Chapter 21
Churches can be variable places: some sociable, and some as cold as ice. David, Evelyn, Iris and the girls rode down to a small Episcopalian church in Madison on their first Sunday at Mount Vernon a little nervously, for they were not quite sure about how they would be received at worship.
They left Abner waiting in the carriage, well wrapped up against the elements, for it was still chilly weather, even the snow had all quite melted away, and trooped into the church holding themselves very straight, for it is often said that first impressions govern what most people think. The congregation certainly took a great interest in them, for there was much covert whispering, though fortunately no cold stares. But perhaps it was only to be expected, for the whole neighborhood had been watching all the changes David had been effecting at his new home very closely, and a number of good wives had begun pressuring their husbands for central heating installations of their own � not to mention multiple bathrooms and toilets.
David found free bench space about half way along the nave, and they knelt to pray devoutly, and listen to the preacher attentively, before joining in on the hymns. David possessed a pleasant tenor, but Iris� voice took off to soar beautifully above the rest of the congregation, and it was evident that she made an immediate impression, for there was something of a pause after she began, before the other worshippers took her measure and joined in again, and quite a deal of shuffling and whispering after the first hymn finished. Heaven had plainly decided to smile on the new worshippers, and David duly paid his due into the collection plate with a crisp new ten dollar bill.
The service finished, and they joined the throng of parishioners waiting to leave the church. One or two of the women around them smiled at Iris and Evelyn and murmured brief compliments, and several men nodded affably at David, and suddenly the Reverend Arthur Hudson, the vicar, stood in front of them, beaming broadly. He was a chubby man, perhaps in his early forties, in a white surplice and black cassock, and he had a well-nourished look about him that betokened good housekeeping and a devoted congregation.
�I believe you are the new residents at Mount Vernon?� He shook David vigorously by the hand.
David avowed modestly that they were.
�You were in fine voice this morning.� He smiled at Iris and Evelyn, and then at the three girls, who all promptly essayed their best curtseys.
Evelyn murmured something polite, and Iris smiled a little shyly.
�Mrs. Hudson was wondering whether you might care to step into the presbytery for a moment.� He looked at them hopefully. �The ladies of the committee and their husbands like to stop by for hot chocolate before they go on their way.�
David looked at Iris and Evelyn, and they allowed that a cup of hot chocolate would come very cheering on a cold winter morning, whilst the three girls assumed their most angelic expressions.
The presbytery was a good solid brick house, just a stone�s throw from the church, and Mrs. Hudson proved to be a buxom, good-natured clergyman�s wife with dark hair up in braids over her ears, in a comfortable dress that might well have done credit to Mother Hubbard. She stopped off� bustling about in her livingroom for a moment to welcome her husband�s new parishioners, and declared, looking at Iris, that she had never heard a sweeter voice.
�Just like a skylark, I declare.�
Irish felt she should curtsey, but she remembered Evelyn�s admonition that she was now a grown-up, and merely blushed very prettily.
The Reverend Hudson then introduced them to four other couples waiting for their hot chocolates. The four women � a Mrs. Bunyan, Mrs. Carr, Mrs. Peck and Mrs. Swinn � apparently constituted the church�s Ladies Committee under Mrs. Hudson�s guidance. Their husbands stood together in a group trying to look significant, but obviously took second place in church affairs.
��We try to do a little good.� Mrs. Hudson poured hot chocolate for Iris and Evelyn, and then the three girls. �We take turns visiting the sick and the aged, and we�d like to do something for all the children in the parish, but none of us have any experience of schooling, and it would cost us overmuch to hire a teacher.�
She eyed David hopefully as she filled the men�s cups. She plainly thought a rich new parishioner might well also become a generous new benefactor.
