Summer Lightning

by Cynthia Bailey Pratt

  After he’d gone, the tallest girl dropped a bobbing curtsy. “I’m Friederike, ma’am. Where did you find him?”

  “This lady found him,” Mrs. Green said. No one looked at Edith for more than a moment. Even the infant stopped playing with his brother’s bootlaces to smile toothlessly at Mrs. Green.

  Hank and Al peered around the room. “Hey, Gerardine,” Al said, flipping a hand at a girl about his age.

  “Is she your mother?” the young girl asked. When Al nodded, she transferred some of her awestruck interest to him.

  The other boys introduced themselves as Bing and Konrad. They pulled forward their father’s chair and escorted Mrs. Green to it with considerable ceremony. She sat down like a queen, only to cluck like a mother hen at the tear on Konrad’s jacket. “Does anyone have a needle and thread?”

  “I do.” Friederike bobbed another curtsy as she brought out a needle wrapped round and round with coarse white thread.

  Edith was charmed by the way Mrs. Green didn’t display the slightest discouragement at the wrong color for the repair of a faded blue jacket. Instead, she began to stitch the sleeve, while Konrad still wore it. And, by taking the stitches on the wrong side, she managed to repair the tear without too much of the white showing through.

  Just as she was biting the thread with her strong, white teeth, Mr. Huneker came back. “He didn’t even move when I laid him down.”

  “I imagine he’s pretty tired,” Mrs. Green said with a nod. “He told me he was chasing a stray dog and was lost before he knew what was what.”

  “And you find him?”

  “No, it was . . .”

  “Ah, you are so good. And these smart boys knew who little Rudy belongs to?”

  “Why, yes. Say how-do-you-do to Mr. Huneker, boys.” Mrs. Green seemed to recall with what intentions she had come. She took a deep breath and said, “Now, Mr. Huneker, about Rudy . . .”

  “He is a good boy. Never have any of my children been lost before. Gerardine comes running to my shop as soon as she knows he is gone. I never even put the sign that I am closed in the window. Many, many thanks for bringing him back to us.”

  “Oh, really ... it was . . . that is . . .”

  As Mrs. Green stumbled along, softened by the power of the man’s prayer and his obvious guilt, Edith slipped quietly out of the house. As she headed back toward Miss Albans’s place of business, she was thinking. It will be much easier for Jeff to choose between two women than between three.

  Chapter 12

  The bell above Vera’s door tinkled merrily when Edith came in. At once came an answering bell-like voice from the curtained area at the back of the store. “Be with you in a minute!”

  Edith hardly had a second to look around before Vera, her clothes protected by a white muslin apron, came bustling out. Her pretty face lit up when she saw who it was.

  “Oh, hello, Miss Parker. I didn’t expect to see you again so soon. What can I do for you?”

  “Nothing. That is . . . I wondered if you had a few minutes just to talk. I don’t really know anybody . . .”

  “Me either. I’ve only lived in Richey for about six months and it takes a while for them to get used to you. You’re lucky to be related to the Danes. They pretty much are Richey.”

  “Are they?” Edith hadn’t gotten that impression.

  “Come on in the back and talk to me while I finish this hat. I’m hoping to sell it to Mrs. Judd. She’ll look a fright in it, but she’s crazy for lavender.”

  The workroom was scrupulously neat, the rolls of ribbon and sprays of feathers all tidily shelved, the blank straw forms hanging from hooks behind the workbench. A round hat with a small brim sat on a black, featureless head projecting up from the center of the bench. A lavender ribbon, as wide as the crown, encircled the hat, while a spray of Persian violets sat beside it.

  “She’s got about twelve dresses in varying shades of light purple,” Vera said after showing Edith to a stool. “If I put this in the window, she’ll want it—and she should be going by at about four-thirty. Hand me that pot of glue behind you, please?”

  Trying not to breathe in the strong fumes, Edith held it out. “Will it dry in time?”

  “Oh, yes. I don’t usually use glue, of course, as it’s not reliable in the rain, but it won’t rain for at least a week.”

  Edith smiled at the devil-may-care tone. Yet she saw with what guilt Vera glued the ends of the ribbon to the hat. Plainly, the milliner did not like failing to do her best work.

