Chapter 20
Christmas brought more good cheer, though the weather was now very cold, and snow lay deep. Eulalia kept the kitchen stove blazing, and Triphema and Rosanna, who both now looked rather more like girls, and rather less like scarecrows, made sure the drawingroom and diningroom fires burned equally cheerfully � though Evelyn warranted that she had never slept in such a chilly room as her bedroom, for Filben Brent, the cousin to the mayor who had built the house, had not believed in wasting money on heating upstairs. David thought from time to time of how warm he might be, encircled by a pair of loving arms, and Iris entertained pretty much the same idea. But they held true to Franny�s memory.
Abner, in between chopping wood and sweeping snow away from the house, knocked together a sled for the children, who took it in turns to tow each other around. Evelyn watched them running up and down the slight slope behind the house and thought to herself that it was high time the girls gained some proper schooling, instead of just reading from the Bible, practizing their letters and sums, and working up samplers. She knew the good people of Coates wanted no more from young girls � expecting them to be able to cook in a simple country way, wash dirt clean out of their laundry, and iron without singeing. But she considered Harriet, Jemma and Ellen deserved better than just learning to keep house, with a view to eventual marriage, and bearing and tending children. She wanted them to be bright, and intelligent, and well-polished young people.
David shared her ambitions, and they agreed that a new school in Nashville called Harpeth Hall sounded a promising place, though David judged it a little far from their prospective new home, located as it was down on the western side of Nashville.
Evelyn looked thoughtful. �It�s going to be a big house, David.�
David eyed his mother-in-law. Sometimes he could read Evelyn like a book, and this was one of those times. �You�ve got your eye on the outbuildings.�
�A coat of paint, some desks, some benches.� Evelyn spoke as though to herself. �I could teach five or six, and then, if� things went well, we could hire somebody.�
�Classes in deportment?� He could not hold back from teasing her.
But Evelyn eyed him very seriously. �They�d have to wear white gloves, if I was going to teach them to dance, both boys and girls. They could learn to waltz, and polka.�
David frowned. �Wouldn�t that be a little frivolous?�
�History, and arithmetic, and maybe geography, and geometry, and algebra.� Evelyn spoke dreamily.
�Dressmaking, and cookery, and being pleasant to men?�
�Oh, David, you�re laughing at me.�
But they agreed that Evelyn would try her hand at setting up a small school, if she could mobilize some additional pupils � enough to warrant hiring help. Iris listened to them, and marveled. They were so comfortable together, and that was the wonder of it.� Men and women had never discussed anything, in her experience � for men had always felt it bounden on them to order, whilst women obeyed. But then she knew that she had come far since moving with Uriah into Coates. She had traveled to Baltimore, and seen herself in a long glass at Hutzler Brothers, and she knew that her consciousness of past inferiority must strengthen her for the future. She was already skilled with her fingers, and Eulalia had begun to yield to her views in her kitchen. She minded the battles she had fought with Capitola, and knew that Eulalia�s hommage stemmed from respect. One day she would bake sugar custards to turn all Nashville green.
They celebrated Christmas, but in quite a restrained way. Turner and Alice Evered called on Christmas Eve, bringing a whole basket of small gifts for Harriet, Jemma and Ellen, and then what seemed like the whole staff of the depot turned out to sing carols in front of the house. Evelyn, Iris, David and the children joined them, singing on the house steps, with Eulalia and her underlings standing behind them, and Evelyn both marveled at the strength and purity of Iris� voice, and made up her mind to organize musical evenings when they moved to Nashville, to help launch Iris into society. Then David sent Eulalia and Abner out with trays laden with small pies stuffed with raisins and sweet potatoes, and glasses of hot tea in metal holders, because it had begun to� freeze hard, and the railroad men erected a small cedar in front of the house with much jollity before adjourning to a Christmas dinner Turner Evered had organised for them in the depot building. David walked down to join them for a few minutes, and Iris and Evelyn could hear Chesapeake and Nashville cheers ringing all the way across the snow.
Pastor Macdonald organized a small midnight service, though the Baptists in the town thought it a little outlandish, and David and Iris, Evelyn and the girls, and Eulalia and her three acolytes held candles outside the Methodist chapel and sang hymns as fresh snow began to fall. Somehow the whole world seemed at peace.
Christmas morning dawned bright and clear. David and Evelyn had stayed up after Iris and the girls had gone to bed, arranging packages in bright colored paper in the middle of the breakfast table. Each package carried a name on a little card, and they had much fun opening them. Evelyn had embroidered pocket handkerchiefs for the girls, whilst Iris � who was now progressing rapidly with her needlework � had worked up three little linen pinafores, each bearing one of the girls� names, and also stitched flannel night-gowns for them all, for she also considered their bedrooms more than a little chilly. David gave the girls ragdolls and pairs of fur-lined mittens that he had bought before leaving Baltimore, with warm fur muffs and matching fur hats for Iris and Evelyn, whilst Iris had worked him up a small sampler with his name surrounded by little hearts, in addition to his flannel night-gown, and Evelyn had knitted him a kind of waistcoat that he eyed a little doubtfully, but allowed had been made with a great deal of affection.
