Bitter Eden (31 page)

"There's going to be a grand race today. Fellow by the name of Bates is visiting from Cooperstown. Thinks he can beat anything we can move on ice." He paused for a moment, letting Petar think. "Going to let him get away with that, Peter?"

"What do you say, Stephen?" Peter asked, his eyes glinting with the challenge.

"I'd end up with my head in a snowbank, is what I think," Stephen said. Peter made a face and Stephen went on. "But then maybe 111 give both you and Bates a run myself."

Jack nodded his approval. "The more the better. If we can t beat him fair, we can always squeeze him in between us." He chuckled. "That might make for more fun anyway ... most likely it'll cause one hell of a brawl. Damn, I wish I could run too. The runner on my sleigh is bad from last week."

"If you didn't run over every damned thing on the

ice you'd still have your sleigh. But why don t you ride with me?" Stephen said,

"Can't. I already promised I'd hold all the bets. I knew I couldn't run so . . ." He glanced over at Cal-lie. "Seeing as how I am going to be free all afternoon except for a minute or two at the start and a minute or so at the end, Callie, what about you coming down with me?" Ever since he had had time to reconsider the incident with the mash oar, he had been leaning toward the theory that Callie's reaction had really been a display of abandoned affection. His only concession to reason was that he decided to approach her in a more gentlemanly fashion than he had previously. "I'd be more than happy to escort you to the races today," he said sweetly.

Stephen hid his smile behind his napkin. "She's riding with me, Jack. Sorry. Maybe some other time."

Tm not riding with anyone," Callie said.

"Yes, you are. I need the weight on that side."

"How nice to be needed," she spat, and excused herself from the table. "Get yourself a rock."

She was upstairs in Jamie's room supporting his back as he made his first round-bottomed attempts to sit up alone. He was a dauntless little creature, growing angry and red-faced each time he recovered from the surprise of falling over. Stephen came into the room, leaning over the crib.

"Watch him, Stephen. He's almost got it. He starts out beautifully, but he rolls right over on his face. See—look what effort, and he never stops trying."

Stephen's entrance distracted the baby for a moment, as did the bright scarf around his neck. Jamie reached up and grabbed the scarf, immediately stuffing it into his mouth.

"Mary Anne will be up as soon as she has cleared

away downstairs. She is going to look after the little lord of the manor until you and I come home from a trip on the ice."

"Oh, Stephen, I'd dearly love to provide the weight for your sled ... it was such a nice thing for you to suggest, but I can t."

"I didn't mean that, and you know it."

She grinned. "Well, I can't anyway. Honestly. Jamie is so used to my being here, and no one else knows what to do for him. He needs me."

"He'll manage without you, and I won't. I take what I said back. I do need the weight. I'll turn over for sure unless you're there."

"Stephen, no, I can't go."

But Stephen wasn't listening.

"Good! There's Mary Anne now. No more talk from you. Go dress warmly and meet me outside in fifteen minutes."

"Fifteen minutes I Oh, Stephen, at least let me get him to sleep."

"Not a second longer, and you needn't give Mary Anne any instructions. I am as good a mother as you, and I have told her all she needs to know. Hurry up; you have only fourteen minutes now."

"Yes, sir!" Callie saluted, then ran from the room.

They got into the sleigh and Stephen headed toward the river. %

"I've only watched the races before. It is a little frightening to think of really being in one," she said warily. She loved the ice, and she loved sleighing, but she had never seen a race yet that didn't end with someone spilled all over the ice. That did not seem like it would be fun.

"Well watch the first one and see how rough it is going to be."

They sat in the sleigh at the edge of the bank.

There were three sleighs lined up on the river waiting for the starting gun. At either end of the half-mile length, barrels marked the turn in the track. At the sound of the gun they came down the straightaway toward the first turn, where Stephen and Callie were sitting. Stephen began to frown as soon as the first turn was completed. By the second lap it was clear that it was a two-team race. The third man dropped out, leaving Peter and Bates to finish.

"That Bates fellow has his sleigh weighted somehow. Look how he takes those turns."

"Maybe he really did put rocks in the back," Callie said.

