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Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Contents
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
A Sneak Peek of ItStartedwitha Cowboy
Acknowledgments About the Author Back Cover
This bookis dedicatedto mygrandmothers, Jeanne Bryant andHelen Haring two women who taught me the meaning ofhardworkanddedication, oflove andloyalty to faithand family, who lovedto laughandwerequickto hug andalways believedingoodgrammar andthat Icoulddo andbe anything Iset my mindto.
Chapter 1
Tessa Kane paced the steps of the lodge and checked her watch. Again.
She could hear the laughter of the party going on inside and catch the scent of grilled meat every time someone opened the front door.
She was ignoring the growling of her stomach—she knew she should have eaten something on the drive up the pass, but she’d been too nervous. This was the first date she’d been on in over a year. It should have been no big deal, a simple setup with her friend’s brother whose girlfriend had dumped him and left him dateless for an important weekend of wedding events.
Except that her friend’s brother just happened to be a professional hockey player, and the wedding was for his Colorado Summit teammate, the notorious bad-boy bachelor Rockford James.
Why had she agreed to this stupid idea anyway? She had enough on her plate right now without adding the stress of going out with a man she didn’t know to an event full of celebrities, supermodels, and professional athletes.
Shielding her eyes against the bright Colorado sun, she stepped into the shade of an aspen and peered down the road, searching for Mick’s car. A bead of sweat rolled down her back, and she tugged at the too-tight waistband of her skirt, another reminder that she had
no business being here. Apparently, trading dating for ice cream and Netflix had added a few pounds to her already tall and curvy frame.
It had taken her over an hour just to find a suitable—which was another word for still fits—outfit for this party, and she had brought three spares and a comfortable pair of jeans, in case she’d gotten the first look of a black pencil skirt and burgundy silk top completely wrong.
She’d traversed the depths of her closet like an explorer searching for gold in the Mayan ruins to find the box with the matching burgundy party shoes. The expensive pumps were in pristine condition, which just went to show how long it had been since she’d gone to an actual party.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket.
Thatbetter be Mick, andhe’dbetter be on his way.
She pulled the phone free and checked the display. Not Mick. “Hi, Mimi.”
“Hi, honey,” her grandmother said. “I was hoping you could grab some of those marshmallow cookies while you’re at the store.”
Tess rolled her eyes. “I’m not at the store. I’m on a date. I told you that.”
“Oh. I thought you were kidding.”
“Thanks,” she muttered as her shoulders slumped forward. “And even if I were at the store, you know we can’t afford luxuries like cookies.” They couldn’t afford anything—not since The Scam.
“I know.” Her grandmother’s voice held the tone of an insolent child. “And I know it’s all my fault.”
“It’s not all your fault, Gram,” Tess reassured her. “It’s the fault of those bastard scam artists who swindled you out of all your money.” And out of all hers too, since Tess had given her grandmother every single dime she had after Mimi had sent thousands of dollars in
money orders and gift cards to someone who’d said that they were in dire needof her help.
Well, now Mimi was in dire need, because she was about to lose her house. Which would be equally bad for Tess, since she lived there too.
That was why she should be home right now, working on a great story that would garner them some much-needed moolah instead of standing outside the Masonic Lodge in the tiny mountain town of Creedence, sweating through the band of her bra and waiting for some guy to take her to a fancy party that she had no real interest in attending.
“I really thought he was a prince,” her grandmother was saying for the hundredth time.
“Listen, Mimi, we’ll come up with something.” Tess softened her tone. It really wasn’t Mimi’s fault that she had a compassionate heart and wanted to help someone in need. “I think I’m just going to come home. This guy hasn’t shown up, and I have an idea for a story to work on.” On the hour’s drive up from Denver, she’d been mulling over an idea to pitch to her boss at Colorado In-Depth.
“No. No. NO. This is the first time you’ve been on a date in years.”
Well, oneyear actually, but who’s counting?
“You stay and have fun, and I’ll figure something out. We have another week or so to come up with the money, and I’m working on a few ideas.”
Tess would bet she was. But who knew what kind of harebrained scheme her grandmother would come up with next? Her last idea of a “spiked” lemonade stand had almost gotten them kicked out of the neighborhood.
She clicked off, but her heart sank as she read the text message displayed on the screen. Sorry, baby. Can’t make it. Have fun without me.
Seriously?
Was this really happening? The first time she’d finally put herself out there and agreed to a date, and Mick the dick had stood her up.
Well, Mick, she would have fun. At home. In her pajamas. Even without cookies.
She took a step forward just as a wet splat hit the front of her silk shirt. A gag filled her throat as she looked down at the greenishyellow gob of bird turd that was running down her boob.
Could this fracking day get any worse?
Her party shoes were already digging painfully into the sides of her ankles as she trudged across the parking lot to her crappy, ancient car. The ’89 Ford Taurus was older than she was. It had been her grandmother’s car, but Tess couldn’t complain too much. She kept reminding herself that having a free car to drive when she needed it beat out the cost of her pride any day.
Her phone buzzed again, but this time the screen showed an unknown number. Maybe it was Mick calling to apologize and say he was showing up after all.
“Hello?”
“Tessa, this is Gordon. We need to talk.” Again—not Mick. Gordon was her boss, and in her experience, no conversation that started with the words We needto talkever ended well.
She climbed into the car and started the engine, praying that the air-conditioning fairies had miraculously shown up and fixed hers. No such luck. Her car was like an oven, and a blast of hot air blew her bangs across her sweat-dampened forehead. “What’s up?”
“Listen, Tess. I like you. You’re a nice person, but you’re just not the kind of writer that we need here at In-Depth. I’m going to have to let you go.”
Apparently, the worst thing to do in the middle of a crappy day was to throw down a threat to the “bad day” gods. But was he really firing her? Not that she liked this job that much anyway, but it was the only job she had, and she couldn’t afford to lose it. Not now.
“But why?”
“I told you two weeks ago that you needed to take the hard line on your next piece, to really get in there and dig for the good stuff. I even gave you something easy, an assignment covering the problems with the homeless population downtown.”
“And that’s what I wrote about.”
“You wrote about a homeless woman who rescued a kitten from the sewer and made her out to be some kind of damned hero.”
Tess huffed. “Well, that sounds like a hero in my book. You should have seen that kitten.”
She heard him groan. “I don’t give two shits about the kitten. It’s not the kind of story we cover. It’s just not working out, Tess.”
“Can’t you just give me one more chance? I need this job. And I’ve seriously had the worst day. I just got stood up on the first date I’ve gone out on in a year, a bird pooped on me, and now I have to drive all the way back down the pass.”
“Down the pass? What kind of date were you on?”
“A terrible one. I was supposed to go to a fancy-pants prewedding party for Rockford James, but instead, I’m just going home to sulk at a pity party for one.”
“Wait a minute. The Rockford James? The hockey-playing cowboy who was on everyone’s most eligible bachelor list?”
“I guess.”
“Everybody’s talking about the NHL’s infamous bad boy who was a player on the ice and off and what happened to make him suddenly settle down with a quickie wedding.” Her editor’s voice fairly crackled with excitement. “You want to keep your job, Tess? Go in there and get me that story.”
“You want me to go spy on the bride and groom at their own party?”
“That’s exactly what I want you to do. Go in there and mingle… Talk to the family, the guests, find the dirt.”
“But that’s not the kind of story I write.”
