Chapter 4 #4
Jane stood beside the bed that she was meant to share with Morgan while he carried in her bags and trunk.
She had offered to take one of the bags, but he would not allow it.
He told her that tomorrow morning was soon enough for her to start toting, lugging, and hauling, and that when she looked back on it, she would be grateful he had spared her the chore tonight.
Jane was not sure that was true. She needed something to do. She had already placed her gloves, scarf, and coat at the front door, and now she stood with her hands at her sides, fidgeting with the folds in her flared skirt.
Morgan dropped both bags on the chest at the foot of the bed. “Do you sleep in that hat?”
Jane’s hands flew to her head.
Morgan cocked an eyebrow. “I guess not.” He turned and headed out. “Getting your trunk now.”
Jane removed her hat and looked around for somewhere to put it.
She was reluctant to shift any of Morgan’s personal items on top of the dresser to make room for hers.
There was no vanity, and the table on the far side of the bed already held a lamp and two books.
An empty water glass and carafe sat on the table closest to her.
There was a rocking chair beside the window, but she could foresee either herself or Morgan crushing the hat if she left it on the seat.
The hook on inside of the door that led to the small, utilitarian washroom was most likely meant to hold a towel or robe, although she saw evidence of neither.
Still, living with the Ewings had taught her the importance of territory, both having it and respecting it. She was determined not to encroach.
Jane eyed the wardrobe again and settled on placing the hat on top of it. She also decided that she would buy a hatbox on her very next trip to town. It pained her some that she had left a very nice one behind.
She was standing on tiptoe, pushing the black velvet hat in place, when Morgan reentered the room.
He set the trunk down, came up behind her, and gave the hat a nudge. It slid several inches beyond Jane’s reach. “I suppose you’re going to need a footstool.”
“If you continue to help in this manner, I will.” She lowered herself from her tiptoes but could not step back.
He was there, right behind her, and when his outstretched arm came down, his palm brushed the curve of her shoulder.
Jane went very still. For a moment, she could not breathe.
It could not have been long at all before his hand fell away, but it seemed to Jane as if time slowed, stopped, and only resumed its march when he retreated one step, then another, until he finally put enough space between them that she could no longer feel the heat of him at her back.
Jane expected to see Morgan standing near the bed when she turned.
He wasn’t. He was facing the dresser, his Stetson overturned in one hand, and he was filling the crown with the very items that she had been too respectful to move aside.
She watched, her dark eyebrows rising in conjunction with her astonishment, as he picked up his hairbrush and comb and dropped them into the hat.
In short order, these items were joined by the bottle of Dr. Horace Johnstone’s Peppermint Tonic, a baking soda tin, toothbrush, box of matches, hand mirror, and shaving cup, soap, and razor.
There was a leather strop hanging on one of the spindles that supported the dresser’s large mirror.
He removed it, wound it neatly around his hand, and then slipped the coil off and added it to the contents in his hat.
“You can put your things here. Mrs. Sterling said that your kind of female would have little pots of creams and lotions and such. Perfume. Hair combs. Maybe a box for jewelry.”
Jane stared at him. Her kind of female? What did that mean?
“Do you?” he asked.
She nodded slowly.
“Well, you can put them here.” He waved one hand over the dresser’s cleared surface. “Will it be enough room?”
Jane found her voice. “Mr. Longstreet, I assure you I can—”
Morgan’s mouth twisted wryly. “About that. I figure since we’re married, you should call me Morgan.”
“All right. Morgan. As I was saying, I believe you and I—”
“And I should call you Jane.”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, of course. I think we can—”
“It’s a good name. Jane.”
“I suppose. Now, if I could…”
Morgan studied her, head tilted slightly to one side, eyes narrowed a fraction.
Finding herself the object of his intense interest once again, Jane sighed and asked somewhat impatiently, “What is it?”
Morgan would not be hurried. He continued to regard her thoughtfully. “I’m trying to decide if it suits you.”
“Does it really matter? It is my name. It is the one you will have to use if you hope to attract my attention. As you said, it is a good name.”
“Plain,” he said.
“Yes. Which is precisely why it suits. Now, if you would allow—”
“You believe that, don’t you? Plain Jane.”
