by Pamela Morsi
* * *
"No, absolutely not!" Hannah declared. "I will not wear mother's white wedding dress. I don't want you baking a wedding cake. I am not getting married to Henry Lee Watson and that is final!"
The words were spoken to the mirror, no one else seemed to be listening. She was still certain that her plan to brazen out the scandal was best, but no one, not her father, not Violet, not even Henry Lee Watson was cooperating.
Violet had pulled her mother's wedding dress from the trunk and it was airing outside at this very moment, waiting for Hannah to wear it. Her sisters-in-law were alternately laughing and arguing in the kitchen as they cooked dinner and decorated a cake for the wedding. Hannah was supposed to be packing up her things, but she saw no reason to do so. She wasn't leaving. She wasn't marrying anybody. All of this was just going to disappear.
She was sure Henry Lee Watson was playing some kind of joke. He was biding his time, maybe planning revenge. Any moment now he would either tell Papa the truth, or just grab his horse and ride away and never return. Hannah hoped he would do the latter. It would be easier to be left standing at the church than to try to explain to her father why she had sneaked out to the wellhouse last night.
She must have been out of her head to think that heaven would send her on such an errand. Folks in the Bible did plenty of strange things, but that didn't mean that people were supposed to do them nowadays. She'd been foolish and selfish, trying to force poor Will Sample to take her for a wife. Will would have done it, of course, and would have tried, no doubt, to make the best of it. But Henry Lee Watson would never stay with her. He'd be gone in a minute. What Hannah couldn't understand was why he hadn't left already!
Peeking out of her room, she was dismayed at the flurry of activity taking place in the house. Cooking for the building crew took up a lot of time, but it was obvious that the women of her family were heavily involved in planning a celebration. It amazed her that Violet, who had always seemed so unorganized, had taken charge of the wedding. She seemed to be thriving on all the details that normally Hannah would have handled.
Violet glanced up and noticed Hannah at the door. She smiled warmly and wiped her hands on her apron and came to her. Her earlier disapproval and censure seemed to be completely wiped away.
"Don't worry about a thing, Hannah," she said cheerfully. "I know it seems like it is very hurried, but we are going to have a real wedding that you'll be able to remember with pride for the rest of your life."
"Violet," Hannah said nervously, drawing her into the bedroom for a private consultation. "You have got to help me. I just cannot go through with this."
Violet sat down on the bed and patted the place beside her. When Hannah joined her, she took her hand.
"I know exactly what you are going through. When I married the late Mr. Bradford, I was so nervous beforehand that I was sick to my stomach. And even as a widow, when your father and I tied the knot my knees shook like jelly for a week before the wedding."
"I wish this were only nerves!" Hannah said, honestly. "I know that Henry Lee does not want to marry me."
"Well, of course he does!" Violet insisted. "You just put that idea right out of your head. You're going to be a wonderful wife to him, I just know it."
"Violet, he would never have married me if Papa hadn't caught us out there."
Violet seemed to consider for a moment. "Well, maybe he wouldn't, Hannah, but you've got to remember that the Lord works in mysterious ways. There's more than one man that found himself on the way to the altar before he'd planned, but heaven has its own time and place for things and this is your time for marrying Henry Lee."
"You don't understand," Hannah pleaded. She wanted to confide in her, but knew it was pointless.
Violet merely gave her a hug of encouragement. "Now you just get busy and get your things packed. We'll be spending most of the afternoon getting you prettied up for the wedding. You're going to dazzle poor Henry Lee so much, he'll plumb forget that this whole thing wasn't his idea."
Although the men had planned to work until they finished, eat a late meal and head on home, the wedding plans had changed the order of the day. The whole community seemed to be involved in the planning of the festivities, and speculation about the wedding and the bride and groom was on everybody's lips.
Hannah knew they were talking about her, but her family stayed around her like a net, not allowing anyone close enough for embarrassing questions. However, plenty had their comments. When the noon meal was laid out and the men came down to eat, the net began to have gaping holes in it.
