One Glorious Ambition (5 page)

Dorothea ran her hand along the withers of the large animal they stood beside in the stable of the Fiskes’ neighbors, her palms flat against its flesh, the scent of the animal a blend of sweat and hay. Mary had already mounted and now rode in the distance, along with two friends.

“I’ve only made the acquaintance with cart horses.”

“And a fine family line those old cart horses descend from.”

Dorothea had not thought much about the lineage of horses, but she said, “Yes. Predictable, hardworking, and usually gentle with children.”

He lifted a bushy eyebrow. “All attributes of a good wife.”

Dorothea laughed. “Oh, Mr. Frank. What would your wife say to such a comparison?”

“I have no wife.”

“Your boldness suggests why.”

Her instructor laughed, his bearded mouth an O of delight. “I think we shall have a good time at your lessons, Miss Dix. Shall we begin?”

The mare chosen for her was named Mercy. She stood firm while Mr. Frank walked Dorothea around the animal, let her run her hands down the legs and gently pick up the hoof to show her how to check for small stones or wounds that might have been overlooked. He had Dorothea stand in front and breathe into the horse’s nostrils and let Mercy breathe back at her.

“That’s how she’ll remember you,” he told her as she stroked the mare’s velvet nose.

When he thought she was ready, Mr. Frank assisted Dorothea into the saddle and straightened her skirts around the sidesaddle’s hook.

Mr. Frank pointed out that Mercy kept her head straight, didn’t brush back to nip at Dorothea’s knee nor lay her ears back with the knowledge that a novice was in the saddle. Instead, the horse, led by Mr. Frank, walked straight into a small paddock area where Dorothea was led around until she recognized what Mr. Frank told her to be aware of: the subtle movement of the horse’s ears, the shift in pace if Dorothea leaned forward or held the reins too tightly. She felt like a baby bird perched high in a nest, a bird that could be pushed off in a moment.

“A light hand is always best,” her instructor told her when she pulled on the reins and the horse lifted her head and stopped. “Never pull too hard. You’re charming her in a way, letting her gain confidence that you know what you’re doing. Once that message is communicated, the two of you will form a bond not likely broken. Are you feeling secure enough to let me release my hand?”

Dorothea nodded though her heart pounded. She licked her lips and tightened her grip on the reins. She thought of nothing else except staying on.

Mr. Frank let loose his hand, and Mercy picked up her pace. Dorothea shifted slightly. She became aware of herself in the presence of power, the give and take of movement between rider and
horse. She looked ahead at the trees outside the paddock, heard Mary and her friends laughing in the distance. She had no desire to join them. Riding Mercy was enough. Feeling the strength of the animal and knowing that her hands sent signals through the reins gave her comfort though she didn’t know why.

She pulled back on the reins then, and the horse sidestepped and shook her big head, the bit rattling like loose chains against a steel door. Mercy halted, then danced around, pitching Dorothea forward. Her hands grew wet and she hoped she wasn’t sending messages of fright to the horse that danced to the other side now, twisting her head at her rider. Dorothea tried to remember if she should let loose or hold tighter, then the horse leaped forward.

Dorothea chewed at her lip. She moved her knees, movement that seemed to confuse Mercy into a trot. Dorothea was off balance, grabbing at the mane with one hand. She held the reins tighter, both in one hand now instead of one rein in each.

“Lighten your hand!” Mr. Frank shouted. “You’re giving her too many messages!”

Yes, a lighter touch
. Against her instincts, Dorothea lowered her hands and loosened the reins. Immediately, Mercy slowed to a gentle walk, and Dorothea’s heart stopped beating at its rushing rate.

“I’m so sorry, so sorry.”

Mercy twisted her head around at the sound of her voice, and Dorothea saw the long lashes flutter before she turned back. The mare walked slowly. Dorothea caught her breath, then pulled a
rein against Mercy’s chestnut neck and rode the animal back to where Mr. Frank waited.

“I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

“You didn’t hurt her. Just confused her. Horses communicate without words. It’s the little things that send the message. People do that too. Not bad for a first time.”

Mr. Frank reached for the bridle, and Dorothea leaned forward and patted Mercy’s neck. She liked the smell of sweat and leather and the silky feel of the horse and the calm beating of her own heart.

“You’ll get the hang of it. Now, if you’ve time, let’s try that again. This time turn your alarm into courage. You’re learning something new and so is Mercy. It’s a dance, and you want both of you to enjoy it at the end.”

Dorothea smiled. She had already enjoyed it, even the fear that rose up when she felt off balance in the saddle. She had managed it. She was in control.

As she and Mary rode back to the house in the carriage, Dorothea leaned her head against the leather carriage pad.

Mary said, “I love riding with my friends and catching up on the news. Soon you’ll be able to ride along with us. It will be much more fun than simply riding by yourself in circles in the paddock.”

“Riding by myself is perfect. It isn’t being alone. I have the horse to be with.”

“Quite. But being with people is what riding is about, Dolly.”

Dorothea chose not to argue. Instead she marveled that during all that time of instruction she never once thought about Charles or her family.

Her cousin Mary showed her how to adorn her hair for the weekly galas, and now, several months into her life with the Fiskes, Dorothea looked in the mirror askance.

“It looks ridiculous.” She fingered the beads wrapped into a high mound at the top of her head. She was already taller than many likely suitors. Why add three inches to her height?

“It’s the fashion,” Mary insisted. Dorothea found her cousin quite firm in her views of proper etiquette and much less interested in the meaning of Thomas Gray’s poems. “We do it this way in Boston society. I don’t know why you resist.”

“But if the fashion is meant to attract, then why do something that makes me stand out for the wrong reasons?”

