Waltzing In Ragtime (24 page)

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Authors: Eileen Charbonneau

BOOK: Waltzing In Ragtime
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“Listen, ’Lana, I don’t mean it like that, exactly. I just can’t catch my breath, you know? So much is happening. You — you don’t know anyone named Hopkins, do you?”
“Is this someone from San Francisco?”
“Maybe.”
“No. But perhaps, if I wire Sidney, he could —”
He took her arm. “’Lana, you need to listen to me now. Nobody knows about this place.” He rubbed at the line on his forehead and gave out a short, helpless laugh. “Nobody but you, and Farrell, and the Amadeo family.”
“And Mrs. Goddard.”
“Mrs. Goddard?”
“It would take wild horses to get it out of her, Matthew. And it’s not an exact address, it was just the town’s name on an envelope you once left behind.”
“God almighty, why did I come here? It all seemed so right last night, with the babies. Even you and Farrell seemed right where you were supposed to be. Well, listen. If you stay here, you got to stay without contact. Sidney, your parents. Anyone.”
“On that subject I can reassure you. I’ve Aunt Winnie’d this excursion.”
“What?”
“I didn’t think Mother would approve of my returning to the park, so she thinks I’m shopping with my aunt for the next social season. She approved of that and was, frankly, glad to be rid of me, I think.”
“Damnation!”
“Matthew, you promised.”
She made it sound tart and prim, like in the days they wintered together, to make him remember, smile. But he didn’t smile. He stared off toward the house, and the child playing with the ringlets of her new doll’s hair.
“How old is your little girl, Matthew?” she asked him quietly.
“Not yet four. Last year she was still a baby, barely talking. Someday she’ll be as crafty and stubborn as you. This fathering business is terrible hard.”
“Terribly. It’s an adverb.”
That got her a look so sharp she held up her hands in supplication. “Vita made me promise to correct you — honestly! It’s part of my official duties.”
“Like telling her my clothes don’t suit me?”
“I didn’t do anything of the sort! It was she came to me. She asked me to describe how men’s apparel is fashioned now and I only —”
“We prefer simple ways here.”
“I’ve noticed.” No. She didn’t mean to ice the words. He was so sensitive to that difference between them, the one that was mattering less and less to her. She wished he would say anything, no matter how blunt, how cruel. But he stood and walked to the house without looking back at her.
Over those first nights after the birth not even an oil lamp was lit, the soft glow of candles sufficed. It reminded Farrell of his childhood on the west coast of Ireland. And not, for once, the grinding, humiliating poverty of it, but the honor, the loyalty, the love of his kin. Matthew Hart had all that here, and a good woman besides; why did he not treasure them?
Why did he nightly climb the hill overlooking his grandmother’s place and pitch himself between the sea and the road? Was he keeping watch? For whom? The Carsons? Or was he more afraid of that slip of a girl chasing him? Or the one he’d lost to the sea? He was afraid, that was for certain sure. And fiercely protective, watching over, like some lone clan chieftain, his crannog below.
So it was his own duty, as an able-bodied guest, to join his host tonight, was it not? Farrell continued the climb, hoping not to get put in the ranger’s sights again for his trouble. He shifted the deep green quilt to his shoulder, admitting to himself the real reason: Vita Hart had asked him to talk with her son.
He crested the hill, saw the darkened mission of St. Pitias below on one side, and the women’s spread on the other, one light up in the window of the Amadeos’ window. Babies’ feeding.
“Women need something?” Matthew Hart asked, without shifting his glance from the sea. Farrell dropped the quilt at his feet.
“Your mama’s worried about you, son.”
“She is? Why?”
“Why? Because you disappear from the place the night long.”
“I’m quiet. She’d never know if she didn’t keep such peculiar hours herself. And now you can tell her I ain’t gone shooting up the town.”
“Matty. When you going to quit camping out and sleep in your bed like a Christian?”