"I don't know what he did, but Peter is going to lose this race on the turns. Damn!" He sat for a second longer and then leaped out of the sleigh.

"Where are you going? Stephen! What are you going to dor

"Turn the sleigh for him," Stephen shouted as he ran, slipping onto the ice. He crouched at the end of the straightaway, waiting for them to come down for the beginning of the final lap. Callie squeezed her eyes closed as the sleigh came speeding toward him. He leapt, flinging his weight to the outside as he scrabbled to get a hold on the back of Peters sleigh. The sleigh swung 'round, righting itself to take the straightaway back. As he had throughout the race, Peter began to gain on the straightaway.

Callie peeked through gloved fingers to see Stephen safely, if precariously, straddling the open space between the runners as the sleigh whizzed toward the final turn. Stephen jumped from the runners, running along behind while holding onto the back of the sleigh. As they came to the turn, he again leapt, slamming his body against the outside of the sleigh. The race was Peter's by no more than the length of the

horse's head, but a win is a win all the same. There could not have been much more jubilation if it had been a grand national championship. Stephen and Peter were both mobbed by the onlookers. Next to the bonfire Jack leapt up and down like a frog on a lily pad. Bottles were passed, congratulations were offered, and already tall tales of the race were being formulated. It was some time before Stephen freed himself to come back to Callie.

"That's enough racing for me today. How about you?"

"I don't think I ever want to be in another/'

"Another?"

"Watching you ... it was awful. You could have been hurt, Stephen Berean. Don't you ever think?"

"Not often." He grinned, pleased at what he could see in her eyes. She looked away from him. "Anyway we won, and I wasn't hurt." He reached over and pulled the scarf from her head. Immediately the wind caught her long hair and whipped it around her face.

She scrambled to get the scarf back in place. "Look what you've done! I'll never get it untangled nowl"

"You're getting bad-tempered," he said cheerfully. "I'm going to have to do something to improve that"

"I am not bad-tempered!"

"You are. And getting worse." He liked the rosy coloring coming into her cheeks, and the blazing liveliness of her eyes. And it was because of him. She cared. Though she expressed it in anger, he knew she had been frightened today because she cared about him. He didn't say anything else to her, but drove along, winding in and out of the narrow paths that best showed the rolling, snow-covered hills patterned and slashed with black, silhouetted trees. He turned toward her again. She had become fascinated by the countryside as he knew she would.

"I have a place I want to show you," he said.

'The mountain?"

"No. I've given up on the mountain—it isn't the same as the one at home. This is another place." He tinned the horses back to the east. She was surprised when he halted in view of the house.

"Where is this place?"

"Ill show you. We cant take the sleigh back there yet. We'll have to walk until I've cut the path wide enough for the horses."

She climbed down holding on to his hand, and he took her into the woods at the edge of the new field. There was a small frozen stream that cut through the woods. Forty yards into the woods was a clearing, where the stream widened to make a small pool. With the snow and the barren trees in black relief against the whiteness, it was a fairyland heavily draped with ice formations dripping from the limbs. The total silence there folded them within itself and held them bound by its own eerie power.

Neither spoke a word. It wouldn't have been fitting to mar such pristine elegance. Stephen had been there often. He had seen it decorated with the wild flurry of autumnal color and the dripping cloak of a rain shroud. He had seen it in snow before, but he knew the feelings that filled one the first time it was viewed, and he waited for Callie to fill herself with it.

Snow fell gently, white flakes on her scarf, framing her face and fringing her long eyelashes. Stephen's lips on hers were warm and sweet.

Chapter 22

During the next year Peter found himself the bewildered and pleased possessor of the Midas touch. He was not alone with his success or his feeling that it could never end. The tenor of the times was jubilant optimism. Americans, particularly New Yorkers, felt that they lived in a world devoid of failure. Men bought heavily on credit; the amounts of money they borrowed and spent were staggering, and yet they continued their upward climb. Peter followed the lead of others. He dared anything and risked everything. He backed enterprises which in England would have been considered most foolhardy. But New York had al-s ready acquired a reputation for commerce, and in accordance with the city's nature, entertainment, ice cream parlors, races, and theater had become big and profitable businesses. There was no end to what Peter could do with his money, and there were no rules or laws to keep him from daring what he pleased. His speculations ranged from the most solid to the most frivolous, but his constant love was the hop farm in Poughkeepsie. However extravagant his behavior be-

came on Wall Street, he was solidly conservative when it came to the farm. Not one penny of the money needed for the farm or the brewery was risked in speculation.

