"Lord only knows what kind of vermin you're bringing to my clean sheets," Eula Rhy had declared.
Esme gasped in shock. Mrs. Rhy hastily attempted an explanation. "I mean the both of you all muddy from the shivaree!" she corrected. "A couple only gets one wedding night. The least it ought to be is clean."
Esme thought that if a couple got only one wedding night, the least it ought to be is alone.
It had taken the better part of an hour to heat enough water for a tub bath. Chivalrously, Cleav allowed Esme to bathe first.
The water felt delicious, and Esme was tired, but she couldn't quite relax. She was in Eula Rhy's kitchen, and the older woman showed no inclination to leave her alone with her thoughts. Esme was trapped stark naked in the bathtub as Mrs. Rhy explained Cleavis, his life and family, and Eula's own personal philosophy of marriage. "Things are different today than when I married," she told Esme. "In my day a couple really knew each other and the families were all agreed before the wedding even took place." The older woman shook her head in disapproval. "Now, you and Cleavy don't know the first thing about each other," she said.
"Oh, but we do," Esme insisted. "I've been watching Cleavis for weeks, studying him. I know everything about him."
Eula Rhy snorted in disbelief. "That's obviously not the truth, young woman, or you would have never married him."
Esme's mouth dropped open in shock. "Why do you say that?"
"You seem like a fairly intelligent girl, Esme. If you really knew Cleav, you'd have seen how totally unsuited for him you are."
Esme held her tongue with great effort.
"My son is a gentleman," Eula continued. "His life revolves around the finer things and higher thoughts. A mate for such a man should be as refined and conversant as he is."
Esme's jaw was tight as she scrubbed with diligence. Someone like Sophrona Tewksbury, she thought to herself but refused to utter the words.
"Heaven knows," Mrs. Rhy had rambled on, "it hasn't been easy for me. My late husband was a common man. He'd been to school, of course, and knew a lot about the business. But he never worried about who he was or his place in the world. Our people just weren't like that." Eula gave a tired sigh as she considered the memory.
"But, Cleavis ..." She shook her head. "Let me tell you, Esme Crabb, that once Cleavy had been to that school in Knoxville, why, he knew everything about everything and wanted the best of all of it."
"My name isn't Crabb anymore," Esme said quietly. "It's Rhy."
Casting a wary eye at the young woman in the tub, Eula shook her head disapprovingly. "You are not at all what he had in mind when he thought of marrying."
Esme raised her chin defiantly. "Well, maybe not," she admitted grudgingly. "But we's married now, and I know Cleav well enough to know he won't back down from his vows."
"Of course he wouldn't!" her mother-in-law agreed with a haughty tone that said such a thing was foolish even to suggest.
"I'm learning to help out about the store," Esme told her proudly. "And I know some about his fish, and I'm real interested in that."
"His fish!" Eula Rhy chuckled with disdain. "Those fish are the biggest bunch of foolishness that Cleavis ever involved himself with. There are fish aplenty in the river. There is certainly no call to try raising them like chickens."
"That's probably what the mother of the man who decided to tame the first rooster thought, too."
Eula raised an eyebrow at her daughter-in-law's unexpected defense of Cleav. But young Mrs. Rhy could apparently be counted upon to do the unexpected.
"You married my son for his pecuniary fettle and social position," Eula said evenly. "I fear that you will both find that it takes more than wedding vows to make a marriage."
Sloshing the soap from herself, Esme could think of no appropriate reply. It was not a fact that she could dispute. She'd chosen Cleav for his big white house. It was too late to deny it. Already having a glimpse of the disparity between them—Cleav regarding her mother's fine tablecloth as little more than a rag—Esme wondered if she'd made a mistake.
In all her planning and scheming, she'd never thought past the wedding. And she'd fully expected Cleav to fall in love with her and ask her to be his wife. Having a pair of garters intervene in her favor had thrown molasses in the churn. No matter how thick and hard to paddle, it seemed the combination would never turn to butter.
Esme rose to her feet. Mrs. Rhy, apparently unsatisfied with Esme's ablutions, picked up a bucket and poured the warmed water over the young woman's head.
The rush of water was not unpleasant, but it was a surprise. Esme had the bad manners to shake off the excess like a dog, splattering Eula Rhy, who gave a cry of disgust.
"Here!" she snapped, handing the young woman a towel. "Don't you even know how to take a bath?"
"I take them mostly in the river," Esme admitted. "I don't really approve of sitting in a big vat of hot dirty suds," she declared with as great a degree of hauteur as she could muster.
Clothed in Eula Rhy's soft cotton challis wrapper, Esme followed her new mother-in-law to the front hallway. The two came up short at finding Cleav seated on the stairs.
