Onyx (4 page)

John Trelinack was a sturdily compact Englishman with wide, sloping shoulders, a Cousin Jack—one of the Cornish tin miners who had fled the sweet-stinking starvation of the potato blight. In the United States, Trelinack had abandoned his ancestral labor for carpentry and had risen to foreman at Stuart. He owned an unencumbered frame house and considered himself a huge success, rarely grieving that his wife had given him no sons but only three girls christened Maud, Melisande, and Yseult.

The Major snapped, “Does Bridger always demand a day's rest in exchange for a little nightwork?”

“He's our best mechanic, that boy, a regular Merlin, but he needs a clear head with the sander, and steady fingers. The time off was my idea.”

“You're partial toward Bridger?”

“He's a proud sort, he doesn't ask anything from anyone. I wish I had a son like him, sir.”

“Then you're as keen as he is about these horseless carriages?”

Trelinack's eyes rounded in honest shock. “How do you know about that madness, sir? Well, you mustn't hold it against Tom. I've told him time and again to settle down and keep his mind on his work. But he's young and the young have mad ideas. Life teaches them better.”

The Major's swivel chair creaked as he settled back. “These carriages without horses have been raced from Paris to Belfont.”

“That's the French for you. A peculiar tribe, sir, eating snails and the like.”

“The French take pleasure in every possible way,” said the Major with a benign wink, and then added, “I'll send for Bridger at home.”

VIII

As Tom entered the outer office he lifted his cap, wiping a hand across his sweating hairline. The Major's note in his pocket stated only he should come immediately, but Tom read bad news into any summons from a superior.

The Major indicated a stool near the unlit coal stove, and Tom sat.

“That matter we discussed this morning, the showroom cottage,” the Major said. “I've given orders that the drummers get rid of the bedside tables at a low price. You can have the place. How does two dollars a week sound to you?”

It sounded high; however, Tom made a good salary—the top in Detroit for a skilled mechanic—sixty a month. “I can manage that,” he said.

“Due on the first of the month.” The Major inspected the red tip of his cigar. “And I'm in with you for twenty-five percent.”

“As my partner? But I'm paying rent!”

“It's a common practice in a business venture for the landlord to get a share.”

“You don't believe in the vehicles. As far as you're concerned there'll be no demand. So why do you want a quarter of my profits?”

“Profits?” The Major's brown eyes twinkled. “Who said anything about profit? I have a passion for any type of race. Doubtless you heard of that run from Paris to Belfont?”

“Yes, last July. Fifteen horseless carriages completed the course. In a couple of months there's supposed to be a race like that around Chicago.”

“Well, if you succeed in building your machine, I'd like to be your sponsor in Chicago.”

“Racing's not my interest, sir. What we need is easier, cheaper transportation.”

The Major did not attempt to repress his smile. “I saw a vehicle in action, Bridger. Take it from me, there's only one use for this thing. To wager on. Which will crawl across the finish line first—if any do. They're a fad, a joke.”

Tom's eyes went dark and he was unable to repress his angry glare.

The Major laughed without rancor. “A true visionary, aren't you? Complete with conviction.” He puffed his cigar. “The showroom's yours, Bridger. Two dollars a week, and no strings. Forget the twenty-five percent. And I'll throw in the electricity.”

“Thank you for that, Major,” Tom said. Awkward sincerity overlaid his anger. “I do appreciate everything.”

“God knows why I'm doing this,” the Major said. “Maybe the place depresses me, maybe I'm just hoping for some unexpected diversion. Damned if I know.” He held out a large brass key. “Here. Just don't use my premises to lift petticoats.”

Tom paced off the twenty by twenty-five-foot cottage, leaving proprietary footprints in the thick dust. His first shop. The first shop of the horseless road vehicle magnate, T.K. Bridger. Standing in the center of the sawdust-powdered room, Tom said aloud, “This calls for a celebration.”

At the Golden Age Saloon he blew foam from his lager, glancing around. At the far end of the bar three men laughed with a full-figured redhead. “Belle!” Tom called, waving to her. Belle was the most accomplished of the three whores who worked the Golden Age. She sauntered over.

