Courting Susannah (20 page)

He looked down at his food as though surprised to see it there.

Susannah went back to the stove to prepare a plate for Maisie, who was still keeping her vigil at Jasper's bedside.

“Aren't you going to have something?” Aubrey asked when she started toward the door of the small, adjoining bedroom.

“Yes,” she said, and her stomach rumbled so loudly then that he heard it and smiled.

Maisie had to be persuaded to eat—there was no change in Jasper's condition—and when Susannah finally returned to the kitchen, she was amazed and more than a little touched to find Aubrey at the stove, taking a loaded plate from the warming oven. He gestured for her to sit, and she obeyed, let him serve her the food, and tucked into it gratefully.

“That was kind of you,” she said.

A slight, crooked grin tilted one corner of his mouth. “Even we incorrigible rakes have our generous side,” he replied.

She couldn't help smiling. “I'm relieved to hear that.”

He chuckled, then, in the space of a heartbeat, turned serious again. “Tell me about St. Mary's.”

She chewed, swallowed, sighed. “Julia was—”

“I'm not asking about Julia. I want to know about you. Did you hate the place?”

Her hunger was abating by then, and she ate more slowly. “No,” she said. “The nuns were kind. It was a clean place, and we had medical attention when we needed it, decent food if not much of it. There were people who weren't so fortunate.”

“What did you do there? Besides learning, staying clean, and having ‘medical attention'?”

She knew by the light in his eyes that he was teasing her, knew also that he really wanted to know what St. Mary's had been like for her. “I played the piano whenever I could,” she said, “and I helped in the infirmary sometimes. Sometimes there was a rash of new babies, and a few of us helped the sisters care for them.”

“You like children,” he said. It was a statement, not a question.

“Of course I do,” she replied, glancing toward Victoria's basket. “I should think that would be obvious.”

“Oh, it is,” he allowed, staring at the butter knife in his left hand as he turned it end over end, apparently lost in some ponderous reflection. “Which makes me wonder why you hesitate to marry me. I can give you all the children you want.”

A hard lump of longing swelled in her throat, and she attempted, in vain, to swallow. “I want a real
father
for my children, should I ever be so fortunate as to have any, and a husband who truly loves me.”

A new silence descended, but it was not an uncomfortable one. There was a certain ease between Susannah and Aubrey, for all that they were so often at odds, and it pleased Susannah to see that he was weighing her words.

When they had finished the meal, Aubrey rose, still without speaking, and carried his plate and Susannah's to the sink. Another demonstration she would not have expected from a man, particularly one of his stature and wealth. There were many things she didn't know about the male of the species, given the life she'd led, and this particular specimen merely added to the mystery.

In time, Susannah collected Victoria, along with the
requisite bottle of warm milk, murmured a quiet good night, and retreated to her room.

In the morning, when Susannah descended the stairs, bringing Victoria with her, Maisie had returned to her usual post in the kitchen. The web of laundry lines had been cleared away, and the other woman was happily pressing a white shirt at a wooden ironing board. Several spare flat irons were heating on the stovetop, close at hand.

“Jasper?” Susannah asked.

Maisie beamed. “He done broke out in speckles from crown to sole,” she said, “but he's rallied some. Even took some broth this morning and plagued me to let him go out to the stables to see the horses. Ain't that somethin'?”

Such relief swept through Susannah that her knees went weak. “Oh, Maisie, that's wonderful.”

At mid-morning, Dr. Fletcher returned, of his own accord, and examined both children. He was smiling when he sat down at the kitchen table to enjoy a cup of hot coffee before heading back out into the crisp weather. Both Jasper and Victoria, he assured the women, were going to be fine.

He was a quiet, serious man, somewhere in his midsixties by Susannah's assessment, and he spoke of his longtime medical practice in nearby Providence, of his beloved wife, Rachel, and their several grown children. They had raised four sons, all of whom were married now, with sons and daughters of their own.

Maisie tried to pay him before he left, from the funds she kept in a fruit jar hidden at the back of a shelf in the pantry, but he refused. He was just doing a favor for his friend, Dr. Martin, he said.

In just three days, the danger of measles had passed, blowing over like the threat of a storm, and both Susannah
and Maisie offered up their private prayers of gratitude. They'd been blessed, for the threat to the children had been a very real one, and many other little boys and baby girls lay gravely ill, all over the city.

On the morning of the fourth day, Susannah reached the conclusion that she could delay her plans no longer. Leaving Victoria in Maisie's care, she went up to her room to collect her drawstring purse, which contained a pitifully small amount of money, along with the notices she'd already drawn up offering piano lessons, returned to the ground floor to put on the cloak, and let herself out through the front door.

The air was clear and crisp, and the sun shone high and cold overhead. Susannah felt cheerful as she strolled downhill toward the heart of Seattle, her bag swinging in one hand, her posters under the other arm. She was not anxious to encounter Aubrey, or so she tried to convince herself. He simply unsettled her too much, but it would be a waste of time and effort to search for another mercantile just to avoid the man. She needed supplies—sheet music, stiff paper for making more signs, nails, and a small hammer with which to post them.

When she reached the store—it looked as imposing as a Greek temple, looming against the backdrop of greenery and sky the way it did—she saw no sign of Aubrey. She bought six sheets of good paper, along with the other items, a new pen with a broad nib, and a bottle of India ink. To save herself a trip, she went into the dining room of the Washington Hotel, which she had visited twice, first in the company of Mr. Hollister, then with Ethan, and asked for a cup of China tea. While she sipped, she worked on her placards.

