III. The White Dress
Time behaved differently on the Sunday ranch, the days after Daniel's arrival speeding by at a blinding pace compared to the ones prior. The lacklustre, quotidian life she hated was vanquished as the baking sun became more tolerable, the brackish water more drinkable and the ubiquitous cerulean skies were wide open with inexhaustible possibilities. Minutia such as turning corners or strolling over a hill was steeped with excited anticipation as Mary hoped to find Daniel standing before her. Incurably bewitched by the man, she gravitated toward his strength and the uncommon way about him that separated him from all other men she had ever known. Unable to help it, this was what she needed to take extra precautions to conceal because voicing her enchantment of him even as a vague suggestion would mean her immediate removal from his company. Life bereft of him would be unendurable now that she had a taste.
Journeying to the cottage, she hunkered down in the tall grass to watch Daniel supervise the men hauling in the furniture for the newly renovated domicile. If there once were ghosts residing, they had been evicted by the mighty seraph. At one point she reticently stooped behind a tree trunk, escaping his eye line when it roved in her direction as if it would disintegrate her upon touch. Poised for him to retrieve and lecture her, she was assuaged when he simply gave an order to the movers. Glad her secret was yet undiscovered, she whirled around only for her good mood to alter into derision upon catching Eli silhouetted against the sun. In the manner of a crouching gargoyle, he was positioned behind her atop of the hill and, by his censorious facial expression, she sensed that he had been spying on her the whole time.
A buzzing, enthusiastic tone had charged the town like fingers of electricity as the convoked meeting approached that evening. News and gossip had stretched to every part of Isabella County within a few days from the announcement of the meeting untill the day of at a staggering rate for being generated by word of mouth. Everyone hypothesised and dreamt, hoping for the best improvements with a dash of concern for personal gain.
When evening came and while she provided water for the goats, father shouted her name. Immediately her willowy body trembled but she tried her best to be brave. He, mother and Eli stepped out of the house, on their way to Daniel's town hall meeting. The stringent tone of the Sunday patriarch's voice forewarned the moment she'd spent the day bracing for.
"Mary, come here," he barked.
Saying nothing, she abided with downcast eyes.
"What were you doing snooping around that cottage?"
"I wasn't!"
She flinched before the unforgiving slap came, knocking her to the dusty ground.
"Don't lie, young lady!" warned father. "I know the truth!"
"I'm not lying!" she cried rebelliously.
Another sharp smack across the face was deployed.
"Owww!"
"Eli said he saw you there. Your brother is a holy vessel, Mary, he isn't going to lie."
"She plays with Mr. Plainview's son," Ruth explained, drawn out of the house by the violent commotion. "She probably went there looking for him, father."
Abel scowled at his youngest child.
"If you weren't doing wrong then there was no need to lie. You knew you were engaged in wrongdoing and now you committed two sins by lying to cover up the other. I don't approve of you running after that Plainview boy. It's inappropriate for a young girl to chase after boys. Everyone will think you're a harlot. You will disgrace your family. I know Eli told the truth about what he saw. Your brother does not have it in him to be a liar." He sighed, took a moment of recollection then advised, "Go to your room and repent for what you've done. You can play with H.W. but only if he calls on you."
"Yes, sir."
She stormed off to her room in contemptible submission, wanting to fulfil the penalty as soon as possible. The impulsive misbehaviour displayed in how she left father did not occur to her untill she reached her room. Since nothing could be done to amend it at the present, she decided to set it aside and take her punishment for that particular offence when the time came. Kneeling beside her bed, she buried her face in the bends of her elbows and prayed for angelic aegis, knowing that father was close behind to police her repentance. Seconds after beginning, her cry for salvation switched to a tearfull atonement when the squeak of the loose board outside her room announced Abel Sunday's arrival. Fixed in the doorway, he listened intently to the words she raised her voice to mollify him with. Satisfied, he praised with aloofness, "That's a good girl, Mary. You are forgiven."
