Palmyra

by Susan Evans McCloud

  “Esther!”

  I jumped, startled, as a firm hand shook me.

  “Come back, will you, Esther? They’re choosing partners.” Eugene bent half over in an exaggerated bow. “Will you, m’lady?”

  I blushed—I always blush, and have discovered no way of stopping it!—and gave him my hand.

  He pulled me into the circle that was forming. I noticed, with a sinking heart, that Simon was dancing with Emily, and Phoebe stood by the side. The music started, and the intricate pattern claimed my attention: circle left, circle right, two balance steps forward, four running steps backward. Dancing has never been easy for me. But I still felt beautiful, and my heart thrilled when we reached the part where the boys walk forward, kneel on one knee, and unfasten the ribbons—the long rainbow-bright ribbons which have been floating like butterflies—then return bearing one for themselves and one for their partner. I curtsied low, with as much grace as I could muster, and felt my cheeks grow warm at the expression in Eugene’s eyes when he raised me up and looked at me.

  As the intricate weaving began—clockwise, under the boy’s ribbon, with eight skips—I saw that Phoebe did have a partner, though not the partner her heart cried for. I had forgotten to look for which lad Josephine had deigned to bestow her favors upon as she began her campaign of entrapment, but the very thought made me smile.

  “Thank you for being with me,” Eugene murmured, closing his fingers with ardent pressure over mine. “In this whole array of beautiful women, Esther, you are the fairest.”

  I cast my eyes down. I did not know what to do, what to say, when he behaved like this. I possessed no coquettish skills like my sister and could not return him a quick, clever rejoinder. Yet his words were sincerely spoken; what good would coquetry do? I found myself merely pressing his warm hand in return and feeling the hot blood flow to my cheeks.

  I’ve been rambling all this night,

  And some time of this day,

  And now returning back again,

  I brought you a branch of May . . .

  Awake, awake, O pretty, pretty maid,

  From out your drowsy dream,

  And step into your dairy here,

  And fetch me a bowl of cream.

  As we sang the words a meadowlark rose from the fringes of our grassy meadow, mere feet away, his lilting trill a harmonious accompaniment to our melody.

  If not a bowl of your sweet cream,

  A cup to bring you cheer,

  For God knows when we’ll meet again

  To be maying another year . . .

  A sudden chill shivered over me. Is this what growing up means? I wondered. Never before had those closing words held special meaning for me. Now, as I glanced around at the bright faces of the lads and girls I had known since childhood, I wondered where the next year would find us—and the next, and the next—as life pulled us in dozens of different directions and shaped and molded our futures anew.

  When the cavorting circle broke up at last it was to flock to the long tables which literally sagged with their burden of food. This day we ate dainties which would not be offered again for another year: candied violets, cookies flavored with rose water, strawberry cordial, mint syllabus, rhubarb tarts, elder flower pudding, iced honey cakes, and red currant ice cream.

  I stayed beside Eugene and tried not to worry about the others; they had not dubbed me “Mother Hen” when I was only seven for nothing! But it was curiosity that drove me to cast my eyes every now and again in my sister’s direction. Her admirers, as usual, were hovering around, like obedient knights in a queen’s court. I knew there were three or four who could be dismissed without thought, who were not really “in the running,” as the saying goes: patient, faithful Henry, Timothy Ikins, Ralph Jensen . . . and probably James Sadler, though James would make a good husband, especially to one as high-strung as Josie. But, alas, he was not handsome nor dashing enough. Robert Sumsion, whose looks could melt the heart of any girl who happened to turn her eyes upon him, was like a bright, pretty toy Josephine played with—something to delight her fancy, but not serious marriage material, for he had no family connections, no promising trade, and only fair to middling prospects. The poor boy did not realize that.

  The coldness with which Josie regarded these flesh-and-blood men was something I had not stomach enough to dwell upon. Instead, I slipped my arm through Eugene’s and counted myself lucky to have his attentions. I had been fond of Eugene for quite a long time. Odd that he was the brother of Emily, my dearest friend’s rival. Yet he shared her same sweet disposition and had inherited the same trim, compact figure, Dresden china features, and arresting blue eyes.