“It is now. It is if you want to keep your job.”
She chewed at her bottom lip, knowing she had no choice. She couldn’t let her grandmother down not after everything Mimi had done for her. Tess didn’t want to keep the job, but she needed to keep the job. Needed it enough to go into that party and motherfinking mingle for the muck on Rockford James.
It seemed she had no other choice.
“Okay, I’ll do it. On one condition,” she said, knowing she was pressing her luck but not caring. Heck, she’d already been fired and pooped on. What could it hurt to try?
“Do you really think you’re in a place to ask for conditions?” Gordon asked.
“Do you want the story or not?”
“Fine. What’s your condition?”
“If I get the story this weekend, you pay me a bonus, like the one you gave Steve Larson for that piece he did on the political scandal, and you pay me in cash when I turn it in.” She’d heard the rumors about Steve’s bonus and knew it was enough to pay two of the delinquent house payments.
“You get me that story in time for next week’s edition, and I’ll pay you halfwhat I gave Steve. But you can have it in cash.”
Her heart leapt in her poop-plastered chest. That was good enough for her. “Deal.”
They spent another few minutes on the phone, with Gordon telling her what he knew about Rockford and what he could quickly google —the names of the bride and the members of Rock’s family, and a few details about the family ranch where he’d grown up. “Oh, and from everything I’ve ever heard, the guy hates reporters, like freaking loathes them. So you need to be crafty about finding a way to talk to him.”
Great. No problem. She could be crafty. If by crafty, Gordon meant good with a glue gun. “Thanks for the warning. Although you could have told me that before.”
“I never said it would be easy.”
She let out a sigh. She’d come up with something. Mick had told her that the party would go all afternoon and into the evening, so she still had plenty of time. “Talk to you Monday.”
She turned off the engine and unzipped the bag sitting in her passenger seat. Rummaging through it, she searched for the white blouse she’d pulled from the dryer that morning. It wasn’t as fancy as the silk one, but it was clean, fairly unwrinkled, and better than what she had on. She grabbed the shirt, then slung her purse over her shoulder as she climbed out of the car, automatically pushing the lock down as she rehearsed ways to approach the bride and groom.
Already nervous about going into the party alone, she absently let the door swing shut behind her, realizing she’d just locked it at the same moment she spied the keys still hanging from the ignition.
* * *
“A toast,” Mason James proclaimed, holding up his glass. “To my brother Rock and his beautiful bride, Quinn.”
He looked around the room at the mix of family, friends, and Rock’s teammates who filled the lodge. It had been his mom’s idea to host a party for the team several days before the wedding. She’d thought it might help ease the pain when Rock didn’t invite the whole Colorado Summit hockey team to his actual wedding.
It had to be rough to be that popular. But that was his brother. He turned to Rock and had to smile. He just looked so dang happy.
Mason raised his voice above the noise of the crowded room.
“I might be the best man at this wedding, but Rock is the real best man, and he’s getting the best girl.” He smiled at his brother’s fiancée. “I feel like I’ve known Quinn and her brother, Logan, all my life. Our ranches are across the field from each other, and even though our families have been feuding for as long as we can remember, us kids never cared a whit about that. We grew up together, swimming in the pond in the summer and playing hockey on the ice in the winter.”
He stopped, clearing his throat against the emotion suddenly filling it, but keeping his gaze trained on Quinn. “Rock has loved you since he was old enough to understand what love is. And Colt and I have always loved you just like you were our sister, so on behalf of my mom, Colt, and myself, we couldn’t be happier to welcome you into the family.”
He raised his glass higher. “To Rock and Quinn, may your life be full of love and laughter, and may all your dreams come true. Including the one about winning the Stanley Cup next year.”
The crowd cheered, and the sound of laughter and clinking glasses filled the hall. The town of Creedence, Colorado, might be small in fact, the population of twelve hundred people would barely fill a
hockey arena—but they were die-hard fans of their hometown boy and the team he played for.
Rockford stood and threw his arm around Mason’s shoulders. “Thanks, Brother.”
Colt stood on his other side. The three of them clinked their glasses, then all took a swig of beer.
Quinn pushed back her chair and squeezed between them. “Thanks, Mace. That was a great toast.” She gave him a warm hug and spoke softly into his ear. “And your dream girl is out there. You just haven’t met her yet. But I know you’re going to be someone’s best man too.”
He squeezed his almost sister-in-law and winced as he looked over her shoulder at Leanne Perkins, her maid of honor and the girl he’d once had plenty of dreams about. Leanne’s eyes were red and tearstained, and he wondered if her tears were for the touching words of his toast or for the fact that Rockford James was now good and truly off the market.
They got along fine now, but he and Leanne had a history he’d rather forget. He’d had the worst crush on her in high school and thought himself the luckiest guy around when she’d agreed to go to prom with him junior year. Then he’d found out her real interest was in Rockford, and she’d only been dating him to get to his older brother.
She hadn’t been the last woman who had burned him with that particular stunt.
He hated being used and couldn’t stand liars. And he’d learned quickly that when it came to Rock, some people of the female persuasion couldn’t be trusted. He’d also learned that his bullshit detector wasn’t always accurate, and it was easier to keep a healthy distance than to open himself up to getting hurt again. So despite
Quinn’s encouraging words, he wasn’t planning on finding the woman of his dreams any day soon.
Finished with his best man duties, he escaped the table and circled around to the back of the room, giving high fives and handshakes as he passed Rock’s teammates.
The town’s ancient librarian, Lola Carter, patted him on the arm as he approached the buffet table. “Don’t worry, honey. The right girl is out there for you. I’m sure we’ll be celebrating your wedding next.”
He tried to smile through his grimace.
He wasn’t worried. In fact, the only thing he was worried about was that he might strangle the next person who told him he was next or that a special girl was out there waiting for him. He knew Lola meant well. Just like the multiple other well-meaning neighbors, friends, and various elderly women who had told him essentially the same thing over the course of the party. But dang, he was so tired of hearing the same old racket.
“I’m sure you’re right, Miss Lola,” he said, patting the papery-thin skin of her small hand.
“I usually am.” She gave him a small chuckle and a wink. “And don’t forget about my niece, Kara. She’s still single too. I can give you her number.”
Seriously? All he wanted was a chocolate chip cookie. “That’s mighty kind of you, ma’am. But I’m okay for now.”
She shrugged and turned her attention to the food. “You know where to find me.”
He snagged a couple of cookies and made his escape. Letting out a sigh, he dropped into the seat next to his great-aunt Sassy. “How you doing, beautiful?”
Her real name was Cassandra, but he and his brothers had called her Aunt Sassy from the time they were little, and it was a well-
earned nickname. She was his grandmother’s sister and had always been important in their lives. She didn’t take bullshit from anyone or offer it either. That was one of the things Mason loved about her.
“I’ve been better, but I’ve been worse,” Sassy said. “My joints are killing me, and my girdle must have shrunk in the dryer ’cause it’s digging into my gut. But your brother doesn’t look like anything is killing him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look so happy.” His aunt winked at Mason. “And I thought you gave a real fine toast.”
He offered her a shrug and a murmured, “Thanks.”
She held up a tiny square of bread. “Speaking of toast, who in the hell decided a piece of cucumber and a sliver of nut constituted a sandwich? Your mother probably paid top dollar for these. In my day, a sandwich was ham or bologna on white bread. And if we wanted to get fancy, we’d slap on some Miracle Whip and maybe cut the crust off.”
