“There’s only one boy who should matter,” Pepper chastises. “Mr. Q accepted Melly-Lee’s invitation to the horse race.”
Caroline goes from moss green to shiny eggplant. I pour the lemonade as unobtrusively as possible, certain I hear a gun cocking somewhere.
“Somebody deal the cards while I still have a full deck,” Caroline snaps.
Pepper reaches for the cards, while Salt helps herself to an egg salad sandwich from Noemi’s tray. “Oh, Noemi, you are a peach. I was hoping you’d make these today.” She lifts the sandwich to her mouth, but then her arm knocks her glass. A wet clunk-crack freezes everyone in place.
“Oh! Oh, I’m sorry, I’m so clumsy.” Grabbing her napkin, Salt dabs at the lemonade splashed on her dress.
Caroline groans, and Pepper pushes away from the table. Noemi alights to the kitchen.
“Are you all right, Miss Saltworth?” I press a dishcloth to the spill and gather glass shards into a pile. Noemi returns with a broom and pan and fresh towels.
“Yes,” Salt says shakily. “I’m sorry, I guess I was a bit overexcited. Caroline, may I borrow a dress?”
Caroline flicks her cards on the table. “Jo will show you to my chambers.”
“Follow me, miss.”
In Caroline’s room, I swing open the wardrobe, and the powdery scent of her sachets wages battle with Salt’s lilac perfume. Salt selects a simple frock with bows at the wrists. I help her undress. She removes her chatelaine from her wet dress and then hands the dress to me. “Would you mind helping me rinse this out?”
“Of course, miss.”
“Caroline is lucky to have you.” She glances behind me, and then leans closer. “But should you ever find yourself unemployed again, I do hope you’ll let me know.” She winks.
How interesting. I’m tempted to take her offer right there and then, but I manage restraint. Though Salt has always treated me kindly, sometimes a known tiger in one’s mountain beats an unknown tiger in the mountain next door. At least for now. “Thank you, miss, I will.”
For the rest of Salt and Pepper’s visit, Caroline curbs her tongue, both in the dishing-out and the dishing-in. By the time she is primping for her afternoon ride, a den of lions has moved into her stomach. “Bring up the leftover sandwiches at once.”
“Yes, miss.”
When I return to her chambers, Mrs. Payne and Caroline are having a row. Caroline jumps up from her vanity, where she has been applying her skin cream, and helps herself to the egg salad sandwiches, groaning as she eats. “I promised Annie I would visit. Her mama has been feeling poorly.”
“Then perhaps Annie should attend her mama instead of receiving you.”
“You told me a lady only misses appointments if she is in peril of life or limb.” Caroline’s chewing slows, and her mouth smacks as if tasting what’s in it, though she must have eaten Noemi’s egg salad a thousand times.
Mrs. Payne sits very still, probably wanting to put Caroline in peril of her life or limb. I’m reminded of the time I watched the family telephone, certain it was about to ring. Moments later, it did. Well, far be it from me to stand in the way of a good ringing. I grab Caroline’s mending basket and begin to leave.
“Why does this sandwich taste . . . peppery?” Without warning, Caroline sneezes into her sleeve, three times.
“Good heavens.” Mrs. Payne sniffs at the remaining sandwich. She takes a cautious nibble. “I don’t taste pepper.”
When Caroline emerges from her sleeve, her face is blotchy. “I feel so hot!” She jumps to her feet and grabs a fan from her dressing table, waving it with such vigor that I feel it from across the room. Mrs. Payne opens a window.
“Shall I fetch cool water?” I ask.
“Ice! Ice!” pants Caroline.
I carry Caroline’s tray downstairs and, once in the kitchen, sample the sandwich myself. I don’t taste pepper either. But then my eyes fall to the tin of white pepper Noemi used for Merritt’s hangover cure, right by the butter crock. Pepper is power. It solves a lot of problems you don’t expect it to.
Taking a bowl and an ice pick, I make for the cellar, which lies just outside the kitchen door. An uneasiness has begun pecking at my skin. A few hundred feet toward the stables, Noemi’s large straw hat moves through the herbs. Noticing me, she salutes me with a carrot. I force a smile and wave.
Sunlight rinses the room when I lift the cellar door. The scent of turnips stirs my stomach. During one unbearably hot day, Noemi joined Caroline and me down here, one of the few times Noemi’s mother allowed her to join us. Caroline dared me to eat a raw turnip. Noemi told me not to do it, but I, five years old, didn’t listen. The taste put me off turnips forever, but more important, it taught me that Noemi could be trusted, Caroline, not.
I unwrap the blocks of Hudson River ice and chip a few pieces into my bowl.
The water in my pitcher sloshes as I ferry it and the bowl of ice up three flights of stairs, passing Mrs. Payne using the telephone on the second floor.
Etta Rae glances up at me from the breakfast table, where she’s fanning Caroline with two peacock fans. “The fire’s over here.”
“Why did you take so long?” Caroline face is red and swollen, as if she’d stuck it into a beehive. “Oh, it burns! Make it stop!” She fans her face with her hands, which are also inflamed.
I set the bowl on the table and fill it with water. Etta Rae is about to dip a dishcloth into the water when Caroline dunks her entire face into the bowl.
Water spills everywhere. Etta Rae puts her dishcloth to work. “Easy, Miss Caroline.”
Caroline reappears, water streaming down her cheeks, turning her silk riding habit from blue to black.
Etta Rae clucks her tongue. “The doctor will be here soon. He’ll have an ointment or some such. You’ll be fine.”
“I certainly will not be fine! That nigra ruined my looks. She’s ruined me!”
“It’s just temporary. Like when you got the poison ivy. Jo, fetch more ice.”
Noemi’s smiling face appears in my head, and my teeth clench. I clutch at the banister as I hurry downstairs, feeling suddenly unsteady on my feet. It will take more than ice to soothe Caroline’s wrath.
Twenty-One
Dear Miss Sweetie,
I get shucks in the foot from time to time and my freind told me to salt a tomato and wrap it around the shuck and after a day the shuck will pop out, and I wunder if it is true.
Much oblijed,
Shuck in the Foot