Four of a Kind: A women's historical fiction Read online

  He only noticed I hadn’t moved. He asked, “You don’t plan to sleep in my mother’s dress, do you?” To save myself from fainting I hurried off to the sewing room as directed, to change. He’d dropped off my bag here (he’d already planned this out, the scoundrel) and so with muted light filtered through the window blind, I found my nightgown, sewn by my dear sister, Opal. Opal. Well, I have much to say about her later.

  I was soaked in perspiration as I unsnapped the many snaps of the whale-boned corset in nervous jerking motions, bittersweet to be released from its clutches, yet feeling I’d collapse without it. Fearful yet forced to move quickly, eager to depart the stifling heat and cramped room. Ah, how comical I must have looked at first, with my nightgown on and ruffled petticoats protruding from the bottom. I had to smile when I looked down and saw what I had forgotten. But when it all came off, I hugged around my breasts feeling ashamed of my nakedness. All my life I was told not to show so much as an ankle and here I was, well, never mind. I desperately longed to wash but at a loss as to how to ask Robert for a water bowl and soap. God only knew how indisposed he might be at that moment. It was then I heard the bedsprings squeak through the wall.

  That was telling, nonetheless I called out to him. “Robert?”

  “Ye-” he cleared his throat. “Yes?”

  “May I wash?”

  There was a pause, and then the bedsprings squeaked a release. I heard the porcelain pitcher click from its bowl and return with a louder scratch.

  “There is no water here, Ruby,” he called out. “You can do that tomorrow.”

  The bedsprings squeaked again.

  I folded my arms and leaned against the doorframe of the sewing room with another realization. Hard work and constant effort were ahead of me in living with a pampered only son of an overprotective mother.

  The effort began immediately as we entered his bedroom (this room was to become yours in later years, Bess).

  Mercy, here I am losing my nerve, Jesi, I must confess. I’ve never spoken of this. Am I being disloyal to Robert’s memory? He would die again if he knew. Except that, is not my loyalty now to my womankind? Is this not what I longed for all those years – to be able to come out into the open and speak my mind? Perhaps it will be easier to write it down, one word at a time.

  Tell all. Yes. Well.

  With the curtains closed the room had turned to a murky darkness. Grateful of the darkness I lifted the sheet and slipped under in a hurry, bringing the sheet up to my chin, stiff as a board. He kissed my cheek for the first time since being pronounced man and wife but this didn’t help matters, not with the erratic breathing in my ear. I felt like one big question mark as his hand lifted my gown, roamed and explored, eventually finding an opening I myself did not know existed. This must sound terribly naïve or stupid these days but at the turn of the century, our Victorian morals were highly cherished, to our own detriment I must admit, preached in the pulpit, and protected even by such laws as the Comstock, such ridiculous censorship of any literature dealing with sex and birth control methods. Even to teach. (Katy knows this better than anyone, poor thing). So what was I to do but resist: clamp my knees together and grab his wrist?

  Naturally, he resisted that. “Don’t,” he said and continued on his breathless expedition.

  Quite suddenly I found him looming over me and flattening me, his male odor overwhelming my senses. Some rigid thing was trying to push and enter between my legs. He was hurting me and I told him so.

  Dead-set on his task at hand, he pushed harder. “Help me. Guide me in.”

  “I don’t know what you are doing!” I said breathlessly, but for a different reason than his; I was suffocating under his weight.

  Lifting himself, he placed my hand on something that reminded me of the wooden crank on the wringer washer. I thought seriously of doing what I knew best but my touch was enough to make him gasp and jerk and the crank became a wet fish. My sense of touch became most alive at that moment. As if that wasn’t enough, he collapsed on top of me for a moment before rolling onto his back.

  My body remained still, but my mind was racing. Why hadn’t Mama told me about this? I made a silent commitment then and there that when this at last resulted in children, I would prepare my daughter for her own wedding night.

  But then I wondered how pregnancy could occur this way – certainly not through the belly button (I had some sense to me). I quietly wiped my abdomen with the sheet, quietly longed to wash. Was this it? I could just about make out the outline of him lying on his back. He appeared to be asleep, but sleep was not to be had just yet.

  From the darkness he spoke, in words I remember clearly. “You are a virgin. So am I. But I do know that I am to enter you. You must not resist or I am forced to release my seed where it does not belong. I cannot provide you children this way. This I know for certain. Next time you must relax and open yourself to me. Never again move my hand or close your legs to me. Can we agree on that?”

  I stared at the ceiling. The meaning of those words moved across my mind and projected clearly onto the ceiling dark pictures of the demand on my body. But strangely relief came as well in knowing what would be expected. The unknown, I realized, carried more fear. “I am sorry I have disappointed you, Robert. I was frightened.”

  “Have I ever hurt you?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Did you not promise just a few hours earlier to love, honor, and obey me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think your way of behaving tonight showed me love, honor, or obedience?”

  “Please be patient. I’ll do better next time, I promise.” My submissive voice sounded like someone else; someone no longer in control and calling the shots as I had in our yearlong courtship. I had now become a stranger in a stranger’s bed.

