Corbin's Fancy

by Linda Lael Miller

  “Don’t you have to milk a cow or something?” she snapped, stepping directly in front of Jewel, thus forcing the woman to acknowledge her.

  Jewel’s brown eyes widened, then snapped with challenge. For a moment, it appeared that she was going to argue and Fancy hoped for that, yearned for it.

  But Jewel reconsidered and turned in a pool of calico to stomp away.

  “What was that all about?” asked Jeff, with an innocence too guileless to be false.

  “Territorial rights,” snapped Fancy, catching her skirt up in her hands. With Jeff’s chuckle reddening her ears, she went off to tend to Hershel and dispense another day’s magic.

  Jewel came to watch her last performance and it was clear that, while she’d backed down earlier, she did not consider herself defeated. Her eyes followed every move Fancy made, and they were bright with skepticism and malice.

  Fancy was gathering up the pennies tossed by her admirers when Jewel approached the table in that sidling motion designed to display her voluptuous femininity.

  “I’d hate to have people throw money at me,” she observed, in sugar-sweet tones that nonetheless smarted. “It must be sort of—well—demeaning.”

  Fancy was determined to keep her temper. After all, she was going to Spokane soon and she would be expected to behave as a lady. There was no better time to start than the present. “I seriously doubt that anyone will ever throw money at you, Miss Stroble.” Chamberpots or bricks, maybe, but not money, Fancy thought uncharitably.

  “Are you Jeff’s woman?”

  “I am his wife,” Fancy said evenly.

  Jewel did not look the least bit disturbed. “How come you don’t wear a wedding ring?”

  The jibe had hit home, but Fancy was careful not to reveal the fact. “We decided to marry rather … suddenly,” she said, in dulcet tones.

  “I see.” Jewel paused, drawing a long breath that lifted her melonlike bosom. “Papa and I have known the Corbins a long time.”

  This was news to Fancy; Jeff certainly hadn’t mentioned a long-standing friendship. Still, she was circumspect and mannerly. “Congratulations,” she said.

  “Do you have just that one dress?” pressed Jewel, as Fancy set Hershel’s cage on the tabletop with a telling thump and shoved him inside.

  Fancy had reached the end of her rope. Being ladylike was one thing and being stupid was quite another. “What exactly do you want to say to me, Miss Stroble?” she asked, with acid patience.

  Jewel curled the fingers of one plump hand and inspected the short, uneven nails as though they had just been expertly manicured. “They’re Catholic, you know. The Corbins, I mean.”

  This, too, was news to Fancy. There were so many things she didn’t know about Jeff, so many things he hadn’t bothered to tell her. She remained silent, waiting for the next parry.

  It came within seconds. “Jeff’s family won’t recognize a marriage made outside the church, you know. As far as they’re concerned, people who aren’t married by a priest just plain aren’t married.”

  Fancy felt just a bit sick. She knew little about the Catholic religion, having been raised as a Presbyterian herself, but she did know how the Catholic Church felt about secular wedding ceremonies. Jeff had to know, too, and that was what hurt.

  Before she could say anything, Jewel saved her the trouble with an airy, “Of course, it will be easy for him to annul the arrangement once he’s tired of you. And he will get tired of you, Fancy Jordan.”

  Fancy’s control was costly; in fact, she had never paid a higher price for anything. “The way he got tired of you?” she asked.

  Some of the rosy color drained from Jewel’s plump cheeks. Her lush mouth moved as though she might say something, but then she turned suddenly and stormed away.

  Fancy felt anything but triumph. It had been a terrible mistake to marry Jeff Corbin—that was the one thing in the world she was certain of at that moment. She should have guessed that a man like him would not enter into a long-term relationship with someone like herself, someone poor, someone who picked up pennies off the ground and wore the same stupid dress day after day.

  Hot tears streaked down her face as she gathered her props. Maybe the snake-man wasn’t empowered to perform marriage ceremonies at all. Maybe Jeff had tricked her. The advantages to be gained by such a deceit were obvious enough.

  Ten minutes later, Fancy found her “husband” helping Phineas secure the balloon for the night. She thrust the awkwardly rewrapped package containing the dress, nightgown, and perfume into his arms and turned away.

