Josephine beamed at her nephew. “Frank does say the most unusual things, doesn’t he? Why, I could listen to him all day. One time, we were driving to Onondaga and the whole way he told me a story about the horse who was pulling the buggy. He was just an old nag, but the way Frank told it, he had an entire life story. Remember that, Frank dear? You called him Jim the Cab Horse? You had us in stitches. Oh, I wish I could have remembered it so I could have told it to other people…”
Frank laughed. “I don’t remember Jim the Cab Horse, Auntie, but I’ve found that most cab horses have quite a lot to say. They’ve got interesting lives, you know. They travel all over the place, seeing all kinds of things.”
“Oh, Frank.” His aunt smiled indulgently. “Always so fanciful. Come on into the dining room,” she said to both of them. “We’re about to serve dinner now.”
A crimson damask tablecloth covered the table, and the place settings gleamed with silver. A goose, its golden skin crackling, was at the table’s center. There was a silver tureen of oyster soup and fluffy mashed potatoes, two kinds of pudding and a beautiful mince pie. But Maud could scarcely eat. She was seated at the far end of the table, where she tried to keep herself from throwing glances toward Mr. Baum. She was hoping to have a chance to speak to him again after dinner, but then she saw him excuse himself just as the dinner was ending.
“I’m so sorry to leave early,” he said to the assembled group. “But the snow is coming down hard. I need to go now, before it gets too deep for my buggy to pass.”
He hurried out of the dining room with a genial wave but didn’t even glance in Maud’s direction. Maud followed him with her eyes, and felt her face freeze. The meeting had clearly been a failure.
The plates were cleared and the group had moved back to the piano when Maud looked up and saw Frank, now dressed in his hat and topcoat, in the doorway, a sprinkling of snow whitening his shoulders. He beckoned to her. Maud looked around. No one was watching.
Extricating herself from the group, she passed into the front foyer. “I thought you had already left,” she whispered.
“I couldn’t leave without speaking to you again,” he said.
Maud’s heart beat faster.
“I want to call on you. Tomorrow? The day after? Next week?”
“Tomorrow is Christmas Day. You can’t come tomorrow!”
“I have to return to Pennsylvania with my theater company on New Year’s Day.”
“I’m going back to school then. I won’t be home until March.” She tried to sound as if she didn’t care.
“I want to call on you,” he repeated, then turned his head at the sound of harness bells in the street outside. “Please. I have to go—my horse is getting restless. I’m sorry to leave so suddenly like this. Please, I want to call on you before you return to Ithaca. May I?”
Maud tried to say no but found herself nodding. His face unfolded into a brilliant smile, and then tipping his hat, he opened the door and disappeared into the falling snow.
* * *
—
MAUD WOULD RETURN TO Fayetteville early in the morning to celebrate Christmas at home, but tonight, she was staying over at Josie’s. Upstairs, after the guests had left, the two girls helped each other unbutton their Christmas dresses, unlace their corsets, and unpin their hair. At last unfettered in their loose nightgowns, they lay down next to each other in the bed.
“So, what did you think of him?” Josie asked.
Maud was flustered, for once not knowing what to say. With his talk of chatty cab horses and friendly scarecrows and magic, he seemed more than anything to be a bit strange—and yet, her memory of his face, his slow smile and steady gray eyes, seemed to float in front of her even now.
“I don’t know. Yes, no, I’m not sure,” Maud answered. “I don’t know what happened to me. I couldn’t seem to carry on any kind of sensible conversation with him.”
“Oh, Frank always says the oddest things, doesn’t he? I always thought you’d go together. You’re both so different from other people!”
“In any case, I’m not looking for a beau,” Maud said. “And I’m sure he didn’t like me anyway.”
The girls lay in companionable silence for a few minutes. “He did have a nice smile,” Maud said. She heard Josie breathe a contented sigh.
“I knew it!” she said.
