Read Waltzing In Ragtime Online
Authors: Eileen Charbonneau
Waltzing In Ragtime (23 page)
“We have to stop.”“Why?”
“Because you’re the women’s guest. Uninvited, but —”
“You’ve made that clear enough!” Her anger finally flared, annoying Matthew in its timing. She could have waited until the soft curves of her breasts weren’t so transparent through the weave.
“Stop that,” he warned.
“What?”
“That infernal pouting. I ain’t your father, it won’t work with me.”
He watched her level, measured gaze. Was she wondering if she could get a clear blow at him? The night’s birth exhilaration had left them both sharp. No. She picked up the dripping train of his mother’s gown and turned away. Somehow that hurt worse.
Once on shore, the wet muslin choked her shins. His sharpness was so far gone that he could not even catch her as she sank onto her knees in the sand.
“What am I doing here?” she whispered.
He leaned over her. “That’s what I want to know.”
“I came to save you.”
“Save me?”
“Didn’t I? And what do I find? I find a wife —”
“Wife?”
“Who is really your mother … a whole houseful of women, and Italian people, and this beautiful, beautiful baby …” She stared at her arms, outstretched as they were when he’d thrust the tiny boy into them. “Two babies,” she corrected herself.
He knelt beside her.
“I’m not crying,” she maintained, though the tears were dripping off her nose.
“No, ’course not,” he whispered, lifting her into his arms. Clinging skirts now threatened his own steadiness. “You’re just real tired, darlin’.”
“Matthew Hart,” she murmured.
“Hmmm?”
“You’re always telling me how I feel.”
“I am?”
“Yes.”
He smiled. “And I’m always right.”
“No. Not always.”
Her head stilled against his chest. He only allowed himself to lower his face into the wild nest of her hair once, to savor the scents of the sea and new life combined.
When they reached the porch, Annie Smithers flung the blanket over Olana and began pulling out hairpins. “Swimming this early. And when the moon is full. Don’t you know that makes you daft?” Olana’s wet hair slapped across his arm. Annie sighed. “Best introduction she could get to this family, I suppose. Sit. Your mother’s getting the rest of them abed. She’ll want to do the same for your grand lady.”
Matthew half fell into the porch swing. His burden didn’t even stir. “She’s not my —”
“Always sleep this sound, does she?”
“How should I know?” he said, too quickly.
“Looked after her through the winter, with no knowledge of her habits?”
He felt himself coloring. She hadn’t meant … or maybe she
had. Damnation. His grandmother was the only woman who could make him blush. He tried getting interested in the floorboards of the porch,two of which needed replacing. No good. She waited.
had. Damnation. His grandmother was the only woman who could make him blush. He tried getting interested in the floorboards of the porch,two of which needed replacing. No good. She waited.
“I been trying to steer clear of her, Gran. You didn’t raise a fool, I know what’s trouble.”
“Never made you sidestep any, not in my memory. Why’d she track you here?”
“Some notion she’s got of saving me.”
“She bible toting?”
“No!”
“Well, what do you know, Matthew?”
Olana stirred, brushed her face against his chest and sighed. Matthew looked into his grandmother’s eyes. Trapped. His voice became a fine thread of a whisper. “She makes me feel —”
“Makes you? This bit of a girl ties you up helpless, does she?” she spat out.
He stared at the moon. “I feel,” he corrected himself in a desolate whisper. “I feel whole again, Gran. Just when I was getting comfortable in the part.”
Annie Smithers yanked the hair back from his brow with a gruff tenderness. “You’re all of a piece, child. There’s pain, but you get useless without living whole.”
Her eyes joined his in their survey of the clearing night sky.
“You did well tonight, Matthew,” his midwife grandmother told him.
“For a man,” he finished.
“No.” She smiled. “When your grandfather started helping me with the birthings I’d only give him that he did all right for a man. Wasn’t so. Ain’t now. You both have the gift. My pride ain’t such that I’ll keep it from you, like I done him.”
