Light changes everything, p.7
Light Changes Everything, page 7
We turned toward home when the sun was getting low. She had another event to dress for and I had lessons to write and plates to develop.
I loved my photography classes. I stayed busy studying and developing pictures. Next semester we would learn more developing techniques, the teacher said, that would correct the lights and shadows. It was turning fall, some said, and the trees looked like they’d caught fire. If only the plates could catch that color. I knew the only way to get that was to study harder on my colors and painting. Someday I’d figure it all out and be able to paint it, too.
I wrote Aubrey and thanked him for the money and the deed to the ranch. I assured him I would keep it safely under lock and key. I sent him prints of my best plates. I wanted him to be proud of what I could do. By the end of the month there was a snap in the air, and it wasn’t even November. People burned leaves and it made a dreadful smell, yet girls all around claimed they loved the scent of it. To me it smelled like my cousin’s Grandpa Chess’s old cigar with added mold.
Prairie invited me to go with her friends on a horseless carriage ride. That boy Nation Hollingsworth jumped on the running board on my side and hung there like a mail sack the whole time. Every now and then he’d have to get a better grip because we bumped along some rutted road or other, and when he did, he always managed to brush the back of his hand against my arm. I had on a nice coat, but I felt the touch of his arm through it, likely because the intent behind it was to get his hands on me. I reckoned—I believed I wasn’t sure whether that felt like a compliment or a pestilence.
The end of the first week of November, there was snow. It was so beautiful; a dust across the land, like when Ma sprinkled sugar across doughnuts or cake. If only there was a way to paint the trees, still holding tightly to their bright leaves in all the colors I could imagine, and include the sugaring of snow. I was struggling with colors in class still. I just could not figure how you could mix one red with blue and get purple and another red with blue and get brown, and still another red with another blue and get black. I painted and painted. We had to do two small works every week and turn them in, even if they were horrible. It was a blue ribbon day for me when one came back with a C- on it, instead of D or F.
The painting teacher fussed at me for outlining things because there was no black in nature, but I’ve seen a black horse and a black dog, and Duende’s mane was blacker than coal, so I felt as if he was not looking at color the way I was. The fact remained that even though at home among my folks I seemed to have a hand at drawing things, like my uncle Harland used to do, getting a rein around theories of colorization and shadow, mixing paint, sketching perspectives and all was not as easy as I had imagined when I signed on for this schooling.
The second week of November came with more snow and a blistering wind that made riding a chore. I hated the way the snow hit my face like needles. I spent two dollars each on new blankets from the dry goods store but still shivered at night. I got up several times two nights in a row to put more coal in the heater.
I got another package from Aubrey. Inside, a stack of envelopes, all sealed and numbered. The number one envelope held a train ticket. Round trip. Leaving here on November twenty-third. It included a paid pass for a stage from Benson to Marsh Station near our house. The second envelope held three hundred dollars in cash. The third held a handwritten letter from him.
Dear Friend,
It is with great joy as well as tender sympathy that I write to inform you that your sister Rachel and I have found ourselves becoming the dearest and closest of friends. Since your first letter gave question to the breadth of your devotion to me, I discovered that Rachel and I share a likeliness of mind, of heart, and of intellect, and maturity. We have agreed to marry. She has made me that happiest of all men in accepting my suit. I trust you share in our felicities with the joy of knowing that as you have chosen a different path in your life, so I have found one that I believe is also right for me. I will make your sister the most blessed and cherished of all women. I pray you attend our wedding November twenty-sixth with nothing but joy for us.
I have found a train route to bring you home for a week’s visit that will include Thanksgiving Day on the twenty-eighth. If you can find someone there to take you the hour’s carriage drive to Chicago, in less than two days you will ride from Chicago to Santa Fe. Your connecting train will stop at Benson. From there the stage will get you home. It will also allow you to attend our most blessed event.
Your loving brother now and always, Aubrey
It must have been noon when I quit crying. I remember hearing a bell. I’d missed lunch and my class in watercolors. My toe was throbbing. I felt sick like I’d taken quinsy in an hour. Loving brother? Now and always? The train ticket was crushed and sweat-soaked. Prairie came in just then with a tray holding a bowl and a pitcher.
