Mittman, Stephanie (37 page)

Cabot
looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. While that was certainly a possibility,
it seemed to him that if Charlie was in such a hurry to get upstairs, she ought
to be doing something now that she'd gotten there. And all the silence said she
wasn't.

And
how did he explain that to his brother?

"Go
after her," he begged, wishing he were free to do it himself. "She
needs you."

"Arthur,
would you ask Mrs. Whittier to see to Charlotte?" He looked up at Ash as
if that settled it, and gestured for him to follow him into his office.
Clearly,
Mrs. Whittier
never referred to Charlotte. "We've work to
do I hadn't counted on," he said.

Ash
had felt it from the first, but had kept the thought buried deep within him. It
hadn't been any of his business in any event, but having been the one to put
Cabot into his chair, he had a special obligation to look the other way.

Now
obligations pulled at him from another direction and keeping silent meant
abandoning Charlie Russe to a life of loneliness.

"You
can't send your mother in your place. She's your wife, dammit, Cabot, not your
ward."

Cabot
never looked happy. His eyebrows had always curved down seriously and his
mustache drooped. But Ash wasn't sure that despite the wry smile, Cabot had
ever looked quite that miserable. "And you thought I never made
mistakes," he said, with more of a snort than a laugh. "Come on.
We've work to do. This is going to be hard to pin on Greenbough. If you hadn't
been there, been seen, we could have made it work in our favor—after all, the
new building wasn't yours. But, no, you had to go for a morning
constitutional.... Ash, let's go. I don't know how much time Charlotte will be
able to buy us."

***

Charlotte
bit at her lip harder still. She would not cry. Crying had never helped anyone
in the past and wasn't likely to help Selma now. It hadn't brought her mother
back and hadn't kept her grandmother from slipping away day after day and
leaving her all alone in the world with only Cabot Whittier, her mentor, to
tell her what to do.

Kathryn,
wringing her hands and getting smaller and smaller as the chair she sat in
seemed to swallow her up, wanted to hear every detail of Selma's injuries and
yet cringed with each one. When the knock at the door interrupted them, it was
Kathryn who rose to answer it.

Charlotte
could see Ash's face clearly over the top of his mother's head. Such a good,
kind face, so full of concern for her, when what he should be worried about was
himself.

"She's
fine," Kathryn was telling him while he strained his neck to see for
himself.

"I'll
be down soon," Charlotte added. "I know we've got work to do."

"Just
take care of yourself," he said, giving his mother's shoulder a soft
squeeze. "See that she gets a little rest, will you? She's had a hard
day."

"Me?"
Charlotte said, her voice coming out a squawk. "What about you? Do you
realize—-"

He
cut her off with a knowing nod. "So Cabot's been telling me. Don't you
waste time worrying about me. Get some rest, will you?"

Not
worry about him? She spent her days and nights worrying about him in one way or
another. How she would live with him around, how she would live without him.

"I'm
fine. I'm coming now. Did you know that L and P Imports has been involved with
the law before? And that Bekins had a fire that was ruled arson last year?
We've only got a couple of days left and now there's more work to do than
ever," she said, rising from the bed on whose edge she had been perched.

Kathryn
shifted slightly so that she was blocking the doorway and, with it, Charlotte's
view of Ash. "She'll be down later," her mother-in-law said.

Charlotte
leaned to the left just as Ash leaned to his right, and once again their eyes
met. If she could just look at him until she was a hundred, then maybe, she
thought, that might be enough. Or nearly, anyway.

"I'll
tell Cabot you're all right, then," he said, breaking the spell. "He
was worried."

"Naturally,"
his mother finished for him. "And that's why you came up." Charlotte
wondered if any of them believed it.

"I'll
see you later?" he asked. He seemed to hang on her answer.

She
nodded. "If you like," she said, looking down to see how badly rumpled
she must look to him.

"I
like," he said softly, almost as if his mother weren't there at all. Then,
as if realizing it, he added, "You, too, Mother."

Kathryn
shook her head sadly and closed the door behind her, leaned against it for a
moment, and then walked slowly over to the wing chair that was set in front of
the fire.

Her
movements were slow and deliberate and resigned as she sighed heavily, sat, and
pensively watched the fire. "Remember last year when I had that awful
influenza? How death came knocking at the door and you barred the way?"

"I
remember the only thing we could get you to eat was your mother's apple leek
soup," Charlotte said, coming to sit at the old woman's feet and letting
the heat of the fire warm her face. "And you insisted that if I cooked it,
you'd eat it."

"I
knew you'd put love in there, dear one, and that would save me if anything
would."

"I
still think it was rather extreme of you to get me to try my hand at
domesticity, Kathryn, but I'd hardly claim the credit for defeating death. That
victory most assuredly was all your own."

"Maybe
I shouldn't have fought quite so hard," Kathryn said thoughtfully, as she
ran her fingers through the short strands of Charlotte's hair. "Maybe I
defeated death only to have life defeat me."

"Are
you afraid for Ashford?" Charlotte asked. "Cabot won't let him be
convicted. You know that."

Kathryn
looked into the fire as if she would find the answers there. If they'd ever
been there, though, they had gone up in smoke. "I'm worried that Cabot has
very little incentive to save his brother's neck," Kathryn said,
addressing the glowing embers. "When saving his brother might mean losing
his wife."

Charlotte
swallowed hard. "I don't know what you mean. How could Cabot lose
me?"

"The
way any husband loses any wife. And you've more reason than most, my dear
one."

"But
I would never—" Charlotte began, stopped by Kathryn's raised finger.

