Read Waltzing In Ragtime Online
Authors: Eileen Charbonneau
Waltzing In Ragtime (12 page)
“Well, you haven’t been … praying.”
“Prayers!” he exclaimed with a laugh. “That’s exactly what I’ve offered up, prayers!” He spun away, intent on his crusade again. Don’t. Matthew. There’s no one around, she felt like screaming to him. Hold me again. “Prayers. For the responsible management of the extractive industries. I helped build that road so folks could
be touched, as I was. We need the sempervivons, ’Lana. We need them to keep us in our place on the earth.”
be touched, as I was. We need the sempervivons, ’Lana. We need them to keep us in our place on the earth.”
“Which is?”
“Part of it, not its lord.”
“You sound like Mr. Muir. All religious fervor, no logic, practicality, or reason.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He gave her his arm. “You’re a damn sight more fun to argue with than your father’s associates.”
She frowned. “Casual blasphemy is not the language of a bible reading gentleman.”
He swept her in close to his side and lowered his head until his cheek glanced her temple. “Mrs. Cole says I’m no gentleman,” he confided, before easing away from her again, and swinging open the door to the downstairs world. Olana followed.
“Matthew, she adores you, she can’t have said —”
“I think it was a compliment.” He set his burden on the cook’s massive cutting board, then set Olana in a plain armchair with a cushioned stool under her feet.
“Gives you wrinkles, frowning like that, Miss Olana,” Mrs. Cole informed her as she joined them from the parlor.
“What’s wrong with Patsy, anyway?” Olana asked, peeved.
The ranger cast a quick look to the cook before looking back at his opened book of remedies. Keep looking there, not at her. She was so sharp, she’d surmise it from the look of him. His eyeglasses steamed over from the boiling water. “It’s digestion related.”
“It’s related to her broken heart, if you ask me.”
He lowered his head further into the book he couldn’t read for the steam. “Possible,” he conceded.
Mrs. Cole unceremoniously lifted Olana’s feet from the stool. “Look! Wrinkles in your gown now, too! Miss Olana, go up and change your clothes before we’re all catching fury for making you late for tea with your parents.”
“But Matthew’s not finished!”
“He is also not the dutiful child of Mr. and Mrs. James Whittaker, determined to be more obedient toward her parents’ wishes!”
“You are an old bore, Coldheart!” Olana stuck out her tongue before turning to the stairs.
The cook sighed. “Why, she hasn’t called me that since …”
Matthew lifted his head from his work, safe at last. “When?”
“Since her brother made up the name.”
“She’s right.”
“I beg your —”
“About Patsy’s footman, I mean.”
“Ah, Matthew. It’s no use. I’ve gone to the heartless man. He would not so much as let me through the door. And after I’m nursing him through the croup for two winters straight.”
“Where does he live?”
Olana stopped in the front hall. Her mother’s raised voice rooted her outside the sitting room door.
“Do stop making light of that man’s influence! Why, she complained to me of her maid’s cold hands on her hair in the morning.”
Her father sighed. “That doesn’t sound like Matt’s influence, it sounds like our Olana.”
“That’s because you’re ignorant of their wiles! She was trying to get the servants’ coal allowance raised.”
“What? Since when has she concerned herself with —”
“Since that man stepped across our threshold!”
“Matt’s put her up to it? Well, the weather has been awfully damp of late. Perhaps I should consider —”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort! Give him another inch and he’ll have us waiting on the servants!”
“Darling,” James Whittaker tried to sooth his wife, “think of him as an eccentric young count come courting from your European sojourn —”
“He is nothing of the sort! Our Darius’s first impression was quite right. He is a boorish, unschooled, backwater shaman. I have never so wished for the end of the Christmas season as this year!”
“You don’t mean that, Dora.”
“And you! Spoiling Olana with this Christmas Eve Ball. I must accept half of San Francisco here to celebrate your daughter’s foolishness?”
“Not her foolishness. Her return to us.”
