Authors: Ellen Gable
“Did something
happen at the Martin house?”
She remained
silent.
“Then what’s
wrong?”
“Nothing.”
He shook his
head. “I told you. You’re a poor liar, Caroline. Something is wrong. Just
tell me.”
“I. . .heard. .
.you and Missy in the basement bedroom.”
“Damn,” he
muttered under his breath.
“Please take us
home.”
* * *
David awkwardly
assisted his sister-in-law out of the carriage. She avoided eye contact and
all but cringed when he touched her hand and helped her down. He was thankful
that he was wearing riding gloves.
He handed the
carriage and horse off to Kip. “Is the shooting range set up?”
“Yes, it is, Mr.
David. I haven’t changed it since last week.”
Inside the house,
he climbed the staircase to his bedroom and closed the door. He stood before
the gun cabinet in the far corner of his room. “Guns and girls,” his father used
to say, “are the most important things in life.” David chose the Winchester ‘73, the last gift from his father, then rummaged through the top drawer of his
desk for ammunition. He didn’t know why, but he needed to engage in some
target practice.
Behind the stable
at the shooting range, he pointed at the markers in the distance. Holding the Winchester securely as his father had taught him, he slipped three fingers into the lever
action but left his index finger alongside the chamber. Slowly, he drew the
gun to his shoulder and lined the target up in his sight. He could almost hear
his father’s voice, reminding him to draw steady breaths as he moved his index
finger to the trigger and gently squeezed it.
The shot hit the
mark. It felt good to be doing something right. He held the rifle under his
arm and studied the marks.
A damned good shot
, his father used to call
him.
Caroline, his
sister-in-law, now a married woman, had once again been privy to some intimacy
between Missy and him. Why was it not so amusing now? Why did it bother him
so much? Perhaps because he had tried to stop and he couldn't. He was just like
an animal, incapable of saying no.
He took aim, then
shot. His father taught him well.
Chapter 19
David stuck his
hand in his pocket, then sank back against the plush carriage seat. Liam was
going to be furious with him, and rightfully so. He didn’t think that there
was a chance he could lose that much money with three jacks and two eights.
Winning was a certainty. Of course, everything seems like a sure thing when
you have multiple glasses of whiskey blurring your brain. Five thousand
dollars was a lot of money, and David was thankful that a lien had been
accepted on their house. Now David would have to reveal to Liam that Captain
Armstrong held a lien on their mansion.
All of a sudden,
David wondered whether all that whiskey he had consumed was about to come back
out and all over the fresh smelling carriage. He took a deep breath in, then
slowly exhaled. Soon, the nausea faded.
He heard Kip
utter, “Whoa,” as the carriage came to an abrupt halt. With it came a renewed
and more overwhelming need to retch. He was glad that the late hour meant that
he wouldn’t have to face Liam yet. He slipped out of the buggy and quietly made
his way up the stairs.
He opened the
door to his room then heard, “David, wait.”
David turned to
see his brother standing in the hallway. He was wearing a nightshirt and he
was frowning.
“Is there
something you wish to tell me?”
“Not tonight,
Lee. I’m tired.”
“No doubt.”
David turned
towards his brother. “Who told you?”
“How could you do
this? How could you gamble away our home?”
“I didn’t gamble
it away. We simply owe Captain Armstrong some money for it.”
“We? You ‘simply
owe.’”
“Yes, he said we
could make payments every month.”
“Are you daft? We
don’t make payments for anything. We pay in cash. I sure as hell won’t pay
that man any interest.”
“I thought I
could bring in double that.”
“You said you
were going to stop gambling. Two weeks ago, you lost two thousand dollars and
you promised me that you were going to stop.”
“But I was going
to win, Lee. I could taste it.”
“Enough. I don’t
want to hear it.” Liam was now raising his voice and David could hear his name
every few seconds but the other words were muffled. Then again, David didn’t
care what his brother was saying. He just wanted to sleep and rid himself of
his throbbing, pounding headache.
“Are you
listening to me, David?”
“Yeah, yeah. Can
we talk about this in the morning?”
David heard his
brother stomp off down the hallway. He shrugged his shoulders, then went into
his room. David dropped onto his bed and promptly fell asleep.
* * *
“David, wake up.”
David roused, but turned over to escape his brother’s voice. Why was Lee
bothering him now?
“I said wake up.”
“Leave me alone,”
he said, keeping his eyes closed.
“I’ve come up
with a plan to make back the five thousand and release the lien on our home.”
“Good. Tell me
later on. I’m sleeping all day.”
“Get up before I
pour water on you.”
David slowly
opened his eyes and squinted. His brother was holding a ceramic pitcher over
his head.
“Whoa, what the
hell are you doing, Lee?”
“I’m about to
pour this on you. Unless, of course, you wake yourself enough to get up.”
David slowly sat
up, scratched his head and scowled at Liam.
“You have no
right to look at me that way. You just gambled away our home and I have
devised a plan to fix it.”
David stared at
his brother with an annoyed expression. “You’ve been up all night figuring
this out?”
“Yes, in fact, I
have. I couldn’t sleep. Here’s what I came up with. We take the bulk of our
liquid assets and invest it. Over a year, we’ll have the money to pay the
Captain with minimal interest.”
“Sounds good.
Now permit me to go back to sleep.”
