"Which one is your favorite?" Mary asked Emma. They were standing side by side on the veranda at the back of Mansion House, a wide deck with a comfortable rail, scattered with rockers and some little tables. It was an unusually beautiful day in late May, the sky a rare, deep blue throughout, without even one cloud, and the sun shone done with extra brilliance, as if the Greek gods Mary had read about at her young ladies' academy were throwing handfuls of gold down among the mortals, hoping to foment strife or at least some greater activity. If so, they were disappointed, Mary thought, as the loveliness of the day had seemed to shock everyone into a state of serenity unheard of at Mansion House. Nurse Hastings had found nothing to complain over, had not even drawn a comparison to the day's weather and any Crimean experience.
Dr. Hale and Dr. Foster's surgeries had all gone especially smoothly, legs, hands, arms all falling away at the strike of the knife, blood clotting quickly. Each man had been so surprised by the ease of their work, they'd turned to their respective devices—Hale had gone out in the street, coat brushed and hat squarely set upon his square, whiskered head, in search of feminine companionship while Jed had settled himself in the library with papers and journals, mostly in French, a fresh pitcher of switchel and a little plate of shortbread, planning to work on his latest monograph and catch up on Parisian medicine. He had not importuned her or even given her a suggestive glance when she set the shortbread down beside him, only covered her hand briefly with his own, then, smiling, returned to his papers after pulling his cravat loose.
Mary had found herself on the verdanda with Miss Green, both surveying the garden spread out before them. Emma was in profile; Mary thought her comeliness was strangely magnified by the day itself, Emma's features like gems all the more lovely for the rich gold of their setting. She and Emma had been growing closer in slow and unusualy ways; Mary chose not to examine it too intently for few of disrupting the bonds of friendship emerging between them, like David from the block of unhewn marble. It was safer to speak of those things society deemed appropriate for young ladies—virtues and music, drawing and devotion, flowers and handwork.
"I think I like the peonies best—they always remind me of girls going to their first parties, in their first party dresses. The whole garden does, in truth—the roses more matronly but confident, the violets shy, the day lilies girls after their engagement, proud and relieved, looking about," Emma replied. Mary was taken aback. She had never heard Emma engage on such a… poetic flight of fancy. Emma shifted her deep blue eyes to Mary, looking at with with an appeal to join her in such playful evocations.
"Do you remember your first party dress, Nurse Mary?" Emma asked, her voice hopeful for a story.
"Yes, of course. Doesn't every girl? I think even old women must remember them, the first dress. Do you?" Mary replied, a little unsure how much she might share.
"Of yes. It seemed to me the most beautiful dress in the world, pale blue silk printed with splendid great pink roses, the petals white at the heart, with little trailing green leaves. The flounce was triple and there was lace all along the collar. I remember how excited I was to finally put it on, my hair arranged just so, smooth as silk Belinda said, with my little gold locket. And then, at the party, oh! A young man offered to bring me a cup of punch and he spilled it all over the bodice. I cried all the way home until Belinda told me not to fuss so, she could deal with a little punch. She did, but I never felt quite the same way again about the dress. It was a little spoiled for me—I guess I am a little spoiled," Emma finished, her head ducked slightly, the plump pink lobe of her ear peeking from her dark curls.
"I think I understand. My party dress was not so fine, I think, as yours. It was a delaine, dark green plaid, with buttons down the front. Each one was carved with the outline of a strawberry, and the undersleeves were trimmed with white lace. I loved that dress so but I rarely wore it. There were not many parties for me to attend and it was too fine to wear every day, or even to church every week. Still, my mother made it with such care, the hem so deep, that I had it for five years, the skirt turned and the lace removed and replaced. I never told my mother but I so wished for a new dress, even though it was extravagant, the delaine was pretty and neat, but it was so quickly unfashionable and I knew that I shouldn't care so but I did. So, you see, perhaps we are all spoiled or perhaps it is something about these first dresses—perhaps they bear too many dreams, are bound to disappoint," Mary said, remembering the dress, the look on her mother's face as she had altered it, the feeling she had held in her own heart, so long, before telling Emma.
"Nurse Mary, can you think what Dr. Hale and Dr. Foster would say to hear us speaking so? I cannot imagine the teasing! Even Chaplain Hopkins would smile so," Emma said, blushing prettily as she often did when the chaplain was invoked. Mary thought Dr. Hale would bluster about silly little women and their tender, weak minds but Jed would understand the curious admixture of love and disappointment, the revelation of the self. He was not one to dismiss insight, even from an unexpected source. Still, she must agree with Emma.
"Yes, I think we may keep these memories to ourselves. I do not imagine Miss Nightingale addressed such topics in her work or surely we would have heard so from Nurse Hastings already," Mary replied. Emma laughed then, a winsome little laugh, like the one she must have given at the party before the boy spilled the punch on her, a laugh to unsettle with its little rill of joy.