by Jenny Lykins
Marin rose and followed Hunter and Dr. Ritter to the door, smug at her obvious health, yet disappointed that Hunter continued to think she was either lying or crazy.
But she couldn't blame him. She'd tried to put herself in his place, and even in 1996, if a guy showed up on her doorstep and claimed to be from the year 2116, she'd fix him with a glassy-eyed stare and reach for her tear gas.
"Well, I suppose the wife and I shall see you at the reception Saturday next." The doctor turned at the door and extended his hand to Hunter. Hunter shook it but cocked his head in question.
"Reception?"
"Yes. The reception your Northern business associates are holding for you in celebration of your nuptials." At Hunter's blank stare the doctor grimaced and shook his head. "Oh my. I hope I have not spoken out of turn. There was no indication that the party was to be a surprise."
Hunter slapped him on the shoulder and walked him to his carriage.
"No harm done, I'm sure. Marin and I have been at Tranquille until yesterday."
"Ah. I see." The doctor folded his skeletal body into the small carriage. "As for this other problem, son...just give it time." He winked at Hunter. Marin thought it such an incongruous gesture from such a cadaverous face. He turned and tipped his hat to Marin. She waved from the doorway and watched as the carriage left a cloud of dust hanging in the muggy air over the drive.
When the carriage turned onto the road Hunter spun on his heel and stormed passed Marin into the house. At first she thought his anger was at her until he stopped in the middle of the foyer and roared, "Mother!" When there was no answer to his shout he bellowed again. "Now, Mother!"
Absolute silence reigned for several seconds, then the familiar click of Lucille's shoes could be heard in the upstairs hall. From the casual, slow pace it was clear she was taking her good old-fashioned time answering the summons of her irate son. Finally she appeared on the second floor landing. She just stood there, apparently waiting for him to state the reason for his unseemly behavior.
"Where is it?" he demanded with barely controlled ire.
Lucille's expression was just a trifle too innocent to be believed.
"Where is what?"
"The invitation!"
"I know nothing of - "
"Get it! Or get out!"
"Hunter!" Marin gasped.
Lucille jerked as if she'd been slapped. Marin was nearly as shocked as Lucille. Never had she heard Hunter speak to his mother so. And never had he even intimated that he would throw her out, except the time she'd called Katie a bastard. Marin's gaze flew from Hunter to Lucille. Her mother-in-law stared back with all her legendary venom. After a moment's hesitation she walked across the landing and descended the steps. Hunter and Marin both followed her into the parlor, where she snatched up her embroidery basket and produced a creamy vellum envelope. She shoved it into Hunter's hands.
"Enjoy your afternoon with those Yankee heathens," she hissed, then marched passed him to the foyer.
"I will, Mother. As I am sure you will, also."
She stopped dead in her tracks and whirled to meet his gaze.
"You cannot be serious!"
"On the contrary. I am deadly serious. If these people have been kind enough to arrange a reception in our honor, you will be there to stop all those wagging tongues you so detest by giving us your public blessing."
If Lucille had been a cat, the hackles on her spine would have stood straight up.
"You expect me to go to the home of one of those Yankees and act as if I am enjoying myself? I will not do it!"
Hunter's voice lowered to a threatening level.
"You will do it, or you will pack your bags and leave."
It was time to put a stop to this.
"Hunter. Lucille. Listen to yourselves." Marin stepped between her husband and his mother. "Lucille, the war is over. It's been over for a decade now. Surely if Hunter bears no animosity toward the North, you have no reason to. If he can forgive them for his scars, surely you can find it in your heart to be civil to his business associates."
Lucille stared at her as if she was crazy. Hunter blew out a frustrated breath and dropped onto a brocade-covered chair.
"I bear Northerners no ill will, Marin. They fought for their country and a cause they believed in just as I did. And no matter how I incurred my injuries, I would feel the same. But the North did not inflict the wounds that caused my scars. A Confederate cannon blew up while being fired. The scars on my leg are from the shrapnel. The scars on my back are from the burns." He looked at her and said, "I thought the scars meant nothing to you."