* * *
—
ON THE THURSDAY FOLLOWING Christmas, the Carpenter family, distant cousins on Matilda’s side, were coming to call. Julia whispered to Maud that among the visitors would be her secret beau, Mr. James Carpenter. Color high and eyes shining, Julia put on her Black Watch plaid with the deep blue velvet trim. Maud worked on Julia’s hair, coiling her long braid with pins to her crown, covering her ears, then smoothed the frizzy flyaways and pulled a few tendrils loose, to frame her face.
“You look beautiful!” Maud whispered.
Julia patted her hair nervously, her cheeks flushed pink. “Oh, no…I know I’m plain…” She looked anxiously in the mirror, tugging at the waistband of her dress. “I would have made a good schoolteacher, if I hadn’t suffered so from nerves.”
“Don’t say that,” Maud remonstrated. This was a familiar topic, and one that grated on Maud. She did not find her sister plain—she was petite in stature and had blunt features, but her hazel eyes sparkled with wit, and her tawny hair was beautiful. Mother had always had a plan for Julia. She would study to become a schoolteacher. But Julia, smart and bookish as she was, was not well-fitted for higher education. Her studies had been too much for her. Julia was content in the home, but Maud hated how Mother bossed her sister around. Today, Julia looked beautiful, Maud genuinely thought, and she was expecting a visit from her beau. She pinched her sister’s cheeks to pinken them, then slipped her arm around Julia’s waist and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
Mr. James Carpenter was thin and knobby, with a baby face that made him look even younger than his years. Maud could not help but draw an immediate comparison between this young man and the one she’d met the previous week. Whereas Frank Baum’s eyes had been warm and lively, Maud found something slightly unsettling about James Carpenter’s demeanor. At first she couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but after seeing him return to the rum punch several times, she realized that he was intoxicated.
She was seated on one of the divans in the parlor, next to Julia, when he made his way toward them.
“You are studying at the university?” His manner seemed not completely friendly.
“I am,” Maud replied. “I’m taking a degree in literature.”
The young man seemed to have no reply for this, and an awkward silence followed. “And what about you? What line of work are you in?” Maud asked, trying to be polite.
“I intend to explore the field of agricultural cultivation,” he said grandly. “I am currently amassing the necessary funds,” he added. “I plan to depart for Dakota Territory within the year.”
Without so much as a tip of the head, he spun on his heel and walked away.
“What do you think of him?” Julia whispered.
“Well, I’m not sure,” Maud said. “We’ve only just met. But I think he’s rather abrupt—and very young!”
Julia frowned. “He’s not abrupt. Just ambitious! He has such a fire in him. I’m sure he’ll make a success in Dakota.”
“I think his passion leans more toward the rum punch,” Maud muttered, but Julia did not appear to hear. She was following his form as he cut across the room.
“He’s very handsome, don’t you think?”
Maud was mystified that her sister could be smitten with this young man—still wet behind his ears, and not at all pleasant in his manner. But she did not want to hurt her feelings, so she simply murmured her assent.
Maud soon grew weary of the visitors and wished nothing more than to go upstairs to her room, change into a loose house dress, and read a book. At least in the henhouse she could retreat into the solitude of the library. Here at home, she was constantly forced to dress up and chatter with people who seemed dreadfully dull to her. From time to time, her thoughts floated to the strange young man with the gray eyes.
He must be waiting to see if he would receive an invitation to call at the Gage home. Maud knew that he could not come to visit unless invited—and if Matilda invited him, Maud would be signaling her interest in him. But Maud had not yet figured out a way to speak to Matilda about this. If she told her mother that she wished to receive a visit from Frank Baum, then her mother would no doubt besiege her with a lecture about focusing on her studies instead of on young men. She was so fixated on Maud’s diploma that sometimes it seemed as if she wanted it for herself.
Maud was so lost in her thoughts that she barely registered that her mother had approached her.
“Maud?” she said. “Can you please help me out for a moment?” She held a piece of twine with a large iron key suspended on it.
“Of course, Mother.”
“Would you fetch a gallon of cider from the cool storeroom? Cook is busy stirring the custard and can’t leave the stove.”
Maud nodded, pleased to have something to do besides sit like a lump in the middle of the convivial guests.