He grinned. There were a lot of things they’d done differently in her day. “Don’t worry. Those are only the appetizers. Mom’s got plenty of barbecue coming out, and you know she’ll have all the fixin’s to go with it.”
His mother, Vivienne James, would make sure every detail was attended to. She’d successfully run the Triple J Ranch and raised three boys on her own. She could easily handle a shindig for a few hundred people especially with Rock’s bank account funding the whole thing.
“You need anything?” He gestured to Sassy’s half-empty glass of iced tea, its condensation leaving a dark ring on the teal-blue tablecloth. “You want me to get you some more tea?”
“Nah. I’m fine, honey. I’m getting ready to switch to beer anyway.” She pointed toward the drink table. “But you might want to try to find a mop. That penis ice sculpture is melting all over the floor.”
Mason choked on his swallow of tea. “That what?”
Her wrinkled finger stabbed at the air. “I might be an old woman, but I do remember what they look like.” She shook her head and added a couple of tsk’s for effect. “Personally, I think it’s in poor taste, and I’m surprised your mother allowed it, but who am I to say?”
He tilted his head at the sculpture, then stifled a laugh. “Aunt Sass, it’s supposed to be a hockey stick and a couple of pucks.”
She squinted her eyes. “Ah. I thought it was weird to have the centerpiece symbolizing an erection. But it is a men’s hockey team, and you never know these days.”
He let out a chuckle. “Yeah, I can see how you might think that.” He could also see the puddles forming on the floor where the ice was melting. “I’ll go find a mop.”
Tessa slipped into the back door of the lodge, clutching the clean shirt to her waist. She spied the ladies’ room door at the end of the hall and hurried toward it, but the door wouldn’t budge.
Dang it.
She waited a few seconds, then checked the other doors in the hallway. The first one was locked, but the second opened into an odd combination coat closet and storeroom, and she slipped inside. One half of the small room was carpeted and had a rod of hangers along part of the wall, while the other side was tiled and had a tall shelf that held assorted books and cleaning supplies.
The door didn’t have a lock, but it would work in a pinch, and she wouldn’t need long to change.
She quickly unbuttoned the stained silk blouse and let it fall to the floor, her mind preoccupied with how she was going to get into the
party without Mick. This wasn’t how her day was supposed to go— especially the part about locking her keys in the car but after a quick round of cussing followed by a swift bout of self-pity, she’d rallied, giving herself the kind of pep talk she imagined Mimi would have offered.
This might not have been the original plan for the day, but she was improvising and moving on to plan B.
Shoving her arms into the sleeves, she noticed the shirt felt odd but didn’t realize what the problem was until she tried to pull the lapels together. What the heck?
She pulled at the sides again and felt the material stretch across her back.
No. Icouldn’t have.
She looked closer at the shirt, and her shoulders fell.
I did. She’d grabbed the wrong white shirt from the dryer. Instead of removing her roomy, stretch-cotton shirt, she’d taken her grandmother’s blouse. Her petite, five-foot-nothing grandmother.
Well, shit. She wanted to weep as she looked down and realized there was no way she was squeezing her ample chest into that blouse.
Plan B ruined by a double-D cup!
Dammit.
Please fit, she prayed as she tried again, squashing her chest and working to squeeze the small button into the opposite hole. She cursed the extra weight she’d put on, knowing this wasn’t the first time lately she’d tried to squeeze into apparel that was just a smidge too small.
She let out a tiny shriek as the door to the utility closet suddenly opened, then froze as she took in the ridiculously handsome cowboy who filled its frame. The hinges of his chiseled jaw must’ve been
broken because his mouth dropped open and his eyes went wide at the sight of her.
Par for the course of her day, the button on her shirt picked that horribly inopportune moment to work free, and her shirt popped open like a can of biscuits.
“Oh dang. Sorry,” the cowboy muttered, his eyes widening further as his gaze dropped to the black lacy bra for just a moment before he turned his back and shimmied out of his suit jacket. He passed it back to her. “You all right there, miss?”
No, she was not all right. She was definitely not all right.
She wanted to cry and stamp her feet and run home to Mimi’s house to curl up on her grandmother’s outdated chintz sofa and stuff her face with marshmallow cookies.
But that wasn’t an option because Mimi’s cupboards were bare, and she may not have her house or the chintz sofa—for much longer. Tess held back a sigh as she slid her arms into the sleeves of the jacket, careful not to damage the red rose pinned to the lapel.
It was time to admit defeat. To give up on this stupid plan and try to come up with another way to raise the money. She wasn’t cut out for this kind of stress. Maybe she should rethink Mimi’s lemonadestand idea or see if she could get a job as a waitress.
“I’m fine. Mostly. Except that a bird pooped on my shirt, and the one I was trying to change into must have shrunk in the dryer.” She couldn’t believe she’d just blurted out the bird-turd fiasco, and she couldn’t bring herself to admit the added stupid mistake of grabbing the wrong blouse. “I just need a minute.”
“I’ll leave you to it then,” he answered, turning his head slightly and offering her a tip of his hat. She noticed a grin tugging at the corners of his lips as he backed away from the door.
She pulled one side of the coat over the other, thankful the suit jacket covered her exposed chest.
Hmmm. She skimmed the satiny petals of the rose. Boutonnieres were typically reserved for the bridal party. This guy must be one of the groomsmen.
“Wait,” she called as the cute cowboy started to walk away.
Plan B had just turned into plan C.
Chapter 2
Tess sucked her bottom lip under her front teeth and tried for her best damsel-in-distress voice. “I realize you don’t know me, but I could really use your help.”
The cowboy turned back and arched an eyebrow before glancing down at her now-covered chest. “It seems like we’ve passed formal introductions. I may not know your name, but I feel like we’ve already made it to second base.” His tone was teasing, and he offered her an impish grin. “Which is further than I got on my last date.”
She doubted that.
He was the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome. Lean and broad shouldered, with jet-black hair and traces of a five-o’clock shadow already smudged across his jaw, he couldn’t have to work that hard to get dates. And with that panty-melting grin, she suspected women would be lined up to not just get to second base, but also to slide into home with this charmer.
She grinned back—dang it, she couldn’t help it; he was just so cute and held out her hand. “I’m Tessa Kane, but you can call me Tess.” “Mason.” He reached for her hand, and the feel of his warm, callused palm against her skin sent a shiver of heat down her back. His voice was deep and rich and melted over her like butter on a pancake.
She couldn’t seem to stop smiling. “Nice to meet you, Mason.”
Forget the damsel-in-distress ruse. Hell, forget about the stupid story. She should just say “Screw it” to this terrible day and pull this cowboy into the closet with her. She was already halfway to undressed—all it would take would be to drop his jacket and step out of her skirt and painful party pumps.
Or, on second thought, she could leave the heels on and just step out of her skirt. What came next would be worth the pain.
His eyes narrowed, almost as if he could read her thoughts, and a slow smile turned up the edges of his lips. Dang, he had great lips too.
He seemed to have a great everything. Even his jacket smelled amazing like expensive aftershave with hints of musk and she wanted to lift it to her face and inhale his scent.
But she couldn’t because she couldn’t move, could barely breathe as she stood frozen, captured by the heat of his stare. She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry, as his gaze dipped to her lips.
The air around them fairly sizzled with energy. Neither of them spoke. He seemed to drink her in, as if feasting on her with his eyes, and her body heated with the intensity of his gaze.
