You did what!" Mother stopped in the middle of chopping onions and stared at Letitia as if she had grown two heads.
"I went to see Philip Dorn," Tish repeated. "To ask him if we could get married right away."
"Tish, no!" her mother wailed. "I know things are difficult for you right now, and all this is a big adjustment, but how could you go crawling to him? His mother has hired me to do the food for her parties, for heavens sake!"
"I thought that maybe, if we could go ahead and get married, you wouldn't have to—"
"Wouldn't have to humiliate myself in front of our former friends?" Mother pushed a lock of hair out of her eyes and sank wearily into a chair at the table. "Whether you marry Philip, and when, is your business—once you're of age," she sighed. "But you might as well know one thing, Letitia Randolph Cameron. I'll not be taking one dime of the Dorn money unless I work honestly for it. Not if you married Philip and became the wealthiest woman in Buncombe County."
Tish waited until the tirade had subsided. "I'm not going to marry Philip, Mother."
"And furthermore, if you think for one minute—" She stopped. "What did you say?"
Tish smiled. "I said, I'm not going to marry Philip."
"You're not?"
"I'm not."
Tish's mother cocked her head and gave her daughter a quizzical look. "When did all this happen?"
"This afternoon. If you'll just keep quiet for a minute or two, I'll tell you about it."
Mother wiped her hands on a dishtowel and nodded. "I'm listening."
"As I said, I went to see Philip, intending to suggest that we push the wedding up. But he was so . . . so snobbish, so superior! He didn't say it right out, of course, but it was clear enough he had no intention of marrying me now that—" She paused, groping for words.
"Now that your father is dead and we aren't rich anymore?"
"That's pretty much it, I guess." Tish smiled and shook her head. "You always have been direct and to the point, Mother."
"One of my many failings as the wife of a wealthy aristocrat."
Tish gazed at her mother as if seeing her for the first time. Flushed from the warmth of the oven, her cheeks bore a rosy glow and her hair, slightly disheveled, curled in disarray around her forehead. She looked at once ordinary and beautiful. And happy. Tish didn't think she had ever seen her mother happier.
"Was I like that—you know, self-important and snobby—when Daddy was alive and we were part of that circle?"
Mother bit her lower lip as if considering her answer. Then she said, "Yes."
The truth stung, and tears sprang to Tish's eyes.
"I'm sorry if that hurts, honey, but it's the only answer I can give. I love you—I've always loved you—but you did tend to get caught up in the aristocratic way of life. I prayed, almost every night, that you would come to your senses before it was too late, before you became like—well, like Alice Dorn. But of course a mother can't say such a thing; you wouldn't have listened anyway. You had to find out for yourself."
"Well, I certainly found out some things today." Tish went on with the story, telling her mother how Philip had treated her. She considered leaving out the part where Philip insulted Mother and accused Tish of being just like Maris, but in the end she related that part as well.
Much to her surprise, Mother laughed. "He said that? Said you were just like Maris!"
"He didn't mean it as a compliment, Mother," Tish protested. "But I'll have to admit, it's exactly what I needed to hear."
"And what did you tell him?"
Tish felt a flush of warmth creep up her neck. "Well," she said hesitantly, "I wasn't very, ah, ladylike. I told him that you had more class than all the uppity society people in his circle put together. And that you had something else—courage. Moral courage, I think I said. And that I hoped to high heaven I was just like you, because it was the best thing that could ever happen to me." Letitia averted her eyes as embarrassment washed over her. She had never admitted such feelings to herself, let alone to someone else. But she knew, just as she had known when she shouted the words in Philip Dorn's handsome face, that they were true.
When she looked up again, Mother was sitting there, dabbing at her eyes with the dishcloth.
"Are you crying, Mother?" Tish reached out a hand.
Her mothers strong, lithe hand closed over her fingers, and she shook her head. "It's just the onions." She smiled. "Did you really say all that to him?"
"Yes." Tish looked into her mother's eyes, no longer ashamed. "I did. And I meant it. Every word of it." She shrugged. "I don't know, Mother, I just saw something today, something that made me so mad. Philip didn't care about me; he just cared about having a girl who fit into his mother's plan of what a society lady—his wife—should be like. I was the same person—exactly the same person—he had claimed to love. The only difference was that now I didn't have Daddy's money to back me up. And in his eyes, that put me on a level with some scullery maid. I saw disgust in his eyes, Mother, and heard a condescending, smug tone in his voice that raked over me like fingernails on a blackboard. Suddenly he didn't seem so handsome, so desirable. And when he insulted you, well, that was the final straw. I knew I could never be the girl he thought I was, what he wanted me to be. And to tell the truth, I didn't want to be. I just wanted to be—to be loved for myself, to be—"
Without warning, tears welled up in her throat and choked her. For the first time since Daddy's death, the full force of her losses overwhelmed Tish, and she began to sob. When she felt her mother's arms go around her, her initial reaction was to resist, to steel herself against the embrace, to be strong. But she couldn't do it. At that moment she was not a young woman nearly grown, old enough to be on her own. She was a child, a little girl who needed her mommy's love. She let go, buried her face against her mother's shoulder, and wept.
Tish didn't know how long she sat there, crying. But when the tears at last subsided, she felt her mother's hand stroking her hair, heard a quiet voice whispering in her ear, "It's all right, honey. I'm here. Let it out."
Exhausted, Tish struggled to sit upright. Mother pressed a handkerchief into her clenched fist and pushed her hair out of her eyes. "I'm sorry," she gasped. "I don't know what that was all about."
