Chapter 5 #2
She measured flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar and then mixed and sifted them over a green glass bowl.
From the cold store she took an egg and some fresh, cool milk.
She beat the egg in a separate bowl and added the milk.
There was no point in mixing them together until someone joined her.
She’d have to add more baking powder, spoiling the proportions, and the hotcakes would not taste the way they should.
Someone drowning them in butter and syrup might not be able to tell the difference, but she would.
Jane decided to make coffee. She suspected that would rouse Morgan, and perhaps he would invite his hands to come and sit at his table. She made enough for them. It did not seem right to her to do otherwise.
Jane found finely ground coffee in an airtight glass jar in the pantry.
She measured out a cup for the strainer, returned the strainer to the pot, and put it on the table.
She pumped enough water at the sink to fill the kettle and set it on the stove to boil.
That left her with time to dress. A shift and robe was not suitable for greeting anyone, even if her husband was the only one who came to the table.
Jane thought she heard the back door open and close while she was dressing, but she did not give it any thought except to suppose that Morgan was finally up and making his morning visit to the necessary.
When she returned to the kitchen and saw him standing at the stove pouring boiling water from the kettle into the coffeepot, she realized that she had been wrong.
The door had certainly opened and closed, but he had been coming in, not going out.
“I will do that,” she said, skirting the table. “I just went to the bedroom to dress.”
Morgan did not relinquish the kettle, but he did look at her sideways. “I see that. Are all of your dresses like that one?”
Jane glanced down at herself. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Fancy is what I mean. Sunday fancy. Going-to-a-social fancy.”
“This?” The dress was apple green calico with white polka dots on the skirt and the hint of a white ruffle around the scooped neckline.
The sleeves were plain and fitted, with none of the puffery that was becoming the fashion in the East. Jane wore a corset but deliberately had set aside her bustle.
It seemed to her that the appendage had no place here.
The hem of her skirt hovered just above her ankles, a good length for walking and working.
She thought she had chosen practically. He thought she had chosen fancy.
She understood then that she had nothing that he would pronounce suitable.
“What’s wrong with what I have on?” she asked.
“It’s pretty. That’s an observation, not a compliment.”
“I was not in danger of mistaking one for the other.” She left Morgan at the stove and applied herself to making the hotcake batter.
Morgan looked over at Jane and watched her tie a towel around her waist. “I have no objection to pretty,” he told her.
“But it goes against my grain to see it come to a bad end. Someday you’ll look at it and not recollect that it was ever once the color of summer apples or that it had that little ruffle at the neck. ”
“It’s for wearing,” she said, stirring the batter. “It goes against my grain to tuck it in a wardrobe and only visit it from time to time.”
“Is that right?”
She looked at him sharply to gauge whether he was mocking her.
Unfortunately, he had turned away so that only his profile was visible.
“I shall miss the sewing machine I had in New York, but I do well enough with a needle and thread. There is no reason I cannot make one or two aprons, or even a dress. It will merely take longer.”
“Is that a compromise or an accommodation?”
“The latter, I think.”
Morgan nodded. “Coffee’s ready,” he said, removing the pot from the stove. He held it over the table where he had placed two cups. “Can I assume you want some?”
“Yes, please.”
He poured coffee into both cups and set the pot on the table. Jane traded places with him at the stove.
“Did you invite your men to breakfast?”
“No.”
“There will be plenty.”
“I wasn’t sure you would be able to fire up the dragon.”
“The dragon? Oh, you mean the cookstove. I was able.”
“I see.”
Jane paused before she began to pour batter onto the greased griddle. “So? Are you going to invite them? I know from experience that the batter’s best when it’s freshly made.”
“That might be true, but they won’t know and won’t care. It seems to me that you and I should have our breakfast first. Together. Alone.”
Jane’s nerves jangled unexpectedly. It was his tone that did it. When he spoke in certain ways, low and husky with that slight rasp that put her in mind of callused fingers sifting silk, it was as if those same fingers were walking up her spine.
“All right,” she said, keeping her back to him.
“These won’t take long.” And they didn’t.
She made a stack of six, put four on a plate for him and gave two to herself.
