Happiness is a work of art. Handle with care.
—Edith Wharton
Chapter 31
All In
October 31, 1885
The morning sun winks beyond the pastures, the hardened soil track that leads to the school cutting like a muted pink ribbon through a swath of golden silk. From her vantage at the window, Cora can just spot where the wheat fields crest into rolling green pastures in the distance, and just beyond, the sparkling, serpentine creek where she learned to swim, fish, and scheme. This very image, serving as her motivation and beacon for years—although now, Long Creek Farm is far more than a birthright or a conquest. It’s just home.
She fixes her hair, pressing her school mistress dress just so as she admires herself in the mirror. Gone are the days of rented ball gowns, costumes, tailor-made ensembles for private dinners and affairs. Today’s dress suits her far better.
She takes the stairs down to the open first floor, where she’s surprised to find Cal still sitting, hunched over his notebook.
She raises a quizzical eyebrow at her husband.
He drops his pen, leaning back with a tired sigh.
Cora clasps her hands behind her back, dancing over to him. “I believe I left you in this very same position last night.”
“I’m on a roll.” Despite his heavy-lidded eyes, Cal rallies a smirk, rubbing his hands together like a schoolboy. “I’ve crossed the midpoint of the novel and can’t seem to stop. Words are just pouring out of these puppies.”
He waggles his fingers like a two-bit magician.
She laughs, closing the remaining space between them, delighting as Cal puts his arms around her.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were having an affair with this story.”
“Funny you should mention. I just introduced the heroine, a strawberry-blonde, beguiling, mischievous creature that I can’t stop writing about. Or thinking about. Even when she’s right upstairs.”
“Are you ever going to tell me what the devil this book is about?” Cora asks, hands on her hips in mock outrage.
“I’d have thought you’d have guessed it,” Cal says, leaning back, boasting in his very serious literary voice. “A story uniquely of our time. A tale of two brilliant women beating the cheats at their own game, and me, but a humble narrator bearing witness to the spectacle.”
Cora arches an eyebrow. “Sounds familiar.”
He winks. “Don’t worry. It’s a hugely fictionalized account. No one could possibly trace it back, with all the details I’ve altered. Trust me.”
“I trust you entirely,” she says, and means it.
He kisses her then, his scent a delicious and decidedly odd mix of coffee and pencil shavings, and whispers, “I’ll make it up to you tonight. I promise you’ll have me in time for dinner.”
“And you can have me for deezzzert,” she says, with perfectflirtatious Württembergian inflection. She rustles his hair as she goes. “Make one of the ladies a secret pickpocket and I’m yours forever.”
She takes the path toward the school, passing the second of the three new farmhouses they had built on the lot after buying the farm back from Ross & Calhoun. Alice and Béatrice’s little slice of heaven only about twenty paces away.
And dear Béa is sitting on her own porch now, reading a book. Lord, it’s nice to see her finally sitting idle.
She looks up, waving to Cora as she passes.
“Is Alice already at school?” Cora asks.
Béa smiles. “Can’t keep her away.”
“These Archer siblings.” She winks. “They do tend toward obsessiveness, do they not?”
She follows the path to the largest new structure, which stands where Da’s old barn used to sit, the newly minted Archer School for Girls. Their pride, joy, labor of love.
