Chapter 4 #3
Halder seemed content with my work. I started to think that perhaps he was simply not very exacting, until I handed him a Necrophila rufithorax where the elytron was not sufficiently truncated—at least, that’s what I think he yelled—and he flung it back at me with a curt order to do it again, correctly this time.
I slunk back to the studio, feeling about three inches tall, and spent an entire day doing sketches of the sample beetles in the case, wondering what an elytron was.
I thought it might be the wing case? Their wings varied a bit, as it turned out, so I simply picked one and set about duplicating it exactly.
Apparently the second time, it was sufficiently truncated, because Halder grunted, “Better,” and went back to his papers.
I still had no idea what a metathorax was.
My only break in the routine came on Sunday, when Mrs. Kent went to church.
She told me what time we were leaving in the morning, with an obvious assumption that of course I was coming, so I put on my best remaining dress and was ready at the appointed hour.
(Sunday service was mandatory at the school, of course.
I had rarely gone to church when Father was alive.
“Nature is better than any sermon,” he told me frequently, “and how better to honor the Lord than admiring His creation?” This was solid transcendentalist philosophy, though the fact that it allowed him to sleep in on Sundays and then go looking for interesting plants in the afternoon was not entirely lost on me.)
It was a Black church, and Jackson and I were the only white people there, but everyone greeted me kindly.
The service itself was brutally long, by my (admittedly lax) standards, but afterwards, there was an immense community meal.
Two older ladies, hearing that I was working for Halder, made pained noises and urged me to sit right down next to them, poor child, how was I holding up?
Their sympathy was far more comforting than I expected.
Mrs. Kent was one of those aggressively competent souls who make you feel less competent simply by comparison, and while Jackson was entertaining company, I only saw him at dinner and sometimes not even then.
Having two people ask, with every evidence of genuine interest, how I was managing in that big empty house with that peculiar man—good heavens, the stories they could tell!
—and nobody but Rose Kent to talk to—not a word against Rose, no, certainly not, but such a serious girl …
“Not that anyone wouldn’t be serious,” the one on the right said, “with her poor mother going the way she did.”
“Lost her memory,” the one on the left said to me, “the poor dear. Would get lost in her own house by the end. Of course poor Rose couldn’t move her, so she was stuck there, working for that doctor. Even after his poor wife—”
Her companion slapped her on the arm with a napkin, interrupting the torrent of poors. “Jackson, good to see you!” she sang out.
“I see Miss Wilson has found the two loveliest ladies here,” Jackson said, sitting down at the table opposite me.
Both of them laughed and all three embarked on an intense discussion of the weather as it related to gardening, which was doubtless satisfying for the participants, but left me with a severe case of gossipus interruptus.
Even after his poor wife what? Died? Left? Ran off to Paris to become a burlesque dancer?
… Was drained by blood thieves?
Since I wasn’t going to get answers, I settled on getting a second helping of pulled pork, which was almost as satisfying.
I hadn’t realized that I’d been feeling lonely and a bit cast down until we left and I realized that I felt better.
(It didn’t hurt that I was stuffed full of incredible food.) I leaned back against the bench of the wagon and closed my eyes, soaking in the spring sunlight and thinking that I had probably made the right choice in taking this job after all.
The sunlight, alas, did not last. Rain blew up that night and continued for three days.
I huddled in the studio while rain splatted against the windows and wind rattled the doors.
It was not nearly as windy as Wilmington had been, so the rattling didn’t bother me, although the thrashing branches on the nearby trees rather did.
Jackson assured me that this “warn’t nothin’” and then regaled me with tales of past storms that had brought down massive oaks and how he had personally had to chop apart a tree with a trunk “near as tall as Sally here.”
Sally giggled. Jackson mimed swinging an axe. “Took two days,” he said proudly. “Had to cut it in two places and then hitch up Buckshot and roll the damn thing out of the way.”
“And spent four days afterward laying around moaning ’cause you couldn’t lift your arms over your head,” said Mrs. Kent tartly, sliding hotcakes onto her husband’s plate. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten that bit.”
Jackson blew her a kiss and grinned, unrepentant.
I felt a stab of envy for them both. It would be nice to have someone else who was always on my side.
My father had been, of course, but years alone had only softened the edges of that pain, not erased it.
