The Ballad of Hattie Taylor Page 8

  Hattie had been in a state before his arrival. When Jake finished furnishing her with information covering every single thing worrying her, she was almost giddy with relief. Her stomach still hurt dreadfully, but she could cope with the pain now she knew it wouldn’t kill her. Jake said there was medicine at the house to help ease her discomfort, collected her mostly dry knickers, and, back turned, handed them to her to pull on over the pad he’d made.

  The medicine turned out to be a cordial glass filled nearly to the brim with straight whiskey, which burned her throat and made her cough. But it exploded warmly in her stomach and eased the awful pain gripping her innards. He assisted her slightly tipsy progress to her room and left her there, promising to send his mother.

  A chastened Augusta entered Hattie’s room a short while later. Jacob had lit into her furiously, and quite deservedly, she admitted. She couldn’t help feeling, however, there was something else behind his unexpected tirade.

  She hoped he wasn’t changing his mind about him and Jane-Ellen living with her for the next year while he established his practice. True, no one had to twist his arm to gain his acceptance to Augusta’s proposal, and his manner toward the family females was as it had always been.

  Yet she couldn’t help but sense a new tension in him since his marriage. All newlyweds underwent a period of adjustment, of course, but Jake and Jane-Ellen had been married nearly a year. All Augusta knew for sure was that Jacob didn’t laugh as frequently as he used to, so perhaps his sudden dip in humor was because he was chafing beneath the lack of privacy.

  She mentally shrugged as she gazed at the young girl she’d let down. She’d address Jacob’s mood swings later. A more immediate apology needed to be made.

  * * *

  —

  One would never guess Augusta was in the throes of a dilemma the next day if they saw her sitting serenely in her parlor, her face tranquil as she sipped her tea. But what in heaven’s name was she going to do about Hattie’s friendship with Moses? It was quite improper, now Hattie was officially a young woman.

  Augusta knew she should put an immediate stop to it before the child’s reputation was further damaged. As things stood, in the year Hattie had been here, she had yet to be fully accepted. A continuing friendship with the Marks boy now that Hattie was budding so rapidly into womanhood would only serve to alienate her further. Past a certain age, it was unheard of for a young man and woman to associate beyond a rigorously structured social setting. A setting that was carefully approved and chaperoned by responsible adults.

  Quite rightly so, Augusta had always believed. And yet . . .

  Moses was Hattie’s only friend. The other young women in their social circle avoided her assiduously and, worse, carried tales home to their parents. Just envisioning her young ward’s loneliness should Augusta insist on terminating Hattie’s one and only friendship made her heart ache. Upon reflection, it also made her angry. No, it wasn’t proper that a boy was Hattie’s only friend. But neither, in Augusta’s opinion, was total isolation. Hattie was gregarious and sweet, given half a chance. Unfortunately, that was something she hadn’t been given in this town, except by Moses and the ranching community. And unfortunately, the latter didn’t signify, if Hattie was to find a place in the society they moved in.

  If Augusta did the proper thing, she knew perfectly well what Hattie’s reaction would ultimately be. She was a headstrong girl who could only practice piano so many hours, only take so many solitary horseback rides. Sooner or later she’d rebel.

  Plus, Moses Marks was a likable, presentable young pup, far more agreeable than a good many young women in this town. Yes, better by far if Augusta allowed their friendship to continue in the open where she could maintain supervision. Better than risking driving it underground where ideas thus far not even considered had an opportunity to flourish.

  But, Lord, it was easier raising a boy! How unfair that males could get away with worlds more than girls. God knew, it wouldn’t be Moses Marks the town whispered about if Augusta failed as a diligent overseer of the boy’s friendship with her ward. No, indeed. It was Hattie’s reputation that would tatter beyond repair. Yet Augusta felt she had to take that chance. She was quite sure having no one at all to call friend would destroy something vital in Hattie.

  Please, God, help me guide that sweet child past the pitfalls of the next few years.