Matthew always knew when the grandfather Annie meant was his mother’s father, not her last husband, Joseph Fish, who was the only grandfather he’d known. Vita’s father was the one they all said was the outlaw. All of them but Annie. She called him her darling boy, like she sometimes, rarely now, called him.
“You’re mashing her nose, Matthew.”
“What?”
Annie Smithers laughed softly, then looked up to the woman who’d appeared in the doorway. “Best get these last ones abed, Vita, before your boy dents his lady’s face permanent.”
“She’s not —” he began to insist again.
“She did well too. For a Yankee.”
Vita led them inside and upstairs, past what had been his uncles’ bedrooms, now full of children’s deep breathing. Someone had set out a jar of hyacinths in his room, beside his bed. His mother motioned for him to set Olana down.
Hell, he needed to keep watch anyway. He did her bidding without protest.
“Poor child.” Vita Hart sighed. “What have you done with her?”
“Me? I only —”
“Soaked her to the skin when the nights are still cool,” she fussed at him as she laid out Olana’s damp hair across the pillows.
“It was her —”
“Go now.” She waved to the adjoining door. “Take your rest.”
“You’re damned peas in a pod with Gran, you know that?” he said in a furious whisper. It only made her smile. “Now there’s two women won’t let a man finish a sent —”
“Shoo.”
He grabbed a pillow from the empty half of his bed. The movement caused Olana to stir and sigh deeply. His mother’s warning look returned. Matthew tucked the pillow under his arm. “I’m going,” he said, retreating.
Olana woke to soft breezes blowing in from the open casement windows. She stayed still, wondering where she was, until she smelled the salt-sea air, heard the rush of the ocean, its pounding against the shore. She rose slowly from the abundant feather bed. She was dressed in a nightgown of light blue with delicate embroidered roses on the placket. It had not been Matthew who dressed her, she knew that from the careful attention to the ties and buttoning. On the chair beside her bed were her traveling clothes, pressed and clean, and the white nightgown she’d worn last night, also cleaned and yes, she realized as she drew it up to her shoulders, shortened to her height.She walked to the window and drew the lace curtains back. Below her a child was weaving a string between her fingers and those of the doll Matthew brought her from San Francisco. What did they all call her? Possum. Matthew Hart was a father. Possum’s father. A fresh pain stabbed through all the wonder from the night before. Would Matthew forgive the assumptions she’d made?
“Stay still!” Annie Smithers’ exasperation exploded from the next room. Olana went to one of the three pine panel doors and opened it a crack. Within the adjoining room, Matthew was trying
to free himself from his grandmother’s grasp. She pushed him into the curved back chair.
to free himself from his grandmother’s grasp. She pushed him into the curved back chair.
“Now let me get a decent measure.”
“I’m the same size I always been.”
“You’re thinner.”
“I’ll eat.”
He tried to rise again. She finally stripped the shirt off him.
“Oh, child. Darlin’ boy.” Her voice’s tenderness was as naked as his back. “I knew you weren’t going all modest on me for no reason.”
“It’s not —”
“Now, don’t you go wasting your mind on a lie, Matthew,” she scolded softly. “I know the marks of a bear.”
She touched the scars. “How did you treat it?” she asked.
“’Lana packed it with snow, then greased it.”
“The Yankee?”
“Olana’s her name, Gran.”
“Well, appears she is good for more than sleeping the morning away and showing off feathers and satin enough to turn your mama green.”
“She catches babies all right, too,” he reminded her.
Olana could feel the rush of pride warm her. Annie Smithers only grunted, and continued studying his back. “Any infection? Fever?”
“Some — at ’Lana’s place.” He swung around in the chair and Olana could see excitement in his eyes. “This lady, the cook? She made a good healing concoction. I wrote it in the book. Along with a fine recipe of hers for curing a morning after.”
“Bears and the demon rum. You had an eventful winter.”
“Aw, Gran.”
She touched his cheek. “Was it hard for you? Being back in that city?”
“Sure,” he said softly. “Sure it was.”
Olana longed to know everything they knew about each other. Her fingers touched the door.