  As she had half expected, as she had both hoped and dreaded, Jeff immediately dropped the parcel to the ground and caught her arm in one hand, staying her dramatic departure.

  “Wait a minute!” he rasped.

  Phineas walked away, whistling, his hands in his pockets. Other members of the show, however, were not so obliging, and Fancy was aware of their interest in the forthcoming scene. For that reason, she tried to speak calmly and quietly.

  “Let go of me, you lecherous wretch, before I have you arrested for every sort of debauchery.”

  Jeff stared at her, his blue eyes at once puzzled and angry. But his hand fell from her arm. “What now?” he wanted to know.

  “You are a Catholic,” Fancy seethed. “Why didn’t you tell me you were a Catholic?”

  “Does it matter?” snapped Jeff defensively, annoyed now.

  Fancy’s control was slipping, and fast. Her voice rose a pitch when she spoke again and suddenly she didn’t care that the fat lady and the elephant trainer and the man with tattooes were looking on. “Your brother is a Methodist minister, for God’s sake, and you didn’t tell me that you’re Catholic?”

  “I didn’t have time for semantics!”

  “No, you were too busy defiling me!”

  “Defiling you?!” bellowed Jeff with no regard whatsoever for the scandal that would ensue. “Is that what I was doing, Fancy? Defiling you?”

  The crowd laughed but Fancy only half heard them; it was as though they were standing beyond some pulsing, invisible veil. “Yes!” she screamed.

  “Well, you sure as hell enjoyed it, didn’t you?!” shouted Jeff, his hands on his hips now, his nose only an inch from Fancy’s.

  “I endured it!” she shrieked, to the delight of the onlookers. “But no more! This farce of a marriage is over and I’m leaving!”

  “Good!”

  Fancy had been prepared for an argument. Now that Jeff had agreed to her going, she was at a loss. “I never want to see you again!”

  “Wonderful!” came the immediate and scathing reply. “Just exactly where do you plan to go?”

  “Anywhere where you aren’t, you—you trickster! You debaucher! You—”

  Jeff’s right eyebrow arched ominously. “Yes?”

  Fancy could bear no more. She flung herself at him, fists flying, feet kicking, tears of rage and humiliation flowing down her face. “You only married me—if it was a marriage—to get me into your bed!” she screamed, in unbridled hysteria.

  “You tell him, honey!” cheered the fat lady.

  Chapter Eight

  “YOU STAY OUT OF THIS!” JEFF BELLOWED, AND THE FAT lady stepped back, chins trembling. His menacing gaze swung back to Fancy’s face. “Come with me,” he bit out, grasping her elbow in one hand and half propelling, half ushering her toward Phineas’s wagon.

  “Why did you have to yell at Eudora like that?” complained Fancy, as she double-stepped along. “She has problems enough, what with her weight and people paying money to stare at her!”

  “She doesn’t have half the problems you’re going to have,” Jeff retorted in a snapping undertone. The back of Phineas’s wagon was open and he lifted her up to sit on its floor, her feet dangling. “Now what is all this talk about Catholicism and leaving me?”

  Fancy couldn’t meet his eyes. “You lied to me,” she accused miserably.

  “How?”

  Fancy sniffled. “For one thing,”
she muttered, “you didn’t tell me that you knew Jewel Stroble before.”

  “Jewel.” Jeff sighed the name and Fancy saw him run one hand through his hair in exasperation, though she was pretending not to look at him. “I should have known she had something to do with this.”

  “You’ve been intimate with her!”

  “So has every other man in the territory. Besides, I was sixteen at the time and hardly in full possession of my senses!”

  “I think your senses were probably just fine, Captain Corbin!” Fancy paused and sniffed indignantly. “I don’t appreciate being confronted with your former mistresses at every turn.”

  “Every turn? How many others have you met, Fancy—besides Jewel?”

  “There are probably dozens!”

  “At least,” Jeff said promptly.

  “Beast!” flared Fancy.

  “Enough. I will not stand here and be harangued for something that happened years ago. And if you ever make a scene like that again—”

  Fancy arched an eyebrow and stiffened her shoulders. “Yes?”