  Then let her fondest wish be realized. Let Hattie someday find someone who would love her the way Augusta’s Luke had once loved her. The way Jacob loved his Jane-Ellen.

  * * *

  —

  The way Jacob loved Jane-Ellen changed during the next several years. He had known the newly-in-love feeling couldn’t last forever. But he’d expected it to gradually grow into something deeper, like the relationship he’d witnessed between his parents.

  When Jane-Ellen repudiated an entire aspect of him, his love for her changed in directions he’d never envisioned. He pitied her for harboring such fear. He also resented it. And it wasn’t always possible to rationalize away the pain her rejection caused or to take the sympathetic view. He was a man, dammit, a healthy, virile man. He hungered for a night with a woman who actually enjoyed that aspect, instead of fearing it. The best he could manage was accepting the fact he and Jane-Ellen had created false ideals of each other. Ideal mates who never existed outside their imaginations.

  But Jake’s love, once given, wasn’t easily abandoned. He was hurt. He was sorry for Jane-Ellen’s terror of intimacy. And he was angry. None of his needs were being met, but how could they be when his wife had no concept of desire? But he was bullheaded—a fighter who refused to relinquish his feelings without first giving their marriage his all.

  Most of his life he’d been spoiled by women. He genuinely appreciated them and learned early how easily they were pleased by simple kindnesses and honest praise, traits that fostered their appreciation in return. So, since his first full day as a husband, he’d attempted to make what had worked for him in the past work for him now. He courted Jane-Ellen as assiduously after the wedding as he had before it. She was affectionate, sweet, and appreciative of his efforts. But it didn’t change the fact that as each evening edged toward bedtime, her conversation grew forced, and she tensed up and suffered an inordinate number of headaches.

  Jake thought buying their own home might make a difference, but his wife panicked at the mere suggestion. Jane-Ellen didn’t want to leave Augusta’s. With newfound cynicism, he decided she probably enjoyed the relative security of knowing he couldn’t bother her during the day there. He began to spend less time at home, putting long hours into first establishing, then growing his law practice or going out to the ranch to exhaust himself with hard physical activity.

  For more than four years he remained faithful. But the day arrived when he relinquished his last hope of making his wife desire him in any physical sense. In the last two years, it had become increasingly apparent that sexual matters between them were never going to change. He’d nonetheless hoped that, as was the case of the new century—bombastically coined an era of peace, prosperity, and progress—his personal life would also miraculously flourish. But he finally grew tired of waiting for changes that were never going to happen. Hell, he was tired of it all. Tired of catering to Jane-Ellen’s fears; tired of denying his own needs; tired of feeling like a monster in his own bed. Until one night he finally said the hell with it and began frequenting Mamie Parker’s establishment again.

  Shortly after that, he realized he was happiest at the ranch. For as long as he could remember, he’d prepared to be an attorney. It was what his father had wanted for him, and as the child of a rancher, Jake, too, had dreamed of a sophisticated career in town.

  But the boyhood fancy held little satisfaction for the man he’d become. There were moments he still loved practicing the law. More often, however, he felt stifled by the confines of his office. Ultimately, the da
y came when he walked into his suite of offices, sat down in his leather chair, and, seeing the spring day beckoning outside the window, knew he didn’t want to do this for the next thirty years. He made arrangements to turn all except a few select clients over to the partner he’d taken on the previous year. He’d retain his license and practice in a limited capacity. But he’d do so from the ranch. He was going back to what he loved best.

  He informed Jane-Ellen of his decision that evening and told her to pack her bags.

  “Just like that?” she demanded. “No discussion?”

  “Just like that,” he agreed coolly. Frequenting whores had satisfied his body for a brief time but left him feeling hollow to the core. His law practice still provided an occasional thrill, yet mostly left him feeling like a caged wild animal.

  This, at least, was something he could arrange to suit his needs—and nothing was going to stop him. “If you don’t want to go with me, then stay here. If you’re ready to let go of Augusta’s apron strings, pack up. Either way, I’m moving out to the ranch tomorrow.”

  He started to leave the room but paused in the doorway. “If you’re worried I’ll suddenly begin demanding my rights as a husband five times a day, rest easy. I’m not planning to approach you any more frequently than I do at this time. I’d happily leave you alone entirely, Jane-Ellen, except I’d like to have a kid someday.”

  She flushed scarlet, manifestly mortified, humiliated, and relieved all at once. But gathering her dignity around her, she drew herself up proudly. “I am your wife,” she said primly, ignoring his cynical smile. “Of course, I go where you go. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll see to the arrangements.”

  Jake and Jane-Ellen Murdock, married four years, five months, two weeks, and six days, left Augusta’s house the next day to establish their own home on the Murdock Ranch outside of town.

  9

  SATURDAY, JUNE 9, 1906

  Hattie sat in the tree outside her bedroom window, her hips wedged into the angle where sturdy branch met trunk, her feet braced against a lower limb. She wasn’t invisible if one knew where to look. But for the moment at least she was hidden from view, which was her primary objective. She wanted to be alone.

  Last night should have been a highlight in her life. She’d graduated high school, second in her class, in the Buchannan hotel ballroom. She’d worn a new white gown with pale yellow ribbons, and Augusta had arranged Hattie’s hair in a Gibson Girl that had actually stayed up for the entire evening, a feat she never accomplished on her own.

  Next week while Aunt Augusta and Mirabel embarked on a two-month trip to San Francisco, Hattie was moving out to the ranch, her favorite place in the world, to stay with Jake, her favorite person in the world, and Jane-Ellen, who was seven months pregnant.

  Originally, she’d been scheduled to accompany her aunt on the trip, but on April 18 an earthquake leveled a large part of the California city and Augusta canceled Hattie’s ticket. Augusta had family there and felt she might be of assistance. She didn’t feel the need, however, to possibly endanger her ward.

  Hattie much preferred staying at the ranch anyway. This would probably be her last unencumbered summer. In the fall, she was leaving for Seattle Normal School to learn to be a teacher. All year she had been looking forward to the opportunity to experience life in a big city.

  Everything should be bully, as President Roosevelt was fond of saying.

  Well, it was easier to be bully when you were the youngest president in American history, popular, and loved for your rough-and-tumble crusade. Less easy was living in a small town that labeled you the resident bad-girl trouble maker. Hattie drummed her heels on the branch supporting them, sending a shower of bark filtering through the leaves to sprinkle the lawn below. She didn’t understand how she’d come to acquire her reputation; it just seemed to start dogging her footsteps the instant she’d set foot in town.

  Fine, sometimes she wasn’t as tactful as she should be, but she was constantly working to correct the fault. And she did have a tendency to argue, occasionally quite loudly, and to point out some of the inequities in this town. And, yes, her hair was red. But, for goodness’ sake, she had no control over that. The way people talked about it, however, one would think she’d intentionally chosen it for the sole purpose of irritating them. Nobody in their right mind would ever choose to be a redhead. If God had offered her the choice, she would have said, Make me blond and refined like Jane-Ellen. Or brunette like Alice Roosevelt, who is my absolute idol. But, please, God, whatever You do, please please please don’t give me red hair.

  God had clearly not consulted her, so therefore she had no control over the color. Sure didn’t stop the town from talking about it as if it were the major contributor to her character, however, and there wasn’t a blessed thing she could do except hold her head high.

  But now they were saying she was loose? How on earth had they come to that conclusion? True, her ex–best friend was a boy. But she was half a year from turning nineteen—an age in this town equated with spinsterhood for unwed young women—and she had never even been properly kissed!

  Tiny pebbles flew past her and rattled against her bedroom window. Peering down through the branches, she watched through narrowed eyes as Moses scooped up another handful and tossed them at the second story. Carefully, she drew as far into the sheltering screen of leaves as she could go.

  “Hattie!” Moses hissed in a stage whisper. “I know you’re up there. C’mon out and talk to me.”

