A Woman so Bold Read online

  “I am your daughter, and Henry treated me shamefully,” I whispered.

  “This is not a subject for the supper table.”

  Ephraim returned with the belt and handed it to Daddy. He stood up and set his napkin down, uncoiling the belt. “Get up.”

  I remained seated. “No.”

  “Landra Elizabeth, I will not ask again.”

  “I won’t let you hit me in front of the children. You’ll frighten them.”

  Daddy’s eyes strayed momentarily to Ezra, who had stopped eating his bread and milk.

  “Walk outside then, by the woodpile.”

  I stood and obeyed. I had my frock unbuttoned by the time I reached the chopping block. I let it fall from my shoulders and stepped out of it, then out of my chemise, standing only in my drawers and corset cover.

  Daddy jabbed a tobacco stained finger in my direction, as he limped toward me. The war wound in his leg troubled him when it rained or grew cold.

  “No matter what they’ve done to you, you treat everyone with the same degree of respect under my roof,” he insisted.

  “We weren’t under your roof, we were outside. Surely that counts as God’s roof, and even the Lord Jesus was angry when people disrespected the temple!”

  Daddy stared at me, his eyes bugging slightly as he struggled to grasp my reasoning. A person ignorant to his will might have expected the sight of me shivering in the cool air to curb his ire, but I knew better. He motioned for me to turn around, tired of my bargaining. I was ready when he stepped into the first lash. I gasped. He hit me twice more. The second lash fell on the back of my thighs, and the third on my bare calves, biting into my flesh. I shrieked and bit my knuckle. I hadn’t wept during a whipping since I was a little girl, and I wasn’t going to start. The strap hit home three more times then glanced off my hip and fell limp. Daddy was breathing heavily. I turned to face him. “You cannot break me,” I said.

  I hadn’t time to flinch as he struck me across the mouth with the belt. I crouched in the sand, tasting blood in my mouth, and retrieved my chemise to staunch the flow from my upper lip, staining the white cloth scarlet.

  “You’ve had that comin’ for four years,” said Daddy.

  He sounded tired.

  As the household prepared for sleep that night, I heard Ephraim complaining that he had not gotten to see my punishment. The boys’ bedroom shared a wall with ours, and there were few secrets in a house so full.

  “It ain’t fair,” he whined. “Everybody always sees my lickins! How do I know if he even really licked her?”

  The bed creaked as Colleen bent to tuck him in. “We do not rejoice in another’s punishment, nor mourn when they are spared,” she scolded.

  Lily was sitting in her bed across from mine, brushing her hair.

  “That woman’s as full of proverbs as the Old Testament,” she said.

  I laughed. This was something Daddy liked to say about Colleen, but sometimes we mimicked it behind his back.

  I climbed under my quilt. My bed was beneath the window, and in the soft glow of lamplight, the panes above me were black with night. I put my hand up and felt the cold surface, leaving fingerprints on the glass. Then I ran gentle fingertips over my lip where the lash had split it, wondering how Daddy, who read the Bible from cover to cover each year, could know so little of true atonement.

  Chapter 2

  Wash Day

  As I rose in the frosty air to dress on the Monday morning after the storm, I felt something was amiss. The house was silent, and the grandfather clock in the parlor was striking seven. Lily slumbered peacefully in her little twin bed against the wall, and Edith lay undisturbed on her cot in the corner. I nudged Lily, and she moaned, pulling her quilt over her head. Edith did not respond when I tapped her shoulder. Generally, the clatter of pans and the rich, dark scent of brewing coffee would have woken us in the wee hours before dawn. Colleen must have overslept.