“Oh, you’re awake? Here, I brought more cold towels for your head.”
“I’m not sick.”
“Yes, you are. Heartsick is still sick. I apologize but I couldn’t help but read the letter when I picked it up off the floor.”
“I need to take off my shoes. I accidentally bent my knee under me all this time and my foot is swelling up.”
She looked puzzled, but helped me with the buttons. Two of them popped off by the time we got it off and my ankle was red and leathery-looking. “Oh, my goodness. What is wrong with your foot?”
I stared at my blasted toe and said, “That snakebite I told you about. I believe it will pain me all my life.” I turned to the mirror at the end of the dormitory and leaned my head toward it. “Prairie Amelia Longmore, my friend, I need clothes. New clothes, really nice ones. Where’d you come by that outfit you’re wearing?”
Prairie laughed and repeated, “Outfit? It’s called an ensemble,” then took my elbow and spun me around. “My mother will help us. I know just how you feel. Like you’d better go there looking gorgeous as a Greek statue and he’ll come to his senses.”
“Not exactly. I’d be glad to look like a Greek lady, but I don’t want some fellow who don’t want me.”
“You don’t want to make him jealous?”
“I want to make him sorry, and her, too. Just sorry as the day is long.” I didn’t know who’d be sorrier, though, them or me. I wanted nice new dresses because I wanted to look like a gloriously grown, wealthy, educated, and modern woman, so I could sneer at Rachel’s nearly an old maid, pecan farmer’s daughter’s clothes. I had money to spend and spend it I would. I asked her, “You’ve got classes later, don’t you?”
“That’s all right. Let’s go to town. Will your horse take two?”
“If you can straddle him in that skirt.”
That night after we shopped and shopped and I bought things off the racks because nothing could be made fast enough, I’d written Rachel a quick note, like you’d send congratulations, but it was just four words. What do you say to a sister who has schemed and twisted the heart of your betrothed away from you?
You wicked, conniving wretch.
Didn’t even sign it. She’d know. I had to go to the library dictionary and be sure I wrote the proper kind of wretch, the vicious “scraped from a cow stall” kind, not the “hanging over a rail” one. I mailed it in the morning, then I went to classes feeling haughty and brimming with righteous indignation. I wore new clothes and the other students noticed. Professors held doors open for me, and boys turned red in the neck when I passed them.
Today I felt sorry I’d sent it.
CHAPTER SIX
I spent the night at the Longmores’ home the day before leaving Illinois for home and left my horse with them. Mr. Longmore said he’d drive me to Chicago to catch the train. I felt haughty and I liked it. I wished that bumpkin brother of mine, Clover, had owned any notion of how to read the train schedules and maps. Then, instead of taking me ten days, it would have only taken two to get here. But, then, if he’d known it was so quick, and had told Ma and Pa, I’d have had to stay at home longer and, I thought with a catch, I’d probably have gotten married and never come. I knew in my heart it wasn’t that I never wanted to marry Aubrey Hanna. It was just that I wanted him to wait for me to go to school. I’d never been to a real school before, and it was all I imagined and more. I loved this place. I would be glad to go home and take up being a wife, if only he’d have waited for me.
Instead of having to work my horse every stop, I simply strolled and stretched my legs, tended my foot, and primped my hair. I spoke to no one but other ladies on the train and to Mr. Washington, the conductor, a prim-looking black gentleman. I felt safe speaking to him, and once when some other fellows took it on themselves to address me directly, Mr. Washington told them to leave me be or he’d get the engineer to throw them off in the desert. He told me this train went right up to Tucson, but Aubrey had calculated well, and it would be closer to get the two-hour stagecoach in Benson than to rent a horse and ride the seven hours home from Tucson. Of course, I kept my pistols with me, hidden under my handkerchiefs in my valise. I wanted to look like a lady, but I wanted to get home safe, too. What little I slept on the trip, I dreamed of being surrounded by snakes with only Mr. Washington between them and me.
