“Then you simply must join us,” Joy exclaimed. “It’s all the rage in my garden!”
“Lead the way,” Jennifer replied. Together, they joined the throng of dancers, their steps unpracticed but their hearts lighter than they’d been all evening.
*****
As Thomas drove the automobile home that evening, Joy was still surprised by Mrs. Collins’s about-face. “What do you think came over her to be kind to me instead of simply carrying on as she had been?”
Thomas shrugged. “Perhaps she could see that others genuinely like you. She’s never been one to be opposing the group as a whole.”
“Maybe…” Joy wasn’t so certain. “I’m glad the evening is over though. I think we should go for a midnight stroll in the garden.”
He laughed. “Every time we go to a big event now, you think we need a midnight stroll.”
She smiled. “I need to be in nature after I’ve spent so much time with strangers who think they’re better than everyone else.”
He frowned. “You think my friends all think they’re better than everyone else?”
She sighed. “I shouldn’t have said it that way…but…it does feel that they look down on me at times. As if I’m a fish out of water, and I must make everyone laugh to pay for my admission. Oh, that isn’t fair. I’m sorry I said anything.”
Thomas stared straight ahead for a moment after parking his automobile. “Do you really feel that way?”
“Sometimes,” she said softly. “I will see people that I know through you as I’m on my way to the orphanage, with my old clothes on, and my hair pulled out of the way with a scarf. I’ll greet them, but the women…well, they move their skirts out of the way as if they’re afraid that my touch will contaminate them in some way. It’s like I’m acceptable if you’re with me, but on my own…well, I’m no better than the orphans I work with.” She shook her head. “I said that wrong. I don’t believe I’m better than the orphans, but I don’t believe the orphans or I am less than your friends either.”
“But you believe my friends see you as less?” he asked.
“I do.”
He frowned. “My world is very different than the one you grew up in, but I don’t see it as any worse or any better.”
“But you were raised in the life you live in. You’ve always lived in a fancy house and dressed immaculately. I was raised on a farm, and the clothes I wear to work at the orphanage that we now call my ‘rags’ were my regular clothes just a few months ago. Will our children be considered less than your friends because they are mine as well as yours?”
“You’re imagining things. No one really treats you as lower than them. I’ve never seen that happen.”
“Whether you’ve seen it or not, it does happen. But it’s all right as long as I can spend some time outside after a night with them. I replenish my soul by standing in the garden.”
He laughed softly. “You replenish your soul, do you?”
She nudged him with her shoulder, silently chiding him for making fun of her.
“Let’s go stroll in the garden then.” Thomas was still thinking about what she’d said about his friends looking down on her. He didn’t seem to be losing any clients over her, so he shouldn’t worry too much, but it was definitely something to think about.
Once in the house, she went straight to the parlor and removed her shoes and stockings. “I’m ready.”
He shook his head. “What about your dress? It’s going to get dirty.”
She shook her head. “I know how to walk like a lady,” she said. She stood and walked down the hall toward the back door, one hand holding her dress up off the ground, showing her shapely calves.
“Don’t walk like that around other men,” he said, watching her. “No one gets to see your legs but me.”
She laughed. “At home, I sometimes wore my brothers’ old britches, so I didn’t have to worry about getting my skirts dirty.”
“You didn’t!” He knew some women were taking to wearing pants these days, but it had never occurred to him that she was one of them.
“I did. And I’m not even ashamed of it!” She turned abruptly, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him. “My ma wasn’t impressed, I’m afraid, but I did it anyway. Skirts get in the way when you’re harvesting.”
“You, my dear, are just too wild for me. I may have to find myself a nice, simple lady to settle down with.”
She shook her head. “Try it. I’ll fight her for you!”
