Thurston House (4 page)

Mary Ellen? He opened the door to the little front parlor where she sometimes waited for him on Saturday afternoons. She would drop the children off at her mother's in the morning and then return to the house to bathe and curl her hair and put on her prettiest finery for Jeremiah. There was a kind of honeymoon aura to their meeting, because they only saw each other once a week, and if something went wrong in one of the mines, or he went away, then it was longer. She hated it when he was gone. Every night, every morning, every day, she waited for their weekends together. It was odd how, over the years, she was becoming more and more dependent on him. But she was sure that he hadn't noticed. He was too intent on his physical attraction to her, to be aware of her decreasing independence. He liked coming to Calistoga to see her. He was comfortable in the shabby little house, and besides, he had never invited her to stay with him in St. Helena. In fact, she had only seen the house once. You sure he's not married? her mother had questioned her often at first, but everyone knew that Jeremiah Thurston had never been married, and probably never will, her mother growled after the first few years of her daughter's liaison. Now she no longer growled. After seven years of Saturday nights, what was there to say? She said nothing now as she took the children in, her oldest granddaughter at fourteen being almost as old as Mary Ellen had been herself when she got married. The boy was twelve, and the youngest girl was nine. It was she who particularly adored Jeremiah. But they knew enough not to say too much to Grandma.

Mary Ellen? Jeremiah called upstairs again. It was unusual for her not to be waiting for him downstairs, and he made his way slowly upstairs to the three tiny bedrooms, one for herself, one for her daughters, and the third for her son, but all of them put together were smaller than any one room in Jeremiah's house. But Jeremiah had long since ceased to feel guilty about it. Mary Ellen took a peculiar kind of pride in supporting her own, and she wasn't unhappy in this house. She liked it. Probably better than she would have liked living in his. Hers had more warmth to it, or so he thought. His had always remained a large, uninhabited house, ever since he built it. He occupied so few of its rooms. It had been a house built for children and laughter and noise, and instead it had been silent for almost twenty years, unlike this house, which showed signs of wear and caring and small fingers dragged along once pink walls until the smudges became part of the decor and one no longer noticed.

Jeremiah's tread was heavy on the stairs, and he thought he smelled roses in the air as he knocked on her bedroom door. He heard the familiar voice humming in the distance. She was there, for one crazy moment he had wondered if today, for the first time in seven years, she wouldn't be there. But she was. And he needed her so badly. He knocked softly, feeling hesitant and young. She had a way of doing that to him. He always felt a little bit breathless when he came to see her.

Mary Ellen? This time his voice was gentle and soft, almost a caress, as it reached her.

Come in ' I'm in ' She was about to say, my bedroom, but she didn't need to add the words as he stepped in, his shoulders seeming to fill the room, and his very presence seeming to stop the blood in her veins as she looked up at him, her skin as creamy as the white roses next to her bed, her hair coppery in the sunlight that streamed through the windows. She had just been about to drop a lace dress over the lace corset she wore, tied with pink ribbons that ran through the lace and tied her pantaloons at the knee. She looked like a young girl as he stared at her, and suddenly she blushed crimson and turned away, struggling with the dress as it tangled at her shoulders. She was usually ready when he arrived, but she had taken longer than she'd planned cutting the roses to put in her bedroom. I'm almost ' I just' oh, for heaven's sake ' I can't! She was all innocence as she fought with the tangles of lace, and he walked toward her to pull the dress gently over her shoulders, but as he began, the gesture suddenly changed direction and he found himself slowly pulling the dress back in the direction from which it had come, pulling it past the silky copper hair and over her head, flinging it onto the bed, and pressing his lips down on hers as he pulled her toward him. It was remarkable to him how hungry he was for her each week when he arrived, seeming to drink in the cream of her flesh, and the rose scent of her hair. Everything about her always seemed to be scented with roses, and she had a way of making him forget that she had any life but this. The children and the jobs and the struggles were all forgotten as she lay in his arms, week after week, year after year, looking into the eyes that she loved, and that never quite understood how much she loved him. But she knew him as well as he knew himself. He wanted his solitude, his freedom, his vineyards and his mines, he didn't want an everyday life with an everyday woman and three children he hadn't sired. He was too busy for that, too wrapped up in the empire he had built and was still building. And she respected him for what he was, and loved him enough not to ask for what he didn't want to give her. Instead she took only what he gave: one night a week, in a kind of abandon they would have never shared had they had a daily life, which enhanced their passion still further. She wondered sometimes if things might have been different if she could have had his baby, but there was no point thinking about that. She couldn't have another one, the doctor said it was too dangerous to even consider, and he didn't seem to want one, at least he'd never mentioned it to her although he was always kind to her children when he saw them. But it was not her children he thought of when he came here. It was what he saw now that filled his mind and seemed to drown his senses, that rose-scented skin, as delicate as parchment, the green eyes like emeralds burning into his as he laid her gently on the bed and began to unlace the pink corset. It fell away from her body with surprising ease beneath his expert fingers, and the pantaloons slipped away from her long, graceful limbs until she lay naked and gleaming before him. This was what he came for' to devour her with his eyes and his tongue and his hands until she lay gasping and breathless beneath him aching for him to take her. And today he wanted her even more than he had in a long time, it was as though he couldn't get enough of her, couldn't quite breathe deeply enough of the heady aroma of her hair and her flesh and her perfume. He wanted to push away the memories of his long dead financ+!e, and the grief-filled night he had spent with John Harte, and he needed Mary Ellen to help him do that. She sensed that he had had a difficult week, although she didn't know why, and as always she tried to give him something more of herself to fill the void she instinctively felt in him. She wasn't a woman who could have easily put her impressions into words, and yet she had a deep, almost animal understanding of him.

