Vows

  "Emily…" He moved toward her.

  "I've got to go." She opened the door quickly.

  "Wait."

  "You know what Papa said."

  "Yes, I know what Papa said but Papa isn't here now."

  Advancing, he thumped the door closed and positioned himself between it and her. He hooked an elbow around her neck and drew her lightly against him, resting one bruised cheek against her floppy wool cap. In a husky voice he said, "I think it's a damn good thing I'm so bruised up or we'd be in a peck of trouble here."

  Oh, his smell. A little musky, a little mussed, a little male, the natural scent of skin and hair aged by one night. Thank God for gloves, she thought, with her own resting against his hard white bindings, inches from his bare chest. She wanted nothing more than to touch all of him that was naked, to learn his texture with her bare fingertips. While she steadfastly refrained, he slipped his hand up inside the back of her jacket and pulled her lightly against him, lazily rubbing her spinal column through a rough flannel shirt. He explored her slowly, his hand moving up, as if counting each vertebra, gently urging her closer. A warm hard hand, a warm hard man—how easy it would be to succumb to both.

  Her heartbeat hearkened and her breasts felt heavy.

  "Thomas…" she whispered in warning.

  "Don't go," he begged softly. "It's the first time without Charles between us. Don't go."

  She felt it, too, the easing of constraint upon their consciences since her engagement was formally broken. But constraints took other forms, and she drew back reluctantly. "I can't come here anymore, not to your house. We have almost ten months to wait, and that's too long. I have to go," she repeated, backing away from him.

  He watched her walk backward till her shoulders bumped the door. They gazed at each other with frustrated desire drawing long lines upon their faces.

  He moved toward her slowly, and her heartbeats seemed to fill her throat. But he only reached behind her for the doorknob. Opening the door for her he said softly, "Let me know how it goes with Tarsy."

  "I will."

  * * *

  At ten o'clock that morning Tarsy answered the door herself, wearing a trim-bodiced dress of candy-pink stripes with flattering shoulder-to-navel tucks that minimized her dainty waist, and a generous gathered skirt that exaggerated her rounded hips.

  Emily wore the same clothes in which she'd fed Tom's horses and cleaned his stalls—a wool jacket, trousers, and soiled leather boots.

  Tarsy's hair was freshly curled and caught up on the back of her head with a matching pink ribbon.

  Emily's was jammed up inside her brother's floppy wool cap.

  Tarsy smelled of lavender soap.

  Emily smelled of horse dung.

  Tarsy turned up her pretty nose. "Phew!"

  Apologetically, Emily left her boots outside the door and stepped into the front entry stocking-footed. Mrs. Fields arrived from the kitchen, her hands coated with flour. "Well, Emily, for goodness sake, this is a surprise. We hardly ever see you this early in the day." She was a buxom woman with wavy blond hair done up in a French twist, the only woman Emily had ever known who wore cheek paint in her kitchen and scented herself at this hour of the day. The smell of honeysuckle toilet water wafted in with her, covering that of yeast from the dough on her fingers.

  "Hello, Mrs. Fields."

  "How is your father?"

  "Fine."

  "And Miss Cooper?"

  "Fine."

  "Will she be leaving soon, going back East?"

  Emily detected a bit of nosiness and took pleasure in replying, "No, ma'am. She's staying."

  "Oh." Mrs. Fields's left eyebrow elevated.

  "She has no family back there. Why should she?"

  Mrs. Fields allowed her eyebrow to settle to its normal level and blinked twice, as if taken aback by Emily's quick defense of Fannie.

  "Well … I thought that since your mother is gone—may she rest in peace—Miss Cooper's services would no longer be needed."

  "On the contrary, we all need her very badly and begged her to stay. You see, I've decided to continue my veterinary studies after all, and to work at … at the stables indefinitely, so I'm abandoning most of the domestic duties to Fannie. I just don't know what we'd do without her anymore."

  Mrs. Field's mouth drew up as if she were attempting to pick up a coin with her lips. "I see." She flashed a glance at Tarsy, then added, "Well, give your family my best," and returned to the kitchen.