What the heck was happening?
Was she seriously considering yanking this guy into the closet and having her way with him? Her body tingled at the thought, even as the heat of a blush warmed her neck.
But there was something about this man maybe the way he’d chivalrously offered her his jacket, the deep timbre of his voice, or just the fact that he was a ridiculously hot cowboy. Whatever it was, it was turning her brain to mush and robbing her of all sane thought.
It wouldn’t be the first time she’d done something reckless and foolish, and her inner vixen was cheering her on.
Do it. It’s a wedding. And he’s a hot cowboy named Mason. What couldgo wrong?
Wait.
Mason?
Her inner vixen sighed as her brain suddenly reengaged. And she remembered Mason was the name of Rockford James’s younger brother.
Maybe it’s another Mason, her vixen cajoled. A seriously hot Mason, withlots ofmuscles andhardabs anda sexy smile.
Yeah, right. Another guy named Mason who was so close to Rock that he’d made him one of his groomsmen. Sure, that could happen.
Maybe her luck had turned and this was her chance to get an introduction to Rock.
Dammit. Her inner minx sulked, realizing Tess’s luck might have turned but their chances of actually getting lucky had just faded away.
Oh well. There were more important things she needed to be doing than steaming up a utility closet with a cute cowboy.
“Any chance you know where I could find another shirt?” she asked, tamping down her desire. “I have another one, hopefully one that didn’t shrink, but it’s locked in my car, along with the keys.”
He let out a soft chuckle. “Man, you are having a bad day.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” she muttered, then looked down at the jacket pulled across her chest. “I do know I can’t very well go into the party wearing just this.”
His grin widened. “You could, but you might steal the show from the bride-to-be.”
A flirty smile pulled at the corners of her lips. “You certainly seemed to enjoy the show.”
He let out another low laugh, and she swore she saw a tinge of pink coloring his cheeks. Another flash of heat surged down her spine. Why it seemed ridiculously sexy that she’d just made this cowboy blush was beyond her. But she liked it.
He held up his hands in surrender. “Guilty. But before I get myself into any more trouble, I do think I can help. Stay right there. I’ll be back in a minute.”
He shut the closet door, and she sagged back against the wall, her feelings warring between the hope that she could actually get her story and despair at the thought that she’d just missed out on something she had a feeling would have been toe-curlingly amazing.
* * *
Mason shook his head as he pushed through the back door of the Masonic Lodge and headed toward his truck. What in the heck had just happened?
He blinked against the bright Colorado sun and tried to regain his bearings. He felt like he’d just been through a tornado—a darkhaired, gorgeous, half-naked tornado and his mind couldn’t seem to process the effects of the storm.
He couldn’t have been more surprised when he’d opened that closet door in search of a… Hell, he could barely remember what he’d been looking for. But what he’d found had been a curvy woman in a snug skirt and a black lace bra, with legs that seemed to be about a mile long. A woman who had quite literally taken his breath away.
He still didn’t feel like he could catch his breath.
Opening the door of his truck, he grabbed the blue button-down shirt he’d taken off earlier when he’d changed into his dress shirt and suit, and headed back to the lodge.
Stopping outside the closet door, he hesitated, wondering for a moment if he’d imagined the whole thing. Imagined the beautiful woman, the suggestive grin, and the feeling that if he had stepped into that closet, he would have walked back out with a big dang smile on his face.
The thought of running his hands over those curves had his heart racing, and he tugged at his collar before reaching for the doorknob.
Please stillbe there.
A smile broke out on his face as he pulled open the door and saw the dark-haired beauty straighten from where she’d been slumped against the wall. The lapels of his suit coat gaped, and he caught a glimpse of her creamy skin and the sumptuous cleavage spilling over the top of the lacy bra.
He averted his eyes, drawing them up to her face as he handed her the shirt. “Try this. It might be a little big, but it’ll cover up your…er… I mean, it will cover you up.” Heat flamed his neck as her lips curved into a grin. “You know what I mean.”
“I do.” She clutched the shirt to her chest. “Thank you. I really appreciate this.”
He stood in the doorway, unable to tear his gaze from her, then realized she probably wasn’t planning to change in front of him. Idiot.
“Well, I’ll let you get changed. I’ll wait for you out here.” He took a step back and closed the door.
A minute later, she stepped out, his shirt buttoned up and tucked into her skirt.
“That shirt looks a heck of a lot better on you than it ever has on me.” And it would look even better lying on the floor next to her skirt. Images of her pale skin against black lace filled his head, and a flurry of heat swirled in his gut.
“I doubt that,” she said, smoothing the shirt across her waist, then offering him a flirty grin.
Or maybe it was just a grin, and he was hoping it was flirty.
Dang. He hadn’t had a woman affect him like this in… He couldn’t even remember how long. Maybe that was because he was used to seeing the same women all the time. In a town this small, the dating options were slim. But he didn’t think so. There was something about this one. Something that made him notice how long her eyelashes were and the navy-blue color of her eyes.
It made his brain turn to mush, and he couldn’t seem to form a reasonable sentence. But he needed to say something. He couldn’t just stand there staring at her. Except that he couldn’t think of anything to say. She had rendered him speechless.
“Do you think we should head back to the party?” she asked.
“Yeah, sure, of course.” Dang. One minute he couldn’t talk, and the next his tongue was tripping over his words. A sudden thought had his back teeth clenching as he realized she might be anxious to return to the party because someone was waiting for her there.
He cleared his throat. “We should get you back. I’m sure your date is wondering what happened to you.” Smooth, Mace, realsmooth.
She let out an annoyed huff. “More like I’m wondering what the heck happened to him.” She looked down at the strap of her purse and twisted it between her fingers. “My date ditched me. Apparently he had other pressing matters to attend to and didn’t bother to show up.”
Mason’s eyes widened. “What? He’s crazy.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know about that. But he is a conceited jerk. Just because he plays for the NHL doesn’t mean he can do whatever he wants.”
Her words hit him like a punch in the gut.
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No doubt, Caleb profoundly agreed with this characterisation of Letizia, held he up never so plump a protestant hand.
“Oh, do give your consent to our marriage,” he gurgled. “I know that there is a difference of religion. But I have ventured to think once or twice that you could overlook that difference. I have remarked sometimes that you did not appear to attach very great importance to your religion. I’ve even ventured to pray that you might come in time to perceive the errors of Romanism. In fact, I have dreamed more than once, ma’am, that you were washed in the blood of the Lamb. However, do not imagine that I should try to influence Letizia to become one of the Peculiar Children of God. I love her too dearly, ma’am, to attempt any persuasion. From a business point of view— and, after all, in these industrious times it is the business point of view which is really important—from a business point of view the match would not be a very bad one. I have a few humble savings, the fruit of my long association with you in your enterprises.”
Caleb paused a moment and took a deep breath. He had reached the critical point in his temptation of Madame Oriano, and he tried to put into his tone the portentousness that his announcement seemed to justify.
“Nor have I been idle in my spare time, ma’am. No, I have devoted much of that spare time to study. I have been rewarded, ma’am. God has been very good to me and blessed the humble talent with which he entrusted me. Yes, ma’am. I have discovered a method of using chlorate of potash in combination with various other chemicals which will undoubtedly revolutionise the whole art of pyrotechny. Will you consider me presumptuous, ma’am, when I tell you that I dream of the moment when Fuller’s Fireworks shall become a byword all over Great Britain for all that is best and brightest in the world of pyrotechny?”
