Lawless (63 page)

“Charlie, that was absolutely grand.”

The carriage was hurrying them back to London Terrace, where she’d creep in the back door of the Whittakers’, dash out the front and return with Mills to that dreadful house. How she wished she didn’t have to do that. How she wished she could lose herself in a performance every night. If only she were as old as Leo Goldman thought, she’d be free to do whatever she wanted. Free to pursue a career.

“Didn’t I say you had a first-class talent?” Charlie replied. “The members endorsed my view. Say—what did that Jew want in the cloak room?”

“You mustn’t keep calling him a Jew in that tone of voice. If you do, he’ll have every right to call you the son of a quack medicine peddler.”

Charlie bristled. “Taking his part pretty hotly, aren’t you?”

She was aware of warmth in her face again. She struggled to keep her tone casual.

“I’m only trying to be fair.”

“You didn’t tell me what he wanted.”

She shrugged. “He was just paying a compliment.”

“Yes, I
saw
him rolling his damned eyes at you all evening!”

“Now, Charlie, don’t carry on. Leo means nothing to me.

The falsehood put scarlet back in her cheeks. Shameful images filled her head all at once. Her mouth against Leo’s. Their bodies touching, without clothing, in some idyllic, sun-bright glade where, together, they sank down to perform the mysterious act she’d only heard about—

Stop.
That sort of thing only brought pain. She must remember that.

She calmed down, maneuvered the conversation in a different direction.

“I decided something tonight, Charlie. I’m definitely going to be an actress.”

“You mean you weren’t sure?”

“Not entirely. Not until I read that scene.”

“Well, I’d say you have an
excellent
chance to fulfill your ambition. Maybe we’ll even appear together one of these days.” Then, adopting that man-of-the-world tone, he added, “Tell me, how soon do you plan to leave the family fireside and take up trouping? Tomorrow? Next week?”

Lamps on a passing carriage cast a harsh glare in Eleanor’s oval eyes for a moment. Her face lost its soft quality.

“Don’t joke that way. Things are terrible at home. I promise you this. I’ll leave as soon as I can.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” She pressed her gloved fist against her skirt. “As soon as I can.”

Charlie retreated into puzzled silence. Eleanor had the mercurial temperament of an actress, right enough. Her declaration just now had been almost as strident as the one she’d made while they were on their way to Irving Place.

He didn’t understand why she felt as she did, but it was very evident violent emotions were churning within her. Charlie liked Eleanor Kent. He hoped those emotions—or the unhappy situation with her family—wouldn’t bring her to grief.

T
HREE DAYS BEFORE
Eleanor’s fourteenth birthday, Gideon again spent the evening at home. He was doing it more and more frequently of late. Around eight thirty he finished reading Will a section of a new Mark Twain book
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
Then he lifted his son off his knee and shooed him to bed. He went upstairs ten minutes later to be sure Will had followed instructions.

Will was in bed with the sheet pulled up to the collar of his summer nightshirt. Gideon sat down on the edge of the bed and mussed his son’s hair affectionately. How sober his eyes were. More appropriate to a man of eighty than a boy of eight.

“Will, do you ever give any thought to what you want to be when you grow up?”

“Some,” Will admitted. In that reply, as in everything he said or did, he was hesitant, as if he might be criticized or punished.

“Can you tell me?”

Another pause. “I’d like to join one of the volunteer fire companies. But I don’t think I’d better. I think I should pick something quiet.”

Gideon almost burst out laughing until he saw the seriousness of his son’s expression. There was something so timid about Will, something so cowed and so contrary to the normal exuberance of boys, Gideon’s heart almost broke with guilt.

“Why do you say that, Will?”

With perfect logic, the boy answered, “Mama likes quiet children. You don’t get yelled at or whipped when you’re quiet.”

“But boys need to whoop and holler once in a while. It’s allowed.”

“Oh”—he nodded—“I do that over in the Park. By myself.”

What have we done to him, me with my inattention and Margaret with her bad moods?
His voice was hushed. “I see. Well, good night, Will.”

“Good night, Papa,” The boy’s hug was unashamedly loving.