“The only problem
is that we won’t have access to much capital or cash over the next year or so.”
“Sure, sure.
Just let me go back to sleep.”
* * *
Liam closed his
brother’s door. Daylight would arrive in an hour or so. He lingered in the
hallway and stared down the black corridor to the west wing, not seeing but
knowing that his mother’s room was at the end of the hall. Despite the
darkness, he moved with the ease of familiarity. He paused before opening the
door, wondering whether he ought to enter. It had been, after all, several
months since he had visited here. He opened the door, allowed his eyes to
adjust to the darkness, then lit an oil lamp on the bureau near the door. The
room hadn’t changed; blue silk canopied bed to the right, her embroidery table
lined the wall near the tall window and the unused fireplace at the left wall.
The room smelled musty with a hint of lavender. He sat down in the chair next
to the bed.
* * *
Caroline stirred
in her sleep and leaned closer to her husband. She patted the bed beside her
and found it unoccupied, the sheets cold. “Liam?” Hearing no response, she lit
the oil lamp. She pulled on her robe, picked up the lamp and peered into the
hallway. Caroline could see faint light coming from a room in the west wing of
the house. Liam had once told her that that section was used mostly for
storage but that he had hoped those rooms would eventually be filled with their
children.
Slowly, quietly,
she crept along the hallway until she reached the end. The door was partially
opened and she heard someone in the room – her husband perhaps – then heard
him sniffle. Standing at the doorway, Caroline peeked in and could see that
Liam was sitting in a chair beside a canopied bed. She opened the door wider
and it creaked. Liam immediately stood up and turned around.
“Caroline.”
“Liam?”
“Yes?” He wiped
his eyes and cleared his throat.
“I was. . .just
returning to my room.” He crossed the room and stood beside her.
She placed the
oil lamp on the bureau, then took hold of his hand and kissed it. “I missed
you, Liam. I should like for you to return to bed.”
He nodded, then
turned and pointed at the huge portrait on the wall above the bed. “My mother
and father.”
“What a beautiful
couple they were.”
“This was around
the time of their wedding.”
Caroline studied
the portrait. Liam’s mother offered a subtle but nonetheless happy countenance.
His father wore a smirk, the same sort of expression that she had seen in other
portraits around the house.
“My mother looks
so happy in that painting, but I’m sure that was before she realized what sort
of person my father was.”
Caroline wasn’t
quite sure how to respond to that.
“This was her
room; across the hall was my father’s room.”
“You don’t talk
about your father very much.”
“It turns my
stomach to do so, Caroline.”
Caroline shuddered.
She wanted to ask him why he felt that way but instead she kept silent.
“I wish David
wasn’t so much like him,” Liam said.
Caroline didn’t know
their father but if he was anything like David, she certainly understood. “If
David is so much like your father and you didn’t get along with your father,
how is it that you and David get along so well together?”
“David certainly
doesn’t have the volatile temper our father had. But tonight, I’m furious with
him, although I’m sure you don’t need to hear these complaints about David.
Despite everything he’s done, he’s the only blood relative I have left,
Caroline. I keep hoping, praying, that some day he’ll change. Maybe when he’s
older, he will realize that gambling, drinking and carousing with women will
not make him happy.”
He turned off his
mother’s oil lamp and picked up the light Caroline had brought. He allowed his
wife to leave, then he turned back. She watched him as he stared into the
darkness, then he slowly pulled the door closed.
Chapter 20
Liam placed two
folded shirts in his suitcase and closed it. He opened his bedroom door and
dropped the bag on the floor in the hallway. He could hear Caroline retching
again. She wasn’t due to deliver for two more months but continued to be ill
most mornings.
All day yesterday
while he prepared for his business trip, Caroline had asked him if he would
reconsider going. Should he cancel the trip? That really wasn’t possible.
This meeting in Boston was an important one and would mean a great deal of
money for the business. Perhaps his wife’s nagging feeling was because of the
impending birth.
He greatly looked
forward to the birth of their child. But he was uncomfortable when he thought
of resuming relations with his wife. He desired her very much, more than he
would ever reveal to her, and the past several months had been torture for him
at times. But the doctor had ordered Liam not to be intimate with his wife
until after their child was born. How could he make Caroline desire him as much
as he desired her?
Liam recalled the
first time that he had a business meeting without David. He was just 19 and
traveling alone to Boston. He could hardly contain his nervousness as he met
with three much older, experienced men. As he gained more practice, he also
became more confident. He mentally kept track of what sorts of dialogue led to
more productive meetings and researched how his competitors gained clients. He
asked many questions, expressed sympathy, then showed them he had the answer to
whatever problems they had.
He began
conducting business meetings over a drink and offered prospective clients
cigars and other incentives. Eventually, he became very good at what he did,
much better than David, which was why it was imperative that he be the one to
go.
His wife’s
retching forced him to return to the present. He hated to hear her suffering
like that.
Lord, how can I make her desire me?
How do you make
people become close to you?
The good Lord had
given him the gift of Caroline and he decided that for the time being, he would
focus on being a better husband. Hopefully, the rest would follow in short
order.
He knocked
lightly on her door. Several seconds passed before he reached his hand out to
bang more noisily. Immediately, Caroline, still dressed in her night clothes,
opened the door. “You’re not leaving so early, are you?”