Charleston by John Jakes

Author:John Jakes [Jakes, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Historical
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2002-07-15T04:00:00+00:00

The Bells planned the wedding for summer, before hurricane season. Xeno had little part in it. Ouida and Bethel took charge, Ouida showing more enthusiasm than Xeno had ever seen her demonstrate.

Xeno lived in a cottage on a small lot on Beaufain Street, near the Ashley. A side door led to a bedroom converted to his surgery. Ouida hated the house, and the unfashionable neighborhood. Mrs. Ouida Glass Bell Hayward couldn’t possibly live there permanently. They would remodel, expand the cottage, but stay no longer than two years. She was emphatic.

He observed that remodeling cost money. He summarized his modest fees: sixty cents for an office consultation, a dollar for a house call, subject to reduction if they fed his horse. Ouida assured him Simms would help.

Equally unsuitable was the old Jersey wagon he drove. The first owner had ripped out the rear seat and Xeno had never replaced it. He stabled horse and wagon in an open shed behind the cottage. Weather had faded and blistered the wagon’s bilious yellow side panels. “I’ll ride in that thing no more than a year,” Ouida said. “Jersey wagons haul passengers to depots and piers. People of our station don’t own them.” Xeno felt sure another appeal to Simms was pending.

Ouida’s spendthrift nature was most apparent in her insistence that they dispose of all of his old furniture, excepting his medical table and cabinets. They would replace it with new bespoke pieces. They went to Hamnet Strong, whom Ouida considered “one of the few half-civilized niggers in Charleston.”

As spring warmed the air, she and Xeno visited the carpenter shop once a week. Each time she had new ideas. Instead of one brass-bound, lead-lined cellarette, three.

“Three?” Xeno exclaimed. “Why on earth…?”

“To cool different kinds of wine, silly. We don’t want to mix them.”

Xeno stifled an objection. Mr. Strong averted his eyes while making a note with his pencil. “Removable tub or a drain cock? The drain cock costs more.”

“That’s what we’ll have,” Ouida said. Her eyes sparkled.

So it went. Did Miss Simms wish bellflower inlays? Of course she did—imported African ivory. She wanted no ordinary mahogany for pieces visitors would see; she insisted on the rosy-hued, hard-grained Honduran variety, because it was found in all the best houses. A local mill did nothing but cut and finish it for veneers.

“Shall we discuss the new bedstead?” Hamnet asked.

“What time is it, Xeno?”

“Half past three.”

“We’ll defer that until next time. Governor Hayne’s in town. Mama’s giving a tea for his wife. I must be home for it.”

“Certainly.” Hamnet laid his notes aside and ushered the visitors across the parlor of his small and tidy house. He stepped aside to let them go first down the beautiful spiral stair he’d built.

Ouida heard the carpenter’s wife and daughter somewhere in the rear of the house, then the daughter’s brat, bawling. Childbirth terrified Ouida. “It is a cross all women bear,” Bethel had taught her. “Exquisite agony, and no better the second time than the first.”

They walked out through the ground-floor shop fragrant with the smell of newly sawed lumber.

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