“It isn’t wrong. It’s the way we do it, so it’s the right way. You want to blend in, demonstrate that you’re aware of what’s proper.”

“I’m like milkweed in a poor pasture.” Dorothea pulled the beads from her hair and unwound the chignon that had forced it into thick twists. “Being plain and simple shows elegance too. This will be better. It will.”

She crossed her arms and caught her image in the mirror as that of a petulant Charles. She lowered her arms.

Mary pursed her lips. “Your hair with that tint of burgundy is a crowning gift. Women of our station must show an awareness of
our gifts. I’ll have Beatrice come in and salvage it for you. I need to dress. We don’t want to be late for our guests. That nice young man you sat next to at the choral event is coming.” Dorothea wrinkled her nose. “Quite. You must make the effort at least.”

“Quite,” Dorothea said to her cousin’s departing back. Dorothea stared at herself in the mirror. The beads and fluff in her hair made her look like an ostrich wearing a wig. Then words from Gray’s “Ode to Adversity” came to her: “Teach me to love and to forgive, exact my own defects to scan.”

“My own defects to scan,” she said to the image and sighed. She had many defects. Her height. Her tendency to seriousness instead of assuming a welcoming smile. She could recognize Mary’s generosity in teaching her. She ought to be more generous in her nature and thank her. She redid the beads on a shorter, powdered wig and reminded herself to thank Mary for her guidance. Then she wondered if Monsieur Brun would be present at this dinner. She enjoyed his company though he was old enough to be her father.

Before each fete, Aunt Sarah and Mary gave her instructions on proper conversations with guests. “You must not disagree with anything they say,” Mary noted. “Nod your head, smile, and perhaps repeat with new words what they’ve just said so they realize you understand them and simply want them to know that.” Dorothea stared. “That way they will continue to carry on a conversation with you and remember you as someone quite wise.”

“But what if what they’re saying isn’t correct or needs an informed response?”

“Never point that out. It would be rude. We are there to prop up suitors.” Mary patted Dorothea’s hand. “Once married, when they are obligated to care for us, then we can express opinions, but even then we ought not to say things with the certainty you seem to like.” She shook her finger at Dorothea. “Our thoughts and ideas are optional. Our task is to find ways to adapt to what is.”

Mary proved an apt instructor in the realm of engaging young men in conversation, although Dorothea sometimes ached for her cousin who gushed and blushed over a compliment but later said, “I’d never want to be in a marriage boat with him. I’d be paddling alone most of the time.”

“But you seem to encourage him.” Dorothea removed the beads, fingering their coolness.

Mary shrugged. “He might be all I end up with. I don’t want to be kept from the boat altogether.”

Dorothea had no interest in such boats. She also had no real confidants, no one to whom she could safely say she found these parties more stressful than learning Latin from her uncle. Who could she tell of her preference to sit by the fire and read rather than chat with young men? Sometimes Mercy the mare heard her concerns, but when she was riding, she didn’t think about the cotillions. Instead, she was consumed by the feel of the horse, the botanical surprises along the trails, or the sound of a phoebe’s chirp. She inhaled the smells of rich earth or honeysuckle in the air. Perhaps if she had a horse of her own, she could ride every day, and she would tell the animal of her worries and hopes as she brushed and curried it.

So far, Dorothea had found no young man she imagined in her future as a husband, though the instructor at the stables—who was never invited to the fetes—could make her laugh. She thought that was a higher prerequisite in a potential mate than the entries in his banking ledger or the number of years he’d spent at Harvard.

Her father used to make her mother laugh. She had all but forgotten that.

The letters Dorothea now wrote to her brothers were mostly stories she thought would entertain them. She didn’t dwell on how much she missed them and never mentioned the lavish parties or strengthening food she ate. (She’d even had to let out a few of her dresses. They now had curves instead of being as straight as cook’s wooden spoons.) She didn’t write of her riding or her French lessons or her acquaintances and how she found she could make the gentlemen laugh with a well-stated word or that she enjoyed being able to put another at ease without revealing much of herself. She signed her letters “Thea,” the name Charles used for her.

She never received letters back.

Dorothea wasn’t sure how long her aunt and grandmamma would continue to support her efforts with the Fiskes if she didn’t show progress toward a suitor. As the seasons passed at the Fiske household, it became clearer to Dorothea that she lacked the desire to do what was necessary to acquire a mate, at least while she was but fifteen. She easily assessed the interests of young men and could keep them talking. She did not mind being a listener, as she always learned new things about botany or science, writers and religions. She never had to expose a thing about herself. But she minded that it was expected that, as a girl, she had no thoughts worth sharing.

This had been made clear to her one evening when one of the divinity students invited her to hear a preacher at the college. She accepted and enjoyed the deeper thinking of the minister, his discussion of God’s purpose much more interesting than the companionship of the confident young man who invited her. The suitor rattled on as they walked home, never once asking for her thoughts on the sermon, but rather expounding on his own. When
she offered an opinion in a rare pause, he said, “Yes, but it’s more likely …” and then went on his own conversational trail. Is this what marriage would be like?

At the stone steps of the Fiskes’, he’d stopped talking long enough to plant a kiss on her cheek. She stepped back and stared.

“Thank you for a lovely evening,” he said, then scurried away like a boy caught stealing a candy.

She touched her gloved fingers to her cheek. What an odd sensation. She didn’t think she liked it and told no one about it. She vowed she would never accept any invitation from him in the future.

She needed a purpose, she decided, one not attached to finding a mate. In her prayers she asked for a way to feel useful, not a burden, and still bring her brothers into her care. If she found a purpose ordained by God, she would find a way to rescue her brothers and find happiness, perhaps even the family everyone wanted for her.