Heart of Glass

by Diane Noble

Zebulon’s laughter rang out as we whirled in the meadow. My voice joined his, right along with a flutter of startled quail that exploded skyward.

  He halted midstep and grinned, cocking his head. “I was awake most of the night,” he said, looking as if he couldn’t bear to contain his news a minute longer. “I pondered my studies and these mountains”—his smile turned gentle—“and you,” he finally finished. “I thought about you, Fairwyn March.”

  I bit my bottom lip, afraid to breathe.

  “Your intelligence, your heart for learning, your knowledge of the region. You’ve already helped me make connections that might have taken months.”

  I didn’t know whether to be flattered or dismayed. I tried not to think about what I’d rather have heard him say about me.

  But before he could say more, Poppy appeared like a ha’nt from around the side of the house. He strode toward us, his face dark as he scowled at Zebulon. I figured he’d seen us twirling.

  “Are ye plannin’ to keep company with my Fairwyn?” Poppy said.

  My face flamed, and I bit my lip.

  Zebulon stepped closer to Poppy, his face now serious. “Please forgive me any impropriety, sir. I never intended to—”

  “Ye canna dally with Fairwyn.” Poppy’s voice was a growl. “I willna allow it.”

  “I wouldn’t do that, sir.”

  I stared at my feet, wondering at the troubled thoughts that filled my head, the voices that condemned me for my spinster state. Would I never be worthy of a man’s notice?

  “Then tell me yer intentions.”

  Zebulon studied the ground, working the muscles in his jaw as though he was chewing on a sassafras stick. He looked back to Poppy and said, “My intentions are to ask your granddaughter to come back to Oak Hill with me.”

  I caught my breath. But before I could speak, Poppy reached for my hand and held it fast. “I’ve been expectin’ yer question. And I already got an answer fer ye. And that answer is no.” He stepped closer to Zebulon, now emphasizing his words by thudding his index finger at the younger man’s chest. “Fairwyn’s mountain folk, Mister Deforest. Ye’re citified. I canna see her heart broken for the likes of ye.”

  Zebulon held his hands up as if in defeat and took a step backward. “I can assure you, Mr. March, I have nothing but honorable intentions toward Fairwyn.” His voice dropped and took on a condescending tone. “My offer was merely one of furthering her education—”

  Poppy’s face turned dark gray. “Ye’re using her for yer fancy book.” He let go of my hand, and his white-knuckled fists, hanging at his sides, twitched. “Ye’ll take her nowhere.”

  “I understand your concern, but I can assure you, I would guard her feelings, her well-being, with every ounce of energy in me.”

  I couldn’t keep silent a minute longer. I glared at them both. “Shouldn’t I have a say in this?”

  Stunned silence followed, and Poppy spun to look me straight in the face. “Ye’d go agin’ my wishes, lass?”

  “You know my heart for book learning, Poppy,” I said, trying to keep my tone soft and reasonable. “You know how I long to know more, to see the world beyond our mountains and read more than just the books Welsie True sends me. What Zebulon offers is a gift. It’s a present wrapped in wonder and hope.”

  I glanced at the professor, my heart so filled with longing I thought I might die if this opportunity passed me by.

  “When I return, I’ll bring a traveling companion for Fairwyn,” Zebulon said, “a proper lady from a good family, a student of English folklore like me. She’ll travel with Fairwyn and me so you needn’t worry about Fairwyn’s reputation. Her name is Miss Eugenia Barton.”

  He smiled at me then, which lifted my heart. “I think you will like Jeannie. She will help you feel comfortable in Oak Hill society,” he said gently.

  I studied my brogans, my worn and mended homespun skirt, then lifted my eyes to his again. Poppy frowned, his lips white. “Fairwyn hain’t agoin’. No matter what kind of highfalutin offer ye might make.”

  During the weeks before Zebulon’s return, Poppy refused to discuss Oak Hill. I tried reasoning with him, cajoling him, and appealing to his love for me. He said no more about my mother and her transgressions, but I knew he thought of her every time he set eyes on me, every time I mentioned leaving him.

  The matter still hadn’t been decided when Zebulon returned with Eugenia Barton.

