Free Morning Song by Karen Robards Page A

led to the back portico and rear gardens. The lilting strains of a quadrille emanated from the platform.
    Seated on little chairs set around the perimeter of the room, soberly clad matrons of all ages chatted quietly amongst themselves. They would pass the evening by watching the dancers and criticizing the girls and their beaux, taking the floor to dance with only their own husbands or brothers. Marriage automatically relegated a woman to dull clothes and a chair on the sidelines, leaving the pretty, bright dresses and enjoyable flirtations to the young, unmarried girls.
    The older gentlemen, to a man undoubtedly dragooned into attendance by their determined wives, congregated around the punchbowl that had been set up along with a table of refreshments in a small antechamber. Their voices rose and fell as they discussed, from the few words Jessie could overhear, 64

    various hunting exploits and the falling price of cotton. In the center of the room, perhaps twenty young couples twirled about in the movements of the dance. Jessie knew them all, of course, had known them since birth, but—but . . .
    The girls in their soft pastel dresses bore little resemblance to the playmates she remembered from the years before their mothers decided that she wasn't a suitable friend for their darling daughters after all. Every one of them looked so pretty, with their hair all shiny and styled, not in a topknot as hers was, but so that it was tied away from their faces and fell down to their shoulders in fat ringlets.
    And their dresses—their dresses were not like hers, either. Their bodices were tiny and revealed far more of their white bosoms than the inch or so of décolletage that had so scandalized Tudi. Their sleeves, though short and puffed, were styled so that they fell away from creamy shoulders, baring them, too. The effect looked rather as if the top of the dress might fall to the wearer's waist at any moment, but all the girls wore them and in their mothers' presence, too, so that it must not only be the fashion but also perfectly respectable. Tiny waists were accentuated by enormous sashes, sashes that ended in the back in huge bows and trailing streamers and were wide enough to make the sash around Jessie's waist look like a mere ribbon. Skirts were huge and billowing, longer in back than in front, so that small satin slippers and an occasional tantalizing glimpse of ankle were visible as the dancers whirled.
    The dresses they wore on the dance floor were not the same garments they had worn to the picnic earlier. Jessie realized with a sinking feeling that all the young girls except her had brought dance dresses with them, and changed into them after supper. 65

    Her patched-together gown looked more out of place than ever in comparison with the frothy confections the other girls wore for dancing. But how could she have known that they would change? And, given her limited wardrobe, what could she have done about it if she had known?
    Watching, Jessie felt acutely self-conscious. Her own sartorial shortcomings were painfully obvious even to her. With her faded, old-fashioned dress rendered even more dreadful by Sissie's bright pink embellishments, Jessie knew that she looked woefully out of place. If only everyone would leave her alone, she would steal away somewhere and hide until it was time to go home. By coming, she had appeased Celia and given tacit approval to the marriage. Celia was fully occupied in exhibiting her catch, and would neither know nor care if Jessie quietly disappeared until the evening was over. It it ever was over . . . But the Misses Edwards had other ideas.
    Miss Flora fell in on Jessie's other side, linking her arm with Jessie's, too. Jessie had no choice but to let the two old ladies bear her off. They tugged her toward the gaiety like two small keelboats towing a paddle wheeler.
    "Now, then, let's see if we can't find you a partner," Miss Flora said, to Jessie's horror, pausing in the doorway to