When I got off the train and he wheeled my new trunk to the depot, I tipped him a ten-dollar bill, and he slid it into his pocket without even looking at it. I made a note of that; if somebody gives you some kind of bonus, take it gratefully and without counting.
The stagecoach stopped at Marsh Station, and just like I’d never missed a moment of time, I asked Señora Algodon for mail for Prines or Elliots and anyone else out our way. Shouldn’t have been surprised that she handed me my own letter to Rachel along with an implement catalog and a small box addressed to Aunt Sarah. As I rode in the coach the rest of the way, I imagined handing that letter to my sister and watching her open it. Imagined the hurt on her face. Venom filled my heart and tears filled my eyes. I wanted to watch Rachel crumple to the floor and weep for hours as I had done.
Tears dampened the front of my starched, white lawn blouse. At last, I tore that letter into bits smaller than a dime and dribbled them out the window. I had a trunk full of new or borrowed clothes, some taken in, some let out. I’d also brought three famous-looking hats with high feathers and broad brims that nearly touched my shoulders, and a fistful of footlong hat pins to keep them in place. I’d be doing no riding or working other than laundering all these fancy clothes while I was home. I had five pairs of new dainty gloves, a hairpiece with framework to balance the hats, an ermine muff with little black tails on it, and a fine trunk to carry them all safely.
The stage driver knew our place and knew our family, and when he saw a boy on a buckboard by the road up ahead, he pulled to a stop. There sat my littlest brother, Zachary, playing with a return-wheel toy off the side of an old swaybacked dray. Why on earth had he hitched up old Buster, when any of the younger horses would have been a better choice? Zack liked Buster, though, and used to play under his huge feet almost daring the horse to step on him. He didn’t even look up until the dust settled. I stepped out and the men on top handed down my trunk, a leather valise, and three hatboxes decorated with wallpaper and ribbons almost as gay as the hats inside.
“Zachary?” I called.
He looked up. “Hey, that’s me.”
“Well, help me with these bags,” I said.
“Lady, I’m awaiting for my sister from back east.” Then he jumped off Buster’s back, dropped his toy in the dirt, and whipped his hat off, covering his belly with it. “Wait a minute. Balderdash and Caledonia! Ma and Pa’r sure gonna be horn-swoggled. That ain’t really you, is it, Imp?”
“If you call me Imp ever again in your entire life, Zachary Prine, I’m telling Pa that you swore ‘Caledonia’ again. Just because you didn’t add ‘dammit to hell’ like usual, doesn’t mean it’s not swearing. He’s going to tan you good.”
“Well you sure enough look like a lady, not like any sister I ever saw.”
I smiled at him. “You don’t look much like any conductor I ever saw, either, Zack. We’ll need one of the big boys to get this trunk up there.”
He tugged at the trunk. “What you got in here, Maypole? Half the rocks in Kansas?”
“Illinois, not Kansas. Don’t drop it. It’s full of glass photographic plates.” I took off my fine gloves and helped him hoist the trunk, and hiked up my skirt to climb into the old buckboard. I wished he’d brought the family surrey instead. The seat looked dirty, and I could just imagine my smudged backside when I stood again. I settled my hat and pulled the gloves back on. “You drive, please. How do I look?”
“Too fancy. I want you to drive. I got this wheeler-upper to show you.” He pulled the wheel from his pocket and, pulling a string over his middle finger, proceeded to make it whip up and down on its own power. “I can do it all the way home without rewinding.”
“I promise to watch you do it this afternoon, and I’ll help you with your chores tomorrow, if you’ll drive. I don’t want to spoil my new gloves.”
He let out a long breath. “City girl now, reckon.”
“Just drive. Drive or I’ll kiss you.”
“Dammit to Caledonia.”
Mama kissed me and declared she had thought she’d never have seen me again, that I was running away for good and all. Pa just patted my shoulder and smiled. Rachel hugged me and I patted her on the back, but I didn’t return her kiss on the cheek. She said she was glad to see me, had been afraid I wouldn’t come. I couldn’t speak to answer her, and I smiled but not at her.