“Well, Tom, aren't you the early one.”

“Out catching the worm,” he said.

Winking, she leaned closer, engulfing him in cheap lilac water. “So you're in the mood for a little fun.”

Noon sunlight poured through the saloon window, and he could see the white powder caked in the lines around her eyes, the grime on her yellow taffeta bodice. Belle looked precisely what she was. A whore who charged fifty cents to take you upstairs to a cubbyhole that stank of sulfur. All at once Tom remembered the Major's “niece,” that vibrant, black-haired girl.

Belle was stroking his sleeve.

“Another time,” he said.

“A strong young fellow like you, Tom? Why not now and later, both?”

“I'm on my way home. Have some very big news for my brother.” Tossing down a nickel for his beer, he left the Golden Age.

CHAPTER 2

The first road carriage powered by an engine was invented by a German Jew named Siegfried Marcus in 1864 and roused interest only in the police, who barred the noisy little contraption from the streets. The idea languished. In the 1880s two other Germans, Gottfried Daimler and Karl Benz, working independently of each other, managed to harness an internal combustion engine to wheels. This time the wagon proved somewhat more successful, particularly on the smooth gray roads of France. By the mid-1890s there were several hundred machines and an automotive vocabulary rich with French words like garage, carburetor, chauffeur.

In the United States, with vast plains and mountains and remote horizons waiting to be gathered together, the innovation should have impressed bankers and manufacturers. But smart money stayed away. It was left to obscure young Americans to attempt the vehicles, lean young men with holy visions of the future. They weren't eminent men, so their doings went unrecorded. They knew nothing of one another's work unless they chanced to live in the same city.

In Detroit, Henry Ford, Charles King, the redheaded Dodge brothers, Ransom Olds, and Tom Bridger sometimes met at the Golden Age. The planning and prophecies ignited Tom, yet he felt like an outsider. He lived most fully when he was alone in his shop.

The two dollars' rent he paid the Major left him strapped for money. And the hours he worked left him strapped for time. Never enough time, never enough money. But his dream was taking tangible form.

One cloudy afternoon in November the red-cheeked Stuart messenger boy brought him a folded note. “The Major expects an answer,” said the boy, peering around. Everyone in the factory knew Tom Bridger was inventing a devil wagon—the older Polish cabinetmakers crossed themselves when they neared the shop. The boy, though, saw nothing mysterious, only the usual lathes, a workbench, a forge, some bicycle parts. He didn't recognize the gasoline engine on its trestle.

Tom shook out the note:
One of the clocks at my home has stopped. Do you think you can repair it? A. S. Stuart
.

Tom was confident with any timepiece, yet he hesitated. The Major lived three miles away. Tom would have to walk because he didn't have carfare, and that would kill the afternoon. He glanced up at one of the dangling light bulbs. The Major didn't charge him for the electric. And there was always the possibility he'd catch a g impse of Miss Dalzell.

II

The squat cook, Ida, answered the door. Showing no recognition, she stared pointedly at the worn leather satchel holding Tom's precision tools. “Well?” she snapped.

“Major Stuart asked me to mend a clock.”

Her stubby finger jerked toward a fork in the gravel drive where a sparrow perched on an arrow-shaped sign. “Didn't you see that? Can't you read? The tradesman's entry is to the back.”

Tom had rejected the sign. “The Major asked me as a favor, and—”

He was interrupted by a light rush of feet. “Who is it, Ida?” Antonia stood behind the cook. “Oh, Mr. Bridger. Good afternoon.”

“The Major has a clock that needs repairing.”

“Yes, he telephoned. We're expecting you.”

“He'll track muck into the hall,” warned the cook.

The girl was smiling at him. “You'll freeze out there. Do come in.”

He stepped across the threshold, warmth tingling on his ears.

She was dressed as before, in a plain white shirtwaist and no jewelry, yet about her clung the look of what Hugh, fancifully, would call a lady born. Tom was relieved he had taken the time to go home and change to his good suit. Still, what did he care how he looked to her? They were both paid by the Major, she for considerably the less honorable purpose.