"You sly thing!" Mary Beth Thompson said to her. "How long has this been going on, and you not letting on by even the slightest sign!"
Hannah just stared at her, not having the vaguest idea of what to say. Mary Beth was still young and attractive enough to be eager to spread the worst kind of stories about courting couples. Whatever Hannah said, it would be twisted and retold to make Hannah seem more foolish than she already was.
She was rescued by an unexpected source.
"Now, Mary Beth, we had to keep it a secret." Hannah tried to keep her mouth from dropping in surprise as Henry Lee walked up behind her and placed his arm gently around her shoulders. "Miss Hannah wanted to be married in that church and wouldn't let me say a word to her daddy until it was nearly finished. She was afraid he'd take a shotgun to me." Leaning down conspiratorially to Mary Beth, he added, "and I guess she was right!"
Mary Beth giggled, totally bedazzled by his teasing words, and around them everyone within hearing distance joined into the laughter.
After that Henry Lee did not stray an inch from his betrothed and his unfailing politeness and obvious deference was slowly winning over the churchgoers. Everyone seemed gradually to become delighted with the wedding and the apparently happy couple.
Hannah couldn't understand it. Surely no one believed that they had actually been seeing each other. Why did a few silly words from this man make things all right again? And why was he saying them? If he didn't go ahead and leave soon, they would actually have to go through with it.
Henry Lee filled two plates and insisted that Hannah come and sit with him to eat.
"No, I really must help out," she pleaded, not wanting to be in close proximity to him any longer than absolutely necessary.
"Nonsense, you are the bride."
Had he given the word an unusual emphasis? She saw in his eyes a strange mixture of admiration and pity.
"Come and sit down, nobody expects the bride to wait on us, do you, boys?"
"Come and sit a spell, Miss Hannah," a grizzled farmer told her. "There're plenty of women here to help that ain't getting married this afternoon."
With Henry Lee at her elbow carrying the plates, Hannah made her way to the swing that her father had put up in the grape arbor. The grapes didn't thrive, but the arbor was the coolest, most pleasant place to sit in the yard. As the men came over and seated themselves around the couple, Hannah couldn't decide if she was glad of their presence or resentful of the lack of privacy.
She felt foolish and out of place. All around her were men she had known all her life, but she had hardly ever spoken to any of them. Now she was too ashamed to look at them.
Henry Lee kept up a running conversation about the church, and the other men, and the crops, as if to discourage talk of the wedding. Just talking and visiting seemed to come easy to him. He put the men at ease.
However, not everyone's curiosity could be redirected.
"Where're you two going on your honeymoon?" Clarence Hopkins asked, drawing out the word to nearly three times its normal length.
Henry Lee looked the man square in the eyes. "Well, Miss Hannah and I are somewhat partial to the wellhouse."
Hoots and howls followed this statement, Hannah noticed that even her father was genuinely laughing. Personally, she was mortified.
Henry Lee reached over and raised up her chin. "You see this, gentlemen? My daddy always told me when you're thi
nking to marry a woman, it should be one who still knows how to blush."
* * *
CHAPTER 3
« ^ »
She would be the wallflower bride of the charmer of the territory, Hannah thought miserably as she stood in her room dressed in her mother's wedding gown. Once white, the dress was now faded into a color reminiscent of frosty cream. The high collar and tight sleeves identified it as a dress from another generation and the detail of fifty-two buttons down the back clearly showed that it was sewn for a wedding very different from this one.
Surely he'll make his getaway soon, she told herself hopefully. But she no longer quite believed it.
Myrtie had bounced back from her earlier shock and was lying on Hannah's bed practically giddy with excitement.
"To think of you and Henry Lee Watson," Myrtie sighed. "I just would never, oh, Hannah, he is so handsome!"
"Myrtie, really, you mustn't say that!"