He also presented Eulalia and her three helpers with a basket filled with nuts and oranges, and Evelyn had knitted each a warm muffler, for whilst Abner, Triphema and Rosanna were now better dressed and nourished than at their arrival, she felt their necks might well still feel the cold. They all breakfasted, and then the girls rushed outside to ride their sled in the snow, whilst Eulalia, Triphema and Rosanna toiled mightily in the kitchen, and Abner brought fresh wood into the house to keep the fires all well. Eulalia decreed that she would offer turkey again, baked with yams and apples in brown sugar and stuffed with cornbread dressing, and also a massive ham, surrounded by peeled apples cored and stuffed with raisins and honey, with side dishes piled high with potatoes mashed with a good deal of butter, and brussel sprouts specially imported for the occasion to be served with a creamy chestnut sauce flavored with just a sprinkling of grated nutmeg.
�I�se wanna mek� a show,� she told her helpers proudly. �I�se gwine foller with sugar custards, �cos them lil� uns lak �em so, an� a big baked egg sooffel, flavoured with orange peel and candied angelica, �fore I put up the pudding.�
Triphema and Rosanna stared at her in awe. One day they would also be cooks in grand houses, lording it over young helpers of their own.
Suddenly they heard a scream. Eulalia rushed to open the back door, to see Abner struggling in the snow with the girls� sled. A small body clothed in black lay next to it, and Jemma and Ellen stood staring down at it as though transfixed.
�She gone over.� Abner was shouting. �Go fetch the massa.�
Eulalia�s heart stopped in her mouth. She turned, all cooking forgotten, and pushed at Triphema. �Go fetch Massa David.�
David, Iris and Evelyn came running out of the house. Abner was now kneeling in the snow, holding Harriet�s limp form in his arms. David slipped and slid across the snow to join him.
�She hit some kinda� �struction.� Abner held Harriet out gently. David looked down at her, and realized that she was breathing. He judged that must have run the sledge into something large enough to overturn it, concussing herself. He took her, patting at her hands, and then at her face.
�Daddy?� Harriet opened her eyes slowly, attempting to focus. She smiled vaguely, and her eyes fixed on Iris, standing at David�s side in her black house dress. �Iris?�
Iris took her from David, holding her close against herself.
�I think I was trying to ride my pony.� She blinked, shaking her head, and putting her arms up around Iris� neck as she nestled against her, like a child clinging to its mother. �Is dinner ready?�
Iris carried Harriet into the house, and they were greatly concerned for a moment. But they soon realized that she had been more shaken than harmed, and were able to eat Christmas dinner with all due celebration. Dishes came, and dishes went, and they began to eat more and more slowly. The girls just about managed to break the crusts on their sugar custards, but took one look at Eulalia�s great steaming plum pudding and declared in unison that whilst they might just be able to nibble at the tiniest of slices, they knew for certain they would positively burst, were they expected to eat proper helpings. Evelyn noted wryly, nevertheless, that the small mounds of pudding and custard on their plates seemed to vanish with a fair degree of alacrity.
David meanwhile glanced surreptitiously at his big gold pocket watch from time to time. The afternoon had begun to grow dark, and he was forced to shelve a plan he had been nursing in his mind.
They ate a small meal that evening, and prayed together again, family and servants united in faith. They all slept soundly as well, though both David and Iris tossed and turned from time to time in dreaming of each other. But propriety over-ruled desire, and none were the losers.
Next day, the day after Christmas, dawned crisp and clear. David seemed skittish, as he sat down to breakfast, and Evelyn watched him with barely concealed amusement.
�You ought to go out riding.�
David squirmed a little in his seat. Iris was still with the children, keeping the peace outside the bathroom. �Does it show?�
�You look like a young man wanting to propose.�
He busied himself with a boiled egg. It was very nice, but the shell was plain brown. �Will you keep an eye on the girls?�
�Abner and I will take good care of them.�
He smiled, stretching out his hand to rest on his mother-in-law�s fingers. �I know you will.�
He waited for Iris to eat, and then shepherded her to the back door, looking very mysterious. Abner was already holding two railroad horses.
