Once Upon The Prairie (The Brides Of Courage, Kansas, Book 1)

by Lenny Davis

Chapter 9

  The last rays of the sun disappeared in the west when Mina and Mamie arrived behind the servants' quarters. They quickly dismounted. Mina hurried and entered the low brick house through the back door. In Mamie's room she changed back into her regular clothes, while Mamie led the horses over to the stable, where she handed the reins to the boy she found there.

  Mina quickly fixed her hair in front of the small mirror above Mamie's wash pan. As soon as she was presentable again, she went over and entered the mansion through the door by the kitchen. Usually only the servants used it and nobody saw her come in. Glancing in every direction, she gently closed the door, crossed through the kitchen and entered the parlor. She intended to go straight up to her room, but as she stood and heard the commotion coming from the dining room, she decided to take a look.

  A mixed group was singing, a fiddle was screaming high notes, and the smell of roast pig and potatoes and onions and vanilla pudding wafted out through the open door. She hadn't been here for supper today and Neville hat gone ahead and eaten without her.

  She heard the clinking of glasses.

  Usually, when she was there, Neville went easy on the drinks — as long as the sun was up. Once it was dark out and he was alone with the servants and with the leaders of the Black Thirteen, he began to imbibe. Neville was drunk most days. Tonight he was starting early. Surely, her absence from the supper table was at fault for that.

  There was a lull in the music and more clanging of glasses. Vulgar laughter reached Mina's ears.

  That didn't bode well.

  Then the fiddle screamed again and the whole room seemed to sing, including Neville.

  Mina had reached the door. She stood in the frame and looked into the dining room.

  Neville, a half-filled wine glass in his right hand, sat behind the table and was directing a makeshift choir of goons and servant girls. Wine sloshed out of the glass as his hand jerked rhythmically.

  Two servant girls, barely sixteen, were shaking their bodies, dancing in the free space in front of his table. Neville cast them lecherous glances. His shirt was soiled with food and stained from the wine, his gray hair was a mess and he sweated profusely.

  His eyes were glazed over. Mina could see at a glance that her husband was royally drunk.

  On the table in front of him, dishes, platters and plates were in disarray. Food remains lay on all of them. Greasy sauces had spilled on the table, mingling with equally-spilled booze, making the whole table to reek. Neville didn't notice the mess in front of him.

  Mina was so ashamed. It seemed that everybody in the room was sober except for her husband. They all put on a grand show to entertain him. They were serving a forty-year-old spoiled child.

  Neville didn't see her. He was glaring at the dancing girls again.

  His eager lips sought his wine glass. Since his hand was still jerking when he attempted to drink, he spilled the good portion of the wine on his face. When he swallowed with an open mouth, some of it dribbled out and ran down over his chin.

  This was disgraceful.

  Her husband was making a complete fool of himself in front of all these people. She had to do something about that. Mina entered the room, walked towards the two dancing girls and clapped her hands.

  When they became aware of her, the singing and the music died down. Everybody, including Neville, stared at her. He was clearly displeased.

  Mina braced herself. She inhaled deeply and said, "I thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for giving my husband such a good time tonight."

  Her gesture swept the table.

  "Look at all this fine food. Why, this is fit for the table of a king." She nodded approvingly at the kitchen girls that had been dancing. "You've done a fine job preparing this. I also want to thank the musicians. You have done a fine job playing and singing and cheering my husband up. However, I wish you would leave him to me now. So, may I ask you all to leave?"

  An angry snarl came from Neville. He snorted, sounding like a two-year-old about to throw a tantrum.

  "I don't want them to leave!" Neville's face was beet red. "I want them to go on singing!"

  He donned a supremely stupid grin. "I want to see those girls dance! Go ahead, girls!" His hand with the class in it came crashing down on the table. "Go ahead, girls! Dance."

  When nobody moved, he grabbed a bottle of wine by the neck and hurled it at the old fiddle player. "Play, fellow! What do you think I pay you for?"

  The bottle smashed into the floor, but didn't explode. Instead, it rolled around with wine sloshing out of it.

  The old fiddle player immediately ran his bow across the fiddle's strings and began to strike up a tune.

  Mina lifted her hand and the musician fell silent again. "Neville, she said. "I think you should come and rest now and —"

  "No!" he shouted. Neville got out of his chair and stood there, staggering. "I want to sing! I want to dance!" He reached for a platter with some meat left on it, picked it up and hurled it at her.

  Mina barely evaded the missile. When it crashed into the floor next to her, she decided to leave the dining room, this stage of Neville's ridiculous one-man show. She hurried out into the hall, crossed through the parlor and rushed up the stairs. When she had reached her bedroom door, the shouting and singing downstairs resumed.

  She entered her bedroom and closed the door behind it. Exhausted, she walked over to her bed and fell down on it. What a miserable life she was leading. What a wretched, humiliating existence she had. A life without dignity.

  Neville was stone drunk. He was out of his wits enough to demand the kitchen girls dance for him.

  Those poor souls.

  She didn't believe for a second that they enjoyed what they were doing. Neville paid them and that was that. He was watching teenagers. Awful. What came next? Where would she find him tomorrow morning? In the servants' quarters? A sob came over her and racked her slender frame. Tears began to come. She reached for the handkerchief that she kept under her pillow, dabbed her eyes and stilled the flow.

  Why did Neville have to be such a buffoon? Why couldn't he be more like Jesse Bartleby? Poor, the cowboy was nevertheless an honorable man. A gentleman, a leader who always had the best interest of his group on his heart and mind. Somebody who put the well-being of others before his own.

  And Neville, the richest man around for hundreds of miles?

  Neville thought only of himself and nobody else. A wave of sadness crashed down on Mina and she began to cry quietly. Her life was such a mess. She was so unhappy.

  Lying there on the bed in the darkness of her room, she wished to die.