Gideon turned out the gaslight and left. He walked down the corridor to bid Eleanor good night before she finished her studies and made ready for bed. Like Will, she too represented a problem, though a different one. Of late she’d started to treat him with a cool reserve he found upsetting.

Oh, she was never disrespectful. And deep in her eyes he thought he detected affection struggling to break free. But she would permit no tangible demonstration of it.

He entered her room quietly. She was bent over her Latin grammar. He murmured, “Good night, Eleanor,” and reached down almost shyly to touch the back of her hand. One did no more than that with a maturing girl, he’d discovered. Physical contact with parents seemed to embarrass them.

The moment his fingers brushed hers, she jerked her hand to her lap. She forced a smile at once nervous and insincere.

“Good night, Papa. Before you go, may I ask you a question?”

“Certainly.” It was unexpected—but far better than indifference.

“Do you know a boy named Leo Goldman? He said he met you once down near the paper.”

“Goldman. I don’t believe—”

“He’s two or three years older than I am. From the lower East Side. He said he used to deliver newspapers.”

“Oh, yes, now I remember. It was five or six years ago. He stopped me at the door of the
Union
and asked a question about an extra edition. Good-looking youngster, as I recall—” Memory made him smile. “Struck me as a cheeky sort, but in a nice way. His voice was changing. He was very excited about the opportunity in America. His parents were immigrants, and he said he planned to make a fortune here. I recall thinking he probably would. Where on earth did you run into him?”

“Oh, he’s a friend of Martina’s brother.”

“Of Charlie Whittaker’s?” Gideon recognized a fib. His daughter wasn’t good at deception, thank heaven.

He didn’t press the issue, just murmured to acknowledge that he’d heard. But he meant to stay alert for any further inquiries or signs of interest. He didn’t want Eleanor involving herself with some streetwise slum boy, not at her age—not at any age, for that matter.

All at once he saw an opportunity he’d been wanting—chances to converse with his daughter were very few these days.

“Since I answered your question, will you answer one of mine?”

Her response was a shrug. “Of course.”

“Why are you so annoyed with me lately?”

“I’m not.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you. Is it because of the trip to Philadelphia? That’s all settled now. We’re going next month. I’ve booked the suite of rooms. More important, your mother has finally agreed to the departure date.”

The trip was scheduled for the eleven-day period between the Republican nominating convention in Cincinnati and that of the Democrats in St. Louis. The
Union’s
chief political reporter would be doing daily stories from both conventions, but Gideon planned to attend a few sessions of each as an observer and editorialist.

Eleanor turned in her chair and exclaimed, “I know—Will’s already in a tizzy over the trip. He’s driving me absolutely wild.”

Gideon chuckled. “Well, I’m glad to see a response, even if your brother does catch the worst of it. Things are entirely too grim and listless in this house. I’m trying to change that. I hope the excursion will help.”

She gave him a hard stare. “I thought you liked things the way they are, Papa.”

He suppressed sudden anger. “May I ask what you mean? That’s a rather impertinent remark for a girl your age.”

“Yes, I’m sorry,” she said, and turned back to her grammar. Her tone clearly said she didn’t think she’d done wrong. Somehow he was being cast in the role of the family’s chief sinner.

Who was doing that? Margaret? She was barely civil any longer. And sometimes, despite the alcohol haze in which she lived, she gazed at him in a most peculiar way. Almost a calculating way.

He hoped to God she wasn’t attempting to influence the minds of the children against him. The thought was a sorry climax to his aborted effort to come to some understanding with Eleanor. She didn’t even glance up as he left the room and softly shut the door.

Well, it was only a small defeat. He mustn’t let it ruin his determination to improve conditions in the family. Will needed the companionship of a brother or, lacking one, of a father. Gideon needed to start teaching his son to play checkers. He ought to buy a bat and ball for them to use in the vacant lot on the other side of Sixty-first.

And despite Eleanor’s hostility, he wanted to make her birthday a happy one. As yet he’d gotten no present for her. Time was running out, but he’d been unable to think of the right thing.

He wanted to make the gift a special and important one. The celebration itself was shaping up that way. Cook had drawn up an extra-good menu. And Margaret had surprised Gideon by suggesting she write Molly in Long Branch and invite her to come up and spend the night, a proposal he’d enthusiastically seconded.