Only bothering to move the muscles that formed speech, she bleakly muttered, "Yes, father". She was resilient, after all. Enough time was allotted for the imperious man to leave both the doorway and the farm premises before she rose, face swollen by tears. At the window she stared reflectively at the dismantled campsite but it offered no comfort this time. H.W. had his wonderfull father. The only thing Mary had was the Church of the Third Revelation.
The plenary meeting did not detain the officials and residents of Little Boston for very long. Terming himself plainspoken, Daniel wasted no time in driving to his point. As a parvenu, a word meaning a poor person who came into wealth as she learnt from studies with Paul, Daniel identified with the impoverished town and campaigned heavily for a better quality of life for everyone. A revitalisation that would eradicate poverty and make the effete township prosper, winning it the envy of its neighbours, was promised. There would be an inward bound army of his workers coming to build a drill that he pledged would deliver benefits of civic improvements, education, agriculture and infrastructure. An intense energy created an insatiable crowd, anxious to hear anything this man, this paragon of excellence, had to say about a brighter future. The like of Daniel Plainview was not endemic to Isabella County and Little Boston was as captivated by him as Mary was by meeting's end. Everyone wanted to introduce themselves to him; his charismatic uniqueness a magnetism that they were hopelessly drawn to. Eli shared every syllable with her while tending the flock the next day and, according to him, the shifty prospector that he once distrusted even planned to build a new road to the church.
"I thought you said we shouldn't trust him," reminded Mary in a way that boasted I told you so.
"He promised to give a $5,000 bonus to my church," was the excuse. "Imagine all the good that can be done with the money. Perhaps I misjudged him. Perhaps Daniel is not too terrible after all."
The blatant hypocrisy made the young girl want to vomit. Eli didn't care about Little Boston as a whole or its citizens the way Daniel did, nor did he care an ounce for his zealous congregation. Personal gain motivated everything the ambitious preacher did. The hard negotiations he traded with Daniel for the ranch hid the motive of swindling money from the oil man, striving for glorification within the church, not the other way around as he tried to make it appear. Daniel would do the backbreaking dirty work while Eli reaped the profits for doing nothing more than reciting psalms from the pulpit. How effective was it to mask your own malicious intentions by placing blame on your enemy to discredit him! Scaring people to God was why the Devil was vilified, Paul cautioned in the past. It was a shrewd tactic that, Paul further remunerated, organised religion had executed since its inception. No-one would suspect the soi-disant vessel of the Holy Spirit of the crimes he defamed the oil man with thanks to his squeaky clean image. The irony that the family name was Sunday did not surpass her.
What Daniel offered was dangerous to the church in that a redivivus life in the here and now was more lucrative than what at best might be appointed in any future afterlife. God would provide for them then. On Earth they needed to fend for themselves. Eli was pleased with himself but his sister sensed that Little Boston's favourite son had bitten off a piece of forbidden fruit that the prospector relished dangling in front of him. Mary knew if she was patient, Eli would choke.
Soon the oil workers, called roughnecks, came like troops of ants and the hitherto sleepy Little Boston exhilarated with palmy industry and instauration. The new arrivals constructed their own town consisting of tents, the derrick and an open but sturdy structure that would serve as an office for Daniel and his right hand man Fletcher Hamilton, all springing from the town's vast nothingness. This all enraptured Mary as it took shape right in front of her.
H.W. was her basis to loiter, doing anything possible to keep Daniel in her sight. Daily exposure to the oil man allowed a gradual disappearance of the visible traces of her hopeless adoration for him. The florid face she got whenever he was near may have ended but the heat inside still flared like an oven. But as long as he could not see it then she was fine with it.
What he did see on her face was the plum-coloured bruise blooming across her cheekbone the day after she was attacked for visiting the cottage. When she would not look up at him but instead kept her head lowered to hide it he knew something was amiss. Gently nudging beneath her chin, he coaxed her to look up for his examination as she shut her eyes in avoidance of his.
"What happened?" he asked, his thin body quivering with great continence. He knew the answer but wanted her to tell him herself.
"Nothing," she feinted, her strained voice squeaky.
"It doesn't look like nothing."
They stood facing each other for a prolonged suspension of time, she humiliated by his focus on the ugly mark, seeing first-hand what H.W. obviously informed him of. A gleam of hell blazed in his eyes that he struggled to control. His molten temper made her squirm in her awareness that he was deciding how to best handle the situation.
At last he spoke, but it wasn't what she expected to hear: "Go on and play. H.W. is waiting for you."
"Yes, sir," she mumbled.
H.W., who was standing close by, snatched her hand and ventured away with her to where the crest of the hills shielded her from Daniel's cutting eyesight.
The sun was just beyond its zenith, marking the day at its hottest but the diverted playmates were occupied with a game of tag circling the office where a lone Fletcher pored over paperwork inside. Daniel, back from spending the morning conducting business with Al Rose the town realtor, traipsed toward them, a cigarette in one hand and a white box adorned with a pink ribbon in the other. The pink was a stark feminine contrast against the harsh surroundings of tough physical labour, sweat, dirt and masculinity and instantly seized her attention.
"Good afternoon, my sweet Mary," he greeted with a wide smile, bending down to kiss her wounded cheek. "How are you today? H.W. keeping you busy?"
"Yes," she said simply, fighting the urge to run in the opposite direction. She was a big girl. She had strength enough to withstand his great prominence.
"That's good. Play is as important to a child as work. Are you coming to the opening of the well the day after tomorrow?"
"Yes. My whole family will be there."
"That's good," he repeated, succinct.
He paused while she watched, with piqued interest, him drop the cigarette into the dust and crush it out with his foot. Trepidation about the bruise dissipated when she evaluated from the wobbly sway of his gangly frame and the odour of whiskey permeating his breath that he already had more to drink than he should have. Other than his gimpy leg, his intoxication was also a disheartening revelation. Angels were forbidden to drink! Spirits of fire and light are above earthly vice, at least she thought they were. Yet Daniel Plainview was an angel in human flesh and perhaps those angels are exceptions. The burden of fulsome human troubles that settled across his shoulders needed to be alleviated by some means, she supposed. Who was she to complain when it was she who weighed him down?
"Go have some fun and get out of everyone's way," he instructed firmly.
The white parcel still in hand, he joined Fletcher inside the office, sitting behind his desk without granting her a second look. She chalked the uncharacteristic, egregious conduct up to his drunkenness and took it in stride, knowing better from past experience.
"Come on," H.W. broke through her thoughts. "Bet you can't catch me."
A challenge was issued to her with a gentle shove before he scurried away. Forsaking her appraisal, Mary laughed then burst into pursuit and thus they spent the better part of an hour chasing each other back and forth around the office. During brief intervals of rest, she stole glimpses of Daniel through the screened window. Often preoccupation with his facts and figures distracted him but he sporadically peered outside, seeking entertainment with their juvenile felicity. An intriguing assortment of men came and went to converse with him on work-related topics, each one greeting the children with affable smiles or quick hellos. When the heat eventually was too much for them, she and H.W. stooped down and scratched games of noughts and crosses in the dirt.
The dim glow of dusk swiftly approached, the sun losing consciousness from its exhaustive work of baking the land and the big boss man left his paperwork to hobble back outside, the white box in his hand again.
"Mary," he called, gaining her immediate undivided attention. He beamed at the pair for what was an eternity before saying to her, "I have something for you."
The parcel was presented to her but she only stood in place and gawked at it, dumbfounded that she would be worth thinking of during his busy day, amusing him as he extended it to her further.
"Go on," he urged. "Take it. It belongs to you."
Revenge was best served cold, it is said, but Daniel served his brand with warmth. Knowing that the gift would incur the holy wrath of the Sunday men, she was dissuaded in accepting it.
"My father…"
"Tell your father that I gave it to you and that I wouldn't let you refuse. If he has a problem then he can come to see me about it."
Mary winced, detecting the harsh bitterness in his voice when he referred to Abel as her father.
"Can I open it?"
"Not right now. Not out here. You don't want to risk getting it dirty."
Not knowing what else to say, she simply thanked him.
"You are so very welcome."
Cupping her face with his enormous hands, he leant down to plant a solemn kiss on her flaxen head then repeated the amorous deed with his son.
"H.W., would you be so kind as to escort our Mary back home? It isn't smart to let a lady wander alone in the dark. Hurry back. You and I still have work to do before our day ends. Be a gentleman and carry the lady's package. That's it. Good boy."
"Come on, Mary," the boy said, taking Mary's hand in his and the box in the other. "Let's go."
The children scampered away, the girl sour at having to leave, classifying the unfinished work Daniel cited to be the men's business that her sex was not entitled to know. Home, where she was more an inmate than a daughter and where trouble now pended over the gift, was the last place she wanted to be. A blatant, incisive challenge was brought forth by the prospector to father through the gift giving, perhaps provoking him to strike Mary again as a reason to give Old Man Sunday a taste of his own medicine. Undoubtedly it would be effective, as father believed the members of his family were objects he possessed rather than individual human beings with rights. Disgrace that an outsider would make an extravagant purchase for a piece of his property, an expense that he could not afford himself, would be an unforgivable obscenity to Abel.
Would Daniel deliberately risk jeopardising her when he was meant to protect her? Hitting her would be bold but she knew that as far as father was concerned he owned and ruled her and, therefore, was unrestricted in doing whatever he pleased. At the door, she wished H.W. a parting good night and went inside, preparing for the tribulations of the abused. Just as reliable as the sun rising in the east every morning, father noticed the package the second she entered.
"What do you have there, Mary?" he inquired.
Readying herself for a familiar slap, she answered, "A gift."
"Who gave it to you?" The voice was calm and menacing.
The answer would perpetrate the war.
"Mr. Plainview," she told, deciding that the honest, short response would fare her best in ending it.
"What is it?"
The deceptively tranquil tone turned his daughter ashen with dread as she shuddered slightly. But she shrugged to dispel her panic, then was demanded to open the package. Everyone gathered around as she placed the box on the table and untied the ribbon. The holy vessel pretended that he didn't care but watched with a critical hawk's eye from a corner at the back of the room. Off came the box top and the tissue paper was parted, exposing a beautifull white dress nestled inside. It was the most gorgeous thing she had ever seen…other than its giver.
"Oh, look at that!" mother crooned, lifting the immaculate frock up for everyone to see. "It's beautifull! You must write Mr. Plainview a thank you note."
"She must return it," Eli repugned, dampening the small joy the women emoted. Mary supposed jealousy had made his acceptance of the oil man short-lived. "It's not right for her to keep it."
"Why not?" mother inferred. "It's a perfectly fine dress."
"It's from misbegotten gains. Mark my words. If not, it has ill intentions. Men who give girls presents are demons with wicked intent."
"Let her have it, Eli," interrupted father, shocking Mary profoundly. "It would be rude to insult Daniel's generosity by sending it back. We don't want to offend him after he's been remarkably charitable to us. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt this one time. But Mary will tell him she cannot accept anything more."
Eli's displeasure matched Mary's amazement.
"Yes, sir," Mary agreed, ecstatic that she was cleared to keep the gift.
"Take it to your room," mother told her. "You'll wear it at the well's opening ceremony. You can write a letter to thank him after supper."
"Yes, ma'am."
She hastened the prized dress away to her room, opened the box and buried her nose in the crisp fabric, breathing in its newness. Rare was the scent of newness in the impecunious Sunday house! For it she was thankfull. Idleness, however, was scorned in the household and was a sign of thanklessness. Raised to not be a wastrel for anything, she raced back out to assist with supper. Meal time crawled by, flustering Mary because she was anxious to pen her note of thanks to Daniel. The whole time she recited what she planned to write in her head, testing out what was best and wondering if she should risk telling him more details than she should've about her living circumstances and her feelings for him. Relief cascaded over her when supper at last finished and, after her chores, she rushed straight back to her room. At the table against the wall that served as a desk, she attentively wrote:
Dear Mr. Plainview:
Thank you for my dress. I like it very much. It is very pretty. I can't wait to wear it when the well opens.
Sincerely,
Mary Sunday
P.S. I wish you were my father. I love you.
Satisfied with the chosen simplicity of the composition, her chest heaved dreamily as she held the note up in review. It was good. Concise and direct. Exactly the way he spoke. Folding the paper, she tucked it underneath the dress inside the box, intending to present it to him when she saw him next. Then reconsidering its location of concealment with impromptu insight, she removed it from the box, citing it an obvious place if Eli or father was tempted to snoop, and concealed it beneath her pillow.
While later drifting asleep, she reassessed furnishing the note to her much older sweetheart. Its contents would bring catastrophe to her not only if Eli or father discovered what she wrote but if Daniel rejected her, as she knew he most certainly would. Curse the age difference! She wanted to marry him and had she been older or he younger then things would be very different. For now age ruled it illegal and she thought as if she would die if she couldn't have him. Maybe after he hit his strike they could still run away and live happily ever after like in the bedtime stories mother used to read to her when she was a toddler. Things could be taken from there as time and age progressed. Securing their happy ending protectively within her heart, she nurtured the velleity that Daniel would ascend upon father and Eli in divine justice and obliterate them so they could never disturb their perfect paradise. Little by little, with those tiring dreams occupying her mind, she slipped into sleep, the only place where, unbeknownst to her childish mind, utopia was possible.
The sun undertook its sole job of scorching the land and roasting the men who toiled in the fields in full force the next day. The Sunday girls were assigned the rare case of tending the goats together because Eli had gone to verify blueprints he had drawn up for a renovation he wanted to make on the church with the money procured from his sale to Daniel. Although a portrait of serenity, Mary was edgy inside. Ruth caught her staring contemplatively at the rising derrick over the hill and read her thoughts.
"Why don't you go down and play with him?" she offered. "I'll watch the goats."
"We'll get in trouble," protested Mary.
"We only come up here in pairs so one will have the company of the other. I can watch the herd myself. Just stay clear of the house and the church and you'll be fine."
Uncertainty kept Mary's feet grounded.
"Are you sure?"
"Go!" Ruth urged with compassion. "Before I change my mind!"
Exonerated, there was no further hesitation as she rocketed off with the fleetness of a jack rabbit, slowing only when she reached the perimeter of the work field. She advanced upon the office in tentative haste, handling the precious thank you note which she'd secreted in her dress pocket first thing in the morning. If she was actually going to hand it to him or not she still didn't know. At the moment she wanted to simply gaze upon his handsome face in adoration and dream the fantasies of all girls trapped in her despicable lifestyle. Hoping for just a single glimpse of her idol, her timorous heart skipped a beat when she found him standing outside the office, observing the men adding the final touches on the derrick's construction, oblivious as usual to her presence.
Idling outside, she positioned herself furtively around the building's opposite corner angled to Daniel's left, basking in his glory. There he was: the great sentinel Argus, untiring and ready to defend, a mighty Ophanim perched at the edge of Heaven with unblinking, sleepless eyes, prepared to annihilate with his blessed wrath. She wondered how his Heavenly visage compared with his earthly one. If an angel's natural form was beyond man's comprehension of beauty then he would own an impossible, indelible splendour that would drive any human observer mad. What did he look like beyond flesh and bone?
An incredibly handsome man, his physical beauty surpassed that of her brothers or anybody else in Little Boston. Gaunt, tall and sinewy, Daniel always possessed the mien of a thrasonic king presiding over his territory. From this epistolary post, he carefully monitored the work done on his kingdom. Full of conceit, he bore all the hallmarks of greatness: a sharp mind, a strategic nature, a perverse tenacity and ruthless ambition matched only in Eli. Arrogance always kept his head high with a posture of stately conduct that contrasted the lameness of his leg and his horrid compulsion for liquor. Yet those too human qualities never subtracted from his beauty.
"Daniel?" one of the roughnecks addressed as he strode towards the enskied oil tycoon. "May I have a word with you?"
Daniel turned slightly in Mary's direction and she gasped before scurrying fully around the corner and out of sight.
"Yes," he answered, his voice amiable. "Let's go inside and have a seat."
From around the corner she peeped as he and the roughneck climbed the steps to the office, Daniel in the lead, then arranging herself beneath the window across from his desk so she could see his face. The high, regal cheekbones, hollowed out cheeks, strong jaw line, squared chin, all attractive physical traits many Little Boston women admired…and she could not tear away from. Sundry townswomen gossiped about where his wife could be, how much of a fool she was for not standing at the side of such a good looking man and an adorable little boy and that they would happily replace her. Even the married ones were not above profane commentary. He must be a widower, they rationalised, then plotted how they could put themselves in his marriage bed. Those women were hated by Mary, for she surmised that they only wanted him for his money and he deserved much better. He deserved someone who loved him for who he was, bad habits and all. Age was an improbable measure for it to be her, so she wanted it to be someone she knew a worthy candidate. Perhaps mother would suffice.
That was it! Too young for him herself then maybe the resolution would be a courtship of mother and the three – four, counting H.W. – could escape the inanity of this desolate ghost town! If her real father and Eli wanted to be untouchable figureheads amongst their disciples then so be it. Let the Sunday women embark on a new life with Daniel. Ruth could join the new family if she was inclined but Mary didn't think she'd abscond from her love interest Matthew Atkins, a young man who lived closer to town. But that was fine because they would keep in touch by post at the very least.
Then those equivocal thoughts steered back to what was deemed most important at the moment: staring at Daniel with large puppy eyes. Heavens, he was handsome! Starved for nurturing affection, she was governed by the need to be closer to him, to absorb his greatness, and edged toward the door. In the cruel world she lived in, she was a flower left in the pitch of darkness stretching toward the sun and Daniel Plainview was that essential sun.
Her wanting of the oil man was interrupted by a familiar hymn sung as one out of the throats of several male voices and her sight veered to Eli leading a gaggle of devotees from the church down to the derrick. She groaned when her brother and a few of the women neared the roughnecks and introduced themselves, inviting them to the church for fellowship while pinning Church of the Third Revelation trademark cloth crosses onto the uninterested men's shirts. Out of aggravation, Mary kicked a rock because she could not kick her brother. Eli's unscrupulous attention swerved to the office before he made a bee-line towards it, hands clasped before him in his unsettling, pious custom.
He gained admittance and engaged in small talk with Daniel. The stakes between the two alpha males raised the moment Eli said that he would bless the well at its inauguration. He did not ask or recommend. He impudently assumed that he would without preface or authorisation as if he was entitled. Daniel's cold demeanour and stony disposition resembled that of a rattlesnake coiling to strike and Mary poised for it. Eli was either too stupid to notice Daniel's appraisal or too blazon to care but the devious evangelist persevered, rash in his telling Daniel what to say verbatim, something about Eli being the proud son of the hills. To Mary's surprise Daniel forwent the expected invective and sanctioned the blessing at a designated time of four o' clock.
Eli left untouched but from the glare of Daniel's empyrean eyes searing into the younger man's back Mary guessed it wouldn't be for much longer.