"Oh, you know I wouldn't say it to anyone else. But he's going to be my brother-in-law after all." She sighed again. "All the girls talk about him. He's so handsome and such a cutup. They say that he goes to every party in the territory. Just think, you'll be going to parties all the time."
"I'm sure I won't be going to any parties. And he surely doesn't go all the time, Myrtie," Hannah replied, somewhat concerned. "I'm sure there is plenty of work to be done on his place."
"Yeah," Myrtie agreed, sounding somewhat disappointed. "And married men just don't go to parties all that much. They just want to eat and raise corn."
Myrtie's observation was so sorrowful that Hannah smiled for the first time in hours.
"You have to raise corn to live, Myrtie. And believe me, there will come a time when you'll want a man whose interest is more in working to provide for his family, than partying to enjoy himself."
Hannah thought of Will and his quiet hardworking life with a pang.
Myrtie worked on Hannah's hair, fixing it higher up on her head than she usually wore it, and leaving it looser and fluffier, a curl slipping free in several places. It gave Hannah a more vulnerable look, which went along perfectly with how she was feeling. The dress looked beautiful on her, although it was the type of gown that she would never have chosen. Too delicate, she thought, for a woman like her. The contrast from her usual attire made her seem too attractive, she thought as she looked at herself in the mirror. She didn't want him to think that she was trying to impress him. Or perhaps it was really true what people always said, that all brides are beautiful. Even those who became brides by devious and underhanded means.
* * *
Henry Lee stood inside the new church. He had been alone with his thoughts for a quarter of an hour and he wasn't sure that it was for the best. Reverend Farnam was to meet him here and he would undoubtedly have a few things to say to his future son-in-law. Henry Lee dreaded the confrontation.
The church smelled of fresh wood and new paint and sawdust. He examined the finishing work that he had done, discovering several places he wanted to touch up, but it would have to wait for another day. He'd sent Dillary's youngest son over to his place to get his best suit. Now that he was dressed he couldn't just start sanding.
He was determined that the wedding look as ordinary as the scene this morning had not. He had thought it all through carefully, and had decided that the marriage wasn't such a bad idea after all. Henry Lee was a man who tried to deal with his troubles as they came along and not to get too involved in plans for the future. He thought it was a pretty good way for a moonshiner to be. He rose every day to take care of what needed to be done. He didn't spend his time worrying if next year's corn was doomed to fail, or whether the still would get struck by lightning, or the Federal marshalls would come looking for him, or if the current batch would scorch and he wouldn't have anything fit to sell.
Worrying about the future was a useless pursuit, as far as he was concerned, and with the carelessness of youth he had avoided doing it.
Yet when something couldn't be avoided, Henry Lee turned it into an advantage. It wasn't that difficult to see advantages in a marriage to Hannah Bunch. She was reputed to be level-headed—although this morning's behavior put that somewhat in question—and she was undisputedly a hard worker. There was plenty of work to be done around his place. He liked cleanliness and order, having someone else to take care of that would free him up to spend more time at his business.
There would also be the advantage of a regular partner to warm his bed. She wasn't really his type, but on a snowy winter evening, a man couldn't be too choosy.
The main advantage, as far as Henry Lee could see, would be to permanently align himself with the good people of Plainview Church. He enjoyed a reputation for honesty and fairness throughout the Twin Territories. That was saying a lot for someone in his line of work. Like many men who live on the wrong side of the law, the desire for recognition and respect was always unfulfilled. He lived on the fringe of this community, but with a decent woman at his side, a woman from their own ranks, he could be a part of it.
"Henry Lee," Reverend Farnam hailed him as he approached his future son-in-law. "I wanted to have a few words with you before the service."
The preacher waited a minute, drawing together his thoughts. Henry Lee was discomfited by the silence, and tried to start the discussion on an agreeable track. "It's looking real pretty, don't you think? I've seen a few small things that I want to redo, and then of course, it needs pews. I won't have much time to do them before winter, but by next year at this time, it'll be as nice as any church in the territory."
