall.”
Never still, Searcy punctuated her reminiscence with swipes from a wet dishrag to the stove, the table, the sink. “Searcy come to be Miz Lilly’s house girl when she be marrying Old Doctor. ’Course we didn’t call him Old Doctor ’til Mr. Simon hung out his shingle. Then he be Mr. Doctor and his daddy be Old Doctor.” Pumping the handle, she rinsed the rag and draped it over the sink. “We used to live in that cabin out in the cornfield yonder, but Mr. Doctor, he bought us our own house, said everybody ought to have a place of their own. You be marrying a fine man, Miz Corbett.”
Copper followed her up the stairs again.
“Us be fixing your bath now,” Searcy said. “Get the road dust offen you. You was too tuckered out last evening.” With a quick twist to the top of a flowered tin, Searcy shook sweet-smelling toilet water into the tub. “Things be changing too fast. Seem like a dipping bath in front the fire come Saturday night be plenty good enough.”
Copper was swimming in a lilac-scented pool. She soaped and scrubbed and rinsed, then pulled the plug, thankful she knew where the water went, wrapped herself in a clean towel, and
stepped into the bedroom to dress her hair. She found her dresser set—her brush and combs on a glass tray with silver handles, a gift from Mam on Copper’s sixteenth birthday—on the vanity.
Fingering the raised initials LGB on the handle of the hairbrush, her thoughts turned to her stepmother, whom she’d always called Mam. It seemed they had just begun to come to terms with one another, just begun to understand their troubled relationship, when Simon entered the picture and whisked Copper away from her home and her people.
Her lip trembled. “Help me, Lord,” she whispered. “I can barely stand this missing my folks. I didn’t know it would hurt so bad.” Even Mam’s temper would be welcome at this moment, and, oh, she might die from the longing to see her little brothers, though she’d been gone from them for only a short time. And Daddy . . . her rock . . . her fortress . . . A shake of her head tumbled him out of her thoughts. Best not to dwell on home.
It was easy to do her hair, sitting there with everything close at hand. Scooping the mass of red curls up and away from her face with a ribbon, she secured the twist with pins.
Searcy thought of everything, she realized as she fastened a lightly boned, button-front corset over her soft knit chemisette and full-cut muslin drawers. Copper pulled one of the petticoats she and Mam had made last winter over her head and smoothed it over her hips. Catching her reflection in the cheval glass, she admired the trim of lace and openwork. “Such a lot of work just to be covered up,” she fretted as she slipped into the dress Searcy had laid out on the bed. I hope Simon doesn’t expect this every day, else I’ll never get any work done.
Copper rubbed her thumb against her finger. Where had she left her apron with the pebble in the pocket? She looked out the window, down into the backyard, and spied it on the line beside her washday shift. Looked like Searcy was as fond of Monday as Mam. She hoped she wouldn’t see Paw-paw there, hung out to dry by one floppy ear.
She was halfway down the stairs when her own bare feet greeted her in the hall mirror. “Fiddlesticks,” she said as she hurried back to the bedroom. Hefting her dress and petticoat, her fingers fumbled to secure long, clay-colored cotton stockings to garter straps dangling from the hips of her corset. After she retrieved the buttonhook from her dresser, she leaned over to fasten her shoes.
A funny feeling fluttered in her stomach. She took a deep breath. It didn’t go away. She rubbed the little creek rock Searcy had left next to the silver posy holder, then secreted it deep within her dress pocket. I wish I were home.
Dr. Simon Corbett strolled from his office to his house at 212 Willow Street. It was his practice to walk back and forth to work on pretty days. With a hearty “Good morning,” he tipped his derby to Mrs. Miller, who replied in kind with a twirl of her fancy parasol, then picked up his pace. He couldn’t wait to get home.
There she was, the reason for his haste. His heart swelled when he saw Laura Grace waiting for him on the front porch. Her hair was swirled on top of her head, held in place with a ribbon that matched the light green linen dress she wore. She was swinging gently, book in hand, but looked up as he approached.
“Laura Grace, I can hardly believe you’re here,” he said. “I’ve been afraid it was all a dream.” He prodded the old dog, Paw-paw, from beside her and settled himself in the wicker swing.
She handed him a glass of cold lemonade poured from a cut-glass pitcher. Paw-paw stretched, yawned, then curled his body around a patch of sunlight on the top porch step.
“Simon, I’m all agog.” Laura Grace’s voice rushed out in a torrent. “I feel like Alice when she fell down the hole and had lunch with the queen. Everything here astounds me. The icebox in the kitchen . . . the outhouse—excuse me, lavatory—with water coming out of pipes in the wall. I’ll bet I’ve flushed the pot ten times just to see the water swirl.” Her eyes danced with excitement. “And you can turn the gas lamps on and off, and you don’t have to fill them with anything! Oh, how silly. You know all this already. Your house is lovely, just lovely.”
“Our house,” he said, taking her hand. “This house is yours, too. If you want, we could go to the bank and let Benton make it legal.”
“Benton is your sister Alice’s husband, right?”
“Yes, they’ve been married for fifteen years. Benton is a lawyer as well as a banker. He aims to acquire more money than a Vanderbilt.”