Madame Oriano’s eyes flashed like Chinese fire, and Caleb, perceiving that he had made a false move, tried to retrieve his position.
“Pray do not suppose that I was planning to set myself up as a manufacturer of fireworks on my own. So long as you will have me,
ma’am, I shall continue to work for you, and if you consent to my marrying your Letizia I shall put my new discovery at your service on a business arrangement that will satisfy both parties.”
Madame Oriano pondered the proposal in silence for a minute.
“Yes, you can have Letizia,” she said at last.
Caleb picked up the hand that was hanging listlessly over the coverlet and in the effusion of his gratitude saluted it with an oily kiss.
“And you’ll do your best to make Letizia accept me as a husband?” he pressed.
“If I say you can have Letizia, caro, you willa have her,” the mother declared.
“You have made me the happiest man in England,” Caleb oozed. Whereupon he walked on tiptoe from the room with a sense even sharper than usual that he was one of the Lord’s chosen vessels, a most peculiar child even among the Peculiar Children of God.
Just when the hot August day had hung two dusky sapphire lamps in the window of the room, Madame Oriano, who had been lying all the afternoon staring up at the shadows of the birds that flitted across the ceiling, rang the bell and demanded her daughter’s presence.
“Letizia, devi sposarti,” she said firmly.
“Get married, mamma? But I don’t want to be married for a long time.”
“Non ci entra, cara. Devi sposarti. Sarebbe meglio—molto meglio. Sei troppo sfrenata.”[7]
[7] “That doesn’t come into it, my dear. You must get married. It would be better much better. You are too harum-scarum.”
“I don’t see why it should be so much better I’m not so harumscarum as all that. Besides, you never married at my age. You never married at all if it comes to that.”
“Lo so. Perciò dico che tu devi sposarti.”[8] [8] “I know that. That’s why I say that you must get married.”
“Thanks, and who am I to marry?”
“Caleb.”
“Caleb? Gemini! Caleb? Marry Caleb? But he’s so ugly! And he don’t wash himself too often, what’s more.”
“Bello non é ... ma che importa? La bellezza passa via.”
“Yes, I daresay beauty does pass away,” said Letizia indignantly. “But it had passed away from Caleb before ever he was born.”
“Che importa?”
“I daresay it don’t matter to you. But you aren’t being expected to marry him. Besides, you’ve had all the beaux you wanted. But I haven’t, and I won’t be fobbed off with Caleb. I just won’t be, and you may do what you will about it.”
“Basta!” Madame Oriano exclaimed. “Dissa talk is enough.”
“Basta yourself and be damned, mamma,” Letizia retorted. “I won’t marry Caleb. I’d sooner be kept by a handsome gentleman in a big clean cravat. I’d sooner live in a pretty house he’d give me and drive a crimson curricle on the Brighton Road like Cora Delaney.”
“It does not import two pennies what you wish, figlia mia. You willa marry Caleb.”
“But I’m not in love with him, the ugly clown!”
“Love!” scoffed her mother. “L’amore! L’amore! Love is mad. I have hadda so many lovers. Tanti tanti amanti! Adesso, sono felice? No! Ma sono vecchia assai. Yes, an old woman—una vecchia miserabile
senza amanti, senza gambe—e non si fa l’amore senza gambe, cara, ti giuro—senza danaro, senza niente.”
Sans love, sans legs, sans money, sans everything, the old woman dropped back on her pillows utterly exhausted. A maid came in with candles and pulled the curtains to shut out the dim grey into which the August twilight had by now gradually faded. When the maid was gone, she turned her glittering, sombre eyes upon her daughter.
“You willa marry Caleb,” she repeated. “It willa be better so—molto meglio cosi. Gli amanti non valgono niente. All who I have been loving, where are dey now? Dove sono? Sono andati via. Alla gone away. Alla gone. You willa marry Caleb.”
Letizia burst into loud sobs.
“But I don’t want to marry, mamma.”
“Meglio piangere a diciasette che rimpiangere a sessanta,”[9] said Madame Oriano solemnly. “You willa marry Caleb.”
[9] “Better to weep at seventeen than to repine at sixty ”
Letizia felt incapable of resisting this ruthless old woman any longer She buried her head in the gaudy satin coverlet and wept in silence.
“Allora dammi un bacio.”
The obedient daughter leaned over and kissed her mother’s lined forehead.
“Tu hai già troppo l’aria di putana, figlia mia. Meglio sposarti. Lasciammi sola. Vorrei dormire. Sono stanca assai ... assai.”[10]
[10] “You have already too much the air of a wanton, my daughter. Better to get married. Leave me alone. I want to sleep. I’m very tired.”
Madame Oriano closed her eyes, and Letizia humbly and miserably left her mother, as she wished to be left, alone.
CHAPTER IV
MARRIED LIFE
So, Caleb Fuller married Letizia Oriano and tamed her body, as without doubt he would have succeeded in taming the body of any woman of whom he had lawfully gained possession.
Madame Oriano did not long survive the marriage. The effort she made in imposing her will upon her daughter was too much for a frame so greatly weakened. Once she had had her way, the desire to live slowly evaporated. Yet she was granted a last pleasure from this world before she forsook it for ever. This was the satisfaction of beholding with her own eyes that her son-in-law’s discovery of the value of chlorate of potash as a colour intensifier was all that he claimed for it. That it was likely to prove excessively dangerous when mixed with sulphur compounds did not concern this pyrotechnist of the old school. The prodigious depth and brilliant clarity of those new colours would be well worth the sacrifice of a few lives through spontaneous ignition in the course of manufacturing them.
The first public demonstration that Caleb gave was on the evening of the Fifth of November in a Clerkenwell tea-garden. It is unlikely that Madame Oriano ever fully comprehended the significance of these annual celebrations. If she ever did wonder who Guy Fawkes was, she probably supposed him to be some local English saint whose martyrdom deserved to be commemorated by an abundance of rockets. As for Caleb, he justified to himself some of the pleasure that his fireworks gave to so many people by the fact that the chief festival at which they were employed was held in detestation of a Papist conspirator.
On this particular Fifth of November the legless old lady was carried in an invalid’s chair through the press of spectators to a favourable spot from which she could judge the worth of the improved fireworks. A few of the rabble jumped to the conclusion
that she was a representation of Guy Fawkes himself, and set up the ancient chorus:
Please to remember the Fifth of November Gunpowder treason and plot; We know no reason why gunpowder treason Should ever be forgot! A stick and a stake for King George’s sake, A stick and a stump for Guy Fawkes’s rump Holla, boys! holla, boys! huzza-a-a!
Madame Oriano smiled grimly when Caleb tried to quiet the clamour by explaining that she was flesh and blood.
“Letta dem sing, Caleb. Non fa niente a me. It don’ta matter notting to me.”
A maroon burst to mark the opening of the performance. This was followed by half-a-dozen rockets, the stars of which glowed with such greens and blues and reds as Madame Oriano had never dreamed of. She tried to raise herself in her chair.
“Bravo, Caleb! Bravissimo! Ah dio, non posso più! It is the besta colore I havva ever seen, Caleb. E ottimo! Ottimo, figlio mio.”
She sat entranced for the rest of the display; that night, like a spent firework, the flame of her ardent life burnt itself out.