"They don't. Why would you think...Oh, for Pete's sake. I give up." She threw up her hands and turned toward the foyer. Since last night he had found fault with everything she'd said. "You two go at it, for all I care. I can't stand to be around either one of you."
With that parting remark she turned and left the parlor, wanting nothing more than to put distance between herself and their poisonous animosity.
*******
"What do you mean, the brat has no inheritance?" Harold Cabot could barely control his rage at the confirmation of Pierce's words. The shyster lawyer teetering on the stool across from him lowered his glass. He swayed to and fro while focusing his bleary gaze on his client.
"S'what I said. Mother used what was lef' lookin' for a cure."
"Are you absolutely certain of the facts? There is no money if I gain custody of the brat?"
One drunken nod of the lawyer's head was his only answer. Cabot looked at the man named Smithfield with disgust. This was the best he could afford, but he had to believe him. The man had nothing to gain by lying. Indeed, Cabot was probably his first client in months.
Smithfield tapped a grimy fingernail on the bar next to his empty glass, indicating a refill. Cabot stayed the bartender's hand when he would have replenished the drink.
"I have bought my last drink for this sot," he said as he stood.
The bartender shrugged and turned away. Smithfield yelled "Hey!" and lunged for the bottle. Cabot grabbed a fistful of dingy, stained cravat and shirtfront. He pulled the man so close the familiar smells of sour whiskey and unwashed body assailed him.
"If there is no inheritance, there is no need for your services," he breathed into the man's face. He shoved him away, then turned to leave. Some of his hostility was momentarily assuaged at the sound of Smithfield's body crashing into the bar. He almost smiled to himself when shouts of outrage were followed by the sounds of breaking glass and splintering wood.
Outside the sleazy bar he found his whore of a wife plying her trade to some whey-faced young dandy who probably couldn't do the deed without a picture drawn for him. Cabot grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her down the street.
"Ow! Harry, you idiot! I had that sap ready to pay up front!"
"Leave it," he bellowed over his shoulder. "We have more plans to make."
Shirley tugged to free her arm, but he held on that much tighter and gave another hard yank to boot.
"The brat hasn't a red cent. Damn, this ruins all my plans."
Shirley dug in her heels. Cabot let go of her arm so quickly she almost fell on her ass. Too bad she didn't. It might have brightened his mood.
"You sorry excuse for a man! How the hell am I to put food on the table if you just take a notion to haul me away and leave the Johns standing there droolin'? Ain't you concerned that the wallet on that pimply-faced twit was bigger than his - "
Cabot rounded on her and screamed in her face. "Do not say 'ain't,' you ignorant slut! If I ever have the misfortune to introduce you in a court of law as my wife, you had damned well better speak as someone who can put two thoughts together to make a complete sentence. Do you think for even a moment that custody of the chit would be given to me if my wife appears as the uneducated, backwoods trollop that she is?"
It never failed to amaze him how immune his wife could be to the most heinous slanderings. She simply shrugged and continued walking
to their meager rooms.
"It don't - "
"Doesn't!" he shouted. "It doesn't!"
She rolled her eyes and his hand itched to slap her, but a constable strolled by, studying them with more than a passing interest.
"It doesn't," she continued with a flip of her head, "make no never mind, since you just said she ain't got no money."
He gave up. The bitch was hopeless. He should have never married her. That would teach him never to smoke opium with a whore again.
They arrived at their building, then had to pick their way down a nasty alley rife with rotting food to get to the door of their rooms. He stepped in a pungent pile of horse dung and took it out on Shirley by shoving her through the door.
"Jesus, Harry!" she cried as she stumbled into the room. "Break my leg and won't neither of us eat for a month." She fell onto a stained, lumpy mattress that had seen its share of her "customers."
