Page 7 of Bartholomew
“Well, what are you standing around down here for, then?! Get to it, girl!” she chided, waving me off with a hand as she ventured off towards another room in the house. As I turned to make my way back up the staircase, two of my younger sisters barged through the front door of the house.
“Oh good, you’re here, Delilah!” Faith huffed, as though she were out of breath.
“Where else would she be, Faith?” Elisheba scoffed.
“Yes, I’m still here. The wedding is not until tomorrow. Is something the matter?” I did not want to talk to them.
“We brought your dress! Don’t you want to see it?” they both cried out excitedly in almost perfect synchronization.
“I already saw it,” I reminded them. Mama had shown me the dress a few days ago. Simple, yet beautiful, its delicate lace laid over the bodice and made me feel feminine and pretty. For once in my life.
“Yes, yes, but it’s fixed now!” Elisheba explained as though it were obvious.
“Fixed? What was wrong with the dress before?” I questioned, not understanding. The dress had belonged to a woman in the church and had fit me perfectly. What could possibly have needed to be fixed?
“Come on, let us show you!” Faith squealed, pulling me away from the stairs and down the hall to where her room had been when she had lived here. They had kept the four rooms my younger sisters had once inhabited in pristine condition. Nothing less would have been tolerated for the beautiful Christian sisters. At least for the younger four.
Laying the bag out on the bed, Faith unzipped the canvas and showed me the dress within.
Don’t show emotion. Don’t show them anything.
I steeled myself with the resolve I had carefully crafted over the years. I did not let myself show how I felt about the dress that lay before me. Where only a few days ago, a creamy white dress with beautiful yet understated lace adornment had sat, now showed a simple creamy white dress. With the neckline raised and every scrap of beautiful lace removed, the dress was a dull, lifeless remnant of what it had once been.
“What happened to the lace?” I asked, masking my disappointment.
“We, along with Mother, thought it best to take away anything that pulled attention towards your more unflattering features,” Elisheba explained. Her face was alight with excitement as though she had done me some large favor.
“I see,” I murmured, more to myself than to my sisters.
“This will keep you simple and keep the focus away from your body. Granted, you’re marrying Bartholomew Temple. I’m not sure how anyone could look at anything other than him, least of all you!” Faith giggled.
“Thank you both for your hard work. I’ll just take this upstairs and finish packing.” I wanted to get away from them.
“We will come with you, sister. It is our duty as your sisters to impart as much wisdom to you before your big day. Wifely duties are something to be taken very seriously,” Elisheba explained, zipping up the garment bag. She and Faith made their way up the stairs to my tiny room, giggling to themselves the entire way. So much for getting a break before tomorrow. First mother had imparted her own wisdom, which had been little more than stay invisible, keep quiet, and do as you are told. Lord only knew what my younger sisters would have in store for me.
“Have we missed it?” Genesis called from the doorway as she threw open the front door, Hannah following just behind her. Great.
“Not at all! We are just getting ready to discuss wifely duties,” Faith yelled from the top of the stairs.
“You girls be of good help to your sister, now,” Mother called from the kitchen. Of course, it was fine for all four of them and my mother to holler up and down the stairs, but heaven forbid that I do the same. With a deep sigh of resignation, I made my way back up the old staircase to the attic, ready to hear whatever nonsense my little sisters had to pass on.
“Oh, this dress looks so much better now, Faith!” Hannah praised. As the youngest of us five, she was the most recently married. As the eldest of the five Christian sisters, it had been a stain on the family name that I had yet to be married off. I had long thought I was destined for nothing more than the classroom, where any women deemed unsuitable for marriage were sent. It was no great surprise when Malachi Temple had spurned the marriage our parents had attempted to arrange. But to everyone’s shock, most of all my own, Bartholomew Temple had stepped up and agreed to marry me. Me, of all people.
“Yes, I agree, the lack of adornment will keep eyes away from Delilah and on more important things like the groom!” The way Genesis’s brows wagged in a suggestive manner left nothing to my imagination. It was no secret that Bartholomew was the most attractive of the Temple brothers. With that slightly longer than was acceptable hair, that shadow of a beard, and that smile that could make a woman weak in the knees from fifty paces away, it was no surprise at all that he was the envy of every young and unmarried woman in Zion.
“I kind of liked the lace,” I muttered. I instantly winced, knowing better than to have opened my mouth about such things.
“While lace is beautiful, Delilah, we don’t want to give your groom any reason to change his mind. If his eyes are on other things; if his eyes stay away from… well, I mean —” Faith sputtered, trying to find the words.
“What she means is that you are no great match. Once the wedding is over, he will have no choice but to stay wed to you. Then it won’t matter as much that your body looks like, well, that…” Elisheba stated frankly.
“You are such a beautiful girl, Delilah. Your beauty is just on the inside,” Hannah said placatingly. I knew she meant well, but, honestly, after years of this rhetoric, it wasn’t new. It still hurt, but it was not new.
“Let’s put aside all that talk and get to the important part. Your wifely duties. As all four of us are already married, some of us with babies of our own, it is our job to prepare you for what will come tomorrow, and in the days beyond,” Elisheba took the reins of the conversation. It was her preferred place to be in a conversation.
“The wedding day will fly by in a flash. Just remember that,” Genesis stated.
“Faster than you can imagine. Your husband will want to partake in his husbandly duties often until you are pregnant with your first child. It can be cumbersome and sometimes tiresome, but it will be over before you know it,” Faith continued, the other three girls nodding in agreement.