He snorted softly. “I guess I ain’t much of a Christian. Besides, ’Lana’s got my bed. Again. And I need to keep watch.”
“Why? Surely the trail we paved to you’s gone cold.”
“Maybe.” His gaze shifted to the road. “But I never thought they’d find a pass to me in the high snow. Never thought they’d take our argument out on Olana, either.”
“Maybe that shot Cal Carson suffered was a mortal wound.”
“Naw,” he said, sounding disgusted, “my aim was off center.”
“Well, maybe they died of infection, or the cold.”
“They ain’t dead. I’d know it.” Matthew finally looked at Farrell, even allowed him to see a touch of the fear. “The price on my head. It was enough to get those two back into the park in the dead of winter. While I was still in possession of those acres. And, for all anyone knew, without heirs.”
Farrell emitted a low whistle. “San Francisco money? Prospecting money?”
“That’s what I’m thinking. But I signed over the land to the park before I left. So at least Possum’s safe. And maybe I have no value now, and it’s over. You think, Farrell?”
“That’s possible, son. How fierce were your arguments with those city folks?”
“Hard to tell, with the civility around them. But they all seemed to want something, why is that? Layers, that’s what Olana’s friend Sidney calls it. I’m … I’m not so good understanding things like that, Farrell.”
“Do you trust Sidney Lunt, Matt? Trust him to help?”
“I want to but … no.”
“What about Olana?”
“I did all right by her, mostly!”
The older man smiled. “That much I gather. I mean, do you trust her?”
“Yes. But she’s got too much courage, too little sense. I left her to Sidney, so I could get her out of my skin.”
“I brought her back. Leaves me obligated to you both, now, I’m thinking.”
“Stop that line of thinking Farrell.”
“Well, it would’ve been just a visit to the cave. Then we ran smack into — into your other troubles, lad.”
His eyes iced. “I resigned, Farrell. That’s all. To come home.” The last word brought on a thaw. “My little girl’s growing up without me. I don’t want to disappear again,” he whispered, leaning his head on his arms.
“Is that what you been doing since the court martial, Matty?”
Farrell lost his friend’s eyes to the sea again. “The women need me, don’t they?”
“I could go up to San Francisco. Make some inquiries myself.”
Matthew raised his head, smiled. “Not without the women’s leave you’re not going anywhere. We got guests. And you’re useful, with your wild Irish stories and ’Lana’s Italian translations. But maybe, after, if you’re willing. But no one can know about this place. If ever the women got hurt on my account — well, it’d kill me. Then they’d be left with no protection at all.”
“Draw up your mama’s quilt, Matty. I’ll take the first watch.”
 
 
“Lay your head back, like on a pillow,” he urged.
“It’s not a pillow.”
Damned woman, why did he offer to teach her to swim? Because she could drown, for not knowing. What if she went on one
of those cruises her San Francisco friends were always coming or going from? His patience returned.
“Still, it will hold you like a pillow. Better. It will hold all of you. Take a breath, a deep one, come on, with me.”
He put his face beside hers in the water and inhaled. She watched him, smiled slowly. She was enjoying his torture in seeing her soaked to the skin.
“Breathe!”
“You don’t have to shout.”
Her hold on his arm loosened. She took a deep breath. And there, yes, she was floating on the surface of the bay. Her hair soaked and resting on the water gave her face the look of one younger, a child. She was a child, reveling in the power and beauty of her body. Why shouldn’t she? He’d been the same way with Lottie, after all.
“Matthew. It feels like I could stay here, and rest.”
“You can.”
He remembered floating like she was now, while his wife dove deep and far to play with the seals, even in the days when the baby was heavy within her. He grew to love her strange, guttural sounds, to pick it out among the seals and know her. He didn’t have to teach himself to love this woman’s voice, and that shamed him. It was a betrayal, somehow, of his wife.
“It’s as if you’re not even holding me.”
“I’m not.”
