Lilacs

Southampton
Meg had found solace beneath the lilac bushes in the backyard. She hadn’t come here for years, though when she was smaller, on occasion, she would hide here. The sound of shouting from the house had driven her outside, and even though she knew it was for a good cause, the idea that someone else was being punished for what she had done was enough to make her sick to her stomach.
She was fairly certain Kelly would find her soon, though she was still supposed to be studying with Ms. Cunningham. The sound of her uncle berating Wilma downstairs, and then obviously striking her, had sent Meg running down the back stair case. Ms. Cunningham was young and inexperienced—nothing like Ms. Strickland—and whenever Meg ran or hid from her, she never bothered to go hunt her down.
A few minutes later, Meg watched as Wilma came through the back door, her tattered garment bag in one hand, the hand of her young daughter, Angelina, in the other. Even from this distance, Meg could see that Wilma’s nose was bleeding and she had tears streaming down her face. In a few days, Meg would return her uncle’s favorite cufflink to his drawer, but he would never call Wilma back to work or apologize. He had found one in Wilma’s pocket this morning after he’d searched the house and likely accused her of selling the other. She had, of course, claimed innocence, sworn on her life and that of her daughter’s that she didn’t take it. He didn’t believe her, and now out she went, Angelina questioning why she was crying and where they were going.
Anywhere was better than here.
At first, Meg had tried to do the right thing. Last year, when she’d discovered what was happening with Sarah’s and Blanche’s daughters, she had attempted to talk to them. Neither of them wanted to hear what she had to say. They both said this was the only work they could find. They were unskilled young mothers, with little children to care for. Meg understood that, but surely they must appreciate exactly why her uncle wanted them there, wanted their daughters in the adjoining maids’ room and not with their own respective mothers. Deaf ears had pleaded ignorance, so Meg had done the only thing she could. She had gotten each of them fired.
First, Sarah ruined her mother’s favorite ball gown, and then Blanche broke the glass in her uncle’s portrait above the fireplace. Of course, neither of them had actually done anything, but after her mother and uncle had lit into them, and in Sarah’s case she’d been given a black eye, both ladies had been sent away. After that, there had been Eunice and her daughter Tildy. Then, Kathleen and Belle. Then there was Gretchen, who had actually listened to what Meg had to say. Last week, she’d taken her daughter Clara and left of her own accord. Meg was thankful that Clara had a good mother who cared for her.
Some of these women were actually married, but their husbands were employed elsewhere. Some were unwed, and some were young widows. She’d made the argument that perhaps their daughter would be better off with their fathers or their grandmothers if they were available (as Patsy had done with her Kelly) but the mothers wanted their daughters close by and refused to believe what Meg was telling them, even when their little ones confirmed it by wetting the bed and hiding at bedtime. Meg knew what those signs meant. She knew all too well.
She had been left alone for the most part. At first, she’d worried about Kelly, but she soon realized that her friend was too old for her uncle’s liking. She wondered if that was the true reason he rarely entered her room anymore or if it was because of whatever her mother had said to him that night, after the dancing lesson. She didn’t spend too much time trying to figure it out. As long as he stayed away, she didn’t really care why.
Meg heard a stirring in the branches and looked to see familiar muddy boots entering her private space and then a familiar face. “Whatcha doin’?” Ezra asked, dodging a low hanging vine to settle down next to her.
“Nothing,” she replied, her hands still grasped tightly around her folded knees.
“Ms. Wilma sure didn’t look good when she lit out of here,” he continued.
“I wouldn’t know,” Meg replied. She glanced up at him, and Ezra looked a bit skeptical. “Fine. I was scared.” Lying was better than telling the truth sometimes. If Ezra thought she was hiding because she was scared she might get hurt, instead of because she felt guilty for getting a woman’s face smashed in, well, then, that would shift the blame back to Wilma and away from her.
“I see,” he said. He pulled a rambling vine out of the ground and snapped it, placing part of it in the corner of his mouth as if it were a stalk of straw, something she’d seen him do lots of times when they were younger and ran around the dusty carriage house.
“Why are you here anyway?” Meg asked. “Shouldn’t you be at school?”
“Shouldn’t you be with your governess?” he countered.
