“And I’m so tired from a long day I can barely believe I agreed to come out tonight.” He said as he sank down gratefully and pointed to a half circle of young men sipping on beers. “My colleagues.”
“I didn’t know you worked.”
That made him laugh out loud and he didn’t even apologise when I started to look uncomfortable. “That is what most people do,” he said.
“What is your job?” I asked primly, to regain dignity.
“Land management, stocks, finances. A great list of things I do a little and not very well.” His eyes refused to stop squinting merrily at the corners no matter how composed his face was. It made me trust him less, but like him even more. “Certainly not an occupation as pure and free as a sheep farmer.” He gave me the tiniest wink so I wasn’t positive it had happened at all.
“I wouldn’t know. I only know the life of a farmer and not a…a…”
“Estate manager,” he helped me. “I assume you prefer a life on the farm to offices.”
“Certainly. I wouldn’t marry into it if I didn’t love it.”
His smile swept into a fast frown, but his voice remained pleasant. “Surely, you didn’t take an offer at your age.”
“By the time he returns from the army I will be twenty-two. Plenty old enough.”
“I won’t argue with that, but how does one know at eighteen what one will want at twenty-two?”
“That’s a ridiculous question. You only fall in love once.” I brushed down my skirt just for something to do with my nervous hands.
He laughed again. “That would save the world heaps of trouble if it were true.”
I glowered and searched the room for Theo so I could make my excuses.
“Wait,” he said, studying my face. “I will wave my white flag. I won’t tease anymore. It’s not worth losing your company.”
I rolled my eyes because I hate to be patronised, and he clearly didn’t mean a word of it, but I did agree to dance when he asked me because I wanted to be able to teach Alan how to do it the same way. I stopped being offended, tried not to think of how rich he was or how much his brother spent on my food, and told him about Marion running into the sheep in my living room. He laughed so much I thought we got along splendidly.
He asked about Alan enlisting and he told me he thought the conflict would come but be very brief, at least for us. He did feel very sorry for the Poles, however. It felt good to hear someone so knowledgeable reassure me Alan was probably not in real danger, but it got me even angrier the silly boy signed away years of his life when he could be home adoring me. How dull things will be when I can’t watch him pine after me as he repairs walls or shears sheep. There is an immediacy to it when he loves me in the backyard, as if the closeness makes me able to feel it more than when he is far away.
Jonathon and I danced two songs and then his friends were kind enough to ask me. I even took a turn in Marion’s arms. It is good that his face is so wonderful because after dancing with his brother he felt rather clumsy and bouncy. I just stole glances at his cheekbones and recited to myself, “My hands are tied now. My hands are tied now,” trying to recapture the breathless feeling I had daydreaming of holding Alan’s hand. I did get all breathless, but I don’t think it was Alan doing it. Curse Marion’s face! He should expose it only to the girls who can do something about it because I didn’t like being forced to daydream about a man I wasn’t going to marry. I decided to stick with homelier men for the rest of the night just to walk clear of temptation. That meant several more dances with Jonathon and one of his short friends they called Bongo.
I escaped the room for a bottle of Cola near the end of the night, laying the cold glass next to my face to cool myself. I was straightening my lopsided slip discreetly by pretending to inspect a painting half hidden by a coat stand when I caught Jonathan's voice out of the crowd on the other side of the coats. I knew he spoke to one of his friends, but they all blurred together into forgettable names and faces. Except for Bongo, of course. I’d never forget that name.
“How old are the girls? They’re fair game, aren’t they?” his friend asked.
“Don’t bother the little one,” Jonathon answered sternly and I was shocked to understand he meant me. “She’s precocious. I think that’s her appeal. I guessed her fourteen the first time I saw her. Some farm hand is trying to rob the cradle with her, I tell you. Using the army as an excuse to take advantage.”
I took a sharp breath and pushed myself against the wall, praying he did not turn around and see my unstylish shoes stick out from the bottom of the long coats behind him.
