Chapter Seven
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CeeCee fought her emotions as she walked with Damien through his house. Tears welled in her eyes at the overwhelming beauty. She swallowed and sniffed, trying to keep control. Not only did he carve amazingly ornate piano cases, like the one in the Leachman ’ s ballroom, but he also carved an ornate railing for his staircase, and a frame around his fire hearth that included the mantle. She could see a likeness to the carvings and recognized his signature touch on each creation. She knew without asking that her husband had made all these many beautiful things.
If it were made from wood in the home, he had made it, and carved some lovely designs into them to make each piece a unique one-of-a-kind item. There were rocking chairs, side tables, and a low table in the parlor. A dining table with six chairs, plus two pulled back against the wall in the dining room. A sideboard for serving matched the table and chairs that could rival any high-end furniture manufacturer.
When they toured the three bedrooms which were upstairs, she marveled at the furniture, arranged by theme. Each individual room held grouped furnishings by the subject carved into the pieces. The headboards with footboards for each of the beds, matching dressers and nightstands with angels in one room, and wildlife such as a stag with does, fawns, and rabbits in another. A fox hunt with foxes, hounds, and horses with mounted hunters made up the last room she visited.
Which did he currently sleep in? She thought the fox hunt might be the more masculine of the rooms. But she couldn ’ t tell. Each room was tidy, dust free, and uncluttered. Did he have staff to keep his house so clean? Or was he this persnickety about cleanliness. Back home, she had not known a man who kept his own home without servants, but out here in Oregon, it was possible, she supposed.
How could he possibly maintain such a well-kept home and build furniture for his living too? Was this why he had been so adamant about getting a wife, even if she were sight unseen? Mademoiselle L ’ Rusoe had said this was CeeCee ’ s destiny. Surely she didn ’ t mean that she was the perfect housekeeper for this man. They had so much more in common. There had to be more to his reasons for sending for her as his proxy bride. She certainly had significant reasons for wanting to be married by proxy so that she could escape Sonny ’ s insistence. Being immediately married was the only legal avenue for her to take to keep him from forcing her to marry him.
CeeCee turned from the final room to speak to Damien. She swallowed hard. Her mouth had gone dry from shock at the unexpected enormity of the beauty in this bachelor ’ s house. “ You were telling the truth when you said you had a good sized home. But you lied about how magnificent the home is. I didn ’ t notice any of this when we first came here for tea and smoked salmon sandwiches. How could I have been so blind to the beauty you have created here?”
“ You were tired. It was late.” He hesitated. His chin jutted out, but he didn ’ t say more.
“ It ’ s lovely,” she uttered.
“ I ’ m glad you approve.”
“ Of course I approve. Did you honestly think any woman would not approve? This home is… amazing. You are truly gifted,” she said.
“ As are you.” He smiled.
“ Which room should I take, for now?” She asked.
“ Whichever one you want.”
“ Well, which do you currently sleep in?”
“ The fox hunt.”
“ I thought that might be the case. I ’ ll take the angels across the hall.”
“ All right. I ’ ll have your trunk and carpet bag brought up.” He moved to walk back downstairs.
“ Thank you.”
He halted and turned back to her. “ You ’ re welcome. I hope you ’ ll be comfortable here.”
“ Why wouldn ’ t I be?” she asked.
“ I don ’ t know you very well. I can only hope you have everything you need.”
“ The only thing I need, to be honest, is a piano.”
He nodded but didn ’ t say anything. What did his silence mean? Did he not have a piano available to bring home? Were they all commissioned to someone. Could he not intentionally make one with her and this house in mind? Did she need to become one of his customers and commission a piano for herself? How much did his pianos cost? She had funds. It was converted confederate money, but she had means, if that was what he required to put a piano in their home.
Was that going to be how it was between them? She would be required to pay for what she wanted in order to have specific things, like a piano. She followed him downstairs. He settled in the small breakfast area off the kitchen.
“ Would you care for some tea or coffee?” he asked.
She glanced at the kitchen cast-iron stove and then searched the upper shelves. She could see everything needed to make either coffee or tea. Which did she want? “ I ’ d really like to have some coffee, but…”
He moved to grind some coffee beans but halted as she continued.
“ I should make it myself. I ’ m not your guest, I ’ m your wife.”
“ As you wish.” He swept a gesture to say he would bow out and let her make the coffee. He did look inside the stove to verify the fire was hot enough. He added a couple small chopped pieces of wood to the fire and closed the door. “ There, everything should be ready,” he said as he backed further from the stove. He sat at the breakfast table where they had shared their first meal together. Folding his hands, he placed them on the table and watched her work. A slight smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. CeeCee went about finishing grinding the beans, added them to the enamel pot and ladled some cold water into the pot. She set it on a hot burner and stepped back. “ Do you have any muffins?”
“ No. I ’ m afraid I don ’ t.”
“ All right. Where is your flour?” She looked as she asked and found a pull-out in the lower cabinet filled with flour. She searched and found the lard crock, a bowl, and a bread board. “ Have we a cow?” She asked.
He gestured toward a butter churning crock and a milk pail beside it. She ladled out some milk into the flour mixture and kneaded it for a moment. Turning it out onto the bread board, she made biscuits and placed them in a lard smeared cast iron pan and slipped them inside the very hot oven. “ There. We can have biscuits with our coffee.”
His smile broadened. “ So you cook, too?”
“ Of course. What do you think we did back in Louisiana, eat raw snakes and toads?”
He chuckled. “ I don ’ t know Louisiana all that well. Tell me about your home.”
CeeCee sat at the small table and told Damien about her family. What life had been like during the reconstruction and how so many good people had changed to survive. Should she tell him the real reason she had accepted his offer for a proxy marriage? She hesitated. If she wanted him to be honest with her, she had to be open and honest with him. She cautiously told him about Sonny and how she needed to have an immediate marriage in order to escape his vile plans.
Brewed coffee and baked biscuits filled the air.
She sniffed.
“ I believe our snack is ready.” She rose and pulled out the skillet with golden brown biscuits, then brought it and the coffee pot to the table. Meanwhile, Damien had risen and retrieved small plates and coffee mugs from a shelf. Together, they sat down and divided the biscuits and poured the coffee.
“ Cream or sugar?” he asked.
“ Not for me,” she replied.
Damien rushed through a door, into a cellar, and brought back a small crock of butter and a jar of jam.
“ Did you make the jam?” She asked, eyeing the pretty pink gelled contents.
“ No, we have a Founders ’ Day celebration every year and the women have booths to sell their preserves and other handmade products. I make sure to get at least half a dozen every year.”
She slathered butter and jam on her biscuit and sunk her teeth into the flaky goodness. “ Mmmm. This is so good.”
He smiled.
She washed it down with the coffee and sat back. “ So… tell me your story. Why a proxy bride? Why so far away? How did you know to reach out to the Cajun Matchmaker in my neck of the woods?”
“ I didn ’ t,” he confessed. “ I went to the matchmaker here in Silverpines. She somehow knew about your matchmaker. I believe someone here told her about you.”
“ Some one here? Who?” CeeCee choked down another bite and washed it with coffee to keep from actually coughing. Was there someone here in Silverpines from home? Could Damien take CeeCee to this Widow Carter so that she could find out who it is that knew of her well enough to tell the matchmaker here to contact the matchmaker there, in Louisiana?
“ I ’ m not sure,” he said.
CeeCee searched her mind. She had seen something… what was it. Visualizing the letter from the matchmaker that she had perused trying to determine what Damien would be like, she had overlooked one small sentence in the letter.
“ Your niece was a client of mine and suggested I contact you for assistance.”
Mademoiselle L ’ Rusoe ’ s niece! Did CeeCee know Mademoiselle ’ s niece? She had not walked the streets of Silverpines enough to see a dark-skinned woman. It wasn ’ t like back home where the mix in people ’ s skin was like a patchwork quilt, equal parts of every color under the sun. Here in Oregon, she had seen mostly fair skinned people and a small mix of Asian. Would Damien know who Mademoiselle ’ s niece could be?
“ Do you know this woman who told Widow Carter about me?” CeeCee asked.
“ I ’ m not sure who she is.” He answered honestly.
“ Hmm.” CeeCee considered this information. She wanted to find this woman. To have someone nearby who was from her parish would be wonderful!
“ Why would you want to know who she is?” Damien asked.
CeeCee gawked at him. “ Because… she knows me… because… she ’ s from home.”
Damien tilted his head. “ It ’ s not common… to associate with… well, to associate with confederate slaves. The war was won to free them and let them go about their business. I don ’ t understand why you would want to seek her out.”
CeeCee ’ s glare hardened. “ Because… she ’ s from where I ’ m from.” Drawing herself up, she gathered the dishes and quickly carried them to the wash pan. “ Are you telling me that you don ’ t associate with a person because of the color of their skin?”
“ I ’ m just saying, it ’ s how it ’ s been for a long time, especially—”
“ Especially, what?” She glared at him.
“ Well, I just mean, I ’ ve never lived down south. I don ’ t suppose I am aware of how things were for you who lived south of the Mason-Dixon Line.”
“ What are you saying, exactly?” CeeCee could feel her temper burning in her gut. She wanted to slap his face and walk out but where would she go. This was the only home she had the right to be in. The Leachmans were kind enough to pretend their home was a boarding house, but it wasn ’ t. Damien had said there are no boarding houses or hotels. This was the only place CeeCee could reside. “ Are you a union loyalist?”
“ Well, I did come here from Missouri. I don ’ t suppose I would say I was Union or Confederate, but all that division is behind us now. The war settled all that.”
Her glare hardened even more. What was he saying? “ So… you don ’ t associate with colored folks because you come from a part of the United States that had few people who were different from you?”
“ Well, no. I ’ m not saying that.” Damien ’ s eyes widened. Concern filled his otherwise kind orbs.
“ Then, what are you saying? When I find this niece of my matchmaker back home, I will befriend her, because she ’ s from my area in Louisiana and therefore is very dear to me. Are you going to have a problem with that?”
“ No. Of course not,” he blurted.
She considered his quick response. “ Good.”
They stared at one another in silence for a long moment. “ If you ’ ll take my trunk upstairs, to the angels room, I believe I ’ ll get myself settled and then we can decide on what we are doing for supper.”
“ All right.” He said and stood.
“ FIRE! ” Someone screamed outside. “ FIRE! ”
Damien ’ s eyes darted to hers. “ There ’ s a fire. Come on!”
He rushed to the door and out onto the veranda. Men drove by on a horse-drawn water wagon from the Volunteer Fire House. They were heading toward the center of town where the majority of businesses were.
“ What ’ s on fire?” he shouted at them.
“ Out on River Road.” One of them shouted.
“ It ’ s the mercantile,” Another yelled.
“ Oh, No!” Damien turned to CeeCee. “ My shop is next to the mercantile. Hurry, let ’ s take the wagon.”
Damien grabbed her arm and hurried her to the horse and wagon sitting at the front of his house. Her trunk and belongings were in the bed, but there was no time to remove them. He shoved her onto the bench seat and climbed in beside her. Clicking his tongue, he flicked the reins making the red roan stallion lunge forward. People were running and riding toward the dark black smoke that towered toward the sky.
“ How bad is it?” He asked anyone who could answer.
“ It started at the back of the mercantile, a stove caught some wooden supply boxes on fire.”
“ You ’ re shop ’ s on fire, too!” A creamy dark-skinned woman said.
CeeCee gaped at her. Was that Mademoiselle L ’ Rusoe ’ s niece? Opening her mouth to ask, she lunged back as the horse sped up under Damien’s hastened jerk of the reins.
“ No, no, no!” Damien flicked the reins harder and rushed to 3 rd Street where he turned toward the river and flicked the reins again. CeeCee stared back at the woman, as Damien pulled away from the walking people.
The water truck had arrived before them. Men leapt off to put a long hose into the river. Two men stood on top of the wagon and pumped a two-sided handle, like a teeter-totter, to bring the water into the barrel. Another man held a hose on the other side of the barrel aiming it at the fire dancing out of the back room of a large building. Was that Damien ’ s shop where he said he kept the pianos and other lovely pieces of furniture he had made?
She soon realized it was the mercantile ’ s back entrance. Damien ran straight toward a door next to the fiery building and flung a set of double doors open. Flames whipped past his head, as he ducked to avoid being singed. The roar of the fire was deafening. People shouted to be heard, yelling at people to stay back, it was too far gone. A tall, muscular, dark-skinned man grabbed Damien by the shoulders and held him back from rushing into the building.
“ NO! You can ’ t go in there!” The man shouted at her husband.
They watched as water poured from the hose onto the flames that didn ’ t seem to be affected in the least. Damien fought the man who had restrained him
“ Andre! Let me go!” Her husband shouted. The woman she had seen earlier stood behind him, worry etched on her smooth face. Was this Mademoiselle L ’ Rusoe ’ s nephew-in-law?
Damien ’ s struggles lessened, as he gaped at the engulfing, all-consuming fire.
“ I ’ m all right,” he said and wriggled out of the man ’ s hold.
He turned back to the water wagon, grabbed buckets that were stored there, and began scooping sand and dirt from the bank of the river. Running toward his shop, he tossed the sand on the flames, then ran back to get more. CeeCee followed his lead and grabbed a bucket to do the same. Others were also scooping sand and tossing it on the fire. Soon, they stopped running and stood to take the bucket and pass it along, making a bucket brigade to toss sand on the fire with much less exhausting running back and forth. The woman she thought was Mademoiselle ’ s niece was among the many scooping sand and throwing it on the fiery building, then part of the brigade. CeeCee and her eyes connected and for a moment, they stopped, smiled at one another, then continued to scoop sand and toss it on the fire. There was no time to converse. Both worked as quickly as they could.
Soon there was smoldering ashes and smoke, but no more flames. Everyone had soot smeared on their faces, clothes, and hands. No one had been hurt. Damien looked overwhelmed.
He and she walked through the remains of charred timber and unrecognizable furniture.
“ How- how much was damaged?” CeeCee asked her husband when he came out of what was left of the building.
He swallowed as a tear made a pale trail through black soot covering his face.
“ Everything is gone,” he stated flatly.
“ What do we do now?” CeeCee asked.