Allen would have preferred that I move into one of the newer homes down the lane. A room with, say, the Whithers or the Connors would be more economical, and even more luxurious; their houses are equipped with piped-water baths and beautiful parlors. This old staff cabin was never meant for an officer or his family, he said, and in fact, the General intends to raze it next year to make room for a new officer house. It was to be only our temporary quarters until Allen left on his expedition and I returned to the East.
Yet I abhor the thought of taking a room and living under someone else’s thumb, and so we came to our compromise?—?I will keep my own house, but with assistance, and I am glad for it. This log cabin is tucked in among the fir trees so that it feels more of the forest than of the barracks. It is drafty and sagging, it is true, but it is humble and private and suits me well.
February 9
The girl is younger than I had imagined, perhaps only ten or eleven, and when Mrs Connor described her family, I somehow pictured a strapping, boisterous girl. This one is instead quiet and waifish. I have hardly been able to pry two words from her, but I am hopeful we will grow accustomed to one another.
Evelyn came to visit yesterday and was baffled to catch me trying to sweep and straighten before Charlotte’s daily arrival. “You are an odd card, Sophie Forrester. Dusting when you have a hired girl coming to do it.”
My efforts did not deter her company, however. She reclined on the sofa in a beautiful new gown and told me all about the monsieur who designed it. (Her talk of Europe’s salons causes me to feel shabby and provincial in one minute and shocked and amused the next.)
It is, however, one of the benefits of her friendship, if I am prepared to call it that?—?it requires very little of me. All I must do is nod now and then, and she will continue on like a well-cranked musical box.
I learned that her ailing father has sent her West, and to her aunt and uncle’s stern oversight, in hopes of removing her from the temptations of the cities and finding her a suitable mate among the officers. They want her married and settled down. From everything I observe of her nature, this seems highly unlikely.
At one point as she sipped her tea and fiddled with the beads on her gown and chattered on, she appeared an exact mimic of the cedar waxwings that come to the ash tree?—?splendid in painted feathers, hopping from branch to branch among the red berries, beautiful and flighty. I found myself smiling against my will, then trying to hide it in a cough that turned into an unfortunate snort.
“Are you quite all right?” she asked. She was, however, too enthralled with her own conversation to take notice for long.
Later it seemed she had guessed my secret. I had sat down in a chair, and without thought, rested a hand on my abdomen. I should have been listening, yet I daydreamed?—?what would the quickening feel like? Would I recognize it when it happened?
Evelyn ceased talking and stared at me.
“Will you have children someday, Sophie?” she asked archly.
“Perhaps?.?.?.”
However, this subject did not hold her attention either. She asked if I had gone to tea with the other wives last week, if I had enjoyed it, and then went on without pause.
“Boring old biddies, aren’t they? And they don’t know what to think of you, Mrs Forrester. Mrs Connor says it is unseemly the way you wander about the woods by yourself.”
When I protested, she cut me off again, this time to praise me with backhanded compliments, calling me “diverting” and going on for some time about my queer nature, staring at little birds for hours on end. “With field glasses, and those clothes! You look positively the vagrant in that floppy hat. Where on earth do you traipse off to? Even in the rain and wind! And now to catch you sweeping before the help comes. At least you aren’t like the others. So dreadfully predictable! It is what they want of us, though, isn’t it? A good woman is predictable, and seeks out a predictable life. They would have us kept safe and quiet and insipid.”
This last bit was a pleasant surprise?—?a glint of an independent, thinking spirit! I decided I would be candid. I told her of the surgeon’s refusing to lend me a book.
Instantly, and for the first time that I can recall, I had her complete attention. Not lend a book! The pompous old so-and-so. She would complain to her aunt and uncle on my behalf?.?.?.?but no, they would likely side with the doctor. There’s a book shop in Portland?—?they have very little on their shelves, but perhaps they might order it from San Francisco. It could take weeks, months even!
“What is the topic of the book?” she thought to ask, then without a breath, “But no, it doesn’t matter, does it? Would he deny the same to a man? I should think not!”
And here she stood up dramatically and raised a finger in the air. “We should take it!”
Steal from the barracks hospital?
“Oh, steal! I only mean for you to borrow it for a few days. That old clod?—?he’ll never notice one missing book.”
It’s madness clearly. I suspect Evelyn is not solely motivated by the injustice, but also entertained at the thought of goading me into mischief.
However, I think she is right that no one would notice a book’s absence right away. Even just an afternoon alone with it.
February 13