“But her blond friend is no child,” the nameless man replied. “She’s a smasher. I wish Marion would let go of her long enough for me to get an armful.”
“Then be ready for an earful, because I’ll lambast you both. She’s just a kid from our tiny village with daydreams of love. I’ll pelt him if he strings her along like the others.”
“Easy, Mother Goose! I just wanted a dance. What will it matter in a week when we’re back at the office? Like any of us have time for girls.” The friend gave a curt laugh and took such a swig of something I could hear him swallow from behind the thick furs.
“I only feel sorry for them. They should be home with their parents, not among the wolves.”
The friend laughed again. “You’re hardly a wolf. And Marion is no more than a puppy. Now if Sutton were here, perhaps…I think you should have a nice time and then take the children home safely. They’ll dream of it all their lives. Now stop babysitting and go dance. Or at least drink until you’re more fun.”
The heat in my face burned against a wool sleeve and I couldn’t tell if the scratch came from underneath my skin or the rough fabric against it.
“It’s too bad that we…” but I never heard what was too bad because Jonathon followed his friend until I couldn’t hear anymore. I watched the back of his head as he walked away. How ridiculously tall he was! And his neck was decidedly skinny. I wish I could say I hated him, but I was too humiliated to conjure up anything that powerful. I extracted myself from the coats (to the surprise of some poor man who had just exited the men’s room and did not expect the coat rack to come to life) and sped away with my head up, as far from the brothers as I could get.
If I told Theo what I heard, the evening would be unbearable for everyone. At the moment it was only disastrous for me. Of course a “precocious child” would rush to her friend and blurt the whole thing, but I folded my lips together and swallowed down the burning words. I reapplied my lipstick and recited a few lines from Hamlet memorised for primary school. Anything to control my quivering chin.
That is where everything goes brown for me. Whenever I remember the rest of the night I see myself skulk in the hallway, peck at refreshments and tell myself not to get drunk. I’ve never done more than sip before and I didn’t want to make a bigger fool of myself, but how tempting those pints looked! Perhaps shame is brown and that is why the memory is doused with the colour. Shame I got caught up in the luxury of Marion’s face, and Theo’s power and whatever sauce they drenched the veal in. (It was magical despite all the rest that happened.) I suddenly felt like a schoolgirl caught trying on her mother’s brassiere. How silly I looked playing grown-up. Only at home I wasn’t playing. There they relied on me and thought me fully capable.
When Theo found me I told her I couldn’t stand to stay any later and had to get home and see to my boys. Since it was already past midnight, she relented and asked Marion to take us back. When I stiffened my spine and rejoined the group Jonathon smiled at me as if he thought I was the cleverest thing in the room. It is cruel of him to hide such unkind thoughts behind what looks like such a genuine smile. I ignored him entirely and didn’t mind at all that his grin got disfigured with confusion. I escaped outside before he could make a proper goodbye because I did not trust myself not to say something scathing.
I so much want to pull the curtain right there and say being ridiculed was th
e worst part of the night, but it’s a lie and it feels criminal to lie to one’s own typewriter. Especially when she is burgundy and right in my lap waiting for the real story. I fell asleep in the car on the way home listening to Theo and Marion murmur back and forth in the front seat. I could barely hear their words because Jonathon’s voice echoed through my head over and over until it melted into the whir of the tires and the rattle of the fierce wind against the windows. I did not dream exactly, but only replayed the evening, the edges blurred and unsteady, but always there was Jonathon with laughing eyes and restrained voice. Once he even peeked behind the coats and found me and asked if I was playing hide and seek. I woke up burning with mortification until the black night and glittering stars calmed me. When Marion dropped me off at home Theo’s face was flush with joy as she waved goodnight. I congratulated myself on not spoiling her romantic evening and took careful note of how pleased Marion looked sitting beside her. Jonathon got me all wrong and probably got Marion all wrong, too. I’m sure he sincerely likes Theo, I thought.