“Stand up,” Annie Smithers’ no-nonsense voice was back, ordering a man Olana didn’t think could be ordered. But he stood, as she unrolled her worn tape measure.
“Gran, I ain’t grown taller since last year.”
She made him hold the measure at his waist as she knelt and brought it to the heel of his boot. “Living ’mongst them towering trees so long,” she mused, “you never know.”
Annie finally finished measuring, recording her calculations. How nimble she was, Olana marvelled, this spidery grandmother of Matthew’s. Her own mother would look tortured and old beside this woman. Annie Smithers flung a soft shirt from her sewing basket at her grandson. He pulled it over his head, but stopped suddenly at the third button, and snatched up the old woman’s hands.
“This shirt’s new. This season. And it’s your work, not Mama’s. Ain’t nothing unsteady about your hands.”
“Didn’t say there was.”
“But, last night, the babies … you made me do it.”
“Seemed like you needed to.” She smiled. “You put me in mind of when you first came to us — all lost, beaten down. What’s made you so?”
He walked to a window, bracing his arm against the frame. “I want to come home, Gran.”
“Why? You ain’t stopped loving them trees, with or without the bears.”
“No.”
“Ain’t known you to turn from anything needing your protection.”
“I got my own family needing, don’t I? And the place here? With Grandfather gone —”
“The place is looking worn down. And Possum older,” she continued for him.
“Yes.”
“None of that’s the reason. Oh, you’ve fooled your mama. Through the night we shared vigil with the babies, she gushed on
about you being home to stay. Never was suspicious enough, that girl. And she’s so happy she don’t see you got pushed back into our lovin’ arms.”
about you being home to stay. Never was suspicious enough, that girl. And she’s so happy she don’t see you got pushed back into our lovin’ arms.”
“Pushed?”
“You heard me.” She waited. Silence. “By whoever occasioned that gold tooth?” He was still not forthcoming. She shrugged. “Tell me now, tell me later.”
Olana found herself taking a strange, secret pleasure in knowing something these women whose blood he shared didn’t know. That made it easier to watch the beauty among them. Annie Smithers straightened the garment, which was more like a farmer’s smock than a shirt. Her hand lingered on his shoulder.
“Your mama, she frets, Matthew. Ain’t no need to tell her about the bear, is there?”
“Weren’t no need to tell you. And if you weren’t so blamed exact in your measurement —”
“That was Vita’s doing. Also says I got to chat with your lady there on pattern changes to make modern your clothes.”
“What?”
He pulled his suspenders hastily up over his shoulders, then grabbed his vest from the chairback on his way out. “Mama!” he called. His grandmother followed at his heels. “Matthew Hart! Them babies!” she hushed him furiously.
Olana used the commotion to mask her closing the door. Annie Smithers entered from the corridor as she was doing it.
“You’d best get some breakfast before showing me how to yank my boy into your century,” she advised, then strode off.
Olana had barely time to look at her watch, her morning had been so full of people and tasks. But now it was growing quiet, even here, outside, where the ocean was always in hearing distance. The children had gone down to the beach. The babies were nesting quietly with their mother. Matthew Hart had barely been in her sight, and then he was awkward and distant.
Vita Hart had patiently absorbed Olana into the household.
Annie Smithers was more tart, but in her own way, thankful for what little help Olana could render, given her ignorance, her need to be taught the things the women did so easily.
Annie Smithers was more tart, but in her own way, thankful for what little help Olana could render, given her ignorance, her need to be taught the things the women did so easily.
Olana took her cup of fruit-scented tea and the large wedge of raisin cake and sat out on the back porch steps. She did it quietly, so that the sharp-eyed little girl went on playing with her doll.
“Do you like her?” Olana asked.
Possum looked up. She didn’t run away, as she had with the Amadeo children’s attempts to include her in their afternoon play. She nodded. Olana smiled. “Why are you called Possum?” she asked.
“Because I am still. The possum must be my spirit animal, he says.”
“Your papa?”
“Papa?”