Evelyn caught David�s eye. He nodded, and within ten minutes Evelyn�s plans for a school in the Mount Vernon outbuildings were well under way. Hattie Peck allowed that she might be able to spare an hour or so helping the young ones to learn their letters, if the other committee members rallied round, and Peg Bunyan, Bella Carr, and Tonia Swinn nodded vigorously to confirm their commitment, though the small frowns that furrowed their husbands� brows suggested their men folk feared some disruption to their home comforts.
The new school proved a great success. David�s neighbours came streaming to the house to offer financial and practical help, and Evelyn co-opted Iris as a new singing tutor, teaching the children hymns and some popular ballads Iris recalled from her childhood. She also began teaching Iris to play the piano, but soon found that she had a pupil with a natural ear, and declared before a month was up that Iris could play rather better than she could.
But she and Iris still mourned Franny, and still declined to accept visitors, other than on school business, or to call on their neighbours. Eustatia Hudson plainly thought this respect for someone undoubtedly now in heaven, and hence in a far happier state than any of them, a little too devout, and made her belief very clear to her husband.
�I think it�s really sad, Arthur.� They were seated in their drawingroom one evening in February � Eustatia was working up some cushion covers for the bazaar the Ladies Committee planned for Easter, whilst Arthur was racking his brains for a good sermon theme. He had already worked his way through praising the seven virtues, and castigating the seven vices, and felt Lent merited something different, perhaps some praise for modesty, and courage, and generosity, of course, because good clergymen must always foster open-handedness amongst their parishioners.
�Sad, dear?� The Reverend Arthur Hudson cocked his head benignly. He was always benign when he sensed his wife about to open a campaign.
�She�s such a pretty girl, and it�s plain that he really adores her.�
�Yes, dear.� Arthur settled back for a little lecture. Eustatia liked to use him as a sounding board for her arguments before trying them on her committee, and he always nodded, even when he was a little doubtful. Eustatia could be very determined, and agreement always provided a shield.
�This twelve-month mourning business. It means that we won�t have a wedding before next December, and winter weddings are always so cold.�
�Quite right, dear.�
�Couldn�t you persuade her, and David, and Evelyn to settle for six months?� Eustatia�s voice slowed as she mapped out possibilities. �Just think. They could then marry in June or July, and the weather would be ever so nice. We could fill the church with flowers, and they could have a big reception out on their lawns, and nobody would have to worry about whether there was enough room for everyone, as long as there was plenty of food.� She added her last phrase quickly, for she possessed a healthy appetite.
�You may well be right, dear.� Arthur racked his brain for spiritual precedents. He knew some of his more conservative acquaintance amongst the cloth held firm to long mourning, but he well understood the significance of a summer wedding. The story of David and Iris� romance was already fast becoming a Tennessee legend, and people would come from far and wide to attend a summer wedding, especially if it provided food piled in great mountains, and music, and that fine sense of bonhomie that comes when everyone is happy, and well-fed, and has something to gossip about through the rest of the year. He imagined collection plates piled high with money, and smiled. �I shall have a word with David, and then slip the idea into my instructions.� For Iris had agreed formally to become an Episcopalian, as soon as she was comfortable with Episcopalian customs and practices, and he judged that she was making great progress.
However he decided to wait for Easter to come before he broached the idea. For Easter is a time of regeneration and resurrection and rebirth, and would lend itself ideally to thoughts of change and revision.
Meanwhile Evelyn and Iris focussed on Evelyn�s new school. Both proved natural teachers, and were soon educating more than a dozen small girls in reading, writing and simple arithmetic, with the good ladies of the church committee taking it in turns to provide guidance in needlework and cookery and deportment.
Triphema, who was now become a very good plain cook, made hot lunches under Eulalia�s supervision, and Harriet and Jemma set an example in mealtime propriety, so that all the small girls learned to chew on their meat stew with their mouths shut, and not to suck gravy up from their spoons. However Ellen was not always so well-behaved, because she could be a mischievous young miss, and set rather a questionable schoolroom and mealtime example by insisting that Paws always lie beside her place or chair. But the two were inseparable, and Paws tended to scratch at doors and cry Newfoundland tears if shut out, so Evelyn yielded, if only for peace of mind and the protection of paintwork.
