Let us appoint the day
"Oh dearest Jenny Wren if you'll be but mine
You shall feed on cherry pie and drink but currant wine
I'll dress you like a goldfinch or any peacock gay
So dearest Jen, if you'll be mine, let us appoint the day
Jenny blushed behind her fan and thus declared her mind
'Cherry pie is very nice and so is currant wine
But I must wear my plain brown gown and never go too fine'"
-Mother Goose
There was no love between William Ferguson and Bertha Willis; I do not believe there was even a taste of fondness between the pair. It was nothing more than a frigidly formal, mutual understanding that they would both enjoy the perks of each other's statuses and then pop out some children to please the grand folks.
Everyone was hyper-pleased with the arrangement, except of course spirited Bertha, not being the type to enjoy the company or lifestyle of the fortunate. As a rule, Bertha refused and was incapable of being dishonest with herself; she valued the trust that she and her consciousness shared and so missed out in the satisfaction and false happiness that her family got from buying their friends. Yet, being the type to get caught up in the romance of things, she resigned herself to a tragic, woeful life, of hollow eyed stifled misery, like a pathetic, wilted flower or a magnificent maiden, nursing the doomed lepers, wallowing in the heartbreaking pride of unrecognized self-sacrifice and the solemnity of sainthood.
Although Bertha found that perspective, skewed by embellishments of drama from her own imaginings a little compensation, beneath her pretending and dreams there was a realistic soul that had wants and needs and above all else, was aware of the sad truth. She resented the love that her sister Clarence was able to share or feign with her prize pony of a husband, Lothian Nicholson, and wanted nothing more than that happiness, however simple and unromantic it may be.
However, by some cruel fated twist, she had been denied that contentment and so felt every bit as courageous as Joan of Arc as she twirled her lacy parasol, walking arm in arm with her dashing yet dim-witted fiancé across the fairgrounds of theKingsport exhibition.
Although it was unfitting to commit an act of heroineism in any place as jolly as a fair, Bertha found she was quite able. They waltzed around to the horse pen where Bertha's foal Diamond and the mother, owned by Clarence were being exhibited. The organically clean earthy smell, mixed with the faint twang of manure hit their upturned noses at an abominable speed. She saw Williams nose twitch in disgust but Bertha felt like a newborn, breathing its first breath.
She looked into Diamond's bashful eyes and remembered with a twinge of bitterness the day they had broken her in. She had watched from her window the image, blurred by her tears, of her handsome midnight black horse being led around and around the pen, becoming less resistant and more dispirited at each lap. Finally, after an eternity of repetitive circuits, the glory and light and the very spark of creation had been extinguished from Diamonds eyes. She used to frolic and dance across the fields merrily, now she grazed apathetically, devoid of passion and spirit.
"What a dreadful stink. What a pity some spend their whole live in such filth. We will move on shall we?" William practically recited in dull tones, with a dim grin on his chiseled mug while his eyes danced upon the hired boys.
Bertha wrenched her arm away, perhaps more zealously than she had meant to and wondered with fervor how odd it was that each new foal had to be broken in, that such a crude beauty could be born from a spiritless and well groomed mother. Like horses made an attempt to renew the wild in its race with each creation, though the probability of the liveliness outlasting human afflict was practically non existent. Diamond was being led around so that all the wealthy children waiting patiently around the whitewashed fence could have a chance to pat his nose. Diamond looked again forlornly at Bertha, with her sweet eyes which had some fire behind them yet and funnily enough, Bertha recognized the submissive expression they bore.
"That is a fine horse yaw got here Miss Bertha." Said Oliver, the ragamuffin who was leading Diamond around the enclosure as he passed the pair of them by
"I daresay it is. Bred for perfection from Bolingbroke's finest. She'll make a fine catch for some stallion someday. Although this is hardly proper talk for ladies like Miss Bertha." William stated, looking at Oliver accusingly like muddy patch that had soiled his shoe. Bertha merely nodded politely.
"So bring him; we have idle dreams:
This look of quiet flatters thus
Our home-bred fancies. O to us,
The fools of habit, sweeter seems"
A man's voice with a soft dreamlike quality floated over their heads and beamed the radiance of Tennyson into Bertha's soul. It was a strange voice and she was sure that she had never met the speaker before, and yet it was mysteriously and faintly familiar, from the misty realm where distant memories and dreams fade into obscurity. She whipped around her golden head and verses drifted airily from her mouth like they were not her own.
"To rest beneath the clover sod,
That takes the sunshine and the rains,
Or where the kneeling hamlet drains
The chalice of the grapes of God;"
Her eyes came to rest upon eyes that were undoubtedly those of the speaker. Warm and brown with an indescribable yet undeniable depth that bored into the soul of a poet, who sees unseen and then, with a palette of black and white words, paints a multihued world of complex and simplistic splendor. His pale face had a masculine grace and poetry about it, despite its weather beaten look and numerous flecks of dirt through which golden freckles appeared like specks of sweet sunshine. And upon his elegant yet rugged crown grew a shining crop of carroty red curls that fell upon his forehead in a slapdash grace.
"You have no right to speak until spoken to you vagabond! Now be gone before I set the police after you for harassing this young lady." Commanded William in a quavering shrillness, obviously feeling his structured future threatened at the momentous arrival of this striking newcomer who Miss Bertha could not seem to stop blatantly gazing at. "Obviously in shock the poor girl" William comforted himself by thinking, though still not quite convinced,
"What does a hired boy know of Lord Tennyson's 'In Memoriam?" said Bertha breathlessly
"Hired boy by obligation, English teacher by choice. I am simply working for Mr. Jackson Willis this summer Miss, so that I may pay for my boarding come autumn and then I will be teaching at Bolingbroke High School" He retorted expressively while bowing deeply and extending a hand. He let out a bubbly and boyish, yet slightly hoarse laugh that thrilled Bertha to her toes.
"Then you are working for my father. It is nice to meet you Walter, my name is Bertha Willis." She took his calloused browned and work hardened hand in her delicately gloved fingers, "I am afrai-"
"Let's go Bertha dearest." Interjected William with unimaginable scorn and distaste, "We don't want to be late for dinner with the Gordons. Do excuse us, Walt."
Bertha looked at William with disgust, and then stifled her rising anger just in time to maintain primness and her nobility, remembering her resignation in the name of what she was not quite sure anymore, a ruddy haired lyrical and sensitive imp kept intruding on her thoughts. She wondered briefly whether William had called the man who was Walter, but could not be belittled by shortening his name to something as unromantic as Walt, Walt by accident, or whether he had developed the social perception to realize that this nickname would be a biting insult to this man of great un-walt-ishness dignity.
"Goodbye Walter!" Bertha yelled quickly over her shoulder as William steered her away at top speeds
"And you Miss Bertha," he cried, tilting his cap to her, "Farewell to you and your dearest Bill"
Bertha giggled and William looked furious and explosive. She muffled her mirth with a cupped hand and walked on beside a man who was the least akin to a name as amiable as Bill.
She gave her mind some slack in the leash that it was now attached to and allowed it to wander. She reeled it in with a jolt however, when she realized that Walter Shirley was in fact her replacement. She was forced by law to stop teaching once she was wed. Ripped savagely from her true passion to go and live the life she dreaded. It was not altogether fair but what was to be done? She was a woman and it was her duty to do dutiful things in order to be dutiful to her husband who in return, provided her the assets and the lifestyle that allowed her to be dutiful. All Bertha had ever wanted as a girl was to wear pretty dresses and forget all about any education, and socialize and be dainty. But, when it came to it, she was clinging to her intellectual life and had developed a strong distaste for dresses and dainties.
On the ride home, she gazed longingly out the window at the poor children running around the countryside in sock feet and listened regretfully to their laughter and joyous screams. Bertha had lacked a childhood altogether and was tied into corsets at age two. This absence of a foundation made the walls weak and weary and always wanting. And then marriage would put a roof on her life, paving the road out, horribly flat and monotone before her. But then that security and peace of mind that came with an organized life was reassuring and steadfast.
Upon stomping into her room in frustration and seeing that her mother had laid out a silk white dress that Bertha was to wear to the wedding in July was a final blow. Overwhelmed and confused she cried stormily and savagely, creasing and ruining the dress beneath her in complete disregard. From the Idlewood stable there carried a distinct wild neigh from a horse and the sweet melody of a young man's whistling, but Bertha Ann heard nothing, her walls had crashed down upon her.