The death of his mother-in-law allowed Caleb to carry out a plan he had been contemplating for some time. This was to open a factory in Cheshire on the outskirts of his native town. He anticipated trouble at first with the Peculiar Children of God, who were unlikely to view with any favour the business of making fireworks. He hoped, however, that the evidence of his growing prosperity would presently change their point of view. There was no reason to accuse Caleb of hypocrisy, or to suppose that he was anything but perfectly sincere in his desire to occupy a high place in the esteem of his fellow believers. Marriage with a Papist had in truth begun to worry his conscience more than a little. So long as Letizia had been a temptation, the fact of her being a daughter of Babylon instead of a
Peculiar Child of God had only made the temptation more redoubtable, and the satisfaction of overcoming it more sharp. Now that he was licensed to enjoy her, he began to wonder what effect marriage with a Papist would have on his celestial patron. He felt like a promising young clerk who has imperilled his prospects by marrying against his employer’s advice. It began to seem essential to his salvation that he should take a prominent part in the prayermeetings of the Peculiar Children of God. He was ambitious to be regarded himself as the most peculiar child of all those Peculiar Children. Moreover, from a practical standpoint the opening of a factory in the North should be extremely profitable. He already had the London clients of Madame Oriano; he must now build up a solid business in the provinces. Fuller’s Fireworks must become a byword. The King was rumoured to be ill. He would be succeeded by another king. That king would in due course have to be solemnly crowned. Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, and many other large towns would be wanting to celebrate that coronation with displays of fireworks. When the moment arrived, there must be nobody who would be able to compete with Fuller and his chlorate of potash.
So to Brigham in Cheshire Caleb Fuller brought his wife. In some fields on the outskirts of the town in which he had spent a povertystricken youth he built his first sheds, and in a dreary little street close to Bethesda, the meeting-house of the Peculiar Children of God, he set up his patriarchal tent. Here on a dusty September dawn just over two years after her last public appearance at “Neptune’s Grotto,” Letizia’s eldest daughter was born. The young wife of Caleb was not yet thoroughly tamed, for she produced a daughter exactly like herself and called her Caterina in spite of the father’s objection to a name associated with the wheels of which he made so many. Not only did she insist on calling the child Caterina, but she actually took it to the nearest Catholic chapel and had it baptised by a priest.
It happened about this time that one of the apostles of the meeting-house was gravely ill, and Caleb, who had designs on the vacant apostolic chair, decided that his election to it must not be endangered by the profane behaviour of his young wife. When he remonstrated with her, she flashed her eyes and tossed her head as
if he were still Caleb the clerk and she the spoilt daughter of his employer.
“Letizia,” he said lugubriously, “you have destroyed the soul of our infant.”
“Nonsense!”
“You have produced a child of wrath.”
“My eye!” she scoffed.
Caleb’s moist lips vanished from sight. There was a long silence while he regarded his wife with what seemed like two pebbles of granite. When at last he spoke, it was with an intolerable softness.
“Letizia, you must learn to have responsibilities. I am frightened for you, my wife. You must learn. I do not blame you entirely. You have had a loose upbringing. But you must learn.”
Then, as gently as he was speaking, he stole to the door and left Letizia locked behind him in her bedroom. Oh, yes, he tamed her body gradually, and for a long time it looked as if he would tame her soul. She had no more daughters like herself, and each year for many years she flashed her eyes less fiercely and tossed her head less defiantly. She produced several other children, but they all took after their father. Dark-eyed Caterina was followed by stodgy Achsah. Stodgy Achsah was followed by podgy Thyrza. These were followed by two more who died almost as soon as they were born, as if in dying thus they expressed the listlessness of their mother for this life. Maybe Letizia herself would have achieved death, had not the way Caleb treated little Caterina kept her alive to protect the child against his severity.
“Her rebellious spirit must be broken,” he declared, raising once more the cane.
“You shall not beat her like this, Caleb.”
“Apostle Jenkins beat his son till the child was senseless, because he stole a piece of bread and jam.”
“I wish I could be as religious as you, Caleb,” said his wife.
He tried to look modest under the compliment.
“Yes,” she went on fiercely, “for then I’d believe in Hell, and if I believed in Hell I’d sizzle there with joy just for the pleasure of seeing you and all your cursed apostles sizzling beside me.”
But Letizia did not often break out like this. Each year she became more silent, taking refuge from her surroundings in French novels which she bought out of the meagre allowance for clothes that her husband allowed her. She read French novels because she despised the more sentimental novelists of England that were so much in vogue at this date, making only an exception in favour of Thackeray, whom she read word for word as his books appeared. She was learning a bitter wisdom from literature in the shadows and the silence of her wounded heart. After eight years of married life she bore a son, who was called Joshua. There were moments when Letizia was minded to smother him where he lay beside her, so horribly did this homuncule reproduce the lineaments of her loathed husband.
Meanwhile, the factory flourished, Caleb Fuller became the leading citizen of Brigham and served three times as Mayor. He built a great gloomy house on the small hill that skirted the mean little town. He built, too, a great gloomy tabernacle for the Peculiar Children of God. He was elected chief apostle and sat high up in view of the congregation on a marble chair. He grew shaggy whiskers and suffered from piles. He found favour in the eyes of the Lord, sweating the poor and starving even the cows that gave him milk. Yes, the renown of Fuller’s Fireworks was spread far and wide. The factory grew larger year by year. And with it year by year waxed plumper the belly and the purse of Caleb himself, even as his soul shrivelled.
In 1851 after twenty years of merciless prosperity Caleb suffered his first setback by failing to secure the contract for the firework displays at the Great Exhibition. From the marble chair of the chief apostle he called upon the Peculiar Children of God to lament that their Father had temporarily turned away His countenance from them. Caleb beat his breast and bellowed and groaned, but he did
not rend his garments of the best broadcloth, because that would have involved his buying new ones. The hulla-balloo in Bethesda was louder than that in a synagogue on the Day of Atonement, and after a vociferous prayer-meeting the Peculiar Children of God went back to their stuffy and secretive little houses, coveting their neighbours’ wives and their neighbours’ maids, but making the best of their own to express an unattainable ideal. Horrid stuffy little bedrooms with blue jets of gas burning dimly through the night-time. Heavy lumps of humanity snoring beneath heavy counterpanes. Lascivious backbiting of the coveted wives and maids on greasy conjugal pillows. Who in all that abode of prurient respectability and savage industrialism should strip Caleb’s soul bare? Who should not sympathise with the chief apostle of the Peculiar Children of God?
Yet, strange to say, Caleb found that God’s countenance continued to be averted from his own. He was still licking the soreness of his disappointment over the Exhibition fireworks when one morning in the prime of June his eldest daughter left the great gloomy house on the hill, never to return. While Caleb stormed at his wife for not taking better precautions to keep Caterina in bounds, he was aware that he might as well be storming at a marble statue. He lacked the imagination to understand that the soul of Letizia had fled from its imprisonment in the guise of Caterina’s lissom body. But he did apprehend, however dimly, that henceforth nothing he might say or do would ever again affect his wife either for good or for ill.
Cold dark eyes beneath black arched brows surveyed him contemptuously. He had never yet actually struck Letizia; but he came near to striking her at that moment.
“She wanted to go on the stage.”
“A play-actress! My eldest daughter a play-actress!”