"Shut up. I have to think." He lit the one lantern and turned to pull out a chair. An enormous cockroach scuttled from the depths beneath the table. "Hell!" Cabot squashed the huge insect with a boot still coated with manure. "God, how I hate this place. I was never meant to live like this. If those damned Yankees hadn't burned my home and stolen - "
"Ain't you got another song to sing besides that tired, old ballad?" Shirley interrupted his soliloquy, because he certainly was not talking to her. "You've whined about the damn Yankees since we woke up married a year ago. I guess you don't remember that time when you got a couple of drinks in you and told how you deserted in '61, then spent the war livin' off the fear of Confederate women, stealin' their last bit of food and threatenin' to rape them. Why, you ain't no better'n me."
Cabot picked up a filthy tin cup and hurled it at her head. She dodged it with practiced ease so that it bounced off the wall behind her. The rim left another half-moon dent to match all the others that had come before.
"If you hate this place so bad, why don't you spend a little of that money you been hoardin' and get better rooms?"
Cabot looked heavenward before tuning his bored gaze to his idiot of a wife.
"Because, you ignorant wretch, I am saving that money to institute my plan. Somehow there is a way to turn this brat into surefire profit. Now shut up and let me think."
He discarded several ideas as his mind spun out one plan after another. Within a quarter of an hour he had his answer. A no-fail plan that would pay off no matter which way his luck blew. He glanced at Shirley who had nodded off to sleep, her head against the wall, her mouth hanging open. He could not suppress the grimace of utter loathing every time his eyes fell upon this woman. But she'd kept him fed this past year while he'd been down on his luck, and he may need to use her yet. But, he promised himself, as soon as the money was in his hands Shirley would be just an irritating memory. He jumped up and shook her awake.
"Wake up, you lazy slut."
She blinked, batted his hands away, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
"What do you want, you sonofabitch?"
"I want some information."
*******
Marin struggled to keep a smile on her face as she watched her husband from across the front lawn.
"I could not take my eyes from my husband either, when we were first married." Leah Jacobs leaned close and whispered conspiratorially. "Of course, Lionel was the most handsome boy in our little hometown."
Marin pulled her eyes from Hunter and smiled at her hostess.
"It was so kind of you and your husband to offer your home for this party. It has meant a lot to Hunter that the men he does business with would go to this much trouble."
Leah tapped her fan on Marin's knee.
"Mr. Pierce is not the only one the boys think highly of. Why, Eli Beecham came back from your husband's dinner party convinced that you are a saint. And the others feel the same. They even stopped by to make certain you were well the day after the dinner, but Mrs. Pierce told them you shouldn't be disturbed." Leah darted a glance in Lucille's direction. From Leah's expression Marin was sure there was more to the story than what was being told. But at the moment she had no fire left to be angry at Lucille.
She simply murmured to her hostess, "Yes, my mother-in-law is a hard person to warm up to."
Marin sat and tried to look interested as the ladies around her flitted from one topic to another in their conversation. But her mind continually turned back to her husband. For the last week he'd kept an emotional and physical distance from her. Of course he'd been polite, even solicitous, whenever they were together - which wasn't often. But the thing that most worried her was the fact that Hunter had found some pressing work to do every night that kept him up until well after Marin had fallen asleep. He must be very upset indeed to make them both suffer this way.
His laugh caught her attention, and she searched the group of croquet players until she found him. Jealousy spiked through her at the sight of Hunter smiling down at a simpering, airhead girl clad in a ton of ruffles and drapes. His glance scanned the crowd until it met Marin's, but she forced herself to blink slowly and look away with unconcern. She refused to play this game, but tonight he would have a surprise waiting up for him. It was time she put a stop to this nonsense.
