Mist-shi-mus

Races & Dance Cards Part II

The rest of the day continued to be fair though an increasing array of clouds thickened the sky. The sun moved further to the west, dragging the summer afternoon with it. The races over, the party adjourned and made their way up to the American parade grounds.

 At six, there was a sit down supper for the officers and special guests. The soldiers set up a large tent on the parade grounds and placed boards upon wood horses for tables. Laid out in banquet style with white linen cloths and silverware, the diners could have been supping at the finest establishment. Only the patches of summer sun and shadow on the grass around them and the gentle breeze teasing the ferns and wild flowers dangling from the corner posts of the tent reminded them that they were outdoors.

 Jeannie sat with the Parkers at Pickett’s end of the table where Pickett was entertaining the captain of the British warship, the HMS Satellite as well as members of the American survey party still involved with the surveying of the international land boundary at the forty-ninth parallel. Jeannie looked for Breed and was disappointed when she didn’t see him. Later, he arrived with a group of men she did not know and sat at a table set for bachelors. Unfortunately, Breed was so far from her end of the tent, she could not glimpse him without craning her neck and that would not do. By the time dinner was over and her cake and coffee served by one of the Chinese servants at the camp, he was gone. Still, it lifted her heart that he had come, even if he was unattainable.

 While the women tended to their hair and dress in one of the American officer’s bungalows, the men walked to the blockhouse and smoked cigars by the post fence. Out in the center of the parade ground, soldiers finished raising a wood platform, stringing little lanterns between the corner posts. Soon after, an orchestra from the Royal Marine encampment set up chairs and began to squeak and haw as they tuned their instruments on a corner of the stage.

 “A pity you cannot put on your dancing shoes,” Gladyse said as she peeked out on the scene from the cramped room. “I have never seen so many men anxious to make your acquaintance as I have today. But you may have your name on the dance card and visit.” She moved a hat box on the floor and avoided stepping on the woman next to her pulling her stockings on.

 Jeannie said nothing. Adjusting her crinolines, she slipped on the new dress Uncle Archie recently purchased for her. Though it was black for mourning, it was in the latest fashion and becoming. She had removed the short jacket so that her shoulders were bare and the decollate plunge to her breasts exposed. Little jet earring graced her ears.

 “Is true that a London tenor touring the Sound is performing this evening?” Jeannie pulled at the tops of her cap sleeves.

 Gladyse pinched her cheeks. “So I heard. The finest right here! How very elegant.” She picked up her wrap. “Are you ready, dear?”

 “Yes.” Jeannie smoothed down the front of her skirt as though it would smooth away the butterflies in her stomach. She was stepping out into society no matter how far flung from the end of the earth and of such peculiar arrangement. Two military forces on one lone island.

 “Then let’s go.” Gladyse swept her hooped skirt around the bedstead that took up half the room and opened the door to the tiny hall. Jeannie followed.

 Out on the porch, Jeannie gasped at the venue for the ball. Soldiers were lighting the candles inside the lanterns so that the platform resembled a fairy ring at midsummer’s eve. Beyond it, to the east the tops of islands and the mountains on the mainland glowed amber with the late summer light. The white picket fence around the grounds and blockhouse glowed too like the great white way she had seen once in Bristol so long ago. In front of the stage the officers gathered in their best jackets with a hat or two with plumage. In all, a civilized and yet unnatural scene.