“Alas, neither she nor I can cup those drops of blood she owes to you. But her soul is hers and mine. You had no part in making that. Even if you did crawl over my body and eat the heart out of me, you slug! Do what you like with the others. Make what you can of them. But Caterina is mine. Caterina is free.”
“As if I had not suffered enough this year,” Caleb groaned.
“Suffered? Did you say that you had suffered?” His wife laughed. “And what about the sufferings of my Caterina all these years of her youth?”
“I pray she’ll starve to death,” he went on.
“She was starving to death in this house.”
“Ay, I suppose that’s what the Church folk will be saying next. The idle, good-for-nothing slanderers! Not content with accusing me of starving my cows, they’ll be accusing me of starving my children now. But the dear Lord knows....”
“You poor dull fool,” Letizia broke in, and with one more glance from her cold dark eyes she left him.
Caterina had as dissolute a career as her father could have feared and as miserable an end as he could have hoped, for about twelve years later, after glittering with conspicuous shamelessness amid the tawdry gilt of the Second Empire, she died in a Paris asylum prematurely exhausted by drink and dissipation.
“Better to die from without than from within,” said her mother when the news was brought to Brigham.
“What do you mean by that?” Caleb asked in exasperated perplexity. “It’s all these French novels you read that makes you talk that high-flown trash. You talk for the sake of talking, that’s my opinion. You used to talk like a fool when I first married you, but I taught you at last to keep your tongue still. Now you’ve begun to talk again.”
“One changes in thirty-four years, Caleb. Even you have changed. You were mean and ugly then. But you are much meaner and much uglier now. However, you have the consolation of seeing your son Joshua keep pace with you in meanness and in ugliness.”
Joshua Fuller was now twenty-six, an eternal offence to the eyes of his mother, who perceived in him nothing but a dreadful reminder of her husband at the same age. That anybody could dare to deplore Caterina’s life when in Joshua the evidence of her own was before
them enraged Letizia with human crassness. But Joshua was going to be an asset to Fuller’s Fireworks. Just as his father had perceived the importance of chlorate of potash in 1829, so now in 1863 did Joshua perceive the importance of magnesium, and the house of Fuller was in front of nearly all its rivals in utilising that mineral, with the result that its brilliant fireworks sold better than ever. The Guilloché and Salamandre, the Girandole and Spirali of Madame Oriano, so greatly admired by old moons and bygone multitudes, would have seemed very dull affairs now. Another gain that Joshua provided for the business was to urge upon his father to provide for the further legislation about explosives that sooner or later was inevitable. With an ill grace Caleb Fuller had complied with the provisions of the Gunpowder Act of 1860; but, when the great explosion at Erith occurred a few years later, Joshua insisted that more must be done to prepare for the inspection of firework establishments that was bound to follow such a terrific disaster. Joshua was right, and when the Explosives Act of 1875 was passed the factory at Brigham had anticipated nearly all its requirements.
By this time Joshua was a widower. In 1865, at the age of twentyeight, he had married a pleasant young woman called Susan Yardley. After presenting him with one boy who was christened Abraham, she died two years later in producing another who was christened Caleb after his grandfather.
The elder of these two boys reverted both in appearance and in disposition to the Oriano stock, and old Mrs. Fuller—she is sixtythree now and may no longer be called Letizia—took a bitter delight in never allowing old Mr. Fuller to forget it. She found in the boy, now a flash of Caterina’s eyes, now a flutter of Madame Oriano’s eyelids. She would note how much his laugh was like her own long ago, and she would encourage him at every opportunity to thwart the solicitude and defy the injunctions of Aunt Achsah and Aunt Thyrza. When her son protested against the way she applauded Abraham’s naughtiness, she only laughed.
“Bram’s all right.”
“I wish, mamma, you wouldn’t call him Bram,” Joshua protested. “It’s so irreverent. I know that you despise the Bible, but the rest of us almost worship it. I cannot abide this irreligious clipping of Scriptural names. And it worries poor papa terribly.”
“It won’t worry your father half as much to hear Bram called Bram as it’ll worry poor little Bram later on to be called Abraham. That boy’s all right, Josh. He’s the best firework you’ve turned out of this factory for many a day. So, don’t let Achsah and Thyrza spoil him.”
“They try their best to be strict, mamma.”
“I’m talking about their physic, idiot. They’re a pair of pasty-faced old maids, and it’s unnatural and unpleasant to let them be for ever messing about with a capital boy like Bram. Let them physic young Caleb. He’ll be no loss to the world. Bram might be.”
Joshua threw his eyes up to Heaven and left his unaccountable mother to her own unaccountable thoughts. He often wondered why his father had never had her shut up in an asylum. For some time now she had been collecting outrageous odds and ends of furniture for her room to which none of the family was allowed access except by special invitation. Ever since Caterina had run away old Mrs. Fuller had had a room of her own. But she had been content with an ordinary bed at first. Now she had procured a monstrous foreign affair all gilt and Cupids and convolutions. If Joshua had been his father he would have taken steps to prevent such a waste of her allowance. He fancied that the old man must be breaking up to allow such furniture to enter the house.
Not long after the conversation between Joshua and his mother about Bram, a travelling circus arrived at Brigham on a Sunday morning. The Peculiar Children of God shivered at such a profanation of the Sabbath, and Apostle Fuller—in these days a truly patriarchal figure with his long white food-bespattered beard— preached from the marble chair on the vileness of these sacrilegious mountebanks and the pestilent influence any circus must have on a Christian town. In spite of this denunciation the chief apostle’s own wife dared to take her elder grandchild on Monday to view from the best seats obtainable the monstrous performance. They sat so near
the ring that the sawdust and the tan were scattered over them by the horses’ hoofs. Little Bram, his chin buried in the worn crimson velvet of the circular barrier, gloated in an ecstasy on the paradisiacal vision.
“Brava! Bravissima!” old Mrs. Fuller cried loudly when a demoiselle of the haute école took an extra high fence. “Brava! Bravissima!” she cried when an equestrienne in pink tights leapt through four blazing hoops and regained without disarranging one peroxide curl the shimmering back of her piebald steed.
“Oh, grandmamma,” little Bram gasped when he bade her good night, “can I be a clown when I’m a man?”
“The difficulty is not to be a clown when one is a man,” she answered grimly.
“What do you mean, grandmamma?”
“Ah, what?” she sighed.
And in their stuffy and secretive little bedrooms that night the Peculiar Children of God talked for hours about the disgraceful amount of leg that those circus women had shown.
“I hear it was extremely suggestive,” said one apostle, smacking his lips with lecherous disapprobation.
“Was it, indeed, my dear?” the dutiful wife replied, thereby offering the man of God an opportunity to enlarge upon the prurient topic before he turned down the gas and got into bed beside her.
“Bram was very naughty to go to the circus, wasn’t he, Aunt Achsah?” young Caleb asked in a tone of gentle sorrow when his pasty-faced aunt leaned over that Monday night to lay her wet lips to his plump pink cheeks.
“Grandpapa was very cross,” Aunt Achsah mournfully replied, evading the direct answer, but implying much by her expression.
“Gran’papa’s not cross with me, is he, auntie?” young Caleb asked with an assumption of fervid anxiety.
“No, my dear child, and I hope that you will never, never make your dear grandfather cross with you.”
“Oh, I won’t, Aunt Achsah,” young Caleb promised, with what Aunt Achsah told Aunt Thyrza was really and truly the smile of one of God’s most precious lambs.