"It's about loss," her mother said softly. "You've lost so much, darling—your father, the only way of life you've ever known, and now Philip—"
"Philip!" Tish snarled. "I can't believe I ever thought I loved him!" She blew her nose and exhaled heavily. "I won't miss him, that's for sure."
"Yes, you will," Mother said firmly. "You will miss his attention and feel keenly the loss of all the plans the two of you had made. But you'll get over it. Eventually."
She pulled Tish's head to her shoulder and began stroking her hair again. "Grief is a difficult process, honey. It doesn't happen all at once, but in stages, a little at a time. You think you're over it, that you've moved on, and suddenly it comes on you again—the sadness, the anger—"
Tish sat up a little and looked at her. "You were angry? With Daddy?"
Mother nodded. "I still am, sometimes. Oh, not because of the money. But because he took away the one thing that I really wanted—his presence." She gazed out the kitchen window to the edge of the garden plot where the purple crocuses grew. "I loved your father a great deal, Letitia. I still do. But sometimes I also hate him. Hate him for leaving like that, without a word of good-bye." She hugged Tish tighter. "We'll be all right, honey. But we both know things will never be the same."
Tish straightened up and swiped at her eyes. "But you seem so—so happy. So content here, in this little house."
"In some ways, I am. This kind of life is much more to my liking than the opulent society your father introduced me to. Your young man was right, honey—I don't belong in that world."
"He's not 'my young man,' Mother," Tish corrected. "He's an overbearing, spoiled rich boy who doesn't know the meaning of love. I never want to see him again."
"Perhaps. But you'd better prepare yourself for the fact that you will see him again. And you were engaged to him, so you'll have to get used to the idea of people talking about it. Especially since your mother is now"— she grinned broadly—"a low-class working woman."
In spite of herself, Tish smiled in return. "With a low-class working daughter." She squeezed her mother's hand. "I just want you to know that I will help you," she said. "With the catering, I mean—the food and parties and all that."
"I know you will, honey. And I suppose we should start making some firm plans. After all, you'll be graduating in a few weeks."
"The first thing we need to do," Tish said, "is learn to drive Daddy's car."
"Both of us?"
"Both of us." She raised one eyebrow at her mother. "I'm not going to be a society wife carted around by a chauffeur. I'm going to be doing the chauffeuring. Do you think we can afford one of those little billed caps and a dark suit?"
Both of them began to giggle, overcome by the ridiculous thought of Letitia Randolph Cameron in a chauffeur's uniform. They laughed together until tears came again, and Tish found herself amazed at the camaraderie—the equality—she felt with her mother. How much had she missed, all those years of thinking they had nothing in common? How much hurt had she caused by her own attitudes toward her mother's lack of sophistication?
Sophistication didn't seem nearly so important any longer. What mattered was that they were in this together.
At last her mother's laughter subsided and she grew serious. "Tish, we do need to talk about what you're going to do after graduation."
"I'm going to help you."
"I appreciate the offer, but I don't think so. I mean, I may need your help on the larger parties, but I want you to have the opportunity to do more than that. Have you thought about what you'd like to do?"
Tish shook her head. "Not really. I put all my eggs in Philip Dorn's basket, I'm afraid. The only real plans I made were to marry him and have children. It seemed like a wonderful dream at the time, but now—"
"Now you're starting over. We both are."
Tish thought for a minute. "I do love children. And I've been a pretty good student. Maybe I could teach."
A shadow passed over her mothers face. "I hate to throw cold water on your idea, honey, but—" She paused. "Well, I'm afraid that right now we don't have the money for you to go to college, even if you went to the University here. We're barely getting by, and even when I start earning more—"
Suddenly Tish let out a squeal. Why hadn't she thought of this sooner? She jumped up and raced into the parlor.
"What is it, honey?" her mother called from the kitchen. "Are you all right?"
"I'm just fine, Mother," she shouted over her shoulder. "Wonderful, in fact." She retrieved her bag from the settee and came back to the kitchen. "Philip Dorn is going to pay my way through college."
"Absolutely not!" her mother protested. "Even if he were willing to pay, to make amends for his broken promises to you, I couldn't allow you to—"
"Just hold on, will you?" Tish rummaged through the bag and came up with the diamond engagement ring. "I said I put all my eggs in Philip's basket. But I was wrong. I forgot about one egg. The golden egg." She picked a piece of lint off the stone and held it up to the light. "This is my ticket to college, Mother."
Her mother stared at the sparkling stone as if hypnotized. "You didn't return it?"
"I did not." Tish began to laugh, a low rumbling chuckle. "He wanted it back, all right. Nearly wrestled me to the ground for it. But I told him that I was a low-class working woman, just like my mother. And that I had earned it."
"He'll find a way to get it back."
"No, he won't. Philip's too proud to admit that I got the better of him. He'll never mention it again. And in the meantime, I'll be enrolling in college to get my teacher's certification."
Letitia's mother took the diamond ring and examined it. "It's very valuable, you know."
"Money's only valuable for what it can buy, Mother," Tish said. "A very wise woman told me that—about a thousand times in the past seventeen years."
"So you did listen?"
"Once in a great while. But I promise I'll pay attention more carefully in the future."
Mother squinted at the stone and turned it this way and that. "And what is this diamond going to buy, my darling daughter?"
Tish shrugged. She knew the answer, but she pretended to think about it before she answered. After a long silence she said, "Liberty, Mother. Freedom."
And she knew it was true. How many women in this world chose gilded shackles and gem-encrusted prison cells rather than taking the risk to be true to themselves? It had almost happened to her. On her finger, that ring represented bondage to a life—and a man—completely unsuited to her. Without it, she was free to become the person she wanted to be, to do what she was destined to do.
Free, she silently hoped, to become just like Maris.