Read Online Our Own Country: A Novel (The Midwife Series) by Jodi Daynard - Free Book Online Page B

now emptied of its students. It seemed odd to find no sailcloth tents, no mountebanks selling snake oil, no fat babies or boneless men or drunken groups of boys singing in the streets. The college was eerily quiet, and a little sad.
    I espied a lone tutor, hardly older than I, walking between buildings, calico gown flapping. Suddenly I felt an unbidden panic at the thought that I might have to dance with Mr. Inman. I had had only three lessons before my parents thought it imprudent for me to return to Boston.
    “My ankle hurts,” I said.
    “Oh, nonsense, Eliza,” Mama replied.
    “It is stiff from sitting, I expect,” said Papa illogically. “Roll it about this way and that. It shall pass.”
    By the time we arrived at our destination, however, it seemed that my ankle had managed to break itself between West and East Cambridge. I walked with a distinct limp, which I half believed to be genuine.
    “Oh, gracious, Eliza. Straighten up,” Mama said. “You look deformed.”
    My father grinned awkwardly as the Inmans’ broad red door opened onto an elegant tableau.

    I had been in many grand homes, but never had I seen anything quite like the Inmans’. The foyer was octagonal in shape, its floor not marble-painted wood but actual marble, laid in a black-and-white diamond pattern. Upon a carved center table flourished a bouquet of exotic flowers. And, as for our staircase, of which I’d always been so proud, it was nothing compared to that of the Inmans’.
    I soon took leave of my parents to wander on my own. Sipping a glass of refreshing citrus punch that had been placed in my hand, I glided into the parlor in Louisa’s shoes. Boys and girls milled about the punch bowl. I recognized many of them, though I could not recall their names. One of the boys I thought particularly handsome: he had dark, wavy hair and lovely hazel eyes. When I passed him, he raised his glass to me and smiled, but no one introduced us, and so I moved on into the garden. There, tiny lanterns were strung in rows upon the elms; they glowed in the dark like lightning bugs. Folding garden chairs, painted bright white, encircled perhaps three dozen round tables, each covered in Irish linen. Upon each table a cluster of candles flickered crazily within a hurricane lamp. By the light of the lamps and glowworms, children chased each other around the vast yard. The girls’ white dresses and bobbing curls flashed in and out of sight. The boys, in dark costumes, were nearly invisible, so that one had the impression of several dozen little girls being chased by darting shadows.
    I found a place among the tables where other girls my age already sat, accompanied by a chaperone. Ours was the new Mrs. Inman’s sister, a sweet and smiling creature entirely ignored by us.
    The girls at my table were in the midst of a conversation about homespun.
    “Disgusting,” one girl was saying.
    “Indeed,” said another.
    “I shouldn’t wear it if my life depended on it,” said a third.
    Then the first, who wore an aqua gown, changed the subject.
    “Mr. Inman is handsome, is he not? His eyes are so very blue.”
    “They match your dress perfectly,” said the second girl, in an emerald-green gown.
    The girl in the aqua gown, whose name was Hannah Appleton, giggled, “Oh, you’re right! They do!”
    “Regard what a fine figure he cuts,” the one in the emerald gown added, as the fine figure himself walked past our table, affecting not to notice our admiring stares.
    This might have been the moment to reveal that Mr. Inman had been paying court to me, but I knew not what to say without sounding boastful, so I remained silent.
    It was soon time to move to the parlor, where I found my dance card upon a table strewn with rose petals. I eagerly put it to use, my ankle having miraculously healed once I realized that I would be safer from Mr. Inman’s attentions on the dance floor than off.
    Papa had little use for dancing. After a requisite minuet with Mama, he went