Meg looked up at him for the first time. She couldn’t remember the last time they’d been together at all, though sometimes she saw him in the back garden helping his father. He was nearly seventeen now and quite tall. With light, wavy hair and blue eyes, some girls might even think him handsome—if he weren’t covered in muck and didn’t smell like horse or automobile oil. Of course, Meg didn’t think he was handsome at all. He was Ezra—nothing more than the caretaker’s son. So she didn’t understand why her stomach felt all queasy when he smiled that crooked grin at her. It wasn’t the same type of topsy turvy her stomach felt when she thought of her uncle or what she’d done to Wilma. This was different, and she thought she might actually like it.
But she wouldn’t let him know that.
“I think I should go back inside now,” she said, realizing she didn’t want to be sitting beneath the lilac bushes with Ezra anymore.
“All right,” he shrugged. “I wish you came outside more often,” he added as she began to make her way out of the bushes. “I miss you, Meggy.”
She glanced back at him, and though she could barely see his face through the branches, she could tell he was smiling at her and his blue eyes were twinkling. Butterflies began to dance in her stomach. “I’ll… I’ll see you later, Ezra.”
She hurried off to the house then, wondering why Kelly hadn’t found her and why Ezra suddenly made her feel so different than he ever had before.
When she entered the parlor, she found Kelly on her hands and knees with a bucket of soapy water. She could hear her mother and uncle in another room, and though it seemed they were trying to keep their voices low, they were obviously arguing. “What are you doing?” Meg asked, just above a whisper.
Kelly glanced up but then returned her concentration to her work. “Trying to get Wilma’s blood stain out of the rug.”
Meg’s eyes widened. “Oh, my,” she said, her hands covering her mouth.
“I don’t understand why these servants keep stealing and breaking things,” Kelly continued as she scrubbed, her voice showing the strain. “Is it just the caliber of people they’re tending to employ these days, or is something else amiss?”
“It is peculiar,” Meg agreed. “I should go check in with Ms. Cunningham.” Though she scurried past Kelly as quickly as she could, she couldn’t help but think the slightly older girl was giving her a look that said she knew more than she was willing to speak.
As Meg approached the stairwell, she could more clearly hear the voices coming from the room across the hall. Her mother was shouting, “Perhaps we could pay better if you hadn’t insisted on purchasing that ridiculous automobile.”
“I must have an auto,” Bertram shot back. “Everyone in our circle has them. If I didn’t, I should look like a penniless fool.”
“I don’t know how much longer we can keep this charade up,” her mother replied. “We must find a way to increase income or cut expenses!”
“I’m doing everything I can….”
Meg chose not to hear any more. Her mother was clearly doing her best to keep them at the level of accommodations they were used to whereas her uncle continued to spend money like nothing was wrong. The automobile, the telephone, the brand new radio—all of those things seemed like luxuries they could not afford to Meg, and as she continued on her way up the stairs, she wondered how in the world her uncle was able to pull this off. “He must have one very long line of credit,” she mumbled.
Ms. Cunningham was no longer in her room, and though Meg didn’t usually enjoy being in there at all, she decided to duck in and take a few moments to read a book she’d started a few days ago. Reading for pleasure was something she enjoyed greatly, and she was lucky that her mother had amassed a bit of a collection of novels when she was younger and they could still afford such items. Now, if she asked her mother for a new book, she likely wouldn’t even bother with a response.
As Meg reclined on the bed, book in hand, movement outside of the window caught her eye. Her room was on the side of the house so she could see both the front and side yard, which was connected to the back garden. She liked that she could see the street outside, see who was coming and going, and also liked that she could see some of the flowers, though the view of the back gardens wasn’t nearly as lovely as it was from the study. Today, however, it wasn’t the gardens that caught her eye; it was Ezra. He was with his father working on something, she couldn’t quite tell what, but it looked as if he was swinging an axe. She hadn’t noticed before the broad muscles in his shoulders or the way his hair glistened when the sun caught it just so. Before she realized what she was doing, she had set her book aside and was standing at the window, peering around to get a better view.
“Are you ready to get back to work?”
Meg jumped, nearly slamming her head into the glass before her. Once she had calmed herself a bit, she turned around. Of course it was Ms. Cunningham, and she hadn’t seemed to notice anything as she had pulled a chair out at the table and was flipping through the pages of Meg’s new French textbook. “I should think you ought to be able to master at least these next two verb conjugations before lunch.”
“Yes, I believe I can,” Meg replied, sitting back down. Her heart was still racing, but at least Ms. Cunningham didn’t seem to take any notice of what she had been doing. As the governess began to give her instructions, Meg took some deep breaths and attempted to concentrate on her studies, not at all sure what in the world was going on inside of her own body.