I crept into the dark kitchen, shoving Skip away from the door so I could close it as he whined joyfully. I took off my shoes before I stepped across the flagstones and the cold seeped past my nylons into my skin. My feet were so sore I didn’t even mind the frigid floor as I made my way to the light of the dying fire in the living room. As soon as my toes touched the threadbare carpet my father’s voice rose from the recesses of his easy chair.
“Out wit’ a lad?” I jumped and then turned to him, his face all whiskers and shadows. I could not guess the tone behind the words.
“Dad, you startled me! No, not really. Theo was. It was all last minute. She needed me to go with her.”
The foam had dried into a crusty film in his empty pint and I wondered how long he’d nursed the glass as he sat there. “Alan wen’ ta bed early tonight, but e’ry time I look ‘is lamp is still burning in the’ barn.” He said it like he observed the weather, but I sensed a warning.
“He didn’t feel ill, did he?” I asked.
“Not the way you’re thinking,” Dad said with chagrin. “You women don’t know all yer effeks. I reckon ‘e got sick imaginin’ yuh w’ the other yoong men. He seemed to think you’re promised.” His eyes gave a sharp glance at my face. “If you give yer heart, yer best lettin’ em keep it. Or not give it at all.”
“Oh don’t be silly,” I said with a relieved sigh, glad his scolding had no merit. “There was no one of interest there. This was strictly Theo’s conquest. If anything, those boys make Alan look all the better.” I sat down gingerly on the thick coffee table and lowered my voice. “So you do know about Alan then? His plans? I hoped he would speak with you.”
He flinched just a bit, but recovered. “Aye. If it’s what yuh both want.”
“It is.” I blushed, completely out of words for anything else.
Dad cleared his throat and shifted so the weak light hit him more in the face. “You put the ewe in the barn? She’s still dotherin’ a bit.” It was his signal that we’d spent his emotional reserve.
“She was up walking and making a mess of the living room. Is she alright?” I took the glass from his hand and gathered it with the plate next to him to take to the kitchen.
“Just dothering. Alan’s got ‘er now.” I barely heard his last words as I brushed through the swinging door. “I reckon they’re both dotherin’ a bit.”
I sighed. “Really, Dad, Alan is fine. I only spent the evening with friends.”
“As you probably should at yer age. It might not be time for pledges.”
I put the dishes in the stone sink as I ran his words through my mind. I couldn’t tell if he approved or not. Pushing aside the curtains, I peered across the yard. The barn window was black as the hills behind it. It seemed to say, “I know you’re home safe now, but do not come speak to me.” I sighed and wished I had known the name of the inn before we left. I would have written it in my note and perhaps Alan would have hunted me down and swept into the dance all in a fury like a bull in a net. And all the fire of jealousy would have turned to love when he took me in his arms and saw I didn’t care a thing for a single man there.
Now there was only a dark pane of glass, a frozen bank of snow, and a terrible misunderstanding between us. I hurried past Dad, up to my room, and buried myself in my covers. I tried to tell myself the shivering was from the cold, but I knew it was from the brown shame and the way I saw Jonathon’s smile turn to a sneer every time I closed my eyes. Every man thought me a child, a cheat, or a tease when all I intended to do for the night was scrub the kitchen floor. I pulled the quilt clear over my head and thought to Alan, “It seems neither one of us will sleep well tonight.” And then my dreams went as black as his window.
I know they call them lovers’ quarrels, but I see nothing lover-ly about them. I took my time over breakfast Sunday morning, making the most golden crumpets and opening a jar of peach preserves, but Alan didn’t come. William ended up eating almost all of them, while Dad polished off the last of the eggs.
“You buggered it, eh?” William said with a teasing smile and a cheek packed with crumpet when he saw me pull back the window curtain and huff again.
