Read Waltzing In Ragtime Online

Authors: Eileen Charbonneau

Waltzing In Ragtime (20 page)

Olana watched at the window as the coach departed. Her fingers danced against her waist at the prospect of a free afternoon to work on her latest O. Lanart piece. She was finally learning to make sense of the arguments between the ideals of groups like the Sierra Club and the conflicting mining, lumber, and herding interests. As she wrote she strived to find out what she was thinking, just as she had while Matthew was away in their tree house.
And she’d actually found some common ground upon which to form her own opinions.
She did know how to think, Sidney said so, though she worked harder at her blasted typewriting machine than she’d worked on anything in her life. Sidney was a patient but hard taskmaster, and only three of her efforts had appeared on the
Chronicle’
s pages. One of them “The Park in Winter” was largely descriptive, drawn from her notes when in exile. But even that one drew angry letters, accusing “the poetic but misguided Mr. Lanart” of “using his artful prose as a propaganda tool for radical conservationists.” The letter went on to rail against a government that wasted money on a place which could be open to visitors less than half the year.
Sidney loved the controversy. And he was right, using the pseudonym helped her to express her views without worrying whether her father would ever forgive her. Let Sidney have his waterfront corruption, his exotic bodyguard. For now, at least. She had her own secret that none of the Nob Hill Society knew. Olana didn’t as yet know if she enjoyed writing more than the intrigue of getting her words into Sidney’s hands most. But she was becoming a newspaperwoman, even if no one knew but herself and Sidney. And Matthew, she realized, for Sidney had shown him that first O. Lanart piece. Was Matthew yet down from his mountain? Would he ever see the results of her efforts? Why had he left without a word? And without the gift that might have made them partners?
“Miss Olana?”
She turned to the maid whose eyes had grown brighter since she became Mrs. Selby. There was something brewing in those eyes today.
“Well, what’s got you eating the canary, Patsy?”
“Canary, miss?”
“You couldn’t wait to get mother off to her
soiree
.”
Patsy came closer. “It’s a visitor!”
Olana inhaled the jungle of blossoms surrounding her and
shivered. Darius Moore had not come back? “I don’t wish to see any —”
“He left this, and as he was one of my own, my very own countrymen, I told him I’d try my best.”
The maid handed Olana a laundry receipt with a few words scrawled across it.
“Farrell!”
“The bearer waits,” Patsy announced formally, then giggled. “We tucked him away in the back sitting room until Missus was off.”
 