  Jeff swore and shook his head in annoyance. “Why were you going to leave?” he persisted, after an interval of considerable inner struggle.

  “Because you lied to me!”

  “Back to that, are we? And just exactly how did I lie?”

  “You didn’t tell me that your family is Catholic.”

  “Fancy, I really don’t understand why that bothers you so much. Have you got something against Catholics?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Well, then?”

  Fancy’s emotions were churning; she was beginning to suspect that she’d made a fool of herself. Again. “I believe Catholic marriages are generally performed by priests, rather than snake men!”

  Jeff stared at her, incredulous. Then, after long moments, he laughed. “You think the ceremony was a fake, don’t you?” he demanded.

  “Was it?”

  “You saw the certificate. You signed it. What do you think?”

  “I think, Mr. Corbin, that it would be easy for you to annul such a marriage, even if it was legal!”

  Angry wonder played in his magnificent face. “You think I would do a thing like that? You actually believe—”

  “I do!”

  “All right, then have it your way! I set it all up! It was a joke, a fraud! And when I get tired of you, I’ll find myself a nice, nubile Catholic girl and haul her before a priest—with no thought of you or your goddamned rabbit!”

  Fancy was bruised by his words, but she lifted her chin and willed the tears throbbing behind her eyes not to fall. “I only married you for your money anyway,” she lied. In actuality, she had never given much thought to his fortune, except where it could make life easier for her family. But now she wanted to hurt him as cruelly as he had hurt her.

  To her mingled remorse and triumph, she saw that she had succeeded. He turned away, his head tilted back, his face to the brassy sky. “So be it,” he breathed.

  “You’ll go back to Wenatchee, then?” Fancy dared, her voice trembling. Suddenly, the pain she had dealt him was doubling back on her.

  “No,” he replied, in tones of dry, dusty gravel, without turning to look at her. “And neither will you, my dear.”

  “I had no intention of—”

  “From now on,” he snapped, “your intentions don’t matter in the least. You married me for my money. That’s fine. But the price for all that luxury and influence may be much higher than you bargained for, Mrs. Corbin.” Now, he turned to face her, his eyes brutal and distant. “Much, much higher.”

  “Jeff—”

  He held up one hand to silence her. “No more. If I’ve bought myself a bride—and it appears that I have—then be assured of one thing: I’ll get my money’s worth.”

  With that, he turned and started to walk away. Fancy scrambled down off the wagon and caught one of his arms in a frantic hand.

  “Jeff, what are you saying?”

  His eyes were averted, fixed on, of all people, Jewel Stroble, who seemed to be waiting for the drama to end. No doubt, she planned an epilogue of her own. “You’ll find, Mrs. Corbin, that I’m not such a bargain,” he replied coldly. “Now, gather your things because we’re going to town.”

  “Going to—”

  “Town,” he put in, savagely condescending now. And then he walked off toward a grinning Jewel, without so much as looking back.

  Fancy was torn between running after him and running away. She watched in anguish as he draped one arm around the waist of the simpering Jewel and disappeared with her into the woods lining the stream. Their stream.

  “Bastard,” she sobbed, biting her lower lip and wishing that she knew a worse word.

  After a few minutes, Fancy had managed to summon up a façade of composure, and she went to fetch the parcel she had thrown at Jeff near the balloon. She was about to get Hershel and her other props and start down the winding, rutted road toward Colterville when Eudora Strittmatter, the fat lady, halted her with a gentle, “Miss Jordan?”

  Fancy paused, letting her misery show in her face, partly because hiding it was too great an effort just then and partly because she knew Eudora understood pain. “Yes?”

  “You’re not going to leave, are you, and let that strumpet have your man?”

  “She has him already,” mourned Fancy, looking toward the hidden stream and speculating on what was probably going on there right at that moment.

  “No,” argued Eudora. “He’s just trying to nettle you—don’t you see that?”

  To Fancy, one thing was as bad as the other. Whether Jeff was just trying to make her jealous or whether he was actually availing himself of Jewel’s favors, he had done her an injury she could not deal with. “He’s succeeded then,” she said, and after a short farewell to Phineas, she left.

  Phineas had not accepted the money she had offered him for her keep these past few days, and he had not tried to talk her into staying, either. She was grateful on both counts.

  The walk into Colterville was longer and more difficult than she’d expected, especially carrying a valise, the parcel, Hershel’s cage, and her few props. The sun was setting and her feet were burning when she finally reached the edge of town.

  Colterville was obviously a place of limited prospects. There were two saloons, a feed store, a mercantile, and a few ramshackle houses—that was the extent of it.

  With a sigh, Fancy approached the largest house, which was within a hundred yards of the railroad tracks. A hand-lettered sign was propped in the window of what was probably the parlor, reading, ROOMS TO LET.

  She climbed the steps, weary to the depths of her soul, and rapped disconsolately at the door. There would be no jobs in Colterville, that much was clear, but perhaps she could get train passage out of town without too much delay. In the meantime, she would take a room, have a bath, try to sleep, and try not to think about what Jeff and Jewel Stroble were probably doing.

  A heavy woman came to the door and assessed Fancy with swift, narrowed eyes. “You travelin’ folk?” she demanded, looking wary.

  Fancy squared her shoulders. “Please, ma’am—when does the next train leave?”

  The woman relaxed a little, though she made a point of inspecting Fancy’s star-spangled dress, her props, and her rabbit. “Tomorrow, if you’re going east—next day after if it be west. Rooms are twenty-five cents the night and you can’t have that critter in there.”

  Fancy dared to hope a little. “I can rent a room, then?”

  “Cash in advance, missy. And if you want a bath and supper, it’s fifteen cents more.”

  Fancy nodded. She had just over three dollars and that decided her on going east. It would save her one night’s room rent. “Thank you,” she said, and then, on orders from the woman, she put Hershel in the woodshed around back, giving him some dandelion greens and a jar lid full of water.

  Her room was on the second floor and hot as the devil’s breath, even though the
window was open. Flies buzzed in the close, musty air and crawled on the narrow bed.

  Resigned, Fancy closed the window.

  “I’d be for bathin’ when it’s cooler, were I you,” said the proprietress. There was a stain on the bodice of her colorless calico dress and she scratched inelegantly at her protruding middle.

  Fancy had a headache and the beginnings of a sour stomach. “Yes,” she agreed, mostly to get rid of the odious woman. “I believe you’re right.”

  “Forty cents,” she reminded Fancy.

  Fancy counted out two dimes and four nickels and placed them in the woman’s outstretched hand. When she was alone, she immediately checked the bedding and the seams of the mattress for cooties.

  Remarkably, the bed was clean. She sighed and sat down on it, bending to unfasten her high-button shoes. It was going to be a long night, she reflected as she lay down to rest, and, without Jeff, a long lifetime.

  But she was not going to think about Jeff Corbin, not ever again. If there were to be any sanity for her, she would have to forget him once and for all. Write him off, like a fizzled magic trick.

  Lying back on pillows that smelled faintly of a man’s hair oil, Fancy tried to make plans for the future. She would head east, on the next train—to Spokane, maybe. It was a growing city, in the center of the wheat country, and bound to offer some sort of opportunity.

  She could wait tables there, or perhaps work as a servant in a fine home. Like Jeff’s?

  Fancy turned over fitfully, trying to shut out thoughts of Jeff. She wouldn’t encounter him again, not in a city as large as Spokane—he probably wouldn’t even go there now, for that matter. He’d be too busy with Jewel.

  A tear squeezed past Fancy’s squenched-shut eyelashes to slide, tickling, down her face. Jewel. Jeff. Their images, entwined and naked, tortured her, despite her resolve not to consider them. Were they making love on those dear, lumpy, leaf-littered blankets by the stream? Were they bathing each other, laughing and cold, in the water?

  Fancy turned her face to the pillow and gave a muffled howl of protest and hurt. For the first time, it occurred to her that Eudora might have been right. Maybe she shouldn’t have left; maybe she should have stayed and explained to Jeff that she’d spoken in angry haste—that she hadn’t married him for his money but because she loved him and hoped that, someday, he would love her, too.