The preacher nodded in agreement, looking around proudly. Then he focused his attention on Henry Lee. "I didn't come here to talk about the church, Henry Lee. I came to talk about Hannah."
"Yes, sir." He was ready to be taken to task. His swollen lip was still visible, but he knew that a couple of punches wouldn't dispel the trouble between them.
The reverend seemed to be waiting for him to speak, but for once Henry Lee didn't know what to say. A full minute of silence was louder than any sound Henry Lee had ever heard.
"If it helps to know this," he said finally, "nothing passed between Miss Hannah and me last night or any other night for that matter."
The older man looked at him speculatively. He remembered the sight of the two of them curled up together on the floor of the wellhouse, Henry Lee's arm around his daughter's waist and his hand splayed open on her abdomen. Yet he had some inner sense that his daughter had not been changed, that there was still an innocence in her eyes. He looked at Henry Lee and realized that he was not lying. "I think I already knew that," he said. "I want you to understand something about Hannah," he told Henry Lee. "When my first wife took sick, little Hannah was not much more than a girl. Without anyone so much as saying a 'would you please,' Hannah just took over the keeping of the house and the raising of the little ones. She scrubbed and cooked and taught the children their lessons, all the while that she was watching her mama die. I wasn't any help to her at all. I was just bowed down in my own grief, couldn't even see at the time what was going on. She took on burdens that would have crushed many women."
The reverend looked directly at Henry Lee, as if trying to underscore his point.
"My Hannah is a fine, strong woman that any man would be lucky to have for a wife. I hope that you know that."
His voice became lower and almost threatening. "I don't claim to understand what is between you two, and truth to tell, I guess most would say it's no longer my business, but I value my girls very highly and I never intend to give them up completely. If I ever see a bruise on her or hear that she or her children are going hungry, you'll be having a reckoning with me."
Henry Lee was stung by the words. He felt anger roll through him like a wave. Hadn't he already saved this stupid female from public embarrassment and her family from shame? How could the preacher think that he would mistreat her? But then, the preacher didn't really know what he had done for him and probably nev
er would. The reverend still thought that Henry Lee had lured her outside to take advantage of her.
As quickly as the anger had come, it left him. Henry Lee almost smiled. Doing a favor for someone, and having them not know it, or be able to thank you, made it seem more right somehow, more selfless. It was a novel experience for the moonshiner.
"Don't worry, Reverend," Henry Lee said, "Hannah and I may have some problems, but I've never hit a woman in my life and I couldn't starve a polecat."
Henry Lee extended his hand to his future father-in-law and, after an instant of hesitation, the older man took it.
"Now the real problem, Preacher Farnam, is how are we going to get all those people who've come to see the most talked-about wedding of the year into this church?"
The two men laughed together.
Less than an hour later the church was filled to capacity. The families of the church builders had stayed for the ceremony. Curious folks from all over had come to see what was going on, and as it turned out it was good that there were no pews. With all the guests standing there was still little room for an aisle.
Henry Lee stood at the door, talking and greeting everyone and acting the role of cheerful bridegroom.
Reverend Farnam looked a bit more nervous. "I forgot about the ring, Henry Lee. Will you need to make one from a horseshoe nail?"
Henry Lee pulled his watch out of his pocket. Attached to the fob was a small gold band. "I have my mother's." But, even as he said it, he wasn't sure that he wanted to give it. He hardly knew this woman and certainly didn't want to trust her with his mother's ring. It was a tiny gold circle decorated with a garnet. It wasn't a wedding ring at all. It was given to his mother by her lover, Henry Lee's father. And it had been the only thing that she'd managed to keep away from her husband. Now her son was expected to hand it over to some stranger. But Hannah was to be his wife and it would look curious now, if he didn't give her the ring.