 
“I was plowing up Mrs. Goddard’s north field for spring planing when I saw him tramping down from the mountains, Miss, with his animals following after, unbidden. He looked like a forty-days-fasting-in-the-wilderness saint to me, I don’t mind telling you! Especially with his beard and hair grown bramble wild and that great burnt-edged remedy treatise under his arm. I crossed myself three times before I saw him grin and knew if nothing else about him belonged to Matty, that grin did!
Farrell chomped into another slice of raisin toast and swallowed from the cup of tea that looked so small in his workman’s hand.
“Soon as he was fit, the boys and I wrestled him down long enough so now he sports a pure gold tooth where his missing one was. Looks mighty fancy when he smiles.”
“Does he smile, Mr. Farrell? Is he well?”
“He only frets over his lost notations. He’s been trying to write them all from memory again. That’s contented him a bit.”
“And infuriated him.”
“Ah, course, you remember him and his combustible relations with pen and page, don’t you? But his eyes caught fire once, Miss Whittaker — when he made notation of your cave.”
“My cave?”
“The one that was your discovery, miss.”
“Discovery? I’d hardly call stumbling into a shelter a discovery!”
The Irishman filled the small sitting room with his laughter. “Most discoveries are made just exactly that way! Anyway, he’s gone and named it for you.”
“Named it?”
“Sure enough. Of course, the land it’s on was disputed, until your father went and bought it, gave it to Matty, for that tree farm.”
“Tree farm?”
“Sure. When we heard about his present, and how it wasn’t all officially his until the spring, well, that made us extra glad the Carson brothers didn’t scorch him along with his place! He … Miss Whittaker, he did tell you he was giving the land to the park?”
“Yes, he told me.”
Farrell shifted uncomfortably, watching her face. She didn’t care. Her father had offered her to Matthew Hart, complete with a dowry, and he’d refused. Why? The marble, of course. She understood that, now that she’d researched for her writing assignments. They would want to mine the marble in her cave. He would not let them do that in his wilderness. It was not her. He loved her. Why didn’t he explain it all? Why didn’t he tell her that he had to return, to guard her cave until spring? Her father’s gift had almost killed him.
“Miss Whittaker,” Farrell called her gently, “sometimes I think I talk all together too much.”
“Not at all.” She smiled. “Mr. Hart talks too little.”
“Well, the men, we’re getting the cave ready to show folks, come summer. So we thought, and put it to Mr. Parker all official, that you ought to be invited for the grand unveiling of your namesake, as it were. Would you like that?”
Olana flung her arms around Farrell’s neck. “Oh, Farrell, do rescue me from this hothouse of tulips!”
“There now, miss,” he laughed. “A little more protest, if you please! I told them I had to come here personally on account of it would take the Devil’s own tongue to get you to come back.”
“What did you come here for?” Thomas Parker demanded. “To personally escort him off government property?”
Olana lifted her head from her struggle with the complicated document. “What does this mean?” she demanded, out of patience.
Mr. Parker rose slowly from behind his desk and stood at her shoulder, jabbing at paragraphs with his pewter letter opener.
“Here I’m told what a bad choice I made for my head ranger in the first place. Here’s why.” He flung the letter opener across his blotter. “Solid research, Miss Whittaker — among sixteen-year-old, closed file documentation.”
“I don’t understand!”
“Army security during the Indian Wars! Dishonorable discharge for one Private Matthew Hart. I could petition till my last breath and never get to the bottom of it.”
“I had no part —”
“Of course. You don’t have to work at it yourself, do you? You can buy anything. Well, you got your money’s worth.”
“Mr. Parker —”
“I told him I’d refuse to do it. His donating the land, that’s got to count for something, I said,” Parker continued as if she hadn’t
spoken, “so he resigned his post. ‘You know they’ll just keep firing folks until they find someone to do it,’ he said. Matthew remembers the army well enough to know that’s the damned truth.”
“Mr. Parker, surely you don’t believe —”
The director snatched the letter from her hand. “It hardly matters what I believe, young woman!” He exhaled and his voice became quiet. “He warned me when I sent him off to San Francisco. I was asking too much, he said. Why didn’t I listen?” He looked up, seemed surprised that she and Farrell were still standing before him, and frowned. “Now, unless you want to assemble for a ceremony of one at your blasted namesake cave, I suggest you get the turnabout coach for Fresno.”
 
 
Olana shielded her eyes and stared out at the expanse of small farms and abandoned mining towns along the train’s route. This was insane. Even if the address was an accurate one, even if they found it, under what pretense could they present themselves?
“We’ve got the advantage,” Farrell said. “We’re but one train behind him, and he don’t know we’re giving chase so —”
“I’m not chasing him!”
But what else would she call pleading with Mrs. Goddard to give them the name of the town he returned to each spring? She was clearing herself. And Sidney too, he and the
Chronicle
needed their good name cleared, too. Every ranger and roadman believed Sidney had the discharge revealed that had lost Matthew his job. That couldn’t be true. Sidney was her best friend. He wouldn’t keep anything so vital from her knowledge, would he?
Olana was shocked to learn Matthew Hart lived anywhere besides his tree. He was such a part of the forest. Why hadn’t he told her he had people? Who were they? He knew everything about her, including Leland’s name for her. Why had he told her so little about himself? Or had he told her, and she wasn’t listening?
It was dusk when they engaged fresh horses at the railroad station at St. Pitias. There were only two coaches waiting, so Farrell
asked the driver about the passengers he’d taken from the previous train.
“Tall Anglo? Light hair, eyes that send the ladies sighing?”
“Sounds right.”
“Odd looks, even among his own folk.”
“Did you take him home?” Olana asked.
“No, he don’t ever ride coaches, that one. He walks. Not on the fine new road, either. He breaks off from the road, goes through what forest we got left.”
Farrell beamed. “Now I know we’re talking about the same man. Would you bring us there?”
“I can likely get you there before him.”
 
 
From the nearby mission, the bells began to peal for evening vespers. Closer, a soft voice filled in the spaces in between with an older song, one Olana could feel more than hear. Once the bells stopped, the song went on, wilder, with the nearