Mary McBride - The Marriage Knot

“Get dressed,” he’d ordered her. “I’m taking you out of this foul place.”

Hannah had just sat there on the worn mattress, gaping at the huge stranger.

“Come along now. You needn’t fear me. Put your dress on and let’s go.”

When she told him she didn’t have a dress, but only the underclothes she wore, he raised his fists toward the ceiling and bellowed like some wounded thing. Then he took off his fine gray coat and wrapped it carefully around her shoulders.

How warm that coat had been. How safe it had felt, shielding her from her chin down past her knees. It had smelled like Ezra, too. Even after all these years Hannah could still remember the pleasant shock of that unique blend of fragrances. One minute she’d been wearing cotton rags, then suddenly she was cloaked in yards of finely tailored wool, in the scents of cherry pipe smoke and rye whiskey and oatmeal shaving soap.

She’d been with Ezra ever since that night in Memphis. There had been at least half a dozen girls her age or younger—all as destitute as they were pretty, most of them orphaned by the war—all of them trading their bodies for a roof over their heads and a pittance of food in their stomachs. Why Ezra had rescued her in particular, Hannah never knew. Somehow she’d never had the courage to ask, perhaps because she was afraid it was all a dream and, if examined too closely, it might simply disappear.

Now, fourteen years later, it was Ezra who had disappeared and Hannah felt more alone than ever before in her life. Part of her wanted to pull the bedcovers over her head and never get up again, but the sensible, strong part of her knew that was a coward’s way out. She had a house to run and boarders to tend to. Ezra hadn’t brought her to Newton and built this grand mansion just to have them both—Hannah and the house—fall to wrack and ruin after his demise.

Tomorrow, she vowed, she’d rise early, then after her bath she’d don her widow’s weeds once more and begin living the rest of her life.

Tomorrow.

She promised.

Just for tonight, though, Hannah pulled the covers over her head once more and wept into her pillow.

The next morning, when Hannah brought the coffeepot into the dining room, she wasn’t surprised to see Abel Fairfax sitting alone at the table.

“I meant to get up earlier,” she said as she refilled his cup. “I’m sorry, Abel.”

“Nobody minded, Hannah. Henry’s gone off to the bank and Florence is down at Galt’s Emporium, most likely aggravating the devil out of poor Ted Galt while she hems and haws over stationery and ink.” He took a sip of his fresh coffee, eying her over the rim. “You’re looking better, Hannah.”

She had taken her customary seat at the foot of the table by then and poured her own coffee cup to the brim. “Do you think so, Abel? I feel as if I’ve aged five years in the past five days.”

“It’s that black frock. You ought to go back to wearing your regular clothes. Put some color on, my dear. Ezra would be the very first one to tell you that. I’m certain.”

Hannah smiled. “He would, wouldn’t he? Ezra never much cared for me in black. He was partial to greens and blues.”

While Hannah sipped her coffee, Abel finished his oatmeal. Then he dabbed his napkin at his thick gray mustache, folded it carefully, and returned it to its silver napkin ring, which was engraved with an ornate D for Dancer.

He leaned back in his chair and flattened his palms on the table. “Hannah,” he said. “Ezra left a will.”

She blinked, surprised as much by his serious, rather official tone of voice as she was by his statement.

“I wanted to let you get your bearings before I mentioned it,” he added.

“Thank you, Abel. I’m grateful.” Hannah wasn’t all that sure she had her bearings, but at least it was encouraging that Abel thought so.

She’d always admired him. A widower who’d never had children, he’d come to Newton about the same time Hannah and Ezra had, hoping to start a newspaper in this up-and-coming cattle town. Unfortunately, though, it was the cattle that upped and went after a single wild and newsworthy year. Instead of publishing his own paper then, Abel Fairfax spent most of his time writing letters to the editors of other papers and composing long-winded articles for eastern magazines.

“I studied law back in Ohio,” Abel said now. “I don’t know if you’re aware of that or not.”

“You’ve mentioned it, I’m sure.” Hannah noticed now that Abel’s brow was even more wrinkled than usual and his lips were pursed thoughtfully, worrisomely, beneath his shaggy mustache. “Is there something wrong, Abel? Something about Ezra’s will?”

He didn’t answer her directly, but instead said, “Ezra named me his executor. I’d like to read you the will in my office, Hannah. As soon as possible. Not here, though. Do you feel up to walking downtown around three this afternoon?”

Now Hannah frowned. Did she feel up to it? She honestly didn’t know. But then she supposed the sooner she attended to legal issues regarding the house—which was, after all, in Ezra’s name—the sooner she could get on with her life. Not that it would be all that different from her past, she mused. She’d have the house. She’d have her boarders. Only Ezra’s absence would make a difference.

“Three o’clock will be fine, Abel.”

“Good.” He stood up and headed toward the front door. “I’ll see you then.” Halfway out the door, he paused. “And don’t worry, Hannah. Don’t you worry for a single minute.”

The screen door closed behind him.

Worry? Hannah thought. Worry? Why, it hadn’t even occurred to her.

By three o’clock that afternoon the big June sun had beaten down on Newton for eight straight hours and raised the temperature to ninety-two degrees in the shade. Since they hadn’t had rain in several weeks, the unpaved street was dustier than usual.

It was so dusty that Hannah felt like a black broom sweeping toward town in her mourning garb. She wondered how long it would be before the planked sidewalks stretched past the dry goods store, making her walks into town more pleasant not to mention cleaner.

When she lifted her skirt to step onto the sidewalk, several gentlemen tipped their hats and murmured their condolences. Hulda Staub, the wife of the mayor, was exiting the dry goods store just as Hannah passed, and the monumental matron immediately dropped her packages and wound her arms around Hannah, drawing her into a surprisingly tight embrace.

“My dear Mrs. Dancer. How I admire your courage in the face of your loss. How brave of you to be out and about so soon. Lord knows if my Herman passed, I’d barely be able to leave the confines of my bed much less my house.”

Caught in Hulda Staub’s flesh embrace, Hannah wasn’t exactly sure whether she was being praised or censored. She didn’t have time to decide, however, before the heavy-set woman continued.

“Well, now, you must come to our Ladies’ Sewing Circle, my dear, on alternate Wednesdays. I insist. We ladies mean to see that you’re not lonely.”

Hannah had lived in Newton for nine years without ever being invited into this exclusive little group. She had always assumed the ladies disapproved of her because she was so much younger than Ezra and also because, in those early years, she so obviously lacked some of the social polish she had later acquired. Deep in her heart, though, Hannah had a suspicion that these so-called ladies of Newton saw right through her and took her for the working girl she once had been.

She didn’t know how to respond to Hulda Staub’s invitation. And, to add to her dilemma, Hannah despised sewing and couldn’t imagine a worse way of spending her time than convening with a group of matrons, all poking needles through linen while rolling their eyes and wagging their tongues and making soft little tsk-ing sounds.