  She kept quiet, hoping he’d give up and go away. But after waiting a few moments for a reply, he tossed another handful of pebbles, which bounced off her windowpane. “Hattie!”

  “Oh, for . . .” She leaned down. “Go away!”

  Moses tipped his head back and peered up at her. “There you are! Still mad at me, huh?”

  “Yes! Git.”

  “Nah, I don’t think so.” Agilely, he climbed the tree until he was perched on an adjacent limb. Brawny arm looped around the trunk, feet braced on the branches below, he gazed down at her solemnly. Moses had grown considerably over the past few years and was both taller and more strapping than most full-grown men in Mattawa, so he occupied a sizable area. “I came to apologize and I’m gonna do it. I’m sorry about last night, Hattie. I let you down badly.”

  She eyed him coldly. “Do tell.”

  “C’mon, Hat. I said I was sorry.”

  “Oh, and that’s supposed to make me feel better?” If eyes could flash lightning bolts, Hattie knew hers would be doing so. “By all means, then, I forgive you. After all, I realize you were quite bowled over by Florence-May Jordan’s big blue eyes. Heavens, why should I have expected you to stick up for me when she and Barbara Norton were tearing my reputation to shreds in front of you? It’s not as though you and I are friends or anything.”

  Moses flushed painfully from collarbone to hairline. “Oh shit,” he whispered, and peered at her hopefully, waiting for her to exclaim, Why, Moses Marks, I’m gonna tell your mama.

  But she remained silent, regarding him levelly with hurt and angry eyes.

  It was the hurt that really killed him, and he cleared his throat. “I don’t have a good excuse, Hattie. Hell, I don’t even have a weak one. I was flattered by Florence-May’s attentions. And when she said those things about you, it made me mad, but I opted not to defend you because I was afraid it would ruin my chances of walking her home from the Commencement Ball. I’ve been dreamin’ of stealing a kiss from that girl for the past six months.”

  “That’s another thing!” Hattie snapped. “Florence-May Jordan has lived in this town for less than a year, and everybody just loves her to death. I’ve lived here for seven years, yet all of a sudden everybody’s saying Hattie Taylor’s ‘no better than she should be.’”

  “Well, maybe if you wore your damn corset once in a while—”

  “What?!” Hattie snapped erect o
n her tree limb.

  “Your corset, girl.” Moses knew he was all red-faced again, this time with embarrassment, but he refused to look away. “Your figure is, it’s . . . well, hell, it’s lush. And the men in this town are noticing.”

  “Corsets,” Hattie said with restrained vehemence, “are nothing more than—”

  “Yeah, yeah; heard it before,” Moses interrupted, “‘one more instance of man perpetuating the myth of female subservience.’ Well, in this case, girl, your failure to strap down what is a truly spectacular figure is giving every man in town ideas about you!”

  Hattie looked genuinely baffled by the idea. “But I’m not pretty like Florence-May or—”

  “What you are,” he interrupted her, “is something a helluva lot more . . . exciting. You aren’t pretty in the way currently popular, no. But men notice you. And women notice their men noticing. Your coloring is flamboyant, your posture is excellent, some say your mouth is downright wicked, and you’re bold, Hattie, in both appearance and speech. If you’re smart, you’ll start lacing up your whalebone like every other decent woman in town. ’Cause, girl, men are getting an eyeful, watching you bouncin’ and swayin’, and they like the experience of feeling real flesh beneath your dress when they dance with you. They’re starting to entertain notions.”

  “What sort of notions?”

  “They’re wondering what it would be like to help you warm up a cool set of sheets. I’ve heard them in my father’s barbershop, talking about you.”

  “How dare they!” she screeched, shifting her weight on the branch with such agitation, she nearly fell out of the tree. Clinging to the trunk, she bristled with righteous indignation.

  “Settle down, Hat. They’re just wondering. No one’s ever actually claimed to know you.” She realized from the uncomfortable way he failed to meet her eyes that Moses was speaking in the biblical sense. A heat wave of rage and humiliation pulsed in her chest, her cheeks, her forehead.