Jilted ~ A Tale of Two Women

Wallow like a well-fed pig in a sty she would, until she was damn good and ready to do otherwise. These days crying was her favorite pastime and listening to worn out tunes as evidenced by her attempted sing along of “all alone am I” just went down easy with her woebegone state. Wrapping up in her sorry blanket, indulging in Ferrero Rocher, and tipping back Johnnie Walker Red two fingers at a time, was her just due. Queen of wallow, the pinball was in tilt, she had been jilted. 1

Nora Jamieson had it all, brains, beauty, a family of influence with an embarrassing financial ledger. She was lithesome, moved with the grace of the puma with hair of autumn fire and eyes moonstone blue. She had but to walk in a room and she left with a parade, men all ages, from just handsome to beyond Adonis legend. Phi Beta Kappa intellect, opinionated, socially graced with great rapport, her own woman, until the entry of one Jonathan Steele in her life. 2

Jon had come on board as a cub the same as she on her family’s magazine, “Points West.” His rise was meteoric. His features more often than not became the centerpiece of an issue. Nora worshiped his expertise. First they were colleagues who shared a love for getting a story and using their words to bring it to life. One stormy night over spaghetti and Chianti conferring on how best to say this or say that, they became lovers, afterwards inseparable. All the gossips had them taking the white-silk walk. 3

Alas it was not to be. Jon simply said they were not well matched. After three years, that’s all he offered – not well matched. She had always been aware of his constant remaking, reshaping, trying to cast her in a new mold. He had had an appreciation for her wit, her well-turned out words when they helped him along. But Jon for all his modernity really bought into the Adam’s Rib philosophy. He was the “man,” the final arbiter, and to be his wife, she was to be reduced to his arm candy. 4

Nora had believed it was only a matter of time and he would accept Nora as she was not as he wished her to be. She had, up until now, been successful in walking her separate path while building a bridge to traverse their widening river of disagreement. Nora saw it as simply accepting and respecting who she was as she did him. Nora had made Jon’s entre into the world of his desire so easy and with benefits, but for him she was too much work, a constant balancing act. He was tired of trying to make her fit into his picture. More importantly he said was that he had made a great find -- the woman he needed, the one whose ego would not be in competition with his own. Jon explained it all to her just ten days ago, point by point, like ticking a list – done, done, done – and done.5

Remembering, Nora’s tears fell like rain. She needed something to hang onto, something solid to hitch her dreams or she was afraid they’d just float way and leave her with spaces far to empty to ever fill up. She had given and given to Jon. She felt used up, like a nothing, a void. Nora wrapped herself in her miserableness and slept. 6

Her phone chirped. She awoke in a stupor just enough so that with one eye, she could see by the caller ID, it was her mother, again. She just was not up to one of those conversations, not right now. She let the machine take the call.7

She decided she must move about, shake off depression’s grip. She started moving things from one place to another, and in doing so, she saw the manila envelop her mother had sent her by special messenger several days ago. She picked it up. Nora shook her head. Her mother was the cheerleader of high spirits. She was always telling her that happiness was hers to command, she just had to get out of the way. Her mom believed in standing up and charging the wind, never accepting defeat and never putting one’s fate in the hands of anyone else, not family and certainly never in a mercurial man as she had dubbed Jon to be long ago. Nora allowed herself to accept her mother’s wisdom in regard to Jon.8

Nora opened the envelope and from the darkness inside out slid the picture of her great-great-great grandmother, Eleanora Weston, The Lady in Black. Nora was well acquainted with this picture and with this woman’s story. Nora was Eleanora’s namesake. Smiling a bitter smile, Nora spoke to Eleanora as if she were in the room, “Seems like you and I now have more in common than our names and looks.”9

Nora placed the picture of Eleanora so it would lean upright against her bureau mirror and poured herself two fingers more of the Red. As Nora sipped she stared at Eleanora. Who would guess the likes of the one in this picture would partner the founding of an empire. Sad-eyed, smile less face, ghostly pale staring out, and her body encased not in the high fashion of the day but in a shroud of black. For the first time in days, Nora’s mind was on something other than herself. Nora set her mind to recalling Eleanora’s story…10

