And Mabel Tewksbury fainted dead away.
Chapter Nineteen
The next few weeks in the biggest house in Vader, Tennessee, were seen differently by different people.
The twins, Adelaide and Agrippa, could only be described as in mourning. Armon Hightower’s fickle heart and unexpected marriage was their only subject of conversation. The two cried in each other's arms and vowed off men for a lifetime. Esme quashed their hastily made plan to join the sacred sisters in Bletherton when she advised them that they had to be Catholics to become nuns.
Pa settled into "life in town," as he called it, with ease. Mornings he began joining the old men at the General Merchandise. Too lazy to play, he spent hours watching the endless games of checkers. Afternoons, between naps, he sat on the shady side of the porch and played his fiddle until suppertime. Typically, he was content to accomplish nothing.
Eula had strangely taken up a liking for the old man. His laziness only seemed to bother her in the abstract. She'd leave her flowers when the sun was the hottest and sit on the porch with him. Yo would continue his music, unconcerned.
And Eula would ponder aloud whether she should weed out the canna bulbs on the south side of the house and plant impatiens.
Cleav and Esme were a little too self-absorbed to worry much about the changes occurring. Daytime they worked together as often as they could. Esme would rush through the housework to join Cleav at the store. Cleav hurried through the fish tending to return to her side.
Evenings they sat together in the fresh coolness at the ponds and named all the brood fish. Holding each other's hands tenderly, they talked of the future. The improvements they could make on the ponds, the added attractions they could bring to the store, and the changes they could make in the house.
"It ought to be blue," Esme told him, not for the first time.
"Hillbaby," he answered her, gently nibbling the nape of her neck as he sat behind her on the grass looking up at the house. "Houses are meant to be white. Someday I'll take you to Knoxville and you'll see. Practically all the fine houses in town are white."
Esme shrugged unconcerned. "I couldn't care a flip about houses in Knoxville," she told him. "That house ought to be blue like the sky, not white as death."
Cleav shook his head and laughed lightly. "You are not getting your way on this, Esme," he said with mock severity. "If you want to paint something blue, we can paint the store. My house is going to be white and nothing else."
"The store can be blue," she said, nodding. "At least for now. I suspect we'll be building a bigger store in a few years anyway. It will have to be brick, of course."
Cleav nuzzled her neck and gave her a playful bite on her throat "Of course," he agreed with a chuckle.
Since the night of love in the hatching house, Cleav had given up his late evenings in the library. As soon as it was decently dark the young couple hurried to the privacy of their room. Romping like children, they wore the bedsheets thin.
If in the still, sated silence of the darkest part of night Esme doubted she could make him happy, she never let it show.
If the dark circles under his eyes indicated a habitual lack of sleep, Cleav never complained. But he did wonder to himself if having her love him could be any better.
Cleav could no longer even imagine life without Esme. And Esme felt that she had never lived before she lived with Cleav.
They were easy together.
Sorting the barrels in the store together, their conversation strayed to both commerce and fish breeding.
"If we could figure out a way to keep the ice from melting, we could take a wagonload of fresh trout down to the city and make a pretty penny," Cleav suggested.
Esme, standing on a small stepladder beside the shelves, looked down at her husband.
"And if we had wings, we could just fly over the mountains, too," Esme replied with feigned impatience.
Cleav refused to be daunted. "We could store the fish in a mesh sack and drag them downriver in a boat," he said, his eyes thoughtful as he considered the possibility.
Esme nodded hopefully. "And what the gators didn't eat, the folks in the city could?" she suggested.
"There are no gators in the Nolichucky River," Cleav answered.
"Well, save to graces," Esme exclaimed. "Let's raise some and put them in there!"
That remark earned Esme a gentle slap on the fanny.
With a snort of disapproval, Pearly Beachum stopped examining the nickel powders and stormed out of the store in protest.