Evelyn also taught Iris to waltz and polka, though Iris was not sure she liked the prospect of being close to men other than David. But Evelyn was adamant.
�You will be expected to attend balls once you are married, and it would not do at all for you to seem clumsy.�
Iris frowned. �What if a man asks me to dance, and I don�t like him?�
Evelyn looked haughty and pretended to consult an imaginary notebook. �Look at your dance card and tell him all your dances are taken.�
Iris was not convinced. Most of the men she had met before David � with the possible exception of the brakeman - had been overbearing, and determined to have their way when they could in a male-dominated world. She was not accustomed to sending men off with a glance. �What if they�re not?�
Evelyn sniffed. �Men are very vain creatures, my dear, and hate to be put down in public. Cultivate having frozen eyes. That will get rid of them.�
So Iris practised haughty and chilling looks in front of a mirror. But she was still not wholly persuaded that they would work. For coldness requires confrontation.
David had now engaged a leading Nashville architect to design a comfortable homestead at the farm where Iris had grown up, and they both travelled out to Coates from time to time to watch it grow steadily. The old cabin and barn were first reduced to a pile of timbers that blazed brightly as a gang of men dug foundations for a new home, and then the men laid brick walls, and fitted windows and doors, laid the roof with cedar shakes, and set up a small barn and a row of loose boxes. Soon the homestead also possessed fine cedar floors, and furniture chosen from a range of smart catalogues that Cousin Stephanie sent down from Baltimore, and David and Iris both judged that it would make them a very comfortable weekend retreat indeed.
They were fast now coming up on Easter. David thoroughly approved Eustatia Hudson�s idea for a summer wedding, not least because his love for Iris grew with each passing day, and he was becoming just a little impatient. But he was firm that Iris and Evelyn must agree to shortening their period of mourning.
Arthur Hudson employed all his powers of persuasion. But he did not have to strive very hard, because both Iris and Evelyn were rather taken with the idea of a midsummer marriage, though Iris insisted that she must marry in a dark blue or violet dress, rather than any lighter shade. Evelyn smiled to herself, and sent off to Stephanie for samples of silk that might most exactly match the colour of Iris� eyes.
Easter Sunday dawned brisk and bright. A small crowd applauded as David, Iris, and Evelyn arrived at church, with Harriet and Jemma on their ponies as outriders, and Ellen close behind with Paws harnessed into her dog cart. Arthur Harrison came out to greet them, with Eustatia in her best green watered silk at his side, for this was to be the day Iris would convert officially from her Baptist upbringing into the Episcopalian rite, with the four good ladies of the church committee co-opted as honorary godmothers. Arthur had tried to point out that custom conventionally demanded two godfathers and just two godmothers. But the ladies had rebuffed him roundly, and he was too sensible a clergyman to fight on the issue.
�The service was simple, but memorable. Arthur dribbled a little water over Iris� forehead, and sonorously intoned his prayers for her future as a good Christian, the good ladies of the church committee vowed to safeguard her morals and protect her generally, and then Iris sang the hymn �Amazing Grace� in a pure high voice, and several female members of the congregation dabbed surreptitiously at their eyes. The Easter communion service followed directly after her christening, and Iris took bread and wine for the first time.
Eustatia Hudson and the good ladies of the church committee seemed unaccustomedly shy when they met Iris in the presbytery after the service. Each held a small package, and presented it to her strictly in alphabetical order, for even the best committee members can sometimes disagree over precedence. Iris unwrapped each package carefully. Peg Bunyan�s contained a small silver tankard, and the two women embraced. Bella Carr followed with a set of silver teaspoons, while Hattie Peck presented a silver eggcup set on a small round base, and Tonia Swinn�s package yielded a silver paperknife. Eustatia waited a little impatiently until her good ladies finished admiring each other�s gifts, and Iris finished thanking them, and then produced her own package with a flourish. Iris unwrapped it carefully, to reveal a square silver and crystal inkwell, with a silver pen and a little packet of goose-quill nibs.
