Chapter 5
Lydia did not want to go to a strange doctor.
But Mavis was insistent. If Lydia was indeed pregnant from a rape, she wanted to know about it.
In fact, she wanted to know all about Lydia’s trip here by herself from New Orleans and the deaths of her sister and brother-in-law.
She had always thought that they had spoiled Lydia silly and should have put their foot down on her and spanked her when she had first thrown a tantrum.
But they hadn’t and it had only gotten worse.
Now, she thought everyone should wait on her hand and foot… that was going to stop today.
Doctor Sinclair called them into his office. Mavis went with her. She wanted to hear Lydia’s explanation about how she found herself pregnant when she wasn’t married. He looked at Mavis to introduce the young lady to him.
“Doctor Sinclair, this is my niece from New Orleans. Her name is Lydia Hatcher. She was on the stagecoach that Travis Buchanan just brought in the survivors. She tried to claim that Travis raped her, when he hadn’t touched her other than to spank her and to throw her on her horse each day.
She also claims that she was raped in New Orleans by a Yankee, and that he made her pregnant.
I need to know the truth because Lydia has a habit of making the truth fit her means.
” Mavis told him and got a glare from her niece.
“Since she will be living with me, I want to know what I will be up against. I won’t get the full truth from Lydia, just more lies and what she wants me to know. ”
“Aunt Mavis! I can’t believe what you just told him! You make me out to be a liar!” Lydia told her and turned several shades of red under her collar.
“I haven’t seen you in several years Lydia, but from my experience…
that’s exactly what you were. You lied to get what you wanted from your mother and father and tried to manipulate everyone else into doing what you wanted as well.
I won’t be manipulated. You will tell me the truth.
That’s how I operate with everyone in town and with my own daughters. ” Mavis told her.
“I’ll bet they just love living with you.” Lydia told her sarcastically and crossed her arms over her chest.
“Believe it or not, we’re very happy living here in Angel Falls, and I won’t let you spoil it with your willful ways. Check her over Doc.” Mavis told him and stepped back from the table, but she wasn’t leaving.
Lydia let him take her temperature, her blood pressure, pulse, listen to her heart rate, and even her abdomen to see if her baby had a heart rate. It did not.
“Miss Hatcher, how many monthlies have you missed since the rape?” He asked her.
“That’s a very personal question to be asking me after just meeting me!” She told him getting even redder.
“Tell him!” Mavis said in a near shout.
“Well, I haven’t missed any monthlies. I just feel sick every morning, and I’ve heard all the stories about morning sickness. I knew that meant that I was pregnant.”
“When were you…raped?”
“The soldier threw me down and had his way with me two months ago…the same night that Mama and Papa were killed. He killed them but only raped me…I was screaming and yelling so much…and people came running to help us, and he left running away. They were too late to help my parents…but they did save my life. I just knew that I was going to end up pregnant.” Lydia told both of them.
“Miss Hatcher, I believe that you have what is known as an imaginary pregnancy. Because you thought you were pregnant, you exhibited all the signs of being pregnant. The nausea in the morning…was all in your mind. You are not pregnant. You are a little dehydrated from your experience from traveling here from the stagecoach fiasco, but otherwise just fine. You can thank Travis Buchanan for getting you here safely.” Sinclair told her and smiled as he helped her down from the table.
“The hell I will! I won’t thank Travis Buchanan for anything!
That man was rude, sarcastic, and anything but a gentleman when we were traveling on horses…
horses! Through the wilderness to get here to Angel Falls.
I told him I didn’t ride, and he threw me on a horse anyway.
He just told me not to fall off; I’d probably break a leg.
Is that anyway to talk to a lady? No, it is not!
I was in a hot spring soaking the aches out of my sore body and he and the two young boys came and started taking off their clothes in front of me!
Can you imagine?! I was shocked…shocked by their behavior.
He told me that I had been in there long enough.
Angie had tried to get me out by telling me that it was their turn, but I wasn’t done yet.
It wasn’t going to hurt them to wait a little longer, but no…
Travis Buchanan ran the show and when he said get out, you had to get out!
I had to get out and run without my clothes on!
He also spanked me…me! A grown woman on my…
my posterior. It hurt! He told me that I was a spoiled, useless, princess and it was time I grew up and did my share around the camp.
When he told me to gather firewood, by God I’d gather firewood, or he’d spank me again!
If a five and a three-year-old could do it, then so would I.
When I wouldn’t get up at the crack of dawn, he threw water on me to get me up, can you imagine!
He made me leave all my trunks at the stagecoach…
all my beautiful gowns, I only got to bring what I could fit in a pillowcase…
a pillowcase! I wanted to laugh. Not even one of my gowns would fit into a pillowcase.
He also sat on my gown in the stagecoach and wrinkled it.
I elbowed him in the side to make him move off of it.
The lady across from us saw him flinch, she took his side, like I could hurt that big lummox.
That’s when the shooting started and he told us to get on the floor of the stagecoach to keep from getting shot.
He was at the door and shooting back. I just didn’t want any blood on my clothes.
I was being wise and pushed the salesman away from me.
He got shot…the last thing I wanted was his blood on me.
And then Buchanan opened the door…can you imagine?