Olana heard hurt in her father’s voice. Even her mother became less shrill. “Don’t you think I suffered too when she was gone? We’ve lost one child, I told myself — will we lose another to our neglect?”
“Neglect?”
“Indulgence, then. Indulgence in dangerous whims, like this newspaper fancy of hers. Sidney Lunt left an ugly contraption of a typewriter in her room as if she were some sort of … working person! This is all too much! Olana wouldn’t have gone to that dreadful place if we hadn’t allowed it. And now she clacks away at a typewriter and brings home this man who lives among bears!”
“And who was instrumental in restoring her health, here, in civilization.”
“You are blind to all criticism of him, James!”
“Matt is our guest.”
“But also in our employ. He’s more comfortable with the servants. Why can’t you treat him in his household station?”
“Because he came between our daughter and death, madame. For that there are few favors I would deny Matthew Hart.”
“That’s an achievement he himself denies. He does seem to know his proper place, despite his ill-bred familiarities.”
“Don’t you like it, Dora?”
“To what are you referring?”
“His familiarity — ‘’Lana’ — it suits her now, doesn’t it?”
“She is twenty-three. Much too old for pet names. But you and that tree person continue to keep her a child. She won’t ever want to marry, and so occupy her energies in setting up her own
household, worrying over her own children. We must cultivate the introductions she made in Europe! Why, Florence Breckinridge has already been sent to England in preparation for her marriage to the Baronet Fermor-Hesketh.”
household, worrying over her own children. We must cultivate the introductions she made in Europe! Why, Florence Breckinridge has already been sent to England in preparation for her marriage to the Baronet Fermor-Hesketh.”
“There’s time. You make it sound so dutiful.”
“It is her duty. To us. As the surviving child.”
“Dora —”
James Whittaker reached out to his wife. She waved him away. “You’ve seen it too, haven’t you?” he asked her quietly.
“Seen?”
“How the two of them talk, laugh, read, even scheme against us together. Doesn’t the boy remind you — Dora, isn’t it like having Leland back?”
Olana listened to the hushed silence.
“There is no resemblance,” Dora Whittaker finally whispered.
“I don’t mean in looks! I mean the pleasure they take in each other’s company. Even when Olana’s being … Olana, he’s tolerant, patient, amused, even. And she —”
“None, I said! No resemblance!”
Olana walked slowly into the room, no longer caring about how she looked, about what pleased her parents. She fixed a smile on her face. Her mother’s matched her own exactly.
“Has anyone rung for tea yet?” Olana asked brightly. “I’m terribly thirsty.”
Sidney Lunt pulled his collar up against the dampness and joined his workers teaming out of the
Chronicle
building, smiling, bidding each other good night. Though dressed in the dark suit of formal clothes he’d been fitted for when still on the train out of Fresno, there was no mistaking Matthew Hart. He leaned against the lamppost across the street, his eyes scanning the crowd like a cunning bird of prey. And he looked as if his feet hurt. The editor’s eyes lit with delight. “Matt!” he called, waving, then rushing forward in the swirl of humanity.
Chronicle
building, smiling, bidding each other good night. Though dressed in the dark suit of formal clothes he’d been fitted for when still on the train out of Fresno, there was no mistaking Matthew Hart. He leaned against the lamppost across the street, his eyes scanning the crowd like a cunning bird of prey. And he looked as if his feet hurt. The editor’s eyes lit with delight. “Matt!” he called, waving, then rushing forward in the swirl of humanity.
He took Matthew’s shoulder. The sharp eyes hooded, went
fierce in self-protection. Easy. Too close. He danced back, giving out a little laugh. “What are you doing here?”
fierce in self-protection. Easy. Too close. He danced back, giving out a little laugh. “What are you doing here?”
Matthew offered up a scrap of butcher paper. “I’m lost. See, I got there all right, but following it all backwards, I started talking to the brakeman on the trolley, missed the stop. I walked and walked but things got less familiar. And then I saw your building and figured I’d stay put until you were off work.”
“How long have you been standing here?”
“I don’t know. Not long.”
“Matt,” he sighed. “Next time come in.”