“Speaking of Alice and Benton, when will I meet them? I know I will just love your sister.”
“She will love you too. How could she not?” Simon prayed it would be so. “She’s having a dinner party for us on Wednesday. I wanted to give you a few days to acclimate before you had to meet everyone.”
Laura Grace pushed the swing with one foot. “Tell me about your morning. Did you see many patients?”
After taking a long, welcome drink of lemonade, Simon placed the glass on the tray before replying. “Several. Todd Bowman broke his arm when he fell out of Mrs. Jon’s apple tree—a greenstick fracture. Then Harley came by with a painful case of printer’s finger. He’s a typesetter for the paper. I gave him some laudanum salve. He can’t afford to miss any work what with Mary’s being in the family way again.” He settled an arm around her shoulders. “No more talk of work. I’m sure I’m boring you to tears.”
“Oh no.” She faced him. “I want to hear everything about your work.”
“When it is appropriate, my dear. Come, let me show you the garden before we eat.”
“I saw some of it this morning—the lilies and the hollyhocks. Did you know you can make dolls from hollyhock blossoms?” she asked, swinging his hand. “We used to act out plays with our flower puppets. Of course, Willy and Daniel always wanted to have wars. It is hard to make soldiers from hollyhocks.”
They strolled around the garden. Simon pointed out his mother’s favorite roses and the small fishpond that Alice had commissioned. Then he showed her the vegetable garden and introduced her to Reuben.
Reuben doffed his straw hat and tipped his head. “Pleased, missus, mighty pleased.”
Laura Grace reached out to touch the dark brown hand that hung at his side. “As am I, Reuben. Simon tells me you’ve taken good care of my Molly.”
“Yes’m. Molly a fine cow. Gone dry though, after her journey down from the mountains. I got her out in the pasture. She be right-natured again once she fattens up.”
“Let me know when she’s ready, Reuben, and I’ll help you with the milking.”
“Yes’m,” Reuben replied, his eyes seeking Simon’s.
Noon dinner was green beans with new potatoes in their jackets, fried corn, and cabbage slaw, all fresh picked that morning. Searcy served the vegetables with honey-basted ham and yeast rolls, and for dessert there was a three-layer chocolate cake.
Copper pushed back from the table and carried her plate to the kitchen, but Searcy shooed her away when she tried to wash up.
Simon had closed his office for the afternoon. He wanted to take Copper riding to show her Willow Springs, the creek that ran across the back of their property, and so he presented her with a suitable frock. The brown, hip-length, close-fitting jacket made of ladies’ cloth fit over a narrow skirt that fell just to the ankle of long leather riding boots. There was even a little hat that was held in place with a hatpin.
Copper felt perfectly silly, being more accustomed to riding in a pair of her daddy’s old overalls, cut off at the ankle and cinched at the waist, until she paused to look in the cheval glass. What the mirror revealed was startling. The narrow-hipped woman in the mirror could have been a model in one of Mam’s dressmaking magazines. They’d seen a jacket much like this one in The Standard Designer and had wished for just a yard of the narrow gilt-and-jet passementerie trim. Twirling to see herself from the back and side, she faced the mirror and placed her hands on her hips. With great relief she appraised herself. No one can tell that aggravating corset is at the bottom of my trunk.
Fairly skipping down the stairs to the foyer, she found Simon waiting patiently. �
�You’ve thought of everything,” she gushed. “I’ll bet there’s even a real sidesaddle. Daddy jerry-built one for me at home. Mam wouldn’t let me ride otherwise. She had some peculiar ways.”
“I owe your mother a debt of gratitude for her protection of you,” Simon said as he kissed Laura Grace’s gloved hand. And for sending me your measurements to take to the dressmaker, he thought. Keeping his promise to Grace Brown, he had delivered the envelope to Mme. Pacquin’s House of Couture still sealed. He couldn’t be more pleased with the riding habit Mme. Pacquin had stitched nor the figure it revealed.
Thoughts of his bride’s stern stepmother took him back to the day he’d met the Brown family, to his surprise on finding an educated, refined woman living in an isolated hollow in the hills. And then he was more than surprised when his heart tumbled and never righted as he first caught sight of Laura Grace.
The afternoon was spent on horseback. Pard and Rose made good companions, Rose being a gentle mare purchased especially for Copper. They rode the property behind the house: a few acres of land bordered by a deep, spring-fed creek. They paused at a break in a copse of drooping willows that nearly hid the water.
“This land is so flat, Simon,” Copper said, dismissing the gently rolling hills with a wave of her hand. “I’ll never get used to it. But at least there is water enough for fishing and swimming.” Leaning forward in her sidesaddle, she patted Rose’s long neck. What fun to have her own horse. “We’ll bring a picnic here soon.”
Simon turned his horse and Rose followed. “We’d best head back now before I tire you. I expect Searcy will have left us a light supper.”
The young couple stood at the screen door and looked out as the shadows deepened over the well-tended backyard.
“Oh, Simon, let’s eat in the garden,” Laura Grace begged. “We can spread a quilt and sit there ’til the lightning bugs come out. We can listen for peepers and katydids. It’ll be just like home.”