  “Who is Mrs. Judd?” she asked.

  “My landlord’s wife. I figure that if I charge her two dollars fifty for the hat, I can pay my rent and eat, all with my landlord’s money.” Shamefaced, Vera shifted her eyes from Edith to the violets she attached to the side of the hat. “I suppose you think that’s pretty mean-spirited of me. But people with money can’t know what it’s like to be so poor.”

  “But I’m poor, too,” Edith protested. “I haven’t any money at all, you know.”

  “Oh, sure. With that hat and those shoes and Jefferson Dane for a cousin? Nobody knows how much he brought back from his gold claim but it’s enough to keep you and his entire family in comfort for eternity.”

  Twisting viciously, Vera added a loop of tulle, in a shocking shade of green. Though it went with the silk violets’ green foliage, it clashed vividly with the cool tones of the hat’s main theme.

  Sympathetically, Edith knew that Vera Albans spoke out of a great jealously and fear. Well she remembered pacing back and forth in her tiny room, praying for freedom from her stagnant life, battering against the waifs like a caged beast.

  She realized with a shock that she had just admitted the one thing that her aunt would have died rather than confess. Namely, that she was utterly without money. Edith felt as though something inside her had broadened, if only her view of herself. She was poor and it mightn’t be wonderful, but it was survivable. Even if she went back to St. Louis tomorrow, she would find some way to survive. Perhaps she would make paper flowers.

  “Is that what you meant to do?” Edith asked quietly, nodding toward the tulle.

  Vera glanced at the hat and chuckled, her voice mellowing. “Yes, it really is. You see, Mrs. Judd is never quite satisfied unless she can put her two cents worth in. She’ll narrow her eyes, like this, and tap her chin with her forefinger, like this”—Vera Albans’ pantomime made the woman come to life—”then she’ll ask me if this green tulle is meant to be ‘artistic.’ I’ll answer, yes, of course.”

  “Of course,” Edith echoed politely.

  “Then she’ll have it removed and go away happy, convinced as always that she would have risen to great heights had she ever entered any profession.”

  “Did she?”

  “What?”

  “Enter a profession?”

  “Oh, no. She believes a woman’s place is in the home, doing the washing, the cooking and the rest. She also thinks a woman should be able to juggle her housework, husband and children, with good deeds and a generous contribution of time to charity.”

  “She sounds admirable.” And formidable, Edith thought.

  Vera added another loop of tulle. “Of course, she’s admirable. It’s easy for her, she has Selma and Clyde to cook and do the garden. And the washing and the cleaning, light and heavy both. And their daughter, Garnet, she looks after the Judd children, except for an hour in the afternoon Mrs. Judd watches them while they nap.”

  “Sounds like a boring life.”

  “Believe me, I’d trade mine for it in a minute. Well, no, I guess I wouldn’t. Not if it meant being married to Mr. Judd.”

  Taking a look at her handiwork, Vera said, “Maybe I’ll recommend she take a facial massage. I’ve been studying how to do it in a magazine. If the ladies of Richey could be convinced to lie in a chair while I do something to make them look younger, that could bring me in a few extra dollars.”

  “I’ve never heard of facial massage.”

  “Oh, it’s
easy. I put a little oil on my fingertips—something that smells nice—and rub it in. The thing I read says it increases circulation, ‘imparting a youthful glow.’“

  “Sounds wonderful,” Edith said wistfully. How nice it must be to have the money to pay someone for the express purpose of “doing something” to your face. And it couldn’t hurt to look younger, not so drawn and pale. What would Jeff think if he saw her glowing? With a flutter behind her breast, Edith knew that all he had to do if he wanted to set her cheeks afire was kiss her again.

  After primping out the tulle bow to flirt becomingly on the back of the hat, Vera went on, the bitterness returning to her tone. ‘“Course, I’d probably have to go to her house for that. After all that hard work, the only thing Mrs. Judd wants to do is lie down on her comfy sofa. It sounds like laziness to me but ladies like that can do no wrong, as I’m sure you must know.”