�I thought we might take some fresh air.�
Iris looked at him from under her eyelashes. She felt a little mischievous. �I ain�t goin� sledding.�
David held her stirrup as she mounted. �I�m going to take you back to your youth.�
Iris bent to kiss him.� �Just keep me in your heart.�
They rode out of Coates at a brisk trot, following the ruts made by wagons in the track up towards the farm where she had been brought up. Iris glanced at David from time to time, but he merely smiled. They were both booted and spurred, and well wrapped up in sheepskin coats that spread well over their knees � for Iris preferred to ride like a man. She had perched her Christmas fur hat at a jaunty angle over her eyes, and David, who was wearing a broad-brimmed farmer�s felt hat, something akin to a Stetson, thought she must be the prettiest girl in the whole state of Tennessee.
Snow thickly blanketed the trees to either side of the track and carpeted the ground so that it was hard to know anything of where they were heading. But Iris began to think she recognized some of the way, particularly an open space a little distance to one side. Then they branched off, along a smaller track that seemed to have been little used for a while, and climbed a short rise, and she sat on her horse open-mouthed.
�This is where I lived.� She walked her horse to the cabin she had shared, first with Woodrow, and then with Uriah, but did not dismount.
A flood of conflicting feelings swamped her mind. This was the cabin where she had watched her mother die, and then lived with Woodrow for upwards of five years, where she had brought Uriah during the past summer, and conceived the child she had lost just only a few weeks since. It was a place of good memories and sad ones, but rather more of pain than joy. She had been happy on the farm at times, but happiness was now a distant memory.
�Why have you brought me here?� She looked at David, and then at the cabin door. The porch was thick with snow, and the cabin seemed deserted. She rode slowly to the barn, and back again. No sign of livestock, no chickens, no footprints.
David was silent for a moment before he replied, as though needing to choose his words carefully. �I had a lawyer buy the land from your uncle.�
�From Woodrow?�
�He nodded. �My brother found a place for the Hultons across the state line in Kentucky. He has some land there.�
Iris stared at him in bafflement. �But why?�
�I want it to be yours.�
�This?� She looked at the cabin again. It was something from history, from a past world, and she shook her head slowly. �I don�t want to go back, David. I want to be with you, and be your wife, and build a new home for the two of us and our children.�
David closed his horse beside hers. �You won�t go back. I�ve had an architect come out here. We�ll flatten all this, and build a little further up the slope.�
�But we�re going to live in Nashville.�
�And maybe come here when we have time to spare.�
Suddenly Iris had a memory of chasing a small fluffy chick across an open patch of grass, back sometime when she had been just a little girl, and her mother had watched, laughing, with a basket of wet laundry under her arm, and there had been a tall man standing with her.
She smiled, and leaned across to David to kiss him. �I don�t deserve you, really I don�t.�
He smiled back at her. �But I need you.�
Moving to Nashville brought a deal of commotion. David took a large room at the Double Tree Hotel, four blocks from Nashville�s Union Station, so that he could stay overnight when he was needed in the city on railroad business. He also needed to keep an eye on work being done at Mount Vernon, the name he and Iris and Evelyn had chosen for their new home. He had agreed to take the house over with all its contents, which solved some tricky questions as to furnishings, but there were also a number of men busy about the house laying radiators and hot water pipes and fitting out new bathrooms and toilet facilities, not to mention a spanking new kitchen that Evelyn and Eulalia and Iris planned between them.
Eulalia complained volubly about the upsets to Triphema and Rosanna as the work moved towards completion. �I�se sho� don� know whether I�se comin� or goin�, some of these past days. I bin back an� forth, back an� forth, so much thet sometimes I seed mysel� comin�.� She laughed a big belly laugh � she was comfortably seated in the corner of the Coates house kitchen, in a rocking chair that allowed her a commanding view.
Triphema and Rosanna exchanged brief glances. Both were working hard to get dinner ready for the family on time, and both felt Eulalia might have sat a little less, and worked a little more. But life can be hard when you are on the way up.
David and his family moved to their new home on a Saturday. Fortunately he had only rented the house in Coates from Filben Brent�s widow, so there was not much to take, apart from clothing and personal effects, and everything found room on a single wagon, and then in a single boxcar. A handful of people gathered at the railroad depot to bid them farewell, and a few handkerchiefs made their appearance. But Iris moved quickly to assure the Whitesides and the rest of their Coates acquaintance that she was very much counting on them being present at her wedding. The whole town also knew now that David had bought the Bethpage place for her as a wedding gift, and most wished her well, though some also shook their heads, muttering that she might well find herself back in the clutches of the witch she had chosen for a mother-in-law. But generally Coates understood their reasons for leaving, and bade them Godspeed.
It took them all Saturday and the whole of Sunday to arrange their affairs in their new home to their satisfaction. But Eulalia proudly served their first dinner in the house exactly on time, and they all rejoiced in their evening prayers that heaven had chosen to treat them so kindly.