  They climbed the trace together, talking and laughing like old friends as they crossed the winter-barren bald. They swung their leather pokes from their shoulders, and the small parcels landed with hushed thuds on the worn planks by the handrail.

  “Jeannie, meet Miss March,” Zebulon said grandly when they stood at my door.

  Eugenia’s smile was warm when she reached for my hand. “May I call you Fairwyn?”

  It pleased me no end, and I grinned in return. “Aye,” I said. She was younger than me with dark, luminous eyes and a complexion the color of Devonshire cream. My freckles and yellow corkscrew hair seemed ordinary compared to her delicate, exquisite appearance.

  “Call me Jeannie.” She glanced at Zebulon as if looking for his approval.

  Before I could invite them into the house, he said, “Did you notice Fairwyn’s use of aye?”

  “Of course.” She raised a pretty brow.

  “These hollows are so isolated the people have clung to the idioms of the Old Country. Fairwyn’s speech rarely reflects it, as I mentioned, but you’ll notice that many of the mountain folk speak some of the purest forms of middle English found today.”

  Jeannie asked questions about the Celtic influence, and for several minutes I thought they’d forgotten they were still standing on my porch.

  Finally, Zebulon turned his attention back to me. “I’ve told Jeannie about the corn-husking.” His eyes seemed to warm with the memory. “I would love to take her to Selah’s place, have her meet the old lady. Do you think it’s a possibility?”

  I glanced up at the wintry sky just beyond his shoulder. “Today?”

  He nodded, his face bright with anticipation. Jeannie stooped to pull a small pair of leather gloves from her poke, then turned up the collar on her heavy woolen coat. “We’d best be on our way,” she said cheerfully, smiling up at Zebulon, taking his arm as if for an afternoon stroll.

  I wondered how much of her brightness was for Zebulon’s sake and how much was a naturally sunny nature.

  I pulled my woolen shawl from the hook by the door and led the way to the trail to Selah Jones’s cabin. Zebulon, like a horse used to being in the front, passed me on the first switchback. Jeannie hurried along to walk beside him as he told her about the husking party in greater detail. The sounds of the forest were punctuated by her bell-like laughter as they trudged along. I listened to their friendly banter, longing to be a part of it.

  Jeannie seemed to sense my ponderings, and when she stopped to catch her breath, she reached for my hand and drew me closer to them both. She was so kind and gracious that I felt my heart lighten.

  “Tell me more about the knob people,” she said as we started to walk again. This time she marched by my side, letting Zebulon continue in the lead. “Zebulon tells me the people here often refer to each other as that.”

  “Or piny-woods folk,” I said with a grin.

  She stepped over the root of a bare-branched maple. “Tell me more unique idioms.”

  “Dawn is the peep o’ day,” I said, enjoying the awe in her expression. “And there’s blossom bushes, froggystools, and mushyrooms.”

  She laughed, obviously taken with the turns of phrase.

  “And there’s a piggin for a small wooden pail, purty for pretty, and quare for queer. Mebbe, kitch, and keer, keerful, and keerless.” I grinned as the words rolled off my tongue. “And right now we’re wigglin’ and winglin’ along …”

  Jeannie stopped midstep. “This is fascinating. Have you ever thought about developing a lexicon of the language?” Before I could answer, she had
turned her piercing gaze to Zebulon. “This could work itself into a publishable paper, Zeb. Truly, it could.” She looked back to me. “He’s right in what he told me about you. You are a treasure. Right here in the midst of the backwoods.” She grinned. “The piny woods!

  “Tell me more about your mountain folk,” she said once we started up the next hill.

  “If it’s their songs and ballads you want to hear, mostly you’ll be disappointed,” I said. “They’ll stop singing the minute we draw nigh.” We turned onto the last long switchback leading to Selah’s cabin. “Clamp their mouths shut.”

  “Can’t say I blame them,” Jeannie said, now breathing hard with exertion. “I’m not certain I wouldn’t do the same if the circumstances were reversed.”

  I shot her a smile, impressed by her respect for our private nature.

  “They need to realize that by recording their folklore and ballads,” Zebulon said from up ahead, “we’re doing them a service. This might even be called a preservation effort.”