“Father?”
“Daddy. Matthew is my daddy,” the little girl explained patiently, although she could not yet pronounce the “th” in her father’s name. “No. Grandfather gave me the name. He died. We all cry, sometimes. But I dream of him then. In my dreams he’s on his way to Seventh Heaven. He’s in the mountains. With Daddy and the trees.” She began to rock her father’s gift on her knees.
Matthew Hart’s daughter was as strange as he, Olana decided. Confusing. She didn’t talk like a child at all.
“Have you named your dolly?” Olana asked quickly.
“Mama.”
There, better. Olana laughed. “That’s what she says, doesn’t she? But that’s not her name!”
“Says?”
All of the dolls in the window of the shop where Matthew’d bought this one had the devise. Olana thought that’s what had fascinated him, as he’d been fascinated by Alisdair Dodge’s photography. At last. Her turn to be teacher. “Didn’t your daddy show you that she can talk, Possum?”
“No, miss.”
“May I?”
She took the doll from the child’s embrace and turned it to make the mechanism work. No sound. She tried again. The child looked fretful. Her fingers reached. Olana placed the doll on her lap, examined its back. There, beneath the velvet coat and lace bodice, the muslin body was ravaged with an indentation. And clumsy stitches. Matthew’s stitches.
“He took that clever device out. He took her voice out,” Olana said, stunned by the realization. “Why in heaven’s name did he do that?”
“My mama had no voice,” Possum explained, then gave her doll to Olana. “She’s pretty?” the child asked.
“Beautiful.”
“I am not. I am a damned Breed.”
“Who calls you that?”
“People in town. They say, ‘Look at Vita Hart. That beauty saddled with a damned Breed.’ The child smiled. Olana felt Possum’s quiet tolerance.”Do you think gardeners are ugly?”
“No!”
“Give her the doll,” she heard Matthew’s hard voice command, before he threw his toolbox on the porch. He watched, steel-eyed, as she obeyed. Then he walked off toward the apricot grove.
“He’s hungry. Feed him,” his daughter advised, putting Olana’s forgotten raisin cake into her hands, before she skipped into the house. “Mana! Gran!” she called. “Cook!”
Olana found him in the grove of apricot trees, leaning on a gnarled trunk so dwarflike compared to his sequoias. He was watching the Amadeo children below.
“Matthew —”
He didn’t turn around. “She can play without the doll squawking back. She doesn’t need everything done for her. Not my daughter.”
“Not like the Whittaker daughter.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No, you didn’t. Coward.”
He turned quickly, almost knocking her offering from her hands. She shoved it against his soft shirt.
“Here. Eat,” she commanded.
A smile stole across his face. “Hell,” he said. “Now you sound like them.”
She looked into the distance, bit her lip. He touched her arm as shyly as he’d been bold the night before.
“Aw, ’Lana. Have mercy on a man used to his solitude.”
“No more swearing!”
“Sure, all right, only don’t start bawling.”
“I don’t bawl!”
She heard him make several further attempts to speak, but they ended up odd, exasperated noises. Then he sat, and the sounds changed. She stole a look. He was eating.
“Want some?”
“No. Thank you.”
He reached up for her hand. His was swollen, nicked with the work he’d done all day. “Sit. Please. Let’s talk.”
“Yes. How could you leave Three Rivers without —”
“About you going,” he changed her course.
“I see. Which you would like to be —”
“Yesterday. But it’s not for me to say.”
“Why not?”
“This is my grandmother’s and my mother’s home. You’re their guest, not mine. And against my advice they’ve accepted your offer to help out with the Amadeos. You won’t be tossing feed to chickens at your leisure here. You don’t yet know what work is, Miss Whittaker. But you’ll find out. And you’ll leave with the Amadeos.”
“I thought you said that matter was up to —”
“You’ll leave!”
Was this the same man who’d held up those babies in the rosy glow last night? Who had made her cry out in joy under his loving hands? He rested his forearm on his knee now. Tension showed in his long fingers, in the line of worry across his forehead.
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