Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Gray by Dorothy Love Read Free Book Online Page B

cousins at Woodlawn and Kinloch. It was my first visit to my Turner cousins in over a year. Thomas and Elizabeth fussed over us, showering us with food and gifts and good wishes. Their girls dragged me to the stable to see the colt Eliza had named Fauquier, now a handsome three-year-old. They peppered me with questions, wanting to know every detail of the wedding.
    “Did Cousin Robert bring you flowers?” Caroline wanted to know.
    “Yes, and he brought bouquets for all my bridesmaids as well. You should have seen our parlor. It looked as if all the flowers in the world had escaped their gardens and come inside.”
    Eliza squeezed onto the settee between her sister and me. “Mary, did you have a ball, like in Cinderella ?”
    I laughed. “All that was missing was the glass slipper.”
    Henry and Edward came in then, teasing Robert and me so mercilessly that I felt an emotion akin to panic. To please Papa I had tried to master every task set before me, but mastering three languages seemed much easier than mastering the responsibilities of married life.
    I was relieved when the visit ended and Mother returned to Arlington, leaving Robert and me to continue our journey to Fortress Monroe. As our carriage bowled eastward over the narrow road, I slipped my hand into Robert’s. He regarded me with a mixture of worry and tenderness.
    “Is something wrong, Robert? If you’re concerned about our accommodations at the fort, you needn’t be. I am quite resigned to living in two rooms.”
    “One of them is the size of a piece of chalk. It’s more like a closet with a window in it.”
    “I know. I heard you telling Papa about it. Something else is bothering you.”
    The clatter of the carriage wheels over a wooden bridge forestalled further comment until we reached the other side.
    “I am worried for you, Mary,” he said at last. “You have been so much at home and have seen so little of mankind. I’m afraid the change from Arlington to a garrison of wicked and blasphemous soldiers will be greater and more shocking than you anticipate.”
    “Don’t worry about me. I will get used to it.”
    As our journey neared its end, I could only pray my words were true.

7 | S ELINA
    T he day Miss Mary sent me back to the house to face Missus after I bled on Miss Mary’s dressing gown, Missus looked at me like I was a worm nibbling on her prized roses. She didn’t whup me or sell me South. But she had promised all of us some candy when we finished the sewing, and she gave my part of it to Kitty and Liza. And she told me I couldn’t come to reading lessons that week, which was worse than missing out on the sweets.
    Then sewing time was over and it was Miss Mary’s big day. I wanted to watch the ladies arriving in their fancy dresses and feathered hats, but Mauma sent me to help George and Thursday with the refreshments. We had to tote everything up to the house in covered boxes because it was raining hard, like the seam of the sky had been ripped open and all the water in heaven spilled out. But later on that night the rain stopped.
    Mister Custis sent down cakes and hams and such, also some spirits, and told us to eat whatever we wanted. We fell on the food like the locusts from Bible times. The menfolks emptied the bottles of spirits and the grown-ups danced until the last light in the house went out.
    While everyone was eating I slipped away and ran up the path to the house. There was people everywhere, talking and dancing and carrying on. I stood at the back door hoping to see Miss Mary in her fancy dress. I had worked for weeks helping sew her wedding things, and I wanted to see how the big day had turned out.
    Mister Robert came into the conservatory. I ducked down so he wouldn’t see me and counted to fifty before I raised my head again. And there was Miss Mary standing beside him in a dress the color of fresh-churned butter. It had lace on the top and a skirt the same shape as the bell Missus uses for calling us up for