The cook stalked across the hall, slamming a distant door.

“Barks but seldom bites,” Antonia murmured, leading him to the first door on the left.

The study was far less intimidating than the hall or dining room. It was a cozy room, with Persian rugs softened by age to rose tints and an antique book case containing stacks of old periodicals. Above the sagging horsehair sofa hung the Major's faded Civil War sash and his gold-handled saber. The clock on the mantel was probably a hundred years old. A pair of massive bronze lions raised their paws to support a bronze face over which spread the wings of a gilt eagle. The hands had stopped at five past eleven.

“There it is, the horror,” Antonia said.

“Can heirlooms be horrors?” Tom asked.

“Horrible heirlooms are the commonest kind.” She walked over to the fire, holding out her hands. “Mr. Bridger, I'd hoped you'd be visiting us before now.”

“Why?” asked Tom, taken aback.

“Oh,” she replied, “I'd just hoped.”

Flustered, and not knowing how to respond, Tom mumbled, “Miss Dalzell, could I have some newspaper? I don't want to get oil on the desk leather.”

While she was gone, Tom lifted down the clock. He had the case open before she returned. She carried the
Free Press
and a black lacquer tray with a spouted pot and some pastry.

“On a day like this you deserve something hot,” she said.

He watched her pour foaming chocolate. “It's very thoughtful of you.”

“That's not what you're thinking.”

“It is.”

“Then why're you staring at my wrists?”

He had been considering them, wondering if her ankles were as slim and had the same sharp, delicate knobs, yet the pleasure she took in the exchange was infectious and he wasn't embarrassed.

She handed him the cup and the pastry. “Ida's strudel, baked this morning. I tried to help, but the dough has to be stretched until it's fine as a handkerchief linen. I tore some, then gave up.”

“Is that what you do in the daytime, cook?”

“Sometimes,” she said, resting her elbows on the desk to peer into the clock. “The inside's handsomer than the outside. Once you take it apart, how will you know where the pieces belong?”

“I'm a genius,” he said.

She laughed.

After she left he munched rich apple pastry. What sort of life was it for her, shut up in this gloomy mansion, her days policed by ugly, disagreeable servants, her nights pinned down by the Major's stout body? She's a better paid version of Belle, that's all, he told himself, and whores know what they let themselves in for. He opened his satchel.

A tooth had broken. He hoped he could replace the pinion. Darkness already lapped at the windows, though, and by the time he could get downtown the jewelry shops would be closed.

He went to the door. “Hallo,” he shouted, hoping Antonia would be the one to answer.

Instead a large woman in a blue-striped nurse's uniform descended the stairs. “
Je ne parle pas anglais
,” she said, her frilled cap bobbing.

Tom knew a little French from dealing with Canuck cabinetmakers. He managed to explain that he would leave the clock as it was, and put it together when he returned with the necessary part the following morning.

III

A cold drizzle started falling as he went from shop to shop: by the time he reached the Major's, rain was driving down. Sheltered by the portico he stamped, trying to get the water out of the pulpy cardboard that lined his soles. The front door opened.

“Mr. Bridger,” Antonia cried. “You're drenched.”

“Sorry I'm late. I had a time getting the right size pinion.”

As he hung his things to drip noisily into the tin-lined inset of the coatrack, she ran off. He was at the study fire, standing one-legged to warm the other numbed foot, when she maneuvered through the door with a tray that held a substantial platter of triangular sandwiches, a silver coffeepot, and a brick-shaped yellow cake as well as dishes and silverware for two.

“Ideal weather for a picnic,” she said.

That they were to share a meal delighted him and at the same time jabbed him with the identical guilt he would have experienced had he borrowed the Major's gold-handled saber without permission. He remained standing as he ate roast beef sandwiches.

She handed him a slice of cake. The dough was gummy and tasted of baking soda. Before he could swallow she shook her head. “Don't say a word, not a word! Your expression says it all. My only excuse is it's my first cake.”

He downed the mess with coffee. “You're a late starter.”