  “We’ll see, Ruby.” Robert rolled to his side facing me. “Remember. Relax.”

  All I can say here is that I took a deep breath and endured. Endured the probing, endured his testing of my promise.

  “I’m ready now,” he whispered. “Open yourself to me, Ruby.”

  I did as commanded and was split in two, with blood on the sheets to prove it, Virgin’s Sheets, my friends had whispered. I had passed that test, too. I sewed myself together into a different woman, one who’d lost some stuffing and became lumpy, one whom he tried to pound and smooth into the woman he needed. Years down the road I was to break my promise and try to mend again, becoming yet again a different woman.

  “No!”

  “Yes!”

  Opposites that continued to meet in the middle, only the bed squeaking shamelessly as his mother listened from her room across the hall. His mother who took those virgin sheets I had washed in vain had tried to hide, the red stain now a gray half moon that looked to me like a turned-down mouth, and she displayed them proudly on the backyard clothes line, upside down so that the moon would smile.

  For the second time that day, he said, “There now, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  My last sense of the evening was awakened: the taste of tears.

  December 1963

  Mercy, I hope these pages stay in our own family archive and don’t see the light of day. If Robert was here, or Victor – just like his father – oh their cold scorn and rebuke! But my dear little son, Jonathon, with those tender brown eyes that reminded me of my brother’s dairy cows, would he have – oh but I shall not write another word about him or I shall cry. I surely would.

  I hope you’re happy with this, Bess.

  I am not happy with this, Mama. This is decidedly NOT your year of awakening. Please read again the definition, written clearly in large bold letters on the chalkboard on the wall of the dining room. It says: We all have a pivotal moment that changes our lives. Symbolically a year of 4 seasons, where the spring seed of an event is born, grows, matures, and becomes winter wisdom as a life-changing realization. Write about this year of awakening.

  I shall allow your “April 1898” as part of yo
ur introduction or else I risk being called (once again) a dictator. However, please proceed with your Chapter One here.

  Yours Truly,

  Bess

  Oh dear, it appears that I must write more. Bess has placed a bottle of wine at the center of our table and poured me a generous amount, to calm my nerves no doubt. My first chapter - or whatever Bess calls it - almost did me in, I do believe. Mercy, I think I’ve already told too much, and Bess has my pages and her flushed cheeks to prove it. We’re not supposed to read each others’ remaining chapters until the end, thank goodness.

  As I think back over the many years to my “year of awakening” I’m apprehensive in how much to tell. I glance discreetly over at Bess’ profile – tight French bun, furrowed brow (those striking crowfeet prints tell me you’re not as far behind me as you might think), pinched mouth and distant stare, and my eyes fall to her fast-paced pen writing furious slashes across the paper, telling all, (or so she claims, for she has said so little in the past about her past). Very well.

  I have a shocking revelation but, one step at a time, I shall now take you to the first day of my year of awakening, a day like no other before it, when my four gray walls came crashing down and in their place stood five strong women, erect and as promising as a rainbow.

  1910 Spring’s Seed

  I was in a perfect state of mind to learn about women’s suffrage, thanks be to my whale-boned corset and to my husband, Robert. One had me trapped within my body and the other had me trapped within his home. The corset forbade me a deep breath, Robert forbade me some fresh air just for a walk to a tea with my next door neighbor, Aimee. Too late for the latter; I had already accepted her invitation and now paced nervously for her arrival in a parlor that had been sanctioned only for occupancy by my husband and his mother.

  Ill-prepared, with my petticoat showing below my ankle-length brown skirt - if you can imagine such fashion - safety-pinned at the waist and compounding my uncertainty.

  Not only my appearance but my surroundings troubled me. Fear gripped me when I saw a tea cup under the settee, and then peered around the parlor’s red flannel curtains for any approaching visitors and saw only the streaks on the glass, or when I tried to breathe in despite the corset bones, only to smell the coal heating and gas lamps.

  Suffocating in various ways, I breathlessly took the teacup to my kitchen. The worktable, sideboard and sink pump still showed signs of baking bread that early morning. There was no time to tidy; Aimee was already thirty minutes past due.

  She wasn’t coming; I could feel it in my bones.

  How close I came to staying put inside the cocoon I was outgrowing, with what I could do with my eyes closed, with my duties, my routine. How that one moment of indecision could have changed the path I longed to take, and affected not only my life but Bess and … I wonder, where would we all be now? Even after all is said and done, I shudder to think!

  Instead, in that one moment I heard a robin’s call to spring. As I tugged irritably at a broken whalebone pinching my side, I entered the dining room through the door-hung drapes (they are called portiere, my dear, please remember, echoes of my mother-in-law remind me). Outside the large window the robin fluttered and hopped on a tree branch, looked straight at me and called again. Beyond her perch was Aimee’s home and the robin flapped her wings and flew in that direction.

  I grabbed my shawl and found myself on my verandah stair, going from dark to light, like being turned inside out, my three-story dwelling casting a shadow behind me. In hindsight, I can’t remember the steps there but I believe some force brought me there; mine, God’s, the robin, it doesn’t matter. There’s always something there to lend you a hand, if you take that initial step, I believe.

