“Take these pecans.” With her knobby fingers, Etta Rae scoops a handful of nuts from the piles that cover the farm table where I’ve taken many meals. “They’re like little blobs of fat. You could use a whole tree of ’em.”
Old Gin is too polite not to take the pecans, even though pecans make his mouth itch.
The scent of peaches nudges up my pulse. Mrs. Payne appears at the center of a molded doorframe that leads to the dining room, twisting her gold wedding band. It’s a bottom fact that if Mrs. Payne had accepted all the proposals of marriage she received, she would have more rings than fingers. “Well, then.” Her eyes dribble over me. If she bears me ill will, there is no trace of it on her face. I wonder if she sees any on mine. I was the one dismissed for no reason, after all. “Old Gin, I’m much obliged to you for bringing Jo home to us.” Her manners have always been flawless, but if you put a hand to her forehead, I expect she runs cooler than most.
“You’re welcome.” He bows, then after throwing me a quick smile, leaves.
I curtsy. “Ma’am, I am pleased to see you.”
Mrs. Payne glides to me. She stands just a breeze under my height, but I feel like a dandelion in the presence of a rose. By itself, her face is not striking—watery blue eyes and a drawn-out nose that dips toward her too-dainty mouth—but an elegant neck and narrow carriage give her the presence of a queen.
I roll back my shoulders, two bumps that give the illusion of good posture even when I slump. Shoulders are like pavement, underappreciated for the job they do holding one up in the world. Mine have done a decent job.
“Still pretty as a June pay-itch,” she says, drawling the word peach. Like other ladies of her class, she has a habit of leaning into her words as if to squeeze out all their juice.
She whisks me farther into the house. “You remember where everything is?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The Payne house typifies those of the Southern gentry, with family needs subjugated by the need to entertain, something Southerners consider their God-given duty. In the dining room, black walnut chairs herald from Italy, but they are as difficult to separate from the table as heifers from a trough. The gold-flocked wallpaper attracts dust like a magnet pulls iron. My arms ache just looking at the chandelier, which needs to be taken apart weekly for its routine spit and polish.
From the dining room, we pass into a central hall, to a staircase leading to the private floors. Mrs. Payne lifts her pleated skirts and begins to ascend, hardly making a sound. The daughter of horse breeders, Mrs. Payne was groomed in the Southern tradition of manners and manors, and probably gave up slouching the year she stopped sucking her thumb. “Now, Jo, what is it that separates us from the animals?”
“We know how to open the pickle jar?”
She smiles. “Religion, child. Chapel is still nine a.m. on Sunday. You are always welcome.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” The Paynes invite all the staff to attend Sunday services in their private chapel. When you’re as rich as the Paynes, God comes to you. But after the chaplain told me Satan had already hooked one claw into me for being born a heathen and I would have to pray extra hard if I wanted to escape his grasp, I never enjoyed going to the Paynes’ services.
Photographs of Caroline and Merritt through the years line the walls. As a child, Merritt wore frocks, and the two looked like sisters with their soft curls and cherubic gazes. The higher one ascends, the more devilish their gazes become.
“Merritt’s in Virginia picking up a new horse,” Mrs. Payne continues the pleasantries. “He’s engaged, did you hear?”
“You and Mr. Payne must be very pleased.”
“It is an exceptional arrangement,” she states brightly, though to my thinking, the same could be said of furniture.
Merritt had been standing on this very staircase, a few steps below me, when his mother dismissed me. Only seventeen then, he’d been wearing a ridiculously billowy shirt that spilled out over his tight breeches, as was the style. The air had been so wet, you could drink from it, and I’d rolled my sleeves up as far as they would go.
My legs wobble, and I grip the rail. Was Merritt the reason I was dismissed? Now that he is engaged, it is safe to bring me back. But I had always known my place.
I hurry to catch up with Mrs. Payne. On the third and highest floor, where the women’s chambers are located, the scent of the mahogany wood paneling swills acid in my stomach. It’s curious how even the faintest smells can inflict injuries. I recall the time Caroline accused me of losing her brooch. I searched on my hands and knees for an hour, before she showed me the brooch on her hat. “I wanted to see how long it took you to notice,” she said with a laugh.
Caroline pops her head out of her bedroom, her weasel-brown hair scattered around buttermilk cheeks. The rest of her follows, draped in a gauzy gown. Her body has blossomed—round arms, ample chest, and hips that could stir up hearts and trouble alike. I could never have a body like Caroline’s, no matter how many pecans I ate.
Caroline drags her frost-blue eyes down me, eyes that look like they’ve been pressed too hard into her face. “Your hairstyle is barbaric, take it out. Maids should not try to outshine their mistresses.”
Charming as ever. It’d taken me a good part of the morning to plait my locks into a side braid I call “waterfall over rocky ledge.” The banister tempts me to hop on and slide away while I still have a chance.
“Now, make yourself useful and bring up a tray. Something robust, as I will be going for a ride this afternoon.”
“Caroline,” Mrs. Payne interjects, “we have not come to an agreement yet. Please finish sorting through your belongings for castoffs. The Society for the Betterment of Women is sending their wagon tomorrow.”
The tip of Caroline’s nose draws a checkmark in the air. “I’ve already sorted my things.”
“What about the safety?”
“Bicycles are so vulgar. I don’t know why you bought it in the first place.”
“Bicycles are quite current. Of course, nothing will ever replace our horses in speed or beauty, but a ‘freedom machine’ will exercise different parts of you that could use exercising.”
Caroline’s sharp nostrils flatten, and she makes a vulgar noise at the back of her throat. Snatching her dressing gown around her, she evaporates into her bedroom, the fabric swirling like smoke around her ankles.
Mrs. Payne’s movements are jerky as she leads me to a guest bedroom. Her normally controlled expression has come loose, as if her daughter had agitated the water. She closes the door behind us and lets out a controlled breath. “Now, Jo, I do not doubt your ability to handle this job. What concerns me is, well, you and Caroline grew up together here. But you are not equals. You understand that, do you not?”