I felt Rebeccah’s hand on my arm as Rachel squeezed me to her bosom. Beccah said, “Come and turn around for us. You sure look different. All grown in just a couple of months. Where did you get this lovely gown? Did you make this? Tell me what you’re studying. I can’t wait to hear it.”
Rebeccah held my hand or petted me, staying close as can be even while I watched Zack showing off his returning wheel toy. Then he and Ezra helped me get my camera unloaded, along with the three dozen silver plates I’d brought, so we were occupied quite a while with that, and explaining it. Mama was amazed and kept looking at me as if I’d put on a mask and a costume. I suppose in a way, I had indeed. I practiced saying “I believe,” instead of “I reckon,” and the word “ain’t” was long gone from my use, too.
The next morning, Aubrey showed up in a fancy new carriage pulled by a team of four. He brought his pa and Aunt Sarah, and her boys rode horses, so the house was packed to the rafters with folks. I was glad for the noise. Glad to watch from a corner. I told them I was looking for a good time to take a photograph, but I was really trying not to lay eyes on that villain Aubrey Hanna or that evil snake in the grass, Rachel.
Pretty soon they held hands and said some vows to each other. Promenaded around the room kissing everyone in turn. I managed to hide behind first Rebeccah then Aunt Sarah, then Ezra, and I stayed busier than I needed to; if Rachel came near me I always thought of something I needed to check right away, so I wouldn’t have to pass words with her. I slipped into the kitchen saying, “I’ll get Ma’s cake.”
They ate cake, but I stayed behind my camera. I finally told the whole family to hold still and look toward me. Mama was beaming. Pa gave me a wink. Clover said he had to get some work done and I scolded him to hold his head right up. Just as I touched the flash, Mama said, “Is that going to burn a hole in my rug?” and so her mouth was sure to be blurred in the photograph.
“No, Ma, this is the low-flash kind.”
I had been warned by my teachers that it is nearly unheard of to get that many people to hold still for ninety seconds. Under any normal situation, though, there wouldn’t be a single photograph, or maybe just one of the married couple after they’d taken up house or had a child.
After a while of it, I felt so tired of hiding and smiling I could barely keep from sobbing in front of them all, and I decided to take my camera equipment to the outside of the house. I loved this house, and maybe I’d take a good plate of it, and maybe when I was done with school I’d use Aubrey’s money to build me a house just like it next to Mama and Papa on the Wainbridge land.
Clover stood by my side, asking questions of everything I did. Then he said, “Want to see my new shelling machine? It’d make a fine photograph.” He carried my camera under one arm and a box of plates under the other. “You spent some cash on this stuff, didn’t you?”
“Some fool sent me some. Bought me off.”
“No, it ain’t like that.”
“What do you mean?” I squinted at his face. “You knew he was courting our sister, and that he planned to send me money?” He looked purely ashamed. I asked, “Is Rachel having a baby?”
“What a thing to say about your own sister.”
“I got plenty of other things to say about her. Why else?”
“I’m just saying, take what comes. Don’t fight what is already done. It ain’t our way.”
“Your way, you mean. You older ones got all the lessons. All I got was ‘Mary Pearl, mind Ezra. Mary Pearl change Zachary’s diaper. Mary Pearl, the boys are in the sugar barrel.’ Anyhow, I’m not fighting it. If he wants a wretched hussy who’d steal her own sister’s beau, he can have her and I’ll have no pity for either of them.” My chin hurt with the effort of holding tears back.
Clove looked at the floor and breathed in and out loudly. “Take a look at my machine here. I was hoping you’d make a plate of it.” He started up the sheller, and the air filled with brown haze and the smell of pecan shells that had perfumed my entire life.
At that moment I realized how far I had traveled away from this place. I couldn’t get a photograph of the machine while it was running so I made only one plate and said, “Clove, you better apply for a patent. I’ll send you a print so you can.” He grinned as he shut it down. “Leave the box here and tomorrow I’ll take another when the light comes in that door. The sun’s going down. It’s dark and I’m low on flash powder.”