  The brown scalloped-patterned shingles reminded me of day-old fish scales at the market; thick posts and abundant scrollwork were too dark and overbearing; the brown and green painted railing made me think of prison bars.

  I smiled, feeling the same freedom as a once-upon-a-time little girl heading toward the candy store. Chores could wait for my return. As long as I was home prior to my children’s return from school, everything would be fine. I had a sudden desire to run and skip, but ever conscious of my mother-in-law’s teaching of watchful eyes in neighbors’ windows, I kept myself in check by pulling my heavy woolen black shawl around me a bit tighter.

  Black shawl; my goodness, I still have that around here somewhere, put away by one of the others, forbidden anymore to wear it. I had soaked this and my dress in a vat of dye the year prior for my mother-in-law’s funeral.

  Quite a sacrifice when you realize I only had three dresses. The mourning period was but a few months, unfortunately the heavy wool with its full skirt and tight bodice was to last much longer and was now my day dress for the one day a week to the market (head down, dear, to meet another man’s eyes is brash). I had hemmed the dress to a few inches above my boot, allowing outside wear where it wouldn’t drag through the muddy streets. Practical, without loose sleeves that might catch and snag on baskets. Bone buttons decorated the front. Black cotton gloves without so much as a frill.

  Regardless of practicality, I wished for a lighter one. While brushing dust and lint from my dress that morning, I had asked Robert if some light-colored cotton fabric could be purchased for a summer dress, tired as I was of dark colors my mother-in-law had insisted I wear because darker colors disguised the dirt and because heavier wool could be brushed instead of laundered. Yes, of course, laundering was backbreaking work ... ah, but a light green cotton frock would be perfect for afternoon teas with my newfound acquaintances. I promised him to keep the dress simple, not too ornate. Hot summer weather was another reason I gave Robert for the money. He didn’t approve.

  My first thought that morning upon rising was my invitation to tea received the day before. I was surprised to be asked by someone I was not related to. I had kept to my side of the fence, as had Aimee. But speaking to another woman older than my eleven-year old daughter was too tempting. I was rushing about the laundry on the line before a rainstorm, when Aimee invited me over to the fence and gave me a calling card to Cady Pickering’s home. Aimee’s description of the group was sketchy, but enough was said to know they were called Ladies Legion and used terms like “women’s inferior status”.

  I silently agreed that the frustrations I dealt with in this household were less than desirable. I had not questioned my duties before. At least not out loud. No woman had told me before that I was permitted to question this. My mother and then my mother-in-law told me I was a wife and mother first, a woman last. Was it wrong to want more? No, there had to be more than endless chores, with no time for thoughts of my own.

  All I knew was that I wanted to know more. What did these ladies intend to change and how, being only women? Did they ever feel like sinners, or that they were doing something wrong, since Robert said men opposed so strongly to their cause? For the first time, I had skimmed through Robert’s newspaper that morning, hoping to find clues, but found no articles on this subject.

  I amazed myself for wondering such things. How inspiring to realize one’s own sentiment! Life was accepted as it came - until now. I had no idea what other women thought, except perhaps my mother, sister, and mother-in-law. Even then, their discussions never touched intimate feelings, or questioned their role in life. I knew my mother-in-law’s beliefs best through ladies’ books of etiquette, from which she used to quote often. Her favorite was from a copy of Godey’s Lady’s Book: Hair is at once the most delicate and lasting of our materials, and survives us like love.

  No wonder I felt unaware. I was born, raised and married within an eight-mile radius.

  Yes, born and raised on my parents’ dairy farm just on the outskirts of town, the school I attended literally grew as I did, up to grade ten. The remaining grades of eleven and twelve were academic or technical, designed for the boys’ furtherance to college or trade school.

  I met Robert in the same shoe store he inherited
from his father and then, as Robert’s health deteriorated, passed down to our oldest son, Victor. I had just turned sixteen. Robert was twenty-four. Mama introduced him, having met him during her previous visit to town. She insisted I splurge a month’s savings on an adorable pair of red velvet slippers, and then shocked me speechless by inviting Robert out for Sunday dinner the next day. I wouldn’t have noticed him otherwise, yet after dinner, in whispers to my sister, Opal, I described his eyes as warm chocolate drops. She quite agreed and right then I believed I had met my husband.

  That Sunday was his first – and last – courting.

  I view the following year, up to our marriage, as a series of callings. Every Sunday afternoon, Robert arrived on my front porch, hat in hand, asking Papa if he could call on me. His mannerism was quiet and courteous, winning Papa’s approval as a decent young man with good intentions. His presence alone was enough to win my little sister’s heart. Opal gazed up at him as if he were a god. He joined my family for dinner, joined me for a walk in the evening, but alas our lips never joined as I wished they would. There was only a brush of his lips across my cheek as he said goodnight, and off he would ride his horse into the sunset, quite literally.

  On many Thursdays, I walked from school to his home for afternoon tea – what became our home - where he lived with his mother. On those days there was still no departing kiss, because his mother never left us alone longer than a trip to the kitchen, reckoning it only appropriate that she chaperone faithfully, reminding us of the neighbors’ constant vigil.