  “He is too short,” Josephine had criticized from the beginning. “He looks like a boy, though he’s a year older than I am.”

  “Yes, and he will always look fresh and young like a boy. When he is forty and fifty—even sixty.”

  She had dismissed me with a wave of her hand. “Suit yourself, Esther. You have always had your own tastes . . .” Indicating quite clearly inferior tastes, especially to mine.

  I looked over to see Theodora’s brothers approaching, waving their arms to attract my attention. “We’ve got news!” Peter cried.

  “You’re hired on!” I guessed. “The canal company accepted you two skinny half-pints. Must be through your father’s influence,” I teased.

  Randolph beamed. They were used to me. “Told you she’d guess, Pete.”

  “I’m happy for both of you! When do you start work?” I cried.

  “Day after tomorrow. The spring rush is already in full swing and they need extra hands.”

  I nodded. “Pay attention when they train you, and follow the safety rules. And be polite to the women—always. That will not go unnoticed.”

  Peter inclined his head in playful acquiescence. “Anything you say, ma’am. We will follow your instructions to the letter.”

  “You could do worse!” I countered. I was most fond of both these boys. Randolph was fifteen and Peter fourteen. I would not have let my own sons associate with the rough canal men at such a tender age. But Lawrence Swift held a stubborn belief in a work ethic that overwhelmed all other considerations. He may have been born to wealth and influence, but he had extended his advantages by his labors, both of mind and of hand.

  I watched them frolic off to tell the next person, then turned to Eugene. “Do you think Simon will ask Emily to marry him?”

  My question took him a bit by surprise.

  “Do you know if he has broached the subject with her?”

  “She would not tell me, Esther! Especially because of you.”

  I sighed. “I am fond of Emily,” I told him truthfully, “and would be more so if my loyalty to Phoebe did not get in the way.”

  “Emily cannot help the situation! She has done nothing petty or underhanded—”

  “I know that!” I placed my other hand on his arm, my eyes entreating him. “ ’Tis merely one of the terrible misfortunes of life, Eugene, that one person’s happiness will spell misery and bitter disappointment for another.” I leaned my head against his cheek and could feel his sun-warmed flesh through the thin veil of my hair. “You understand.”

  “Yes, but if Emily marries Simon, you five will ostracize and abandon them both, and in a village this size that will be no small thing.”

  Ostracize and exclude, perhaps. But abandon was a strong word for Eugene to choose. I peered at my companion closely. “Is Emily really concerned about such a thing happening?”

  “Of course she is! Would not you be, in her shoes?”

  His question pierced through me. What mischief, what heady truth potion had the May Day air carried that it should affect me in this way? I chaffed at the irritating burden of my own concern over Emily’s happiness. Her well-being, if she married Simon, did not rest with me.

  “There you go, furrowing your brow in that way again,” Eugene said, watching me. “I want you to take my words to heart, but I do not want you to fret yoursel
f over them.”

  “ ’Tis one and the same.”

  “With you it is, more than with any other.” He was scolding me gently, but I could see pride in his eyes. It pleased him to know that my temperament was different from Josie’s. He was one of the few never taken in by her beauty and flirtatious ways.

  “Come, Esther,” he said, “I must get you a plate before all the choice morsels are picked over.”

  I walked along, enjoying the touch of him, aware that his presence delighted and warmed me and enhanced every other pleasurable sensation I was feeling on this gentle spring day.

  Chapter 2

  Palmyra: Spring 1827

  We could not find Tillie when it came time to go home.

  “She’s gone off with Joel Hancock,” Georgie informed us.

  That is encouraging, I thought to myself. I knew she cared for Joel more than she admitted. I also knew he did not meet with her father’s approval, did not begin to measure up to the “requirements for a future mate” that her father had set. Can she hold out against him? I wondered, when the time comes?