  “I doubt that my people would understand why it’s necessary,” I said. “No need to preserve something that isn’t in danger of disappearing. Life is the same now as it’s always been. Why would it change?”

  “The twentieth century approaches. Already coal mining companies are buying up land north of here. Mining towns are cropping up where farms used to spread across the land.” He shrugged. “Likely it won’t be long till they arrive in Sycamore Creek. Then change will come, believe me.”

  I shuddered at the thought.

  “Change isn’t necessarily bad,” Zebulon went on. “The mines are bringing in positive developments—regular paychecks, company stores, schools, and the like.” He grabbed a tree limb to help himself around a steep curve.

  “It seems to me,” I argued, “that a man might sell his farm, sell everything—then heart, soul, and body belong to that mine and the company running it.”

  “Hear, hear!” Jeannie said. “I’ve been telling Zeb the same thing. It’s wrong to rob the mountain people of their way of life—no matter the benefits.”

  Zebulon laughed, holding up his hands in surrender. “But back to my original point,” he said, “change is coming, and now is the time to record how the heritage of the Appalachians springs from its English roots.”

  We scrambled single file up the steepest part of the trace, now just a few yards from the mountain bald and Selah’s cabin.

  “You were saying about the knob people …?” Jeannie said, looking over her shoulder toward where I walked behind her.

  “I was telling you about their shyness,” I said. “It’s only because Selah has met Zebulon once before that I would attempt—” Before I could finish my sentence, Selah was glaring at us from the top of the trace with a rifle in her hands.

  Jeannie turned the shade of the pale sky overhead.

  “Ma’am,” Zebulon said, doffing his hat toward Selah, “ ’Tis a pleasure to see you again.”

  I stepped forward, and Selah’s face softened. “Fairy lass,” she said, “what’re ye doin’ up here with this furriner agin?”

  “Miss Barton and Mr. Deforest are here to learn more about our singing and storytelling,” I said gently. “They’re writing down our history.”

  Selah’s wrinkled brow furrowed as she puzzled my meaning.

  “You remember Zebulon Deforest from the husking.”

  She nodded.

  “This is a friend of his from the city. Jeannie Barton.”

  Selah squinted into Jeannie’s face. The younger woman looked startled, then broke into a smile. She gave Selah a small curtsy.

  Selah grinned, her eyes brightening. “Well now, fancy that.”

  “They want to know if our music comes from blood kin,” I continued, “back before they sailed from across the sea.”

  “Pshaw,” Selah said, shaking her head. She spat into a patch of rabbit grass.

  Zebulon spoke up again. “You see, I’m writing a book about your people, your ancestors, how they came here—”

  Selah cut him off with a wave of her rifle. “Hain’t hankerin’ to talk ’bout no blood kin.”

  Jeannie stepped forward. “What about your songs? Would you sing for us?”

  Selah’s small, round eyes peered into mine. She liked nothing better than to smoke her old clay pipe, settle back in her porch rocker, and lift her warbling voice in song. She shunned dulcimers and even jaw harps and fiddles, calling them newfangled. Just her voice, she always said, was plenty sound enough for her.

  “Selah’s the best there is,” I said. “She’s known all over Blackberry Mountain and parts even farther flung.”

  Selah smiled at me, and I saw affection in her eyes. She was the closest thing to a grandmother I’d known since Granny Nana died. She always put up a gruff front, seldom hugged or kissed me, but I suspected she’d walk across hot coals on my behalf if she had to. She might even sing for furriners.

  I wasn’t wrong. Selah opened her mouth and started in on “Dabbling in the Dew.”

  At the first words I felt its rhythm vibrate from my heart clear through to my bones and could not keep from joining in. Jeannie caught my eye as I sang, and I saw in her face a wonder—I supposed, at the music of my voice.

  “Sing with me,” I said between verses. Jeannie gave me a quick nod and tried to keep up with the words. Her voice was husky and off pitch, but her joy in the attempt made up for the dissonant sounds coming from her throat.

  Oh, fine clothes and dainties and carriages so rare

  Bring gray to the cheek and silver to the hair.

  What’s a ring on the finger if there’s rings around the eye?