  When she was gone, Tarsy took Emily's arm and turned her toward the steps. "Come upstairs and see the new piece of organdy that Mama's going to make into a spring gown for me. It's called pistachio—whatever that means!—and we've decided on the most absolutely smashing design from the latest issue of Graham's. Mama has agreed to let me have a soiree here—don't you just love the word?—soiree…" Reaching the top of the steps, Tarsy lifted her skin in two fingers and performed a dipping swirl toward her bedroom door. Whisking through it, she caught up a piece of green fabric from the tufted stool before her vanity. Petting it, she swung back to Emily. "Isn’t it de-luscious?"

  Emily dutifully touched the organdy with a knuckle that hadn't been washed since she'd been handling a pitchfork, gazing down absently in a way that Tarsy took for longing.

  "Oh, poor Emily, I just don't know how you'll tolerate wearing black for a whole year. I would simply wither away and die if it were me. Maybe someday you can sneak up here and try on my pistachio gown after it's made up!"

  Emily remained stone sober. "It's very nice, Tarsy, but I have to talk to you about something important."

  "Important?" Tarsy's brow wrinkled delicately: what could be more important than a new gown of pistachio organdy for a soiree?

  "Yes."

  "Very well." Tarsy obediently laid the cloth aside and plunked onto the foot of the bed in a billow of pink skirts, her folded hands lost in her lap.

  Emily dropped onto the tufted stool facing her friend, wondering how to begin.

  "Well?" Tarsy's hands flashed, then disappeared once more into the folds of her skirt.

  "I've decided not to marry Charles."

  "Not to…" Tarsy's jaw dropped. Her eyes widened. "But, Emily, you and Charles are … are … well, heavens! You two simply go together … ham and eggs! Peaches and cream!"

  "Not really."

  "He's absolutely going to die when you tell him."

  "He already knows."

  "He does?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, what did he say?"

  "He was very angry … and hurt."

  "Well, I imagine so." Tarsy plucked fussily at the peaks of her skirt. "My goodness, you two have known each other forever. What reason did you give?"

  "The true one, that I love him more as a brother than as a husband."

  Tarsy considered, then lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "But how do you know, Emily, when you've never … I mean…" Tarsy shrugged and gave Emily an ingenuous gaze. "You never have…" Her head jutted forward. "…have you?"

  Emily colored, but answered, "No."

  "Well then, maybe you'd feel different." Hurriedly she added, "After you're married, I mean."

  "No, I won't. I'm sure of it."

  "But how do you know?"

  "Because…" Emily clamped her palms between her knees and forged on. "I know now what it feels like when you really love somebody."

  Tarsy's face lit like a gas jet. Her eyebrows shot up and her expression turned avid as she bent forward. "Oh, Emily … who?"

  How ironic it felt to be confronting a woman of Tarsy's pulchritude: the ugly duckling telling the swan she had won the drake. Ironic and frightening. Emily's heart felt as if it would flop clear out of her body as she answered steadily, "Tom."

  "Tom?" Tarsy repeated in a faint, colorless vice. Her face flattened and she straightened cautiously, reluctant to assimilate the truth.

  "Yes, Tom."

  "Tom Jeffcoat?" Tarsy's pretty mouth distorted.

/>   "Yes."

  "But he's—" She stopped herself just short of adding, mine. Nevertheless it reverberated in the air between the two women. Tension suddenly buzzed as Emily watched Tarsy struggle to understand. A gamut of reactions fleeted across her face—disbelief, doubt, and finally amusement. Flinging her arms high, Tarsy fell back onto the bed, throwing her breasts into prominence—a woman who believed she had no competition from this unfeminine, board-chested veterinarian who didn't know diddly-squat about charm, enticement, or flirting. What man would prefer a woman who boldly admitted hating housework and disdaining babies? Not that Tarsy herself was any too anxious to embrace either, but Tom would never guess the truth until she was comfortably sleeping in his bed nights.

  "You? Oh, Emily…" Supine, Tarsy laughed at the ceiling till the mattress bounced. Then she braced up on an elbow, catching a jaw on one shoulder. Her blond hair cascaded over one arm and her bewitching eyes took on a gleam of confidence. "Emily, if you want a man like Tom Jeffcoat to notice you you'll have to trade your smelly boots for button-top shoes and learn to curl your hair and wear dresses instead of those wretched pants." Tarsy fell back onto both elbows, once again throwing her breasts into relief. She set her legs swinging and decided to be generous with her advice. "And it wouldn't hurt you to wear a corset that … well, you know … sort of helps you out a little up here. And as for admitting that you don't like housework and you don't want b—"

  "I'm going to marry him, Tarsy."