I lingered in the kitchen, running my finger around the edge of my coffee mug, reluctant to leave that oasis of light and warmth for the cold, watery light of the studio.
Jackson pushed back from the table, then paused. “Oh, Miss Wilson. I’ll be going into town once I can ride instead of swim, and if there’s aught you need me to pick up for you at the general store, just let me know.”
“I would love that,” I said, “but I’m afraid I … err…” I lifted my hands helplessly. I didn’t have enough money for more than penny candy, and probably not much of that.
“Which reminds me,” said Mrs. Kent, wiping her hands on her apron. “It’s the end of the month tomorrow, and you’re due your pay.”
“I am?” I said, heard the questioning note in my voice, and tried again. “I mean, I am, yes.” Jackson chuckled at that, but his wife gave him a quelling look.
“You are, and don’t think I’ll let that tightfist upstairs forget it,” she said. “Jackson takes the wage money out of the bank when he’s there, so if there’s something you want, he’ll bring you the change.”
“Without so much as a broker’s fee,” he promised.
“I would love enough fabric for a new dress,” I said, with real longing. “It doesn’t have to be fancy, but just so I’m not wearing the same two all the time.”
“Pfff,” said Mrs. Kent. “Is that all? If you don’t mind dressing like Sally and me, there’s still uniforms in storage from the days when we had a full staff here.
” She eyed me. “You can probably alter one or two to fit you, if you’re decent with a needle, and if not, I know a lady who can do it for a fair price. ”
“I can do it.”
“Then find me when I’m finished here, and I’ll take you to see what we’ve got.”
An hour later, Mrs. Kent led me to a back corner of the house, lighting candles as we went.
It was clear that this was not regularly visited.
The air smelled of floor wax. We stepped into a storeroom which, while neatly kept, was clearly where household goods went to die.
There were neat rows of storm windows lining one wall and folded stacks of furniture covers, but there were also chairs that needed the seats re-caned, spare tin ceiling tiles, and enough chamber pots to accommodate a small weak-bladdered army.
Mrs. Kent threaded her way through these piles to a closet with double doors. The smell of mothballs rolled out, and she lifted a candle, revealing long shelves covered in fabric.
“Good heavens,” I said blankly, staring at the rows of folded dresses and aprons. “You could dress every girl back at the school twice over.”
“Supposed to be a dozen servants here,” said Mrs. Kent, “just for the house itself.” She leaned against the doorjamb. “That’s why the whole place is in dustcovers. Can’t keep it up, just with me and Sally. It’s all we can do just to air everything and make sure it doesn’t go to mold and mildew.”
I shook my head. “It’s such a big house. Why aren’t there more people?”
Mrs. Kent snorted. “The doctor hasn’t got that many friends, nor family either.”
“Yet he built this place…” I glanced over my shoulder, down the hall, at all the closed doors. Behind them, furniture slept under sheets and wallpaper faded quietly in the sun. “I wonder why?”
“It wasn’t his money that built it,” Mrs. Kent muttered, then snapped her mouth closed as if she regretted saying so much.
“Anyway, pick out anything close to your size and leave it outside your door. I’ll see that it’s washed and ready for altering.
” She turned away, her heels clicking on the boards, before I could ask whose money had built the house, and where exactly that money had come from.
“Jackson?”
Rain had given way at last to a clear, pleasant morning, and I tracked Mr. Kent down in the vegetable garden just outside the formal grounds.
He looked up from where he was staking up tomato plants that had flopped over in the rain.
“Hey there, Miss Wilson. Thought of what you need from town? I’ll be going this afternoon. ”
“Indeed.” I proffered a short list.
“… Ah,” he said, making no move to take it. “Should have warned you, miss. I’m not much good with my letters.”
“Oh!” I put a hand over my mouth, embarrassed. “I’m sorry!”
He chuckled. “No, no, no need to fash yourself. My letters are bad but my memory’s top-notch. Just you tell me what you want and I’ll go looking.”
“Socks,” I said with a sigh. “I cannot knit socks to save my life. Tooth powder. And … er…” I scuffed one foot in the rich earth just off the garden path.
A small green weed had poked its head up, and was promptly flattened, although it looked like plantain, and nothing keeps plantain down for long.
“If they happen to have some penny candy…”