David lingered over his breakfast on the Monday, glancing at his big gold pocket watch from time to time. The breakfastroom possessed big windows looking out on to an open graveled yard separating the house from its outbuildings, and he plainly expected something to show up at the back of the house.
He did not have to wait long, for a couple of big horse-drawn boxes drew to a halt on the gravel, prompt at half-past eight, and several men rushed around, looking very busy. Harriet, Jemma and Ellen craned to try and make out what was going on, and even dared to stand in their places, until Iris and Evelyn eyed them reprovingly. But neither chose to scold them, for they all knew they were playing a game of expectations.
Something sounded at the door, and three girls were on tenterhooks. �Papa, somebody wants you.� Harriet�s voice was beseeching.
David pretended to toy with a slice of toast.
�Papa, Papa, somebody wants to come in.� Two younger voices joined in chorus.
David beamed, looking at Ellen. �You�re the youngest. Why don�t you see who it is.�
Ellen approached the door cautiously, and tugged it a little way open. Then she pulled it open wide, and shrieked with joy. �Papa! Papa! It�s my paws!�
Abner stood in the doorway, dressed in the boots and white breeches and cutaway green coat of a coachman, holding a very large black Newfoundland on a leash. Ellen and the dog looked at each other, and it was a case of love at first sight. The Newfoundland strained towards her, for all the world as though he wanted to cover her with Newfoundland kisses, and Ellen threw her arms around its neck.
Harriet and Jemma watched with just a touch of a feeling somewhere between admiration and envy. But David was already on his feet. �Come and say hello to your ponies.�
The next few minutes passed in a whirl of girlish shrieks, surprised pony neighs, and a great deal of mutual admiration. David had chosen the ponies very carefully, and he prided himself on being a fair judge of horseflesh. Both were chestnuts with white blazes on their foreheads, and both had been groomed until they shone. Both carried miniature harnesses. Iris helped Harriet mount one, while Evelyn helped lift Jemma onto the other.
Harriet reached down to pat her pony on the neck, and then looked at her sister. �I think we should call them Castor��
Jemma beamed. She considered herself every bit as learned as her elder sister, and they had both recently been reading from the same book of tales from historic legends. �Mine will be Pollux.�
A moment later they were cantering away from the house into open land beyond, with Abner riding point.
Iris reached out for David�s hand, and smiled up at him. �You make us all happy.�
David frowned slightly. �Not yet.� He had seen a small cloud of dust riding up from the turnpike towards them. �I promised to let the general�s wife take a last look round � I think she wanted to take home some good gossip. This looks like her now.�
The general�s wife was younger than he expected, a small, slim woman, holding herself as straight as a soldier, with a distinctly cold hard look in her eyes. She was also dressed in black, with a large black ruffled bonnet tied under her left ear, to show her widowhood, but he noted that she was also wearing an elaborate, and very expensive-looking jet necklace on the black silk blouse under her fine black woolen coat, and a couple of large diamonds sparkled over her black lace mittens. It was said that she had been bred up to a fine life before the war between the States, and that her family had lost everything by backing the losing side. She had then married a man old enough to be her grandfather, and bullied him unmercifully into his grave.
The three of them met her on the house steps, and David and Evelyn both disliked her immediately. David began to introduce her, but she cut him short.
�This was my house, sir. I hear you�ve shown little respect for it.� She spoke with an affected Southern drawl, as though all the world should curtsey to her.
David bit his lip, but Evelyn felt stung. �My son-in-law was able to bring it back to life.�
�You�re Mr. Kingman�s mother-in-law?�
Evelyn smiled tightly. �I have that honour.�
The widow eyed Iris. �And the young woman?�
�The future Mrs. Kingman.� Evelyn spoke brusquely, for the woman seemed to be viewing Iris as some kind of adjunct or servant.
�Very young.� There was spite in the voice of the general�s widow.
Evelyn could no longer hold back. �But better manners.�
The widow�s mouth tightened, and she turned back towards her carriage. The elderly black butler whom David had taken on with the house was holding her carriage door open, but she ignored him.
David followed her down out of courtesy, and she glanced at the butler out of the corner of her eye. �You have no obligation to him, sir.�
David smiled. �None but human charity, ma�am.�
The carriage door slammed, and she was gone.
Evelyn watched the carriage leave, and glanced at Iris. �That was a bit of a boomer.� She used a word from her own teenage years, reaching out to take Iris� hand.
Iris shrugged slightly, pressing Evelyn�s fingers between her own. �Folks in the hollers would call her a �no count woman��.
David rejoined them. He looked a little concerned, eyeing his mother-in-law. But Evelyn smiled reassuringly. �Iris says she a �no count woman�.
�Needing some schooling?�
She raised her hands in mock horror. �Never, David, never. I think I�d be boxing her ears, each and every day of the week.