Eleanora had been just sixteen in the picture and was in love with one Lucien Benoit. At twenty-four Lucien was a rising star of the times, a reporter – a “special” – on her family’s newspaper. He was ever the intrepid adventurer. He traveled with the Union troops, and used his expertise and wit to provide the thirsty public news of the front with his pictorial illustrations and correspondent sketches that gave his words wings for his readers. Price Weston, Eleanora’s father, liked him, treated him like a son, and gave him unprecedented entre to his family and social connections. Lucien’s stories were dipped from the pen of genius. It was his words that first captured Eleanora’s heart. 11

Eleanora entered into the private world of this schemer, a dream genie out of Baton Rouge. Lucien at twenty-four had an edge, a swagger. Dark good looks and piercing blue eyes that having seen too much just egged his competitive spirit to take any risk. He was a full-fledged member of the live now club. He knew the cost of the field of glory, the red-washed meadows, and creek beds contaminated from the bodies in decay nearby. So his philosophy was - you like, you take. He took want he wanted when he wanted, and Eleanora was his latest acquisition.12

Eleanora became the casualty of Lucien Benoit. He was what she wanted to be - a reporter on her father’s newspaper, but in these unenlightened times, no self respecting man elevated his daughter to such heights. It was not done. So Lucien became the son Price so wanted and Eleanora’s god – her graven image. Lucien ensured her enraptured state by giving her a glimpse into the world she was denied. But times passed and as unceremoniously as they had begun they just as unceremoniously ended. Lucien moved on. Leaving her jilted, used, unwed, and with the fruits of spring in her belly. 13

Eleanora’s father, Price, was cold, unloving and unforgiving. A man whose reason for family was simply an appendage an edification of who he was, of his empire. Eleanora had disgraced them all and committed even the bigger sin of losing for Price, the man he could look upon as a son. In disgrace, Eleanora gave birth to tiny Judd Weston, stillborn, a further proof according to Price of her unworthiness. 14

This picture, the one the family dubbed “The Lady in Black” had been taken within a short time after little Judd Weston’s funeral. 15

Price made Eleanor a prisoner in her own home. No parties. No pretty baubles. No bright party gowns. She had betrayed the family, betrayed Price. Shrouded in black and hidden away was all that was left for her and was the only way offered to her to again find acceptance within the family’s good graces. 16

Eleanora knew her life was over before it had begun. Her father ruled with an iron fist. Her days would melt one into another each claimed by “the nothing” she felt her soul to be becoming.17

Eleanora did not see it as a choice. She saw it as survival. She ran away. She bobbed her red mane, bound her breasts, and dressed like a man. She became Eli Ronan and tramped her way West during the Great Western Migration. She hired on as an apprentice to Bradley Jamieson who had been commissioned to record and photograph the histories of the men and women setting off for a new life, the pioneer souls looking to find their 160-acre parcel of the West granted by the U.S. Congress in the Homestead Act. 18

Eleanora had learned many things from Lucien Benoit. Not the least of which he taught her the art of taking the photograph. She had an eye for it and was blessed with the ability to line her words up one falling after another across the page she could make the reader feel rage, the sweetness of compassion, or foster decision. She did truly have a gift. Eleanora in later years came to believe that it was this ability that had been the real cause of Lucien’s defection. 19

The story goes that Eleanora landed on her feet against great odds. She had gumption. Of course Bradley Jamieson discovered her secret but he respected her talents. Later she and Bradley became the founders of “Points West.”20

Nora’s reflections on Eleanora brought her to the valley of decision. Nora turned off the “somebody done somebody wrong songs,” dried her eyes and with her last sip of Johnnie Walker she toasted “The Lady in Black -- “to gumption.”21

Nora called her mom and said thanks. She was ready to stand up, to charge the wind. 22