  For it’s dabbling in the dew makes the milkmaid fair.

  The thin wintry sun was high when Selah started singing, and she was still going strong when it began its downward slant. All the while Zebulon and Jeannie scribbled notes and exchanged looks that spoke of their delight in their discoveries.

  A full moon rose behind Selah, glowing like a halo around her. There’d never been a prettier sight than her hair shimmering silvery-white in the moonlight, or a more comely sound than her gravel voice floating on the air toward heaven itself.

  A few days later, Zebulon came to see me alone. I was surprised that Jeannie had stayed behind at the boardinghouse in town.

  We walked into the wood behind the cabin, and I thought to take him to my singing place, the toppled log. A light snow had fallen the night before, and our footsteps crunched along the hard, frosty ground. Poppy had left early that morning to deliver a dulcimer to Ruffy Hill over near Lean Neck Creek and wouldn’t be home till nightfall. I breathed easier, being with Zebulon, knowing we wouldn’t have to deal with Poppy’s obstinate, thin-lipped anger.

  “Have you spoken to your granddaddy about leaving?” Zebulon said.

  “He won’t discuss it.”

  Zebulon stopped walking and turned to me. “Would you consider coming with me without his approval?”

  I’d asked the same question of my heart at least a dozen times each day since Zebulon first suggested it. I swallowed hard and looked through the bare branches with their frosting of thin snow. “I want to with all my heart.”

  “But you’re feeling obligated to him, to this place.”

  I glanced at Zebulon, surprised that he understood so clearly. “He and Granny Nana raised me after Momma died, then he took on the task alone. Now he depends on me.”

  “He can’t care for himself?”

  “Well, no. I don’t mean in that way. He’s as independent and ornery as they come.”

  “He would be able to live without you then?”

  “Oh yes, quite well. But it’s his broken heart that I can’t bear thinking about.”

  “Still, you want to come with me.” Zebulon’s face was kind.

  “More than you know,” I whispered.

  “And I want you to come more than you know.” He took my cheeks in his hands and tilted my face upward slightly. After a moment of
gazing into my eyes, he brushed my lips with his.

  I gasped slightly and blinked, only to see his eyes smiling into mine. Without a moment’s hesitation, he covered my lips with his once more, this time with greater feeling. When he released me, I stepped back in awe, bringing my fingertips to my mouth and staring into his face.

  He laughed lightly. “Please, dear Fairwyn. Come with me. Please say yes—no matter what your granddaddy says. You mustn’t let your mind go to waste.” He took my hands and gently squeezed my fingertips. “You will be astonished at the worlds that will open to you at Oak Hill.”

  He drew me again into his arms. I let him hold me close, finding it easy to slip my arms around his waist and glory in the warmth of his cheek resting on the top of my head.

  When he spoke, his voice seemed to rumble from his chest. I sighed and cuddled closer. “I came here with my book in mind,” he said, “and I found you—a diamond newly mined and still caught in its rough encasement.”

  “A diamond?”

  He laughed softly. “A prized jewel, Fairwyn March.” For a moment he didn’t speak. “You have great beauty, a classic kind of loveliness. With an education … the right sort of training … you could become the toast of Oak Hill.”

  He pulled back slightly and looked into my eyes again. “I dream of helping you become more than you ever thought possible,” he said softly. “I see all of what you are now—beautiful and intelligent and charming—and I imagine what you could become if given the chance.

  “You hunger for an education. I see it in your eyes every time it’s mentioned. But Fairwyn, there’s more to life than that. There’s love and adventure, travel … I can show you so many things, if you’ll let me.”

  “Why would you want to?”

  He reached for my hands and brought my fingers to his lips. He kissed their tips, then my knuckles. Then gently rubbing the calluses on my palms, he kissed each one. “Haven’t you guessed by now?”

  My heart beat wildly. “Guessed?” I whispered.

  He cocked a brow. “I’ve grown to care deeply for you—dare I say it?—to love you.” He drew me closer once more. “And I can see your affection for me reflected in your eyes.” He studied my face. “Please tell me you love me, Fairwyn.” He lifted my chin with the crook of his index finger. “Tell me you do.”