  Tarsy's legs stopped swinging. Her lips clamped shut and her face blanched. The room held a knotty silence before Emily continued as kindly as possible.

  "I wanted to be the one to tell you before you found out from someone else, and chances are you would have the minute you left the house."

  "You … marry Tom!" Tarsy snapped erect, her face pale. "Don't be absurd! Why the two of you couldn't recite the Pledge of Allegiance without fighting over it!"

  "He asked me and I said yes. We told Charles together last night and the two of them had a terrible fistfight, which you're also bound to find out. I'm really sorry, Tarsy. We didn't mean to—"

  "Why you two-faced, conniving bitch!" Tarsy shrieked, leaping off the bed. "How dare you!" She swung full-force, slapping Emily's face so hard it knocked her sideways, teetering the vanity stool.

  Emily's heart contracted with shock and fright. Stunned, she righted herself on the seat and stared while Tarsy's face turned unattractively rubicund. "I wanted him and you knew it! You knew I planned to marry him and you plotted to get him from me all the while, didn't you! You milked me for personal privileged information!" Enraged, Tarsy threw herself around the bedroom while Emily, who never witnessed female anger of such magnitude, sat too stupefied to move. Gripping her temples, Tarsy raved, "Urrrr! You low … cunning…" She swung about abruptly, nosing Emily backward on the bench. "You let me tell you things I never would have told anyone else. Never!" Suddenly she backed off with a malevolent sneer, dropping her hands onto her hips. "Well, how's this for privileged information, Miss Judas Walcott! What I convinced you of a few months ago was nothing but a convenient lie. You may be a virgin, but I'm not! I did it! With your precious Tom Jeffcoat, who wouldn't take no for an answer! Take that to your wedding bed and sleep with it!" Reveling in her malevolence, Tarsy tossed her head and gave a spiteful laugh. "Go on, marry him and see if I care! If Tom Jeffcoat wants a freak who dresses like a man and smells like horse apples, he can have you! You're exactly what he deserves! Huh! You probably haven't got the right equipment to make him babies anyway!" Tarsy's expression turned hateful. "Now get out! … Get out!" She grabbed Emily's jacket and jerked her roughly to her feet, then thrust her through the doorway.

  "Girls, girls, girls!" Mrs. Fields arrived, puffing, at the top of the stairs. "What's all this shouting about?"

  "Out!" Tarsy screeched, shoving Emily past her mother, bumping her against the handrail and down two steps.

  Emily grasped the rail to keep from tumbling to the bottom. "Tarsy, you're not being fair. I wanted us to talk about it and—"

  "Don't you ever speak to me again! And you can tell that toad-sucking swine Tom Jeffcoat that I wouldn't cast him so much as a moldy crumb if he was starving to death at your kitchen table, which he'll be soon enough, since you don't know the first pathetic thing about cooking! But he'll learn that, too, won't he, along with the fact that all you care about is stupid animals! Well, go! What are you waiting for, standing there like a moron with your mouth hanging open. Get out of my house!"

  Demoralized, Emily fled. Racing from Tarsy's yard, she gulped back tears and bit back tardy rejoinders, holding her hurt inside until she could find privacy to do her crying alone. But where? Fannie was at home. Papa was at their own livery.

  She went to Tom's livery barn, inside the building with the sign on the door saying, "Closed for the day," into the familiar scent of hay and horses and liniment and leather, where she mounted the stairs to his loft and sank down into the hay. At first she sat as stoically as an Indian before a council fire, doubling her knees up tightly against her chest and hugging them hard in an effort to relieve the tight band of misery that seemed as if it would crack her ribs. She rocked in slight short thrusts, staring dry-eyed while the hurt pinched her vocal cords and stung her nose and throat. Deep within, minute trembles shook her belly and tensed her thighs. She pulled them tighter to her chest and, as the avalanche of misery descended, dropped her forehead to her knees.

  She wept bitterly—hurt, degraded, demoralized.

  I thought you were my friend, Tarsy. But friends don't hurt each other this way, not on purpose.