  I peered at myself in the murky mirror on the wall, examining my tender lip, then began to brush my chestnut cascade of hair irritably, having no time or patience for tangles. At last, it was twisted into a bun, which I secured by ramming one long hairpin into it. When that was done, I buttoned my dress and crept from the room on bare feet, pausing at the door to my father and stepmother’s room. I could hear the smooth rise and fall of someone breathing in slumber, and it was not Daddy, for he snored. It was Colleen, which could mean only one of two things: either she was deathly ill, or she was expecting another baby. She had slept in twice in the past week alone, and the crippling nausea of early pregnancy was the only thing that had kept her from rising later than five since she married Daddy.

  I ran down the hall, through the dark parlor where the shades were drawn, and across the freezing breezeway into the kitchen. Someone had stoked a fire in the oven, but everything else lay untouched. Shivering, I went to the cupboard for the grinder and coffee beans. By the time Daddy and Ephraim came in from their chores, I had eggs and fatback frying in a cast iron pan on top of the stove. Laramie, one of the hired men, was with them.

  “Mornin’, Miss Lander,” he said, removing his hat.

  “Good morning,” I replied, not looking at him. He was handsome, but I had little courtesy to spare for a man who could not even pronounce my Christian name. “Cornpone from last night is in the oven,” I said to Daddy, who was lathering his hands at the sink, “and the sweet potato.”

  “Where’s your sisters?”

  I slapped at Ephraim’s hand as he tried to nick a piece of bacon from the sizzling pan.

  “Still abed.”

  Daddy grunted, dried his hands, and left the kitchen. A moment later, he returned with Lily and Edith in his wake. Edith was dressed in her school frock, her blond hair parted neatly in the middle and plaited in two tails, but Lily was still rubbing the sleep from her eyes. The glossy ringlets of her raven hair floated around her. She wore a dressing gown over her nightie, and she clutched it to her chest, frowning at Laramie. Lily and I resented his presence at breakfast and lunch. A hired hand should eat in the barn, but Laramie was the muleskinner, and Daddy liked him.

  “If you don’t want him looking, you ought to dress before coming down,” I whispered to her. “This isn’t an English estate, where you can lie around half the day. Where’s Esther?”

  “Gettin’ dressed,” Edith answered. “She takes so long to lace her boots.”

  I took a ribbon from my apron pocket and handed it to Lily. I had strict rules on how things were done in the kitchen, and one of them included not getting hair in the food.

  “Your mama’s feelin’ poorly,” boomed Daddy, his voice raised an octave to the oratory tones he took on when lecturing lesser beings. “The three of you best step to it. That means you, Lily.”

  “Yes, Daddy,” we said in chorus.

  Lily began to take out the breakfast dishes and set the table while I filled a basket with the hot cornpone.

  “Is Mama all right?” she asked, concerned.

  I winced. I hated it when she called our stepmother that. Lily had only been three when Mama died and five when Daddy remarried, so it was to be expected that she thought of Colleen as her mother, but I disliked it all the same. Colleen was nice enough if you stayed on her good side, not like the wicked stepmothers in stories, but I could not forget my own mother. Nothing could staunch the memories of her kind ways and good humor, the laughter that pealed from her like a bell, the cool hands that soothed away fevers and sadness.

  “What do you suppose is wrong with her? That’s the second time this week,” continued Lily.

  I glanced at Daddy. He was discussing crop rotation with Ephraim. “I think it is morning sickness,” I said under my breath. “She hasn’t been eating much.”

  “But they just lost a baby!”

  “Sh
hh! Nothing to prevent it happening again.”

  Lily looked solemn for a moment, remembering the babies Colleen had borne too early and then buried, so many that I had long since ceased to direct any hope or prayer toward their survival. She simply could not carry a baby to term any longer; she was worn out.

  “She’s so old! Surely she’s nearing the end.”

  “Pfft. Colleen is thirty-two. She could have ten more years left. They’ll lose a passel more unless she puts a stop to it.”