  Theodora lived in the largest house in Palmyra—such a house! Too elegant for the rest of us, it stood on its commodious corner lot like a glittering gem set amid cheap, dull store-bought jewelry. An advertisement, she called it, of all my father is and all he imagines himself to be.

  We walked past her house without stopping, then deposited Georgeanna at the corner of Main and Jackson and Phoebe remained with us to where Church turns into Canandaigua and her father has both his house and his saddlery shop. I was surprised that Josephine had chosen to accompany me rather than selecting one of her admirers as escort. We had nearly a mile farther to go along Canandaigua Road in order to reach the long stretch of our father’s farm.

  At first we walked in silence; Josie concerned with her thoughts, I with the sights and sounds of the countryside through which we passed. Still, my preoccupation was the less; I was the first to spy Doctor Ensworth’s buggy pulled up in front of the house, his sleek bay horse standing patiently, with the reins thrown in a hasty half loop over the post.

  I felt my heart catch in my chest. “Josephine!” I clutched at her arm.

  “Heaven preserve us!” she muttered. “It can be only one thing.”

  So it was. As we entered the dim, cool kitchen the doctor was walking from the back bedroom, our parents’ bedroom, toward us. He squinted against the wedge of light the opened door directed at him. When he recognized our shapes he grunted in satisfaction.

  “ ’Bout time you two showed up.” He growled the words, but I could hear the relief in them. “Esther, your mother’s took to hemorrhaging again. I suppose you know what that means.”

  I nodded.

  “She is to stay in that bed till the baby comes, if it takes another three months!”

  I nodded once more and noticed, out of the corner of my eye, that Josie had removed her lace shawl and mittens and was filling the kettle with water.

  “Would you like some tea, Doctor?” she asked.

  “Very much,” he replied, “but I’ve got no time for it. Now, listen carefully to my instructions, the both of you. I’ll not explain them again.”

  He launched into a list of things Mother could and could not eat, various herb teas we should ply her with—“And rub her legs to stimulate circulation. That rosemary and lavender liniment you made last summer—you got any left, Esther?”

  “Yes. We’ll keep good watch,” I assured him.

  “You must. We can’t have a tragedy this time.”

  I swallowed, my throat tight.

  “Mother is not the most pleasant or accommodating of patients,” Josie reminded him.

  “That has nothing to do with it, missy,” he barked back at her. “You do as I say. And don’t leave three-quarters of the work in your sister’s hands, either.”

  He walked heavily to the door, shuffling as though the effort to lift his booted feet would be too much for him. “Been up all night with a birth,” he mumbled. “Other side of town.”

  “It didn’t go well?”

  I did not need him to confirm my words. But he lifted one thick eyebrow, where the gray hairs were already curling round the black ones. “Lost both mother and child,” he said. My immediate concern darkened my features.

  “Anyone we know?” Josephine asked.

  “Canal family. Skinny little wisp of a girl who shouldn’t ’a been having a child in the first place. Complications . . .” A shudder passed through his compact, thick-set body. I put my hand on his arm.

  “Have that tea, Doctor,” I urged. “It will only take a few minutes and prove well worth it.”

  With a sigh he consented and lowered his tired body into a chair.

  “Is Father in there?” I asked, nodding toward the bedroom while I stirred honey into his cup, where the leaves of the lemon balm were beginning to diffuse their fragrance. In ancient times this tea was drunk for its ability to comfort the heart and drive away melancholy and sadness. I knew it would soothe and revive the doctor.

  “Your mother is resting,” he informed me. “I believe your father has already slipped back to the fields.”

  Poor Father, I thought. Distress renders him awkward and tongue-tied, though not unwilling to help. He would work his fingers to the bone for Mother, and for the rest of us. But he had no notion of how to administer comfort on a sit-down, intimate level. Indeed, it was difficult for him ever to simply sit still.