  As she put the completed hat in the window, Vera said, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what your circumstances are and it’s unfair to lump you together with the uncaring rich.”

  “Would you call Jeff . . . and Sam of course . . . uncaring?” Perhaps there was a side to Jeff that she hadn’t seen. She definitely wanted to understand all of his personality.

  “No,” Vera admitted, perhaps grudgingly. “They’re not uncaring. Far from it.”

  She got up to open the back door. “It gets kind of warm in here after a while. You look flushed.”

  Edith knew it wasn’t the smell of the glue or the heat that made her heart beat like this or caused her hands to tremble. He’d kissed her once, no doubt for the first and last time. What astonished her beyond anything was realizing how much she wanted him to repeat his outrageous action. And repeat it. And repeat it until she learned exactly how to kiss him back to sweep his senses away, as he had stolen hers.

  Vera continued arranging the petals of the violets, but absently, as though long habit made it possible for her to work without much thought. She smiled perfunctorily when she looked up, as though she’d forgotten Edith’s presence.

  “I think they care very much. They know how to be generous without making people feel obliged. For instance, Sam loaned me the money to open here when the bank wouldn’t. Jeff cleared up the mess when the railroad couldn’t find me to make deliveries. And I know the Danes have done as much for half a dozen people in this town . . . including Mrs. Green and Miss Climson.”

  “Miss Climson?” Edith repeated. “She seemed so self-reliant today. What did they do for her?”

  Vera shook her head and stepped away from the window. “Only helped her get the school. Some people said it was because Jeff and . . . but there, gossip does a lot of harm. I promised myself I wouldn’t do it anymore and here I am chattering about everybody in town. And not very charitably, I think.”

  Filled with understanding, Edith touched the other girl on the sleeve. “You haven’t said anything so bad. But sometimes it’s so hard not to let your hurt show.”

  “What hurt?” Vera asked, holding still.

  “You know. Watching other women with their children, with their husbands and wondering, Why them? Why not me?”

  “They’re no prettier than I am, no smarter,” Vera whispered.

  Edith nodded. “And yet they have everything and I have nothing. Nothing but hard work and hunger.”

  Suddenly, tears overflowed Vera Albans1 dark gray eyes. “You do understand. How can you understand?”

  “I told you. I’m poor, too. So miserably poor that until Jeff came along I didn’t have the price of a meal. I was living on crackers and looking enviously at my canary’s birdseed.”

  Vera laughed, and wiped her cheeks with a trembling hand. “I think ... I think we’re going to be good friends, Edith.”

  For once, Edith didn’t feel uncomfortable embracing someone. It was as if Vera were her sister. Vera said as they separated, “I’m sorry I was so rude. But you’re right. Sometimes it just gets to be too much. Mrs. Judd really is a nice woman, plump and kind, almost as kind as Adelia Green, who is a genuine saint.”

  Returning to her bench, she stood on tiptoe to reach the top shelf. Bringing down a round tin, she pried off the lid to reveal shortbread cookies. “Want some? It’s my secret hoard.”

  As they munched cookies, Vera said, “It’s not as bad as you might think, though. I could have all the money and things I want if I’d just give in.”

  “A wealthy suitor?” Edith asked, sitting up straight in attention. With her curling golden hair and heavy-lidded gray eyes Vera looked like the heroine of a romantic tale. Though she wasn’t a great beauty in repose, her lively expressions and quick speech gave her such animation that she seemed beautiful.

  “No,” Vera said. “A despotic brother. He made a fortune on the stock exchange, but his methods were underhanded to say the least. Now he sits in his big house on the Hudson and expects the whole world to leap when he snaps his fingers. And I don’t leap for anybody.”

  She tossed her head proudly. Edith copied her motion a moment later but with one reservation. She couldn’t be a hundred percent sure, but she thought she might leap if Jeff snapped his fingers. Not that he would. He wasn’t the finger-snapping kind.

  “So what does he want, this despotic brother?”

  “Me. Under his thumb. He likes to have people at his beck and call. Oh, he’s generous. As long as you do what he wants. The minute you show a little mule, though . . .” She brought her hand slicing down through the air. “He makes a scene about how much money he’s spending on you, when you’ve never asked him for anything. Or he brings up things that should be forgotten. I might stand for it from a father, but not from Porgie Albans.”