�I�m expecting you to use it to initial your wedding invitations.�
Iris blushed scarlet, but David was now standing close by her, and also held a small package.
She unwrapped it carefully, and then drew in her breath. The package contained a small jewel box, and the box held a gold ring set with an amethyst almost as large across as a silver quarter, and the amethyst directly matched the colour of her eyes. She looked at the ring, and up at him, and they might have been all alone in the world.
�Oh, David, I love you so much.�
He knelt in front of her, taking the jewel box gently from her hands. �I love you too. Will you marry me?�
Eustatia, the ladies of the church committee, and Evelyn were now all busy with their handkerchiefs, and even Arthur Hudson was forced to dab at his eyes with one end of his stole.
�I will marry you, and try to be a good wife to you to the end of my days.�
David slid the ring gently on to the third finger of her left hand. �And we will live together and grow old in our love.�
Ellen began to jump up and down, for she had been compelled to leave Paws in his harness, even though she had offered to polish him up before bringing him in. �You�re going to be our new Mama.�
Iris shook her head gently. �No, dearest, I can never be that, because your mother was the best mother in the whole world. But I shall be a big sister to you.� She held out her hands to Harriet and Jemma. �And I hope the three of you will be bridesmaids for me.�
Harriet looked winsome. �Can we have wreaths of flowers in our hair?�
Jemma was not be outdone. �And pretty bridesmaid dresses?�
Iris smiled down at them fondly. �You will all be beautiful.�
Ellen reached up to be kissed. �And flowers around Paws� neck?�
She hugged Ellen. �And flowers around Paws� neck.�
The new homestead was now ready, and David decided to celebrate with a special buffet lunch to bring together all his Nashville and Coates acquaintance. Iris and Evelyn cooked breakfast at Mount Vernon, because Eulalia, Triphema and Rosanna were already at the homestead, preparing food for a small army, and then Abner drove them and David and the three girls to the Madison station on Old Hickory, where they found a special train decorated with red, white and blue streamers. The good people from the Episcopalian church, plus a number of David�s business friends and their wives and families, had already embarked, and the train set off with a great deal of puffing and good spirits.
It stopped again at the point where a track to the homestead crossed the grade, some seven miles north of Coates, and a number of horse-drawn omnibuses, that must have driven up the fifty odd miles from Nashville, were waiting for them. It was a fine sunny morning, and Iris looked most distinguished in a dark blue dress, tending a little towards violet, that became her very well as she climbed aboard the first omnibus to sit in a position of honour next to the driver, with David at her side. They travelled the very same track that had taken them up to the Hitt farm to bury Uriah, but now all the grassland around them was fresh and green, and the whole world smiled on them.
The homestead was already busy. Turner and Alice Evered, who had furnished David with a great deal of good advice during the new homestead�s construction, had begun showing his Coates acquaintance around, and a canvas marquee erected where Woodrow�s barn had once stood buzzed with the voices and laughter of the railroad men and their wives, busy quaffing beer from barrels brought up on an earlier train. Triphema and Rosanna ran about with great plates laden with food for a buffet lunch, whilst Eulalia busied herself preparing food for a small army � though her work was not as arduous as it might have seemed, for much of the food was already cooked and due to be served cold, and long tables had already been laid early that morning.
Slew Grant and his bandsmen sat under a canvas awning by the beer tent playing the latest airs, and several of the railroad employees and their wives began to dance when the band broke into a rousing polka, though some of the Baptist element present frowned a little disapprovingly. Generally it was a scene of great good humour and much enjoyment, and David�s guests cheered repeatedly as he stood to announce his formal engagement and set a date for his wedding.