"In
some ways, Charlotte, you already have, despite your best efforts to the
contrary. I only have to look at you, dearest, to know. And Cabot's crippled,
child, not blind. No one this side of the bay can miss the way your breath
catches when you're within ten feet of my younger son. The question is, what
are we going to do about it?"

"There
isn't anything to be done about it but try to hide it better until it goes
away."

"Goes
away?" Kathryn looked at her closely as if trying to decide whether or not
she could be serious.

"No
one feels like this forever," Charlotte said. If they did they'd never eat
or dress or work. They'd spend their lives staring into each others' eyes and
wishing on stars. They'd daydream about forever while holding on to now with
all their might. "It'll pass. And then, too, Ashford will be off to sea
again before you know it and life will return to normal."

Kathryn
cupped Charlotte's chin and waited until she met her gaze. "Is that what
you want? To remain here with Cabot forever?"

Why
was forever so much longer when it involved Cabot than it had been just a
moment ago when she'd been thinking of Ash? "Of course," she answered
matter-of-factly.

"I
wish I was so sure of what it was I hoped for the future," Kathryn said.
"And mine so much shorter, at that."

Charlotte
put her head down on Kathryn's lap and let the older woman stroke her hair. For
a time they were silent, and then Kathryn spoke quietly.

"I
love both my children, Charlotte, and I've come to love you, too, almost as if
you were my own. Did you know I had two daughters once?" she asked, and
continued without waiting for Charlotte to acknowledge the picture she had seen
in Ash's room all those weeks ago. "The diphtheria. I still can't talk
about it. But somewhere along the line you slipped right into their place and I
began to tell you what to wear in much the same way I would have told them, and
told you what to eat as I would have fed them. Your dreams became my dreams.

"And
now I look at you and feel my heart ripped and torn and bleeding for all my
children. Over and over I remind myself that I am not your mother and that my
allegiance must be to my sons. But even that doesn't help me, does it?"

Charlotte
nestled against the woman's lap, noticing how bony Kathryn's thighs felt
against her head.

"Cabot
does love you," Kathryn continued. "As best he can. And I've always
felt that my loyalty to him had to be unquestionable, unshakable. After all, he
is my crippled son. Crippled in body, crippled in spirit. He had to become the
man of the family so quickly after the girls and Charles all died. And he did
it at the cost of any softness he had in him.

"But,
Charlotte, I've always known he wasn't the only one hurt in that accident. He
had the visible scars, but Ashford carried the ones on his soul. And those are
so much easier to hide, to deny, especially from a mother who doesn't really
want to see what's always been right in front of her nose. I knew, though, knew
when he took off to places where I wouldn't see his hurt. And I watched as he
went around the world and back without finding relief until he looked at you.

"Someone's
got to lose, Charlotte dear. And I'm
damn
glad the choice isn't
mine."

Charlotte
started at Kathryn's words. "I don't see that there is a choice," she
answered, getting to her feet and staring out the window at the carriage house.
"I'm married to Cabot and I owe him everything."

"That
debt was paid the first time you made him smile. And a million times over when
you made him laugh. You owe him no more than you owe yourself."

"He
made all my dreams come true," Charlotte said, her fingers spread against
the glass as if she could reach out and touch the man who was striding across
the lawn to his quarters.

"But
Ashford gave you new ones, didn't he?" Kathryn asked, coming up behind
her. Charlotte turned quickly, ashamed at having been caught in the act of
wishing. "Cabot may have made your childhood dreams come true, but you're
not a child anymore, Charlotte, and the dreams Ash can make come true are those
of a woman."

"I
don't want to hurt Cabot," Charlotte said, forbidding herself from even
imagining what her world would be like if Ash could be in it.

"No,
and neither does Ashford. And so you'll hurt each other by your denials. And
Cabot will be hurt anyway. You've a long life ahead of you, God willing. Don't
be so quick to throw that particular type of love away."

"That
particular type?"

"Oh,
come now, Charlotte! I am not so old that I don't remember how a man's touch
could make the temperature rise fifty degrees in a buggy in January. That
memory can keep a woman warm long into her final years.... What's going to keep
you warm?"

***

Ash
was lying on his back in the darkness when he sensed her coming toward him.
He'd had the dream before— heck, he'd found the line that separated dreaming
from wishing growing finer every day. He kept his eyes shut tight and imagined
the noise the squirrels made was the sound of the carriage-house door opening
and shutting. He inhaled deeply and convinced himself it was her scent he
smelled. He turned over on the cot and let himself believe that the slight
pressure against his thigh where it hung off the bed was caused by her own leg.

He
refused to have the dream again, and forced himself to sit up, throwing the
covers off his chest and gulping for a breath of fresh air.

"You're
awake," she said softly, and whatever followed it was drowned out by his
groan. If this was a dream he wanted to stay asleep forever. If he opened his
eyes and she was gone, he would never allow himself to drift off to sleep
again. To see her here was worth the risk. He opened his eyes.

She
was there.

"Ash?"
Her voice quavered. "Should I leave?"

"That
all depends on why you're here," he said, shocked at how gruff his voice
came out, how raw his need could sound. "Did you come to discuss my
case?"

"No."

He
took her hand and pulled at her until she sat on the edge of his bed within the
curve of his body.

"The
weather?"

Gently
he pulled her with him as he moved back on the small cot. He looped his arm
about her legs and pulled them up until she lay against his side.

"Did
you want to talk about Kathryn or Cabot or your woman suffrage?"

She
shook her head against his chest and laid a tiny hand on the side of his neck,
where she no doubt felt his blood racing, just as her head must have heard his
heart beating a double-time tattoo.