“I’m hoping there won’t be a next time. I don’t plan to get lost again.”
Sidney Lunt laughed. “Right you are! And that requires some education. But first, you look destroyed with the hunger, as Mrs. Cole would say. Some supper?”
The ranger looked at his scuffed boots. “I only have four cents,” he admitted.
“Matt, I’m asking you to supper. As my guest.”
“Oh. All right, then.”
The food was good and hearty and warming at Gus’s place, as always. Sidney lost interest in spying on the other newspaper people out from putting their evening editions to bed. Gus’s was alive with talk of art, politics, rolling presses. He could listen to that any night. Tonight Sidney Lunt listened intently to Matthew Hart’s disjointed story.
“The footman took the marriage gift money Mr. Whittaker gave him to buy into the partnership of the automobile garage, see?”
“I follow.”
“But that was only to impress upon this parson his responsible nature so as to get the daughter and dowry — the rest of the money he needed for his — what do you call them?”
“Garage.”
“That’s right, garage. If he’d been at home when I called, I’d have knocked him into the middle of next week for doing that to Patsy,” the ranger declared.
“He wasn’t there?”
“No. I put it all together from what Norma told me.”
“Norma?”
“His wife. That was the worst of it, Sidney. Here I am watching her shining eyes. She has no idea and I couldn’t do a damn thing except be the means of breaking both her and Patsy’s hearts.”
“So you didn’t tell her what a scoundrel she married?”
“Figured she’ll find out soon enough. Sidney, Patsy’s pregnant. What will happen to her?”
He was Sidney now, not Mr. Lunt, here, away from Olana’s house. Sidney Lunt paused, leaning back in his chair. “The Whittaker’s are good people. They might take her back, after.”
“And the baby?”
“She’d have to give up the baby, of course.”
“Why? Why is she the one who is punished, when all she did was trust that scheming bastard?”
“Damn. I never thought of it that way.”
“Do you suppose Olana could —”
“No. Coal allowances are one thing, my friend. This is another entirely.”
“I suppose. Olana told you about the coal?”
“We’re friends, Matt.”
“Yes. I’m glad. I’m glad you’re friends.”
“Well, I’m glad you got lost. Come on, let me show you this city, so that it doesn’t happen again.”
The stars were just appearing when the two men stood at the crest of Telegraph Hill. Matthew Hart stared down the lit piers of the waterfront’s Barbary Coast. The panic that seized him subsided when he sensed a cool, green, ancient darkness. North. He knew there were still stands of sempervivons there, giant redwoods. When he sighted the coast again he held on to the serenity of the giant guardians while tracing the tracks of city lights.
“Market Street, the opera house, the Palace, the new St.
Francis Hotel, U.S. Mint, Nob Hill, Chinatown, Russian Hill — see, it’s quite simple from here.”
Francis Hotel, U.S. Mint, Nob Hill, Chinatown, Russian Hill — see, it’s quite simple from here.”
“It doesn’t make any sense, Sidney.”
“What?”
“San Francisco.”
“What are you talking about? It’s as gridded out as purposefully as New York —”
“But it’s not built on flatland or granite. It’s all steep hills, fog canyons, unstable ground. People don’t belong here at all.”
His companion laughed. “We know that, Matt! That’s why we enjoy each moment spared from cataclysm! It’s a city founded on the gold at Sutter’s Fort, the silver of the Comstock Lode, the railroad, the timber. It’s the gateway to the Orient. Look at the pattern of lamplights — jewels in the night! Can’t you forget your politics and enjoy the man-made wonder of it?”
Matthew frowned. “I’m suspicious of anything man-made.”
“I’ve noticed. Give me time to change your mind.”
“Time?”
“Yes. Hovering over Olana now that she’s nearly well isn’t doing either of you any good. Neither is fretting about the below-stairs and all the injustices you can’t change. You’ve outgrown that solarium, Matt, with weeks to go yet until Christmas. And if those trolley brakes fascinated you, wait until you see a moving picture, wait until you hear the syncopations of ragtime!”
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