He put his heart and body into the clearing and planting of the land. The fields cleared too late for planting hops were sown with vegetables that could be sold at market along with Callie's dairy produce and Stephen's brew. Nothing was wasted. Nothing was too small for Peter's attention. He was adamant that the hop farm should be a profit-making business in its own right. He allowed no one, least of all himself, to consider the idea that they could operate at a loss and pick up the margin elsewhere. As a result the farm did better than Peter and Stephen had hoped on their most optimistic days.

Occasionally they worried that they had overestimated the market for their hops and brew, but they hadn't. If anything the market was greater than they thought, and the customers recognized immediately that Stephen and Peter Berean were men who knew their business well. The most pressing problem they faced was finding enough hours in the day to accomplish all they had set for themselves.

Peter was now spending more and more time setting up and working with accounts. They were well into business before the entire acreage of the Grampe farm was cleared. The task of working the farm was falling to Stephen now while Peter tended the business end of it. The current crop was already sold, and Stephen had not yet begun the harvesting.

The two brothers saw little of each other during the day. It was only in the evenings that they had time for talk, and even then it revolved around business.

Peter was writing in his account book in his study when Stephen came in. Peter waved him to come nearer. Stephen looked over his brother's shoulder.

"Chicago?" Stephen asked as he looked down the list of names and locations. "When did you get that order?"

"Last week. Sam put me in touch with him—what's his name?"

Stephen looked at the list. "Marcus, says here."

"Yes, William Marcus. He's got the beginnings of a big brewery on the outskirts of Chicago. He doesn't believe in starting small. Well be supplying him with forty percent of his hops to start, and he'll be taking some of Sam's barley. I'm hoping that in the next year or so we can increase that figure to one hundred percent."

"Have you forgotten that we're going to start a brewery of our own? At the rate you're going we'll be supplying the whole country with hops, but what happens to the plans for Berean Brothers' Beer? Are we to forget that?" Stephen asked with deceptive calm.

Peter looked up at him. He put his quill down on the^ desk. Stephen stood thoughtfully tapping the paper with the names of the customers. A look of satisfaction spread over Peter's face. "Look around you, Stephen. What do you see?"

Stephen stared at him for a moment, then looked at the room. He didn't know how long it had been since he had really looked at his brother or the house. Peter's study had slowly been filled with the mementos of passing triumphs until it had become a room bespeaking wealth. Stephen began to smile. He plucked at his own faded blue work shirt, then glanced pointedly at the stylish, well-fitting suit Peter wore.

"By the end of the year we will have cleared all three hundred arable acres. The cultivated fields are

already yielding two thousand bushels to the acre. You can begin plans for the brewery whenever you're ready."

Stephen sat down limp-legged "When?"

"Now." Peter laughed, and Stephen agitatedly excused himself, making a sprint to the brewhouse for the drawings and requirements he had made for the brewery. He had been designing it, and redesigning it, ever since they had come to Poughkeepsie.

They spent the afternoon trying to concentrate on the plans. Little of lasting value was accomplished, however, for Peter, caught up in his exuberance, kept increasing and expanding the capacity of the prospective brewery as Stephen struggled to accommodate his brother s ideas with practical refinements. Finally he threw his arms up in dismay. Peter leaned forward, placing his hand on Stephen s arm.

"There's not a brewery in this country to compare with the production capacity of an English brew-house—but the market is here. The largest brewery in Albany is turning out only four thousand barrels a year. Stephen, there's not a man alive better able to fill that void than you. If I didn't think you could, I wouldn't be asking it of you; but you know more about brewing than anyone I have spoken to over here. You're the best. With your experience and all those gadgets you use to regulate your temperatures and quality, we've got to look far ahead. Before you know it this brewery we're planning now will be too small for you, and you'll be complaining that we didn't make it large enough."