He climbed out the door to get to the top of the stage to help the driver, and he claimed that he had a hurt side and leg.
The stage was throwing us all over the place and he was shooting back at the robbers.
The shooting finally stopped and the horses stopped running.
I was finally able to straighten out my dress, and I hoped the wrinkles would iron out.
” Lydia told them as she recounted the ordeal she had been in.
Mavis looked at Doctor Sinclair and rolled her eyes. He looked back at her and winked. He was sure glad that this young lady wasn’t his to straighten out. Mavis took Lydia’s arm and walked her out the clinic towards her shop and home.
“Lydia, I’m glad that you are not pregnant.
At the present time, you would make a terrible mother to a small baby.
But that’s all right starting today, I am going to make you grow up.
We live in a small bunkhouse behind the store where we all work.
You will learn how to take care of yourself, cook, clean, wash clothes, and work in the store like we do.
I’m sure you will fight me tooth and nail, but it won’t matter.
I won’t be swayed by tears or threats or a pretty face.
You will do what I tell you to do when I tell you to do it.
If you don’t like it, you can leave, but the only job you are suited for is a whore working in a saloon or a brothel.
There are no rich men living here to marry.
Just hard-working men who go to work every day to make ends meet for their wives and families.
When they get married, they want women who can cook, sew, clean, wash, and help make their houses into a home.
They may like looking at a pretty woman, even sleeping with one…
but they won’t marry her. Especially when they find out she’s useless in taking care of herself and a family.
” Mavis told her and saw her start to cry.
“Go ahead and cry, Lydia. Tears won’t make things change; they’ll just give you a headache, make your eyes red and puffy, and make you even more unattractive to the opposite sex. ”
By now they had arrived at the resale store and her new home.
Lydia didn’t want to walk into the barn.
She was walked through the huge building filled with tables of used clothing, kitchenware, barn ware, you name it, and the resale shop seemed to have it.
There were a few rooms behind the barn where the family seemed to live.
One room was a kitchen, the other was a bedroom of sorts.
It had two sets of bunk beds. Mavis pointed to the upper bed of the second set of bunks.
“That’s your bed. We need to make a mattress for it.
We’ll take a sheet, sew it up on three sides and fill it with grass and clover.
You’ll have a nice soft bed tonight to sleep on.
Let’s start with the sheet. You’ll be the one sewing on it. ”
“Aunt Mavis…I don’t know how to sew.” Lydia told her softly. “You or one of your daughters will have to do the sewing for me.”
“I don’t think so. If you don’t sew it, you’ll sleep on the hard wooden slats of the bunk.” Mavis told her and looked at her. “Do you want to learn to sew or not?”
Lydia was quiet for a few minutes and then nodded.
Mavis got a sheet and a needle and thread.
She showed her how to thread the needle, knot the end of it and then begin sewing the sides together.
Lydia wasn’t paying attention. Mavis stopped sewing.
She put the sheet, needle, and thread in her lap.
“I’m not doing this for you. If you don’t pay attention, so be it.
It doesn’t get done. You sleep on slats.
It’s no skin off my nose. I showed you how it was done, now it’s up to you.
” She left Lydia alone while she went to work in the resale store.
Lydia looked at the sheet, needle, and thread.
She felt like crying. Her Aunt Mavis was a bitch!
She wasn’t going to give her an inch. Lydia started sewing as best she could.
It wasn’t the best sewing job, it wasn’t even a straight seam, but she was getting the job done.
Lydia was even rather proud of the job she was doing.
Then, she stood up to go and show her aunt and realized that she had sewn the sheet to her own dress in the process!
Lydia started swearing realizing that she would have to take out all the stiches and start over again!
She didn’t quit. She pulled the threads out and started over. This time she made sure that she didn’t sew it to her skirt, and she made the hem straighter. It was going on late afternoon when she finished. She took it out to Mavis to let her know she was finished.
Mavis had Martha and Mary help her fill it with grass and clover from the valley in the back of the barn.
But Lydia was sent with them to help. Lydia had never pulled grass in her life…
she had never got them dirty doing anything.
She didn’t like them getting dirty pulling grass and clover, but the mattress did look soft getting all that grass in it.
The idea of sleeping on it tonight sounded really nice.
The two girls didn’t try talking to her and she didn’t try talking to them.
They were country girls…what did she have in common with them?
The clothes they had on were clean, but they were so, so, old-fashioned.
They were so plain. Clearly they had come from the resale store.
Imagine wearing something someone else had worn before!
Never in a million years would she ever wear something anyone had worn before her.
Why she had barely worn anything twice in her big closet…
Lydia thought. It was a shame that she couldn’t bring all her clothes with her, she would gladly give some of her clothes to her cousins.
She had a pretty blue dress that Martha would look very nice in, and a pale green dress that Mary could wear.
They would feel they were in heaven in her clothes, but only if she could get them shipped here.
She wondered how long it would take to bring her trunks here from where they had left them.
She didn’t think about the dead bodies of the guard, the driver, or the salesman that they left and that needed to be buried.
It was still all about her. Mavis was thinking the same thing.
She had watched her sewing, even to sewing it to her skirt and having to pull out the stitches.
She had smiled. It was a good thing that Lydia didn’t give up.
She was going to need that determination in the days ahead.