Her gaze fell on Katie, who had also been invited to the outdoor reception. Several of the little daughters of the families had immediately swept her away upon arrival to endless tea parties with a multitude of dolls. But at the moment she was alone. Marin watched her little daughter walk across the lawn, a plate of cookies and a glass of lemonade in her hand. She walked very slowly, placing one foot carefully in front of the other, watching the lemonade so as not to spill a drop. Marin wondered at her destination, since there were no other children in sight. If she didn't know better it looked as though Katie was walking toward...She was! Katie made her slow, deliberate way to stand in front of Lucille, who'd been sitting alone on a bench for the biggest part of the afternoon. The sour expression permanently etched in Lucille's face was enough to dampen all but the most stalwart social butterfly's intentions. But Marin was certain that the lemon-sucker's reputation had preceded her to the point that no one cared to investigate the truthfulness of the rumors. And obviously no one took pity on the bitter woman who'd been left to sit alone, like a one woman leper colony in the midst of the party.
No one except Katie. Marin watched in fascination as Katie stood quietly, waiting to be acknowledged. Lucille finally looked down her nose at Katie, who promptly extended the plate of cookies and glass of lemonade. Her little arms hovered in the air, bearing her gift, for a good five seconds. Just as Marin prepared to go to Katie's rescue, Lucille took the offering. Katie smiled the heart-melting smile of a happy child. Without bothering to be invited Katie clambered up onto the bench beside her grandmother. An immediate conversation was struck on the part of Katie, then Marin was absolutely flabbergasted to see Lucille straighten Katie's frock and offer her a cookie.
Would wonders never cease? If someone had told her they'd been witness to this scene she would have asked them what they'd been smoking. This was too good to ignore. She excused herself and wandered over to the bench the odd pair occupied.
"Mind if I join you?" She snagged a glass of lemonade off the tray of a passing waiter and sat down opposite them without waiting for permission. Lucille refused to look at her. "Katie, how thoughtful of you to bring your grandmother these goodies. Did you think of that all by yourself?"
Katie's little feet stuck straight out in front of her, her black patent leather shoes bobbling in the air at the edge of the bench.
"Yes, Ma'am," Katie said through a mouthful of cookie. She took another bite. Crumbs skittered down her pleated front to hide in the folds of the pinafore. "Do...do...do you know Gwandma couldn't go to parties when she was little?" Katie looked at Marin with that wide-eyed look that said: Now that I have your attention. "Her mama and papa drank stuff that made them mean and people didn't like them." Lucille's gaze flew to Katie, but t
he older woman remained silent. "And one time Gwandma's papa got his arm caught in a re...a re...a reaper. And he was drinking the mean stuff and Gwandma had to cut it off."
Was Katie trying to say that Lucille had been forced to cut off her drunken father's arm in order to save his life? What a terrible thing for a child to be forced to do.
"And Gwandma had to take care of him 'cause her mama left."
"Kathleen, I believe you have said enough." Lucille turned to Katie and forced another cookie into her hand, but not before Marin was left speechless at the sight of excess moisture glittering in Lucille's eyes.
"But I want your party to be happy, Gwandma."
"It is, Kathleen. Thank you for the cookies and lemonade."
This could explain so much, Marin thought. Raised by alcoholics, probably abused in some way - she shuddered to think of how. Forced to amputate her father's arm and then to care for him when her mother ran off. Or did she die? Either way, that would explain Lucille's aversion to handicapped people. They were vivid reminders of what was probably an abusive father and what she'd suffered. No doubt her venomous nature came from adopting the policy to wound first before anyone could wound her.
This explained a lot.
The dinner bell rang on the back porch of the Jacobs's home, calling everyone to the linen-covered tables groaning with food on the front lawn.
"I'm starving!" Marin declared. "Shall we go get something to eat?"
Katie scrambled off the bench, a shower of cookie crumbs sprinkling the lawn.
"C'mon, Gwandma."
Lucille sat, stiff-backed, her lips pursed in their usual way. It had not escaped Marin that Katie was altogether too well-informed to have learned all that information during her and Lucille's brief conversation. And when had Lucille become "Gwandma" to Katie? And Katie was now Kathleen to Lucille.