PRIVATE INSTRUCTION IN PIANO,
she wrote in strong, dark letters, designed to be seen at a distance.
REASONABLE FEE. CONTACT MISS SUSANNAH MCKITTRiCK AT #8 CHURCH STREET
.

She had consumed three cups of tea when she finally finished her task and left the dining room, satisfied. Affixing the notices to a series of strategically chosen telegraph poles took another hour, and she had barely gotten home and hung up her cloak when her first student arrived. Her surprise at finding not a child waiting in the foyer but a grizzled man of at least seventy, well dressed but still very rough around the edges, was complete.

“I've always wanted to play the pianny,” he said with enthusiasm.

Susannah did not want to offend the man. He looked quite earnest and decent, really, for all that his polish was obviously superficial and sketchy. “I'm afraid I was expecting to teach children, Mr.—”

“Just call me Zacharias, if you don't mind,” he urged, looking disappointed but still hopeful. He held his hat in one hand, and his salt-and-pepper beard sprang almost straight out from his chin, as if to lead the way for the rest of him. “I ain't heard my first name in so long, I can't rightly recall what it is. I was sure lookin' forward to learnin' all about music, though, ma'am. That I was indeed.”

Susannah's hands were knotted together. Zacharias was a customer, and he plainly had the resources to pay for his lessons. “Have you played before?”

Zacharias had one hand on the door knob. “No, ma'am,” he said. “It's all new to me. I figured if I learnt the pianny, I might get me one of them fine eastern women for a wife. They like things fancified. But then, you'd know that already, bein' such a lady your own self.”

She was touched that this man could want genteel feminine company so much that he would undertake
such an endeavor so late in life, and secretly a little amused by his compliment. She was inexperienced, that was true, but she knew when she was being charmed.

“The lessons cost fifteen cents,” she said. “I expect my students to be diligent, so you will have to find a place to practice.”

Zacharias was beaming as he came away from the door. “I'll pay a quarter,” he said. “You never met a harder worker than me, if I do say so, and I got me a pianny of my own, over to the house there.” He cocked a thumb to indicate direction. “Came all the way from San Francisco, Californy.”

Susannah swallowed. “Come in. We'll get started right now, if that's all right with you.”

“It's better'n all right, ma'am. You've made an old miner real happy.”

She headed toward the rear parlor, where the piano was housed, and indicated the piano stool. Zacharias sat down, flexing his thick, arthritic fingers eagerly over the keys.

“We'll start with middle C,” Susannah said. A quarter was a quarter, after all. Perhaps she'd been undercharging these past few years, asking only fifteen cents for a lesson.

One endless hour later, the miner gave up torturing that splendid instrument, paid his fee, and left. He would be back the following Tuesday, by mutual agreement, and Susannah looked forward to the experience with resignation.

“What the devil is goin' on?” Maisie inquired the minute Susannah entered the kitchen, craving a cup of hot, sweet tea. “Sounded like you were takin' that there piano apart a piece at a time.”

“You know very well that I was giving a music lesson,” she answered, busy at the task of pumping water
into the kettle. “I saw you peeking around the door, Maisie, so you needn't pretend.”

“A music lesson, huh?” Maisie scoffed, but she was grinning broadly.

“What else would it be?” Susannah demanded, somewhat impatient. She had not gotten a good rest the night before, and working with her first student had proved to be an unexpected ordeal.

“I'll
tell
you what else it could be,” Maisie boomed, delighted. She was still ironing, and the kitchen smelled of clean, starched linens and baking bread. “That old coot came a-courtin'. If you wasn't so darn gullible, you'd have worked that out for yourself.”

Susannah, busy until that moment, went still. Looking back, it seemed that Maisie might be right. Mr. Zacharias had worked industriously at his scales, but he'd tried more than once to strike up a conversation, and he'd been dressed awfully well for a miner. “Oh, dear,” she said.

Maisie laughed. “I can't wait to see what happens when Mr. Fairgrieve finds out about
this,”
she thundered, slamming the iron down onto a white sheet with great energy. “My guess is, you're gonna have more ‘piano students' than you know what to do with. What the dickens did you do, anyhow—put up signs?”

The starch went out of Susannah; she sank into a chair in shock, staring blindly into space. Maisie's question echoed in her mind, damning her for a degree of naïveté bordering on outright stupidity. “This is awful,” she said.

The other woman shrugged. “That feller wouldn't make such a bad husband,” she said, evidently referring to Zacharias. “He lives one street over, in a house nigh as big as this one. He was one of the first to strike it lucky up there in the north country, so he's got a dime or two, and he behaved himself, too. I made sure of that.”

Susannah set her elbows on the table's edge and buried her face in her hands. She could not rightly turn her first student away, despite her belated suspicions. He had, after all, conducted himself in a gentlemanly fashion, and she needed the income from teaching if she was ever to have anything at all of her own.

Maisie crossed the room and patted her back hard, offering rough comfort. “Now, now,” she growled, “don't take on. If'n one of them fellers steps out of line, I'll drop him to his knees with a skillet to the back of the head. All you gotta do is holler.”

“I honestly thought—”

The patting went on, gentler now. “I guess miners've got as much right to pound the piano as anybody else,” she philosophized. “'Sides, one of them is bound to suit you for a husband.”

Susannah let out a despairing sigh. “He did give me twenty-five cents,” she said.

“See there?” Maisie confirmed. “Pretty thing like you, you'll be rich in no time at all. And it ought to make things real lively around here.” She laughed again. “Oh, lordy, but Mr. Fairgrieve is gonna have himself a fine fit when he finds out he's in the match-makin' business.”

Chapter 10