Chapter 9.
Spring in the valley blossomed fully and gave way to summer. Emily did indeed start spending time within the Barkley circle: afternoons at the piano, riding with Nick, and usually dinner at the grand house with a buggy ride home with Nick.
She had come to know Heath during those weeks, and Sarah, too. She found in Sarah an intelligent and serious soul, not much given to whimsy. Her family story was a sad one and she felt responsible to her sickly mother who was trying to make a living with her dress shop. Emily appreciated Sarah's forthright nature devoid of the frilly and duplicitous chatter common among young women of any social standing.
She also found herself settling into a small but comfortable round of ladies' tea parties and monthly meetings of the city's beautification committee.
Her business had grown enough that she was able to more than meet her monthly expenses and put some savings aside. No longer dependent on walk-in business alone, she had enough business that she was scheduling appointments and this gave her a degree of freedom to her days.
Many of her customers were the young ladies of Stockton who were the counterparts to her social circle in Ohio. These were the daughters of bankers and lawyers and wealthy landowners. And, just as it had been back home, some of the ladies were intelligent, thoughtful, interested in the greater world around them. Others were, to Emily's mind, shallow and vain.
Susannah, the tall blond who had pestered Nick with questions at the luncheon, had become a regular customer. She often asked after Audra, if the family had any recent letters from her, so Emily knew her growing connection to the family had not gone unnoticed by Stockton society. Emily had no qualms about this being general knowledge and, anyway, Susannah was the only one who talked to her about the Barkleys and she did so quite a lot.
Susannah, in fact, had been the one who told her how Nick had been engaged, briefly, two years before. Emily knew that relationship was long over as Nick had never mentioned it to her. She was jolted out of her calm however when Susannah told her the woman had been Hester Converse of San Francisco.
Emily knew Hester Converse; she had fitted her many times at Madame Thibeau's. Miss Converse was very charming, very beautiful, and, Emily knew, very cunning. She was also spoiled and Emily could not imagine Nick and Hester as a married couple. Oh, she certainly understood the mutual attraction but she shuddered at the thought of Nick having to cater to that woman and Hester's misery if she had to live in a place that lacked the sophistication and excitement of San Francisco's social calendar.
Emily gave Susannah no indication that she had met Hester Converse. Instead, she encouraged Susannah to continue talking. Susannah, it seemed, was enthralled with Miss Converse. She was envious of her life and seemed to view herself as Hester's Stockton counterpart and therefore a better match for Nick than Miss Converse.
Emily wondered how Susannah would react if she were to know that Emily had been sharing afternoons – and kisses – with Nick.
Vignette. Silas
Victoria had gone into town in the afternoon, leaving Emily alone in the house at the piano.
Initially, she felt as though she could play the piano all day, she had missed it that much. On this day, however, she was growing tired of it and went to the kitchen to see if she could offer Silas some help preparing dinner.
"Oh, no, Miz Powell, don't you worry nothin' 'bout it," he answered.
"Silas, if I am to call you by your first name then you must call me by mine and it is Emily," she told him.
"All right, Miz Emily," he said, smiling as he stirred the sauce he was making on the stove.
Emily decided to let him win that one but she did want to do something besides than play the piano and asked him specifically about each dish he was preparing. As he listed off the dishes he was planning on serving, she asked him to please allow her to help with the beans and he relented.
Silas brought her out to the kitchen garden and together they picked the beans. He also allowed her to dig up the potatoes and an onion.
Soon enough, she became a frequent visitor to the kitchen. Silas taught her to make Chicken Creole and she showed him how to make the chocolate bourbon cake her father's cook had taught her to make.
Silas was no one's fool, that was certain, and he divulged nothing about himself or the Barkleys without careful consideration. Emily knew, however, that whatever loyalty he had for the family, and for Victoria especially, was more than matched by theirs for him.
Silas was not without his own agenda, however, and he started to tell her stories about Nick's childhood. What a heap of trouble that boy was, too. Emily asked if Nick wasn't the sole reason for Victoria's gray hair at which Silas laughed out loud. Emily promised not to divulge her source for the information.
One evening, after returning Emily to town, Nick burst into the kitchen where Silas was cleaning up and demanded to know how it was that Emily knew about him sneaking out of the house one night, age ten, and with a gun he'd stolen from his father so he could join the army.
"I don't know how she knows that story, Mr. Nick," Silas lied.
"I'll just bet you don't," Nick sneered.
And Silas knew his plan was working.