“Of course you —” She tugged on the light muslin of her underskirt he’d slipped into her hand instead of his sleeve. She panicked and sank before he could recover her. She came up sputtering and screaming.
“Blow the water out your nose. It will feel better.”
She obeyed, then hit him a glancing blow to his shoulder. “You lied! You said you’d hold me!”
“I didn’t say forever. ’Lana. You held yourself. I might not be beside you in the water, sometime.”
“I hate the water.”
“Maybe. But you’re not helpless in it.”
He turned toward the shore, avoiding those wide eyes, those soft, curving shoulders. But when he was waist deep, he felt the tug at his sleeve.
“I’m sorry. More, please?”
He smiled. “You sound like Possum.”
“Will I ever swim as well as Possum?”
“Possum will swim better than I do, soon. She has her mother’s gift. No one will match her.”
She was pouting that infernal pout. He dared not try either of their patience anymore today. He took her hand.
“Come out. I don’t hear the voices anymore, do you? I wonder where they’ve drifted off to.”
The scream of the child made their hands lock together before they ran together up the shoreline.
Matthew counted their heads as they ran. Only five, no, six, one was two-headed — Joseph had Louisa on his back. Missing was another sister, Cara. Possum took hold of his suspenders and nodded toward the shoreline’s caves as Constantine, the oldest boy, spoke.
“She follow the music — there, Matt.”
“Music?”
“We go, forget. Now, look. We call, call. No Cara
mia.”
“High tide. That cave’s closed off, will flood.”
“Che cost?”
Matthew looked beyond the boy’s worried face and lifted Possum higher, pressing her against his heart. He closed his eyes, listened. He heard breathing. Even, slow, breathing. He gave his daughter to Olana.
“Cara’s asleep. I’ll get her. Tell them, ’Lana.”
He turned back once, when the water reached his waist. The children had closed in around Olana and Possum. The sight of them he’d remember his life long, were he now successful. If not, it would be the sight he’d take and hold onto as long as he could.
He hit his head on the underwater ceiling of the cave twice before he finally found the surface. He came up gasping, but the
sleeping child did not even stir. He touched her arm.
“Cara mia?”
he repeated her brother’s affectionate name.
She opened her eyes, smiled her recognition of him. Matthew liked her lively, intelligent face, the tender way she held Louisa up to see the babies. Cara looked to where the entrance had been. Her face contorted into a young mirror of her mother’s in childbirth.
“Insidia!”
She pulled away from his reach, her eyes wildly surveying their disappearing pocket of air. “Easy, Cara. Breathe easy,” he urged.
“Ee-see?”
“That’s right. High tide fills this cave. But I got in, didn’t I? And we can get out. Together.”
“No!
Non oltre
, Matthew!”
Her panic echoed off the glistening walls. He ran his hand through his hair and took in a long breath of air. Precious air. Would Possum remember him? Will she mix him up with that other face on the mantle if both their likenesses were there? Would Olana turn to Darius Moore and forget him, forget how his child had once clung to her neck? Stop it, he ordered the voices in his head.
“Seal Woman will help us, Cara. Maybe it was her music drew you inside. She used to sing, you know? Couldn’t speak, but she could sing. Like a flute. Clear-throated melodies of her people. If we need breath getting out, she’ll help us, I know she will.”
He reached out his hand. She took it.
“There’s the girl, Cara. Come. Play with me in the water. Watch your hair swirl around like hers, like a mermaid’s.”
As she floated in the rising water, Matthew took out his knife and began cutting a strip of fabric from the hem of her skirt. He tied one end about her waist, the other around his wrist. He looked into her eyes and saw the panic subsiding, replaced by a puzzled stare.
“There. Until we’re outside we’ll be attached, like the twins were to your mama. I’m your mama.”
She giggled softly, hiding her new second teeth behind her fingers.
“Hey,” he said, pouting. “I thought you didn’t know my language!”