She lay sleepy and sated in his arms, and looked up at him as she gently touched his beard. Are you all right, Jeremiah?

He smiled at how well she knew him. I am now ' thanks to you ' you're awfully good to me, Mary Ellen

She was pleased by his words, as though he understood what she tried to give him. Was something wrong?

He hesitated for a long time. What he felt about the night before seemed to be strangely intertwined with feelings about Jennie, and yet that was so long ago. It seemed strange that the feelings should resurface now. But it was all so reminiscent of eighteen years ago. I had a rough night last night. I was with John Harte

She looked instantly surprised, and propped herself up beside him on her elbow. I didn't think you two spoke.

I went over there last night. He lost his wife, and his daughter ' He hesitated, and closed his eyes, remembering little Barnaby's face again after he had died. ' and his boy, after I got there ' A tear slid unbidden down his face, and Mary Ellen gently touched it, and then took Jeremiah in her arms. He was so big and so strong and so much a man, and yet he was so gentle and so kind. She loved him more for the tear, and for those which followed it as she held him. He was so young. ' He began to sob for the child whose eyes he had closed, and he held Mary Ellen close to him, embarrassed at the emotions he could no longer hold back. It was like a flood coming from a place deep inside him. The poor boy lost all three of them in one day' . The flood began to ebb and he sat up in bed and looked at Mary Ellen.

It was nice of you to go to him, Jeremiah, you didn't have to do it.

I knew how he felt. She knew about Jennie from Hannah when they talked. Hannah had known Mary Ellen since she was a child and they met frequently at the produce market in Calistoga. But Jeremiah had never mentioned Jennie to her himself. Something like that happened to me once.

I know. Her voice was as soft as the rose petals beside her bed.

I thought you did. He smiled at her and wiped his face. I'm sorry' . He was embarrassed now, but he felt better than he had all day. She was good for him and she had helped him. Poor lad, it's going to be so rough for him.

He'll be all right.

Jeremiah nodded and then looked at her. Do you know him?

She shook her head. I've seen him around town, but we've never spoken. I hear he's as stubborn as a mule, and he can be twice as mean. Men like that don't usually break, no matter what happens to them.

I don't think he's really mean. I think he's just very young and very strong and he wants what he wants when he wants it. Jeremiah smiled. I wouldn't want to work for the man, but I admire what he's done.

Mary Ellen shrugged. She was not greatly interested in John Harte. She was far more interested in Jeremiah Thurston. I admire you. She smiled, and moved closer to him.

I don't know what for. I'm the old mule you were talking about before.

But you're my mule, and I love you. She liked saying things like that, as much to reassure herself as to say it to him. He had never really been hers, and she knew it, but once a week she was allowed to pretend, and she was satisfied with that. She didn't really have much choice. He had offered to marry her once, but she hadn't wanted to then, and now the moment had passed. He was content with seeing her once a week. Now that Jake was dead, and he was never coming back, she would have married Jeremiah gladly, but she knew that he was never going to offer her marriage now. He didn't want that anymore, and she had long since given up that hope. She had been a damn fool not to press for that from the beginning. But she had thought Jake was coming back then ' the drunken son of a bitch' .

What were you thinking about just then? He had been watching her face. You looked angry.

She laughed at how perceptive he was; he always had been. Nothing important.

Are you mad at me? She was quick to shake her head with a gentle smile. He rarely ever gave her reason to be angry at him. Jake had been a different story. What a bastard he had been. But he was dead now, and she had wasted fifteen years of her life on him, five of them waiting for him to come back when it turned out he'd been living with another woman in Ohio. She'd found that out after he died, and the girl came to see her. He even had two little boys by her. And Mary Ellen had felt like a damn fool. She had always held back from Jeremiah, thinking her husband would return ' husband ' that was a joke' .

I'm never angry at you, silly. You never give me reason to be. It was true. He was a lovely man, and he had always been good to her. Almost too good. He was generous and polite and thoughtful, but he also kept a certain distance between them, and he held out no hope for the future. There was just today, and next week, and seven years of Saturdays stretched out behind them. But it didn't make Mary Ellen angry, only sad from time to time. She lived her whole week waiting for him.

I'm going away soon. He always told her ahead of time, it was just the way he was. Considerate and decent and thoughtful.

Where to this time?

The South. Atlanta. He often went to New York, and once the year before he had gone to Charleston, South Carolina. But he never invited her to go with him. Business was business. And this was something else. I won't be gone too long. Just long enough to get there and back, and do business for a few days. Maybe two weeks in all. He nuzzled her neck, and then kissed her. Will you miss me?

What do you think? Her voice was muffled by desire and they slid back down into the bed together.

I think I'm crazy to go anywhere, that's what I think' . And he proved it to her again as she lay in his arms, and writhed with pleasure, and her screams of exquisite agony would have been heard by the entire neighborhood if he hadn't had the forethought to close the windows. He knew her well, and they both enjoyed their Saturday nights together.

By the next morning, he felt like a new man, as she cooked him sausages and eggs, a small steak, and corn bread on the old stove in her kitchen. He had offered to buy her a new one the previous winter, but she had insisted that she didn't need one. Greed was simply not part of her makeup, much to her mother's chagrin. She frequently reminded her daughter that Jeremiah was one of the richest men in the state and she was the biggest fool that ever lived. But she didn't give a damn. She had everything she wanted ' almost' or once a week anyway, and that was better than every day with a lesser man. She had no complaints, and she was free to do as she chose. Jeremiah never asked what she did with the rest of her time. She saw no one else and hadn't for years, but it was by her own choice. If someone else had come along who was serious about her, she could have pursued it. Jeremiah was careful to demand nothing at all from her.

When do you leave for the East? She was eating her own corn bread and watching his face. He had wonderful blue eyes, and when he looked at her she felt her soul turn to mush.