He had syrup, butter, and utensils on the table when she handed him his plate, but he waited for her to sit down before he tucked into his meal.
Jane owned there was a certain amount of pleasure watching him eat because his pleasure was that obvious.
She liked that he had unguarded moments.
Genuine moments. She drew her coffee cup closer and took it in both hands.
She lifted it, sipped, and smiled over the rim of the cup.
“This would not be a satisfying beverage if it were not for the aroma.”
“Can’t you say the same about all foods?”
“Probably, but I think it is most true of coffee.” She set the cup down and picked up her fork. “I heard you coming in this morning, but I never heard you leave. I thought you were sleeping when I got up.”
“You were sleeping when I left.”
“I was?”
“I left last night. If you didn’t hear me go, I think we can assume you were asleep.”
“Yes. Yes, of course, but why did you leave? Where did you go?”
“I left because I couldn’t sleep. And where I went was out.”
The area between Jane’s dark eyebrows puckered as she frowned, but she did not ask another question. She cut out a bite of the hotcakes, stabbed it, and put it in her mouth.
“How did you sleep?” he asked.
“Well enough.”
Morgan took another bite. His gaze slid to the cookstove. “How did you conquer the dragon?”
Jane shrugged.
“Jake says she breathes fire.”
“She probably does when her dampers aren’t regulated.”
“All right,” he said. “I am going to ask. How do you know how to do it?”
“What do you mean? Why wouldn’t I know how to do it?”
“You lived on Fifth Avenue. Even strangers to Manhattan know that address. Home to brownstone mansions and gilded parlors. Some things you wrote led me to believe that you come from money.”
“I lived with it,” she said. “I did not come from it.”
“So you lived with it. The Ewings had help. You told me that. There were things I expected I would have to teach you, so now I’m wondering how you learned to slay the dragon in a home where servants would have done it for you.”
Jane cocked her head to one side and regarded Morgan with a faintly mocking smile.
“You have misapprehended an important point,” she said.
“And it would be a disappointment for both of us, I think, if you married me for love of money. I have no claim to the Ewing fortune. None. In every way that was important, Morgan, I was a servant to Cousin Frances. There were appearances to be kept, and this was done. I accompanied the family to any event that Cousin Frances deemed appropriate and always had a place at the table. I had a foot in both worlds, but I was only truly welcome in one. So, yes, I can slay the dragon. Yours is smaller, newer, and less bad-tempered than one I am used to. Mrs. Shreve, the cook, was easy with a compliment, and she told me that I had the right touch, the right temperament, and knew all the right words when the situation called for them.”
“The right words?”
“Curse words.”
One of his eyebrows lifted. “Oh?”
She thought he seemed a little too interested and perhaps too impressed. “You probably know more. I do not take the name of the Lord in vain, even when provoked by the beast.”
“The dragon.”
“In Mrs. Shreve’s kitchen, we called her the beast.” Jane warmed her coffee by adding some from the pot.
“I find that I am still curious about your offer of marriage. You seemed to have imagined that I came from privilege. I don’t know why that would influence you to propose.
If it were true, I would be hopelessly ill prepared for Morning Star. ”
“You still are.”
“I won’t argue that point. It supports mine. I don’t understand why you did not continue corresponding with women whom you must have thought were better suited to this life.”
“You mean someone who did not hail from Fifth Avenue, New York City.”
“Yes. I understand it was not Rebecca’s photograph that persuaded you because we had not yet exchanged pictures, but you told me that you wrote back to the other respondents with the express purpose of ending the exchange. It seems to me that you cut them off rather precipitously.”
Morgan set his forearms on the table on either side of his plate. He leaned forward a fraction, never once taking his eyes from Jane. “That’s why,” he said.
She frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“You write like you talk, or maybe it’s that you talk like you write.
I figured you for an educated female, and I liked the idea of it right off.
What I know I mostly learned on my own, and I have no objection to learning more.
It’s possible that someday you’ll hear me say ‘precipitously’ like it belongs in my mouth same as it belongs in yours. ”
Jane opened her mouth to speak and all her fine words failed her. When that happened, she simply shook her head.