 
 
Olana saw the child first, her head bobbing over the surface, then disappearing. She screamed her name and tore into the water, going as far as she dared, then sending Possum out from her. Possum found her father, who came up sputtering with his burden under his arm. He stumbled and let her brothers relieve him of the child. They lay her on the sand. His voice was clear and deep as he sliced the remnant of cloth between them.
“Leave her be,” he told the children. “She’s doing fine. “
Bene, Cara mia.
”
She continued choking out seawater, but her head tilted toward Matthew and the corner of her mouth spasmed into a smile. He sat back and rested in Olana’s arms.
 
 
That night he sat on the porch steps, staring at the stars and absently picking at the piece of cloth still tied to his wrist when Olana appeared above him. She held out the steaming cup of tea. “Your grandmother says to drink it all.”
He let it warm his hands and inhaled the sweet scent. “Sassafras. She thinks my blood’s gone thin, does she?”
“Has it?” Olana smiled, he could feel it, though she kept her chin low, her face in the shadows. She resisted only slightly as he raised it.
“The outdoors suits you. It suits you something fine,” he whispered, sweeping his hand behind her neck as he kissed the patches of moonlight that played between those of the tree branches on her face. Then he kissed the shadow places. She leaned her head back and let him continue the pattern on her neck.
“What did you put in that tea, woman?” he teased, biting her earlobe.
She laughed, drawing him close. His hands gave her hips a dancing massage and his kisses deepened, sweetened by his grandmother’s sassafras.
“Come back with me, Matthew,” she urged.
“What?”
“Back to Three Rivers.”
A wall of ice came between them.
“Why?”
“To clear yourself from these ridiculous accusations.”
“Does your Mr. Lunt think they’re ridiculous?”
“It wasn’t Sidney who —”
“No? Are you sure?”
“I work for the man, Matthew.”
“Oh? You’ve taken to staining your fingers with ink?”
“You don’t know anything about it! My pieces have a … a following. And between Sidney and myself, I assure you, we will reinstate you in your position.”
“I have no position.”
“Because you won’t defend yourselfl”
“I have no defense.”
She laughed high, nervous. “Matthew, there’s been a terrible mistake. You mustn’t let your pride —”
“It isn’t.”
“Not pride then! Hurt? Whatever is keeping you —”
“Olana. It isn’t a mistake.”
She laughed again. His face stayed sober.
“The man who swam in after that child today, the one who came after me in that snowstorm, the one who stood up to those horrible men — he wasn’t discharged dishonorably from the army.”
“But he was.”
“Why?”
“I was a traitor. During wartime.”
“They’d have had you shot!”
“Hanged. Mustn’t waste bullets on somebody like me. They were building the scaffold. I watched them for three days.”
“Stop it!”
He took her arms in his steely grip. “I warned you. Told you I wasn’t your silly dream of me. But you wouldn’t leave me be. Now you’ve invaded my house, my work, my skin. Well, you won’t cause my women to go through that hell again, you hear me? Go home, Miss Whittaker. To your blasted social season, your foolish —”
“I don’t fit here, do I?”
“You fit too well.”
“How? I’m not one of your pampering women who never ask the difficult questions, who keep you at the center of their lives, even though you shut them out whenever it’s your whim. The women who care for a child you abandoned —”
“I think you should be quiet now,” he said in a soft, unworldly voice she’d never heard before. It triggered a peak in her rage.
“Quiet! Of course, darling boy! I must be a terrible annoyance. You prefer your women without tongues!”
Olana was on the ground before she realized he’d hit her. She felt no pain, not even a sting. Where had he struck? She didn’t even know that. She didn’t remember going down backwards over the root of the apricot tree, but there she was.
She remembered the look on his face. It was the look that brought tears to her eyes, not any pain. She watched him stare at his right hand. Was that the one? She watched him open, close the hand. Then Matthew Hart did something he’d never done in all the time she’d known him. He ran away.

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