But a group of men mostly dressed in black and standing a little distant from the rest of the guests watched the celebrations rather more sourly. David had generously invited all his neighbours, as well as everyone he knew in Coates, but some of the small farmers from round and about the new homestead considered his celebrations an excessive display of wealth.
�They�s goin� down an evil path with all thet gallivantin�.� The speaker was a tall thin, rather haggard looking man, who looked as though he might not have eaten a square meal in a month of several Sundays.
The man at his side spat a long stream of tobacco juice into the dirt. �Mebbe more rich folks �ll come an� wan� to build themselves fancy palaces.�
A third man joined the conversation. �Yo� countin� on thet?�
�Mebbe I is, Woodrow.� The man chewing tobacco sniffed. �I�se got ma spread free an�easy. I never sold out fer a few barrels o� �shine.�
Woodrow Bethpage scowled. The Widow Law was now Mrs. Queenie Bethpage, and he had put on some weight. But his land was gone, and the thought rankled, particularly as Iris had most recently succeeded to the Hitt farm as well, for Capitola had been found not two weeks since by a passing pedlar, stretched out on her cabin porch stone dead, probably the victim of some kind of seizure. �I ain�t fussed no more, now thet I�m a sober man.�
�Uh-huh.� The tall man was plainly unconvinced. �Yo� ain�t got no envy fer Mr. Kingman�s free beer?�
�No, sir. I ain�t.�
The man chewing tobacco laughed. �He wouldn�t dare. Not with Queenie here.�
Queenie Bethpage was meanwhile sidling up towards Iris, seated at one of the long tables with the Evereds and Mayor Brent and his wife, trying to catch her eye.
Iris looked up, recognising her, and frowned.
�My congraterlations, Missie Iris.� Queenie�s manner was oily. She imagined she might well profit from marriage to Iris� only known blood relative.
Iris nodded a bare acknowledgement.
�Mebbe you�ll call by one day, to greet yo�re uncle, what raised yo� up. We�s wed now, lak yo�re gonna be with Mr. Kingman, an� thet meks us kinfolk.� Queenie hovered hopefully.
Iris rose to her feet, and now the cold looks she had practised served her in good stead, for her eyes grew as hard as the amethyst on her engagement finger. �I have no time for the man who sold me.� Her voice was icy.
But Queenie was not to be so easily rebuffed. �He�s here.� She plainly imagined her voice to be coaxing.
Iris glanced pointedly towards the beer tent. �Drinking?�
The word was a trigger. Queenie turned suddenly, for she knew her husband�s failing, and marched up to Woodrow. �We�re going.�
The man chewing tobacco watched her shepherd Woodrow away, and laughed shortly. He began to amble towards the beer tent. �Let�s get ourselves some o� thet free hospitalerty.�
The tall haggard man hesitated for a moment, and then followed. For drink may be an evil, but free drink is very hard to refuse.
The celebrations went on until the sun began to sink towards the horizon, and David�s guests began to drift slowly away. Everyone agreed that they had enjoyed a famous time, and Slew Grant filled his notebook with engagements through the rest of the summer.
Finally only David, Iris, Evelyn and the girls remained, for even Eulalia and her two helpers had gone off back to Nashville, leaving some food for breakfast next day. They sat on the porch with that comfortable feeling that comes from being generous, and enjoying a good time, and the shades of the past held no more fears. Evelyn got to her feet, for Ellen had fallen asleep encircled by Paws, and the other two girls were only half waking.
�I must put the children to bed.� She picked Ellen up and Harriet and Jemma followed her sleepily, with Paws in their train.
David glanced at Iris curiously. �She didn�t bother you?�
Iris thought for a moment and then shook her head. �No. It was like meeting a memory.� She weighed her words, seeking a more precise analogy. �No, like meeting somebody from a different world.�
�But she took no hold on you?�
Iris looked surprised, and then rose to stand by him, stroking the side of his face with the tips of her fingers. �No, because I�m going to be Mrs. Kingman.