  Lily blushed at my frankness and focused on the silverware she was lining up around the table. Esther entered and took her seat at the table, and before long, Ezra trudged in, mumbling for food, and I nabbed him and covered him with kisses before putting him to table with a bowl of grits and a slice of buttered toast. Lily and I were busy feeding the men and children for half an hour. After breakfast, once I’d set the twins to work on the dishes, I made a tray of toast, weak tea, and plain scrambled egg and took it in to Colleen. She raised herself from a tangle of quilts as I entered the dark room.

  I pulled back the curtain, revealing her haggard face.

  “Daddy said you were ill. How do you feel?”

  She took the tea with trembling hands and turned her nose away from the scent of the food. “A bit better. Are the children all dressed and fed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. This tea will suit me fine, Landra. Put the tray on my dressing table. I’ll have it later.”

  She covered her mouth and took a slow breath, and I whisked the tray away in fear she would vomit. I lingered by the dressing table as she drank her tea, gently touching the smattering of pretty things she had there; a tortoise shell comb, a brush with a pair of resin turtle doves on the back, a pair of false pearl earrings, a coral necklace, and a tiny bottle of scent, nearly empty.

  “How far along are you?” I asked.

  Colleen’s reflection in the mirror looked sheepish, “Gracious!”

  “Spare me the ceremony. I’ve seen it happen too many times.”

  She sighed in resignation. “I’m about three months along.”

  “You should start feeling better soon, then.”

  Still watching her reflection in the mirror, I saw her shrug slightly, a gesture of resignation. Her mouth was set in a firm line. I had despised Colleen when Daddy married her, not least because her first act as my new mother was to fire Lenore, the woman who had been with us since Eric was born. “I hate you and I hope you die!” I had screamed at her, sobbing tears of rage. Lenore had been my sole comfort since Mama died. “Perhaps one day I shall,” Colleen had replied smoothly, “but not today. I won’t have a woman who was once a slave as nanny to my children. It goes against my conscience.”

  Yes, I had hated her, but we had grown used to one another over the years, finding our little compromises with one another, and I was often haunted by my words to her when she was in poor health.

  “Start the washing when the kitchen is clean,” she said, breaking into my reverie. “Lily can help you. Tell Edith to make sure the twins get off to school. You know how they like to play hooky when I’m unwell.”

  When I told Lily this, it was her turn to sigh. She hated washday as much as I hated mending. It was her least favorite day of the week because of what it did to her hands. She liked to sketch, a pastime that was hindered by burns and calluses. Her hands were pale and capable, with long fingers and wide, flat nails—an artist’s hands. She was never without gloves in the sun, and she treated them often with rosewater rinses, followed by linseed oil and salve. Now that our brother was gone and she and I were often called on to pick cotton and tobacco, weed the garden, and muck out the stables, her hands began to get freckled and calloused. All of this, plus washing dishes three times a day, and they were on their way to being ruined.

  When I told her it was time to do the washing, she ran to our room and returned carrying a butter crock with a chip in the lid and a hairline crack running down one side. It was half-filled with a yellowish gunk that she proceeded to slather up to her elbows.

  “Good lord, what a stink!” I exclaimed. “What is that?”

  “Goose grease, butter, and lard.”

  “Vanity blossoms but bears no fruit,” I quoted, using one of our father’s favorite proverbs, “and those blossoms smell like chicken sh—”

  “Don’t!” she cried, and we both shrieked with laughter. “We have the washing to do, and I won’t let it ruin my hands no matter what you say.”

  I scooped some of the gunk and smoothed it on. “Just don’t go disappearing as you’re so wont to do when there are chores to be had. Daddy’s on a whipping streak this week. You might be next.”

  When the twins were off to school, we started a vat of water boiling in the backyard and filled it with dirty linens and strong lye soap. Lily stirred it all with a stick and scrubbed the especially soiled clothes with a washboard, while I took the job of running the clean things through cold water until they were thoroughly rinsed, forcing them through the wringer to get out the extra water, and hanging them on the line. When everything was finally clean and drying, I surveyed my palms and fingers. I had small hands, smooth, doll-like, and shapely, like Mama’s had been, and I kept them out of the sun, but the wash water had scalded them bright red, my fingers shriveled and dry as prunes in the sun. Poor Lily. What use was vanity to a farmer’s daughter?