“I did no such thing.” I argued. The longer Alan pouted the angrier I got. When he didn’t show by nine o’clock I yanked on Dad’s gabardine coat and stomped across the yard to pound on his door. The sound made the chickens furious. “Alan, really!” I shouted when he didn’t open. “This is absurd.” I waited, pulling the coat closer against the cold. I raised my voice through the warped door. “Perhaps I need to rethink if you’re the type of man to sulk instead of talk reasonably.” I thought that would rouse him but the door didn’t budge. Then a terrible vision of Alan’s white face entered my mind and I had the most fantastical thought, What if he’s killed himself out of grief for me? I expected the lock to be bolted, but when I pushed, the door groaned open and let the morning light into the dark, empty room. His bed was made and the room swept clean. My fear balled into an angry lump in my stomach. He was most certainly not dead and most certainly not there. It was impossible to miss the note on his pillow because it was white against his navy blue blanket and held in place with a small rock as if he worried it might blow away. I crossed the floor, my throat tight and fighting to turn the damp air into a breath. Even though it didn’t look like my fingers trembled when I picked up the note, it felt as if they did, on the inside. There were so few words that the large paper almost looked blank.
“I know these are big choices and you’ve not had much time to get used to it all. I’ll be back after my training to see what you’ve decided. I will be true to you.”
Guilt is red hot and painful enough to wake even my sleepy temper. “Is that to say I wasn’t true?” I shouted, my anger soaring up to the cobwebbed rafters. I stormed from the room and slammed the door so hard it missed the latch and jumped open. Skip whipped his tail between his legs and scooted away from me as I closed it again and kicked my way through the snow back to the house.
I’d already dressed for church so I simply changed my Wellingtons for my pumps and grabbed my own coat. “William, you better take me right now or I’ll take myself!” They do hate it when I drive. The gears tend to scream as if they know it is me.
“You’ll be hours early,” he complained. “And I’m not dressed yet.”
“Then I’ll walk.” I managed not to slam the door, but I must have got my point across because he appeared before I made it to the end of the drive.
“Eve, wait. Just wait.” He pulled the crank out of the front seat and started turning the ancient engine, trying to coax it awake. The sun was already bright and the mounds of snow had a melted gloss covering where the warm light had begun to collect on its surface. “What did Alan say?” he asked as he turned, his hot breath making clouds over the bonnet.
“Nothing. He left a note. The stupid fool ran away without saying goodbye.”
William reached out and took it from me befo
re I could protest. “Good thing I didn’t go looking for him. This would have been awkward,” he said, laughing at the note. I snatched it back but William kept speaking. “He’s completely daft. He was perfectly sensible until you entered the picture. And now we’ve got two extra weeks to get by without him.” The engine finally sputtered. “Why do you want to go to church so early?” he asked.
“Because I’m all fire and brimstone at the moment. I best go repent for what I’m thinking.”
It wasn’t until we climbed into the car that I fully appreciated William was still in his pajamas. “You’re a good brother,” I told him as we made our way past the bare, tangled bushes along the drive and onto the road.
He snorted a bit. “I didn’t think you’d be so much trouble so soon. I was hoping you’d wait till I got to university and was on a boxing team before you got muddled up with men.”
“Why a boxing team?” I mused, touched he had put any thought into my future.
He flexed one thin arm. “I need some more muscles, and I have no interest getting them by farming sheep. At present, Alan would flatten me.” We drove in uncomfortable contemplation for a bit before William spoke again. “Don’t hurt him, Eve. You don’t have to love him, but we’re all he’s got. Just don’t yank him about.”
“Oh, for the love of…I did nothing! Nothing. I accompanied Theo on her date. What children all you men are. I didn’t take you all for such cowards.”
“Cowards?” His look assured me I couldn’t scare him if I tried.
I did try. I put on a fierce expression.
He laughed out loud. “Don’t pretend you weren’t flaunting your power. I hear it’s natural.”
I slugged him soundly on his unmuscled arm. “Stop sounding like you know one thing about it.” I looked a moment at his face, which had grown leaner recently, his wavy hair darker and thicker. The girls would begin batting their lashes at him any day and I didn’t savour the thought one bit.
To Move the World (Power of the Matchmaker) Page 7
