Her eyes grew damp. It was overwhelming, the idea of someone caring for her that much. Yet she knew a similar emotion had been stirring in her, beneath the level of thought, for a long time. She hadn't dared recognize it, or name it, till now.
"Virgilia?"
"Yes. I would love that," she said softly. Because of the tumult he couldn't hear the words, but he understood. She took his arm. "I’ll fix breakfast for us afterward."
WIGS, TOUPEES and ORNAMENTAL HAIR,
First quality. Hair Dye and Hair Dyeing,
All colors, at BATCHELOR‘S, No. 16 Bond St.
THE SINGER MANUFACTURING COMPANY'S
New Family Sewing-Machine now ready;
Also Buttonhole Machine.
No. 458 Broadway.
FIRST CABIN PASSAGE, TWENTY DOLLARS
to SAVANNAH, GEORGIA.
EVERY SATURDAY, FROM PIER NO. 13, NORTH RIVER,
in connection with railroads through
Georgia and Florida.
EMPIRE SIDE-WHEEL LINE.
The fast and favorite steamship
MISSOURI
W. LOVELAND, Commander
43
Three weeks after the parents' program at Mrs. Allwick's Academy, the term ended. For the last time until fall, the girls trooped noisily out the front door at 4:30 on a sparkling June afternoon. Several beaux waited on the broad, cool porch, including Sara Jane Oberdorf's apprentice undertaker.
Marie-Louise remained unforgiven for the tableau tragedy. Sweeping past, Sara Jane said sweetly, "Still no one waiting? Well, perhaps when you grow up in a few years." She clutched her young man. "Lyle. How darling of you to be here."
Desolate, Marie-Louise pulled her books against her bosom and walked down the steep wrought-iron steps. Her head was lowered; she saw the shadow fall on her skirt. "Excuse me." She sidestepped, glanced up, and dropped the books.
"Miss Main." Theo German bowed and swept off his straw planter's hat, which had a peacock-feather band. He was again out of uniform. "Allow me." He knelt to pick up the books.
"I thought —" Get hold of yourself, ninny. "I imagined you'd never speak to me after that dreadful evening. You must have thought I cut you."
"Of course not. I saw it was your father's doing." He straightened and offered his arm. "Do you have time for a stroll on the Battery?"
If I'm late. Mama will quiz me. And what if Papa should find out?
But Cooper's behavior at the program had lighted the fires of revolt in his daughter, and heightened her attraction to the young officer. "Oh, yes," she said.
Her bosom accidentally touched his coat sleeve. She felt as though a lightning bolt had struck her. Theo smiled, taking note of the sudden pink in her cheeks. There was some in his as well.
Bedazzling needles of reflected sunlight bobbed on the surface of the harbor. Gulls followed a fish trawler chugging in from the Atlantic. Out at Sumter, above the ruins, the Union flag stood straight in the breeze.
"Do you often go about town without your uniform?" Marie-Louise asked, desperately trying to remember Mrs. Allwick's lessons on social conversation. Her mind was a mass of glue.
"I do," he said. "General Canby doesn't object, and it's easier for me to get people to talk. I get helpful insights about local feelings that way. Of course, there are a few people who refuse to say anything at all after they hear me speak."
"Because of your accent."
He laughed. "I don't have an accent. You do. I find it charming, though."
"Oh, Mr. German — Captain German —"
"How about Theo?" he said, warming her with the friendly innocence of his blue eyes. Marie-Louise was suddenly so in love she could have perished of ecstasy and sunk through the ground to China.
"All right, but you must call me Marie-Louise."
"With pleasure."
The gulls squawked and swooped. The young couple strolled under stately old trees near the water. Theo told her that he was twenty-four — she'd known he was a worldly older man the moment she saw him — and attached to Canby's staff. "That day on the railroad, I was sightseeing. The loveliest sight I saw was in that passenger car."
"Papa was in a perfect fury when you gave the colored woman your seat." She sighed. "He's still fighting the war."
"Your father and half of Charleston. Still, the other half's enchanting. I've never encountered Southerners before, except for great lots of prisoners who naturally weren't in a good mood. I find Southerners are warm, charming people. And Carolina has a grand climate except in the summer."
"What did you mean about prisoners?"
He explained that he'd been commissioned in the last year of the war and posted to Camp Douglas, the huge prison compound south of Chicago. "We had thousands of inmates, but I heard shots fired only once, when a half-dozen attempted an escape. Only once did we feel any real danger. There was a Sunday in November of '64 when Chicago was seething with rumors that Confederate secret agents were going to torch the city and liberate our captives. Nothing came of it. When the prison was closed a year later, I decided to stay in the Army and see some of the country. I had never been out of Illinois until I came here." He smiled again, lightly touching her mittened hand on his arm. "I was lucky to be posted to South Carolina. I'd like to settle here and escape the snow and cold weather forever."
"Will you always be in the Army?"
"I think not. I was a law apprentice when I joined up. I'd like to finish my studies and practice." Marie-Louise feared she'd topple off the esplanade and drown if he kept turning those blue eyes on her.
Other beaux strolling with their sweethearts drifted in and out of the dappled shade cast by the trees. Along one of the oyster-shell paths came an old black man waving a fly whisk and pushing a creaky two-wheeled cart. He advertised his wares with a musical chant. "Buy melon. Sweet winter melon here."
"Would you like a slice of musk melon?" Theo asked. She was too nervous to do more than laugh and nod, but he didn't seem to mind. He bought slices from the vendor, bringing them back to the iron bench where he'd laid her books. Marie-Louise grasped the melon by means of a bit of paper wrapped around the rind. Careful as she was, the juicy melon leaked all over her chin. She was mortified.
Theo whipped out a handkerchief. "Allow me." With gentlemanly dabs, he dried her chin. Her body throbbed at every touch.
"I hope you don't think me too forward, Miss Main."
"Oh, no. But you must think me silly, nattering and giggling all the time. It's just that —" Did she dare? Yes, better to risk an explanation than lose him. "I'm not experienced with beaux. I've never really had one."
The melon dripped in his fingers. He bent toward her in the cool and breezy shade. "May I say it's my fervent hope that you'll never need another?"
That declaration brought her near the point of collapse.
Then, astonishing her again, he leaned forward quickly and brushed his lips across the corner of hers.
A great silence enveloped her. The chant of the melon man was gone, and the gull cries, the whistle of a packet putting out to sea, even the frantic lubbing of her heart. Her nervousness dropped away as she stood near him, gazing at him, irrevocably changed. Girlhood was over.
In their hands, the melon slices dripped, pattering the oyster-shell path. Neither of them noticed.
Gradually she forced herself back to reality. She saw the slant of the light falling on the great gabled houses of South Battery. It was late.
"I must be going back to Tradd Street."
"May I escort you?"