“Thyrza, Thyrza, when that blessed little child smiles like that, nobody could deny him anything. I’m sure his path down this vale of tears will always be smoothed by that angelic smile.”
She was talking to her sister in the passage just outside young Caleb’s bedroom—he had already been separated from his elder brother for fear of corruption—and he heard what she said.
When the footsteps of his aunts died away along the passage, the fat little boy got out of bed, turned up the gas, and smiled at himself several times in the looking-glass. Then he retired to bed again, satisfied of his ability to summon that conquering smile to his aid whenever he should require it.
CHAPTER V
TINTACKS IN BRIGHAM
On a wet and gusty afternoon in the month of March, 1882, Bram Fuller, now a stripling of sixteen, sat in one of the dingiest rooms of that great gloomy house his grandfather had begun to build forty years before. It looked less stark, now that the evergreen trees had grown large enough to hide some of its grey rectangularity; but it did not look any more cheerful in consequence. In some ways it had seemed less ugly at first, when it stood on top of the mean little hill and was swept clean by the Cheshire winds. Now its stucco was stained with great green fronds and arabesques of damp caused by the drip of the trees and the too close shrubberies of lanky privet and laurel that sheltered its base. Old Mr. Fuller and his son were both under the mistaken impression that the trees planted round Lebanon House—thus had the house been named—were cedars. Whereas there was not even so much as a deodar among the crowd of starveling pines and swollen cryptomerias. Noah’s original ark perched on the summit of Ararat amid the surrounding waters probably looked a holier abode than Lebanon House above the sea of Brigham roofs.
The town had grown considerably during half a century, and old Mr. Fuller had long ago leased the derelict pastures, in which his cows had tried to eke out a wretched sustenance on chickweed and sour dock, to accommodate the enterprising builder of rows of little two-storied houses, the colour of underdone steak. The slopes of the hill on which the house stood had once been covered with fruit-trees, but the poisoning of the air by the various chemical factories, which had increased in number every year, had long made them barren. Joshua had strongly advised his father to present the useless slopes to Brigham as a public recreation ground. It was to have been a good advertisement both for the fireworks and for the civic spirit that was being fostered by the Peculiar Children of God. As a matter of
fact, Joshua himself had some time ago made up his mind to join the Church of England as soon as his father died. He was beginning to think that the Bethesda Tabernacle was not sufficiently up-to-date as a spiritual centre for Fuller’s Fireworks, and he was more concerned for the civic impression than the religious importance of the gift. On this March afternoon, however, the slopes of Lebanon were still a private domain, for old Mr. Fuller could never bring himself to give away nine or ten acres of land for nothing. He was much too old to represent Brigham in Parliament himself, and it never struck him that Joshua might like to do so.
So, Bram Fuller was able to gaze out of the schoolroom window, to where, beyond the drenched evergreens hustling one another in the wind, the drive ran down into Brigham between moribund or skeleton apple-trees fenced in on either side by those raspberrytipped iron railings that his grandfather had bought so cheaply when the chock-a-block parish churchyard was abolished and an invitingly empty cemetery was set apart on the other side of the town for the coming generations of Brigham dead. Bram was still a day-boy at the grammar school, and as this afternoon was the first half-holiday of the month he was being allowed to have a friend to tea. Jack Fleming was late, though. There was no sign of him yet coming up the slope through the wind and wet. Bram hoped that nothing had happened to keep him at home. He was so seldom allowed to entertain friends that Jack’s failure to appear would have been an overwhelming disappointment. He looked round the schoolroom dejectedly Never had it seemed so dingy and comfortless. Never had that outline portrait of Queen Victoria, filled in not with the substance of her regal form, but with an account of her life printed in minute type, seemed such a futile piece of ingenuity; never had the oilcloth seemed infested with so many crumbs, nor the table-cloth such a kaleidoscope of jammy stains.
Old Mrs. Fuller had been right when she recognised in the baby Bram her own race. She and he had their way, and Abraham was never heard now except in the mouth of the grandfather. Yes, he was almost a perfect Oriano, having inherited nothing from his father, and from his mother only her pleasant voice. He was slim, with a clear-
cut profile and fine dark hair; had one observed him idling gracefully on a sun-splashed piazza, he would have appeared more appropriate to the setting than to any setting that Brigham could provide. He was a popular and attractive youth with a talent for mimicry, and a gay and fluent wit. His young brother, who fortunately for the enjoyment of Bram and his friend had been invited forth himself this afternoon, was a perfect Fuller save that he had inherited from his mother a fresh complexion which at present only accentuated his plumpness. All the Fuller characteristics were there —the greedy grey eyes, the podgy white hands, the fat rump and spindle legs, the full wet lips and slimy manner. To all this young Caleb could add his own smile of innocent candour when it suited his purpose to produce it. At school he was notorious as a toady and a sneak, but he earned a tribute of respect from the sons of a commercial community by his capacity for swopping to his own advantage and by his never failing stock of small change, which he was always willing to lend at exorbitant interest on good security. Bram was badly in debt to his young brother at the present moment, and this added something to the depression of the black March afternoon, though that was lightened at last by the tardy arrival of his expected friend with the news that Blundell’s Diorama had arrived in Brigham and would exhibit itself at seven o’clock.
“We must jolly well go, Bramble,” Jack declared.
Bram shook his head despondently.
“No chink!”
“Can’t you borrow some from young Caleb?”
“I owe him two and threepence halfpenny already, and he’s got my best whalebone-splice bat as a security till I pay him back.”
“Good Lord, and I’ve only got sixpence,” Jack Fleming groaned.
“Anyway, it’s no use,” Bram went on. “The governor wouldn’t let me go into Brigham on a Saturday night.”
“Can’t you find some excuse?”
Bram pondered for a few seconds.
“I might get my grandmater to help.”
“Well, buck up, Bramble. It’s a spiffing show, I hear. They’ve got two girls with Italian names who play the guitar or something. We don’t often get a chance of a decent evening in Brigham.”
“You’re right, Jack. All serene! Then I’ll have a try with the grandmater. She’s such an old fizzer that she might manage it.”
Bram went up cautiously to old Mrs. Fuller’s room. She was seventy now, but still able to hate fiercely her octogenarian husband who was for ever browsing among dusty commentaries on the Old Testament nowadays, and extracting from the tortuous fretwork of bookworms such indications of the Divine purpose as the exact date and hour of the Day of Judgment. He was usually clad in a motheaten velveteen dressing-gown and a smoking cap of quilted black silk with a draggled crimson tassel. The latter must have been worn as a protection to his bald and scaly head, because not a puff of tobacco smoke had ever been allowed to contend with the odour of stale food that permeated Lebanon House from cellar to garret.
The old lady was sitting by the fire in her rococo parlour, reading Alphonse Daudet’s new book. Her hawk’s face seemed to be not so much wrinkled as finely cracked like old ivory. Over her shoulders she wore a wrap of rose and silver brocade.
“Why, Bram, I thought you were entertaining visitors this afternoon.”
“I am. He’s downstairs in the schoolroom. Jack Fleming, I mean.”
“Is that a son of that foxy-faced solicitor in High Street?”
Bram nodded.
“But Jack’s rather decent. I think you’d like him, grandmamma.”
“Ah, I’m too old to begin liking new people.”
Bram kicked his legs together, trying to make up his mind what line to adopt for enlisting the old lady’s sympathy.
“Blundell’s Diorama is here,” he announced at last.