  While racking sobs filled the hayloft and shook Emily's shoulders, she heard again and again Tarsy's abasing evaluation. A flat-chested freak who dresses like a man and smells like horse apples and probably hasn't got the right equipment to make babies anyway. A moron.

  Hurt piled upon hurt as Emily realized Tarsy's friendship had been false all along. Today she had revealed her true feelings, but how many times had Tarsy secretly laughed behind her back, ridiculed, derided, probably even among their crowd of mutual friends?

  But as if the vindictive assessment were not enough, Tarsy had exacted her revenge by imparting one last pernicious arrow, and this one aimed straight at Emily's heart.

  She and Tom had been lovers after all.

  Emily wept till her entire body hurt, until she fell to one side, clutched her belly, and curled into a tight, wretched ball. Tarsy and Tom, together. Why should it hurt so much to know? But it did. It did! Knowing was different from speculating. Oh, Tarsy, why did you tell me?

  She wept until her entire frame ached from recoiling, until her face was swollen, her cheek raw from rubbing against the scratchy hay, and her stomach muscles hurt to be touched. When the worst was over she lay listless, shaken by leftover sobs, staring at her own limp hand lying knuckles-down in the hay. She closed her eyes, opened them again because, closed, they stung. How long had she been here? Long enough to be missed. But she remained, weighted by an apathy more immense than any she had experienced before, studying her hand, dully opening and closing her fingers for no reason that came to mind.

  In time her thoughts clarified.

  Perhaps the men's way was more civilized after all. A swift, clean fistfight would have been preferable to this insidious, long-term venom inflicted by Tarsy's words. Emily understood now why the men had fought. If it were possible she would do it herself, go back to Tarsy's and take ten smacks on the chin and crack a couple ribs, then go home and lick her wounds as the men were doing today. Instead, she would live for years festering with the knowledge of her own shortcomings as a woman, and of Tom's sexual predilection for another. Emily sighed, closed her eyes, and rolled to her back, hands lax near her ears.

  Tarsy, and Tom had been lovers.

  Forget it.

  How?

  I don't know, but you must, or Tarsy will have won.

  She has won and both us will know it on my weddi
ng night.

  * * *

  She took her heartache to Fannie, whom she found in the kitchen, making chicken noodle soup.

  "F—Fannie, can I talk to you?"

  Fannie turned from the stove where she was dropping noodles into a pot of boiling broth.

  Try though she might, Emily could not hold her tears back. They began falling as her face crumpled.

  "Dearling, what is it?" Dusting off her hands, Fannie hurried toward Emily.

  "Oh, Fannie…" Emily went gratefully into the older woman's arms. "It's Tarsy." Some moments passed before Emily could continue. "I just came from her house. I told her I'm going to marry Tom and she … she turned so hateful. Oh, Fannie, she sl—slapped me and c—called me the most awful names. I thought she was my f—friend."

  "She was. She is."

  Emily shook her head. "Not anymore. She said t—terrible things to me, things to deliberately hurt me."

  Fannie's own heart ached for Emily. Holding her, she loved her with a maternal intensity, simply because she was Edwin's flesh and blood. She felt privileged to be able to share Edwin's children, even through such a painful ordeal as this.

  "What did she say?"

  Emily poured out her hurt, eliminating nothing. By the time she ended, her face and eyes were freshly swollen from weeping. "I just don't understand how she could have t—turned on me so. I know she loves Tom. I know that, and I was sorry to have to … to hurt her, but the things she said to me were malicious, meant to inflict as much pain as they could."

  "Ah, dearling, growing up is hard, isn't it?" Fannie cradled and rocked the young woman who, given other circumstances, might have been her own daughter. "So you've paid a price already for your love and you're asking yourself if he's worth it." She gently pushed Emily back to look into her streaming eyes. "Is he?" she inquired softly.

  "I thought so … before today."

  "What you must do, dearling, is weigh the gain of him against the loss of Tarsy. You knew she would be hurt, didn't you, even before you told her?"

  "Yes, but she had changed so much. I thought she'd grown up and become, become…" Emily found it hard to delineate the recent changes in Tarsy. "The way she helped at the funeral, the way she'd stopped dramatizing everything. I liked the new Tarsy. I thought I had a friend for life."