  “Porgie?” Edith asked, spraying shortbread crumbs.

  “Yes, you know. Georgie Porgie, Pudding and Pye? That’s him. Right down to running away when the boys come out. Oh, he’s a heroic figure, Porgie. He sends me a check every six months which—now that I have my own business—I spend on whatever would make him angriest.”

  “I imagine you get a lot of fun out of that,”

  “I do. Once I endorsed it over to those railroad strikers. Porgie must have had an apoplectic attack after that one. Almost as bad as the time I sent his money to the suffragists. I read in the paper that a delegation called to thank him that time.”

  All too soon, the doorbell tinkled again. Edith followed Vera out, for she wanted to see Mrs. Judd. But it was Sam, his hat in his hands.

  “You ready to go, Edith?”

  “Yes.” Quite naturally, Edith embraced Vera again, “I’ll come and see you again tomorrow if I may.”

  “Any time.” Vera turned her smile Sam’s way. “How are you?”

  “Doing fine. Got that little problem with the bookkeeping straight. Thanks for the tip.”

  “My pleasure.”

  The two stood in silence for a moment, Sam turning his hat brim around in his hands and Vera’s smile fading a little, but still there. Edith, watching, saw no aurora flash between them. Yet she felt certain there was some emotion here, if only she could give it a name.

  Vera said, “As long as you’re here, I wonder if you’d mind taking a look at my sink. I think water must be seeping through somewhere when I pour it away, because there’s a big water mark underneath it.”

  “I can’t right this minute. I got a special guest out in the wagon.”

  “A guest? is he the ‘goods’ you had to pick up at the station?” Edith asked.

  “Paul’s an old friend of Jeff’s. It a secret. Jeff doesn’t know anything about it, so I told him a little white lie. I picked Paul up at his aunt’s house. He got in yesterday, and I’m lucky to pry him away from them. They dote on the boy.”

  “Is that who Jeff went to California with?” Vera asked.

  ‘That’s the one. He stayed out there and struck it rich. He hasn’t been back to Richey since, and now he’s only going to be in town for a couple of days. He’s heading East.”

  Edith suggested, “Wh
y not look at Vera’s sink? I’ll go out and keep your friend company until you’re finished. What’s his name again?”

  Edith could hardly believe that she’d volunteered to talk to a strange man. Yet she had a strong feeling that if Vera and Sam were left alone together for a little while, there might very well be an explosion of light that would serve as a beacon for the future.

  As she parted again from Vera, she thought, That’s three friends I’ve made. Vera, Sam and Dulcie. Yes, I think Dulcie’s a friend.

  She frowned as she crossed the street. Dulcie was still a problem. After seeing Mr. Huneker’s reaction to Mrs. Green, she was more certain than ever that Dulcie entertained no feelings for her fiancé. If they’d agreed to marry after only knowing each other a very short time, the girl should have been giving off rays of love like the sun’s. Why wasn’t she?

  * * * *

  By the time the wagon drew up in front of the house, Edith arid Paul Tyler were on the road to becoming good friends. Though his sharp clothes and fine leather luggage showed that he was used to the best things in life, he rode on the hard seat of the wagon as if he did it every day. Sam discussed people they’d known years ago, yet Paul was careful always to include Edith, explaining who the people were behind the names.

  She was laughing at something he’d said about the hills of San Francisco when he lifted her out of the wagon. As his hands supported her, she looked past his head to see Jeff standing on the porch. The golden beams of the late afternoon sun played over Jeff’s stern expression. He looked like the only thundercloud on a bright blue horizon.

  He barreled down the steps, placing each foot firmly on the ground. The set of his shoulders was belligerent. Then Paul turned around and, at the sight of his old friend, gave a war whoop. Jeff stopped dead.

  A slow grin spread over his face. Edith, standing to one side, thought she’d never seen such a swift reversal of mood. One moment, he was looking murderous, and the next moment, as impish as a schoolboy.

  “Wah-ha-ha-hooo!” he yelled. The girls came running out of the house behind him, wide-eyed.