“Too big,” Frank said. “It was quite distracting.”
They continued to stroll around the estate’s large, overgrown grounds. Dark clouds had gathered on the horizon, and to Maud it seemed that the air had an electric tinge, though she was unsure if what she sensed was the result of a storm being imminent or simply that the gravity of what she had done was beginning to sink in. She was alone with a man, with no one else around as far as the eye could see. In the sultry air, Maud could feel perspiration forming at the nape of her neck and on her upper lip. Frank led her up another path; it meandered across a meadow and brought them to a spot under the spreading branches of a stand of pines, where a small marble bench had been placed in the shade, overlooking the fields and the distant stream. He bowed low to Maud. “My captive princess, please sit down.”
“Oh, so I’m a captive, am I?” Maud said, arching her eyebrows to show that she believed no such thing, and yet, she was a captive in a sense. If she wanted to flee, there would be nowhere for her to go. But she felt no desire to leave. Instead, here, beside Frank, seemed like the safest place in the world. She took a seat on the bench, and Frank sat down beside her.
“When I was a child,” Frank said, “I was often alone, and I amused myself by making up stories—the grounds of our house seemed a world apart.” He pointed out some of the special places he remembered from his imaginary world: the apple orchard where trees could reach down and grab with their branches, a shabby outbuilding that was the dwelling of a magical woodsman. Maud marveled as she listened, amazed at his vivid imagination.
His father had sent him away to school when he was twelve, he explained, but he’d lasted barely a year before he begged to return home, lonely for his imaginary world and its population.
Maud listened sympathetically. Since she was so much younger than her elder sister, her own childhood had often been lonely.
“So, now you see what drew me to the theater,” Frank said. “It’s the closest I can come to creating my very own world.”
“For me,” Maud said, “books are like that. I’ve never visited a Scottish moor, and yet I believe that I could step out onto one and feel quite at home.”
Frank beamed at Maud. “So would you like to write one someday?”
“No,” Maud said decisively. “There’s no appeal in that for me. I grew up watching Mother’s head bent over a writing tablet—so absentminded and absorbed. I like to enjoy what’s happening right now, in the moment—like this moment,” she added, looking into Frank’s gray eyes for a second, but then quickly looking away. He was gazing at her, and she felt an unfamiliar swooping sensation, suddenly acutely aware, once again, that they were alone. “Though I so appreciate that there are those who have the writing bent.”
Frank smiled, and Maud noticed how the corners of his eyes crinkled up, his pink lips parting to reveal even white teeth. “So, you don’t find me odd and strange, with so many particularities of the imaginary sort crowding up my mind?”
“Oh, no, Frank, I do find you odd and strange—” Maud stopped abruptly, embarrassed that she had said such a thing aloud. “I mean, you are strange in a good way—you seem unlike other men. Which is not a bad thing, as other young men have not given me cause to admire them much!”
“And you are utterly unlike other women,” Frank said, now looking at her earnestly and leaning in closer, so close that Maud could feel the heat of his breath on her face. She looked up, and his soft lips met hers—for a moment she was flying through space, the world as she knew it tilting and tipping and disappearing, replaced by a white-hot light.
When the kiss ended, it took a moment for Maud to come back to earth. As she settled, she had a sinking feeling, and her cheeks grew hot. She liked this man, truly she did, and now what had she done? Jumping up from the bench, she retreated several feet away from him, avoiding his gaze, wondering how she had managed to let all this happen, fearful of what would come next.
Every young gentleman she had fancied had turned out the same—a disappointment. They might say, she reflected, that they wanted a modern young woman, an educated woman, a woman with spirit, but in the end, they all seemed to accept a world in which they retained all of the freedoms—to travel where they wanted, to associate with whom they pleased—while voicing no regret whatsoever at the constrained nature of a young woman’s life. They might pretend to embrace the principles of equality, but not when asked to put them into practice. Now she had not only hopped into a buggy alone with Frank, she had consented to his kiss—and what a kiss it had been, one she wouldn’t mind repeating—and yet, she was convinced that she could spend a lifetime looking for a man who would accept her the way she was, who was looking not for a potted plant but a person with her own voice and spirit and vision.
She had dared to hope that Frank could be such a person—now, suddenly, she feared it was time to find out that she was wrong. It was one thing to go out with him unchaperoned, but Maud knew the grave consequences of being perceived as having loose morals. One of her friends at Cornell had been found talking to a male student in one of the side parlors in Sage, the two of them alone, with no chaperone present, and she had faced such censure that she had been forced to leave school. None of the girls had dared voice support for her, except in whispers, and later Maud had overheard the girl’s former beau talking of his ex-sweetheart in the most cruel and denigrating terms. He had not been forced to leave school—only the girl. So unfair! And yet, every young woman understood the rules. Now Maud had been reckless. And she feared that she was about to discover that Frank was no different from other men.
Maud voiced none of these jumbled thoughts aloud, but after a few minutes of silence, she turned and stared mutely at Frank, waiting to see something, some change in his demeanor. His eyes remained steady on hers, unwavering, gentle, kind.
“We’d best get back,” Maud said in a rush. “Before anyone notices I’m missing. You know I shouldn’t have come out here with you?”
Frank’s expression was serious, hard to read, and he said nothing.
“But I did it because I wanted to. I make up my own mind about things.”
She looked at him quizzically, trying not to focus on his lips, which now monopolized her attention. “Mother always told me to be myself,” she said, tipping up her chin, her eyes now flashing, challenging him to contradict her. “And this is who I am.”
Just then, a bright flash of lightning crackled, swiftly followed by a rumble of thunder. A hard rain started pouring down. Making no response to her torrent of words, Frank grasped Maud’s hand and they ran down the hill, pushing through the squeaky wrought-iron gate and clambering back into the cab. Frank hurriedly snapped up the rain cover, and they trotted back toward Fayetteville. The downpour made so much noise on the canvas top that they scarcely exchanged a word. When they arrived in front of the house, Maud could see her mother’s head, still bent over her writing. She did not appear to have moved since they left.
Frank helped Maud down from the buggy, bowed low, and clasped her hand for a long moment, as if he were reluctant to let go. He made a hurried excuse about needing to head home before the roads flooded, then sprang back into his buggy and was gone. He did not even see her to the door.
When Maud entered the silent parlor, Mother poked her head through the door and said, “Oh, you’ve been so quiet I entirely forgot you were here! Has Mr. Baum gone?” Maud could see the edge of her own reflection in the hall mirror, drops of moisture clinging to the tendrils of her hair, her clothing soggy, but Mother did not appear to notice.
“Yes,” Maud said, her voice glum. “He’s gone.”
* * *
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