  When Doctor Ensworth was ready I walked with him out to where the tired horse and the faded buggy waited. “Is the danger great?” I asked. “Is there any chance she might—”

  “There is a fair chance, Esther,” he assured me, clutching my hand and patting it in his fatherly manner. “But only if Rachel exercises restraint and wisdom.” He paused, his left foot on the running board, undecided.

  “Tell me,” I urged. “I should like to know anything that might help or make a difference.”

  “I hesitate mentioning it, since I am not certain,” he began, hoisting himself heavily up onto the lumpy seat stretched over the sagging springs. “But I believe there is a chance we might be dealing with twins here.”

  I felt my chest contract in fear, and also excitement.

  “It isn’t size; your mother scarcely gains an ounce when she carries her babies. But it seems I have determined more than one heart- beat, in varying positions.” He shrugged.

  “That could be—”

  “Yes, let us hope I am mistaken, my dear.” He nodded to me as he clucked his tongue to the faithful beast, who lifted his head in response.

  I watched them move off in a small cloud of dust that clung in my nostrils as it sifted back to the earth like fine flour. I rubbed my eyes with my fists, the way a child would, and realized that I felt tired, though the day had scarcely begun. I did not look forward to dealing with Mother over the next weeks, not at all. I wondered if Josephine would participate, and dampen her ardor for her own enterprises, even a little, in the name of mercy and cooperation.

  I walked back into the house. Before the door closed behind me I heard Mother call out. Her voice sounded tired and more frightened than fractious. I glanced at Josephine, then headed back to Mother’s room.

  My mother is a private sort of person, one who keeps her emotions, even her thoughts, to herself. I looked at her now, lying white and pale against the pillow, and it seemed there were new creases lining her forehead and feathering out from her eyes. I smiled at her.

  “It will be all right,” I assured her. “I shall take good care of you. We’ll pull through this thing together.”

  “I am afraid to hope.”

  Her voice was so small, so thin and girlish, that it wrung my heart. “You must hope, Mother. Hope is our strongest ally!”

  “I have never had your kind of strength, Esther,” she replied. “Josephine and I. You are like your father, and I don’t understand . . . I . . .”

  Her voice was faltering, and I could he
ar tears, like water running cold over stones. A chill fear pounded against my temples.

  “It doesn’t matter, Mother! Be yourself. Believe in your own way.”

  She lifted one thin hand, then let it flutter back onto the coverlet like the broken wing of a butterfly, frail and defenseless. “I am so tired, Esther.”

  I dropped down onto my knees and drew up that cold hand. “It’s all right, Mother. Sleep. Do not worry. I shall take care of things here.”

  She smiled wanly. I was distressed anew as I saw tears fill her eyes. This is unlike her! I felt a sense of panic rise, like a hot flush, to my face. She covers emotion with a bright, brittle shell, the way Josie does. I have never seen her break down this way.

  I stroked the thin hand. “I’ll see you through this,” I soothed. “Things will be all right, Mother, I promise.”

  I sat beside the bed a long time, until I was certain her sleep was deep and unbroken. Then I went slowly from the room, avoiding the boards I knew would crack and creak. There was a dull ache in my lower back, and my feet felt heavy. I looked around, but could see Josephine nowhere. Where could she have gone? She would certainly not be at work in the garden. Had she carried a pail of food or a cool glass of buttermilk out to Father?

  I let myself out through the kitchen door and walked a few yards to where the rise at the back of the house gave me a clear view of the fields and woods in all directions. Shading my eyes, I could see Father’s figure driving the horse-drawn plow in the distance. He was alone. No other shape, human or beast, was in sight.

  I sighed and felt the discouragement shudder through me. There was some washing up to do and a pile of clothes all sprinkled and ready for ironing. By then the dough would be risen enough to form into loaves. And it would be time to begin boiling potatoes and frying chicken for supper. Work. Work enough at hand to drive thought away. But not a sense of despondency. That could settle, thick and choking as the dust the doctor’s carriage wheels had churned up in the dry lane, and cling, a dull layer to dampen the soul.