So far, he’d done no more than scribble a list of ideas for a gift. Downstairs in his book-lined study, he turned up the gaslight and tugged the list from a waistcoat pocket. He ran his eye down what he’d written.

Brushes.

Combs—moth. of prl. inlays.

Perfume.

There were six other items, equally pedestrian.

What could he get that would excite Eleanor? The obvious answer was something connected with her developing interest in the theater. Did he dare buy a book of some sort? A Shakespearean text? Much as Margaret disliked the New York theaters, she surely couldn’t object to a printed play.

He’d search the better bookshops starting tomorrow morning. He would, that is, unless he could think of something even better before then.

He sat down at his desk. He took out pen and tablet to compose a message for the Atlantic cable. He’d had no response to his letter to Matt. He was beginning to think his brother hadn’t received it, or had received and dismissed it. In case the latter was true, Matt at least owed him the courtesy of a refusal.

Abruptly he gnawed the end of the pen. The street boy—Goldman. Where had Eleanor met him?

He still didn’t believe the explanation about Charlie Whittaker. Had she encountered Goldman in some kind of theatrical activity? He hoped not. Reading plays was fine. Harmless. Becoming personally involved in the seedy, amoral world of the theater was something else again. It was a possibility that, as a father, he couldn’t tolerate.

He recognized that he was in effect creating a double standard—one for his children, and one for himself—and Julia. But more and more, he was coming to look at things from a father’s perspective. And if a double standard was required to protect a daughter, so be it. Damn what anyone might say about hypocrisy.

He glanced up at the sound of the study door opening.

“Margaret!”

A surprised smile spread over his face. It vanished when he took note of her sullen eyes. How white and weary she looked. For a moment he felt a stir of the old affection. Or was it merely pity?

There was almost a whine in her voice as she said, “I wanted to let you know I saw Dr. Melton today.”

Good God. He hardly dared take a breath. Had she realized at last that the drinking was destroying her?

As if to confirm it, she added, “I’ve been having some problems—”

Careful Don’t upset her.

“What sort of problems, Margaret?”

“Why, feminine ones. The kind a woman doesn’t discuss even with her husband.” That was unexpected; it jolted him, then brought a feeling of discouragement as she went on. “Dr. Melton gave me a tonic that’s different from the one I’m taking now.”

The one that’s rotting your mind and ruining your life?

Sweat broke out on his forehead. He fought to keep from shouting at her. She continued. “He gave me some other preparations as well. During the next ninety days, he wants me to rest as much as I can. I wanted to tell you at once, because going on the trip to Philadelphia will be quite impossible now.”

He tried to conceal his hurt. “I could still take the children—”

A touch of hostility: “It was planned as a family outing, was it not?”

“Of course, of course.” He was anxious not to agitate her. “As soon as you’re feeling up to it, we can discuss new reservations for the fall. The exposition will be open until the tenth of November. It’ll be cooler then. I suppose I’d better tell Eleanor and Will—”

“I’ve just done that. Will was upset, but Eleanor was very understanding. I’m glad you’re taking the same attitude, Gideon.”

She turned to leave, her step slow and her face disturbingly blank. In truth, he was furious over the news.

After she was gone he raked a hand through his hair, then picked up the pen with which he’d been about to write to Matt. Suddenly he snapped the pen in half.

“God
damn
it,” he said softly as tears of disappointment welled in his eye.

An hour later, Margaret committed her latest coup to the pages of her diary. She chuckled and cooed to herself as she wrote behind drawn drapes and a locked door in the dank bedroom. By her hand stood an unlabeled brown bottle from which she drank occasionally.

—and he accepted my lie. Tomorrow I shall speak to E. and W. I told G. that I had already done so, but that is not true. Should he chance to discuss the matter with them before I do, I shall plead a misunderstanding. I do not think he will do it, though, as he was exercised, and appeared to accept my word as final. When I talk with the children I shall tell them it is their father who has once again found it impossible to make the journey to Philadelphia. I shall say his work has again taken precedence, and they will hate him. And why not, dear friend? The blame for all the woes of this household is HIS—