  Chapter 3

  Mama

  Mama died when I was seven. She died on a Sunday, as befitted a righteous woman like herself. This sainted her in Daddy’s heart ever after and gave him all the more reason to shame me for singing a ballad on the Sabbath instead of a hymn. I had no call to be singing on the Lord’s Day and the day of the week on which my mother died . . . no call whatsoever.

  She had endured a difficult confinement, plagued by periods of illness, swollen ankles, forced bedrest, and night sweats. The trials of confinement meant little to me as a girl of seven, but her suffering I felt keenly. For weeks before her death, I was plagued with bad dreams: bloodstained sheets, pristine lakes with fingers of red creeping through their clear depths, turning them scarlet. I would wake screaming until she came with a light and held me, pressing my face against her swollen belly.

  “Only a dream, dear girl,” she would whisper, her slender fingers stroking my hair, the long nails catching in the snarls. “Go back to your couch, the world is still abed.”

  Her death was an ordeal of which I remember little. She perished after delivering a breech baby that was already dead. Lily was only three, and I had been given charge of her. When Mama’s screaming began, we were petrified with fear, and Eric, a stalwart eleven-year-old, took us out to the hayloft. Our maid, Lenore, who might have comforted us, was busy tending to Mama.

  The three of us were almost forgotten there. It was nearing dusk when, peering through the open window, I saw Daddy and one of the hired hands dragging the big feather tick out into the yard to be burned. The center was stained red with a great pool of blood, dark in the fading shadows of late afternoon, running in rivulets to the edges. On their heels came my Aunt Maude, Mama’s sister who lived in Monticello. She was wealthy, having married a lawyer who was thirty years her senior.

  She saw us in the window and called, “Come down, children!” like a minister hailing his flock from the baptismal font.

  Eric took my hand, and I took Lily’s, and we descended.

  “Is Mama all right?” Eric asked, his tone carefully steady.

  “Your mother and her child have died,” said Aunt Maude. In her voice was the resignation of one who had seen houses burn and men die. Her first husband had been killed in the war, and there was a hardness to her that could not be splintered.

  Eric hung his head and wept, his façade of bravery vanished, but I stood in silence. I was cold from top to toe with the truth before it
was ever spoken. The instant I saw the mattress, I had remembered my dreams, and the feeling of them had come creeping back upon me.

  It was some weeks before I said more than a few words to anyone. Loss had touched my core; I would walk for many years in a living nightmare; the stuff of my deepest fears made real.

  The funeral was held the following Tuesday. On Monday, Mama was laid out in the parlor beneath a white sheet, and our closest neighbors brought food and murmurs of sympathy. I was dressed in my Sunday clothes and expected to say goodbye. Granny Muriel, Daddy’s mother, led me into the parlor and pulled back the sheet.

  Mama’s was the first corpse I ever saw, the eyes sunken into the head, the skin pale as marble with the life’s blood drained from it, and the mouth drawn back from the teeth in a grimace. They might at least have closed her lovely mouth before rigor mortis set in. She had been beautiful in life, raven-haired and rosy-cheeked, with a merry disposition and a keen wit. I inherited this last, sharp as a razor, but not her light heart. Following her death, a gravity surrounded me that I could never fully shake.

  They had arranged the sable ringlets of her hair around her shoulders, as it must have looked in her girlhood, and she wore a dove-gray taffeta gown with a high collar—her best dress. On her chest, with her arms crossed over it in a protective gesture, was a bundle of cloth. It took me a moment to realize it was her dead child, swaddled in a blanket.

  When Granny pushed me toward the body, saying, “Kiss your mother goodbye, poor departed soul,” I recoiled. She pushed me again and said, “Fractious girl, kiss your mother and her babe!”