“Oh, you—you men—!” she fluttered, torn between another onslaught of tears and laughter.
“Yeah, I know. Always practical. But you don’t need to say it like that’s a bad thing.”
“Doctor.” Her startled gaze took in his gift, parked largely in the middle of the floor to dwarf assorted furniture, “You brought me a—tree—?”
“Not just a tree, my dear,” he protested, puffing out his chest. “A Royal Star Magnolia, prized everywhere for its fragrance. By all that’s holy, get a whiff of those blossoms. We shall plant thi
s beauty outside, bring it sunshine and water, and enjoy the show. Now, then.” Rising, he extended his hand to her. “C’mon. Let’s get some coffee, and you can tell me all your troubles.”
She squinted up at him through reddened eyes. “What makes you so nice?”
He chuckled. “Oh, honey, that’s just part of my native charm. You got anything to go with that coffee—maybe some cornbread or scrambled eggs or such?”
“Do I look like a restaurant?”
“No, ma’am, you do not. I wouldn’t dare tell you what you look like.”
Time passed pleasantly over the kitchen table. She left him to his mug of coffee long enough to skim up the stairs and hurriedly change into a decent dress and light cloth shoes. Then, wrapping her slim self with a plain white apron, she prepared a mid-morning brunch for the two of them.
“These victuals ain’t too bad,” he offered a halfway compliment. “Better’n what I could fix, anyway. So—uh—you got yourself kinda calmed down, now, back to feelin’ okay?”
I’m not sure I will ever feel okay again. “Of course. Please realize that my—my—distress—was only an aberration. Pray tell, have you no office hours to keep? No patients to see?”
“I thank you for your concern, but at the moment I’m free as a bird. Everybody in this town is disgustin’ly healthy.”
Camellia found Gabriel Havers an interesting—and interested—conversationalist. He spoke of local topics first, while he devoured a less-than-perfect omelet and cold slices of ham. This town business or that town business. People moving in, people moving out. Plans for building decent sidewalks and improving streets, for providing outdoor lights once darkness descended, for beefing up the sheriff’s office by hiring another deputy or two—all being considered by Turnabout’s Council, all having been proposed by Turnabout’s Mayor.
“Indeed,” the woman said thoughtfully. She was nibbling on a thin slice of bread, keeping her visitor company, and absorbing every fact he decided to share.
“Eat, girl, eat. Come a strong wind, those skirts are gonna just pick you up and float you away like a kite, you don’t put on some weight.”
“I have already been advised of that—just recently.”
“Not surprisin’.” He glanced up at her from under the thick reddish-blonde brows. “So what’s on your mind, Camellia? Wanna know a little more about that husband of yours than he’s been willin’ to tell you?”
She dusted her sticky fingers across one of the napkins she had unearthed during yesterday’s cleaning. “Ben has not,” she observed thoughtfully, “been very forthcoming.”
“Again, not surprisin’. He’s a very private person, keeps things locked up. He ain’t used to sharin’, that’s for sure. Figured the man would live and die a crotchety ol’ bachelor, so I about dropped my teeth when he told me he was gettin’ hitched.”
“No doubt he was pleased, assuming he’d found someone docile as a packhorse,” said Camellia bitterly, “to clean his house and cook his food and wash his clothes. But someone who would otherwise never make a peep. No questions, no comments, no opinions. Nothing more, really, than a servant. And after he assured me he was looking for an intelligent wife!”
“Oh, sure he does. And you are exactly that, no doubt about it. But I think you challenge him, Camellia, and that’s a fact. And I think the whole reason he went so far afield to find him a lady is b’cause nobody around here will have him.”
Camellia stared. “What? Whyever not? Is there something wrong with my husband that I have yet to discover?”
Finally finished “swillin’ like a hawg” (his own words), Gabriel tipped his chair comfortably back on two legs—while she, waiting for the crash, watched in dismay—and chuckled. “Only what we’ve just been talkin’ about, honey: his refusal to tear down the barrier he’s built up and let anybody in.”
“I see.”
A late morning shaft of sunlight slanted in through the south window across a patch of Blackfoot Daisies just outside, stirring a few sleepy bees to life. Clean though the kitchen was, dust motes, close in color to the flowers, glimmered like golden fairy dust. A large mantel clock, displayed prominently on the top shelf of a rather battered walnut sideboard, quietly, reassuringly, ticked away the minutes.
It was a quiet, comforting room, full of welcome and content, and Camellia sighed with pleasure. Rose petal lotion had softened the slight roughness of her hands, and a night of partial rest had alleviated the soreness of her back and shoulders. Such small physical ailments were a negligible price to pay for the satisfaction of a job well done.
With a tiny yawn carefully hidden behind one palm, she poured another cup of coffee, in the hope that more caffeine might bring her out of the doldrums. “So I’m not the only one who’s tried to deal with his—his thorny personality.”
“Oh, Lawdy, no. I’m tellin’ you, that’s why he was alone for so long.” Gabriel reached for his own cup and took a thoughtful sip. “I dunno, Cam. We were all of us affected by the War, and I think we’ll carry it to our graves. But, Ben—well, I think it was harder for him than for some others.”
She nodded. “Yes, he did tell me about his brother Jackson falling at Gettysburg. And that the other brother, Cole, disappeared, out west. And, then, there was the estrangement between him and his parents.”