Jane said nothing.
Morgan’s eyebrows lifted, and he made a sound at the back of his throat that could be interpreted as skepticism or satisfaction. “What was it you wanted to tell me?”
Jane’s lips parted before she realized her mind had gone perfectly blank. She blinked, and then recovered enough to give Morgan an accusing look. “I have quite forgotten.”
He shrugged. “That happens.”
“Not to me,” she said. “Not until now.”
“Could be a consequence of you being so tired. I noticed your eyelids were drooping back at the saloon.” He held his hat in front of him like an offering plate.
“That’s why I collected my things. I’m taking them to the bedroom next door.
I’ll sleep there. I expect the bed is comfortable enough.
That will give you some time to accustom yourself to whatever it is a bride accustoms herself to. It’s new days, Jane.”
Jane remained perfectly still in spite of the fact that she thought her knees might buckle.
All the anxiety she had harbored about sharing his bed had been for naught.
He did not want her. She was going to sleep alone on her wedding night.
Jane was sure she did not know how she was supposed to feel about that.
Relieved? Worried? Frustrated? Offended?
It seemed that she experienced all of those things but none so profoundly as unsettled.
Morgan had explained his thinking in a manner that made it seem he was acting out of consideration for her, but it was Jane’s experience that such consideration could mask contempt.
She was afraid to trust it. Plain Jane. He had said the words aloud, the ones that had struck at her heart since childhood, the ones that she thought she had accepted, even embraced with the fierceness of ownership.
Cousin Alex liked to tease her that she imagined herself as that other Jane, the Gothic novel heroine who found love with the equally unappealing, but infinitely more tortured, Mr. Rochester.
Jane found it best not to respond to Alex’s sardonic remarks, especially when it was liquor that pickled his wit, but there were times she had wondered if there might not be some element of truth in his observations.
It was not necessarily uncomfortable to be Plain Jane.
Acceptance merely hinged on reduced expectations; not for herself, but for how others regarded her.
Now that he had met her, married her, Morgan Longstreet had reduced expectations. She suspected he was trying to come to terms with them. Jane could appreciate that. She did not make the mistake of supposing he was Mr. Rochester. No doubt he required time alone to master his disappointment.
To stop fiddling with the fabric of her skirt, Jane folded her hands in front of her.
“It is new days,” she said quietly. “I am not averse to sharing the top of the dresser with you. I think we might manage to find room for your things and mine. I think you will agree it is a beginning. Sharing. One of the things I expect a bride—and her husband—must accustom themselves to. The bed can wait, if you think that best, but perhaps we should learn to dance in each other’s space. ”
“You want me to keep my things in here?”
“I want you to do as you wish. I am merely saying I do not mind if you keep your things here.”
Morgan cradled the crown of his hat in one hand while he raked his hair with the other. He scratched behind his ear. “I’m feeling my way here.”
“So am I.”
“I didn’t expect you to be so accommodating.”
“Compromising.”
“If there’s a difference there, I’m not grasping it.
” He held up a hand when Jane would have explained.
“It’s all right. I don’t need to learn about it now.
” He carefully turned over the Stetson so the objects he collected began to spill out.
He arranged them on the left side of the dresser top. “Will that do for you?”
“It will do fine.”
He nodded. “Do you want to use the washroom first? That’s what you meant by learning to dance in each other’s space, isn’t it?”
“Yes. That’s what I meant. But you use it first. I have to unpack some things.”
“All right.” Morgan picked up the toothbrush and baking soda tin. On the point of entering the washroom, he paused. “Towels, soap, sponges. They’re all in here.”
“I saw.”
“A washup will have to do tonight,” he said. “Tomorrow, I’ll help you draw and heat enough water for a bath.”
“I would like that.”
“Maybe not, once you take notice of the work involved.”
“I’m not afraid of work, Mr. Longstreet.”
“Morgan.”
“Morgan,” she repeated. “Another thing to which this bride shall have to become accustomed.” Before he disappeared into the washroom, Jane thought she glimpsed his wry grin and a faint headshake.
Both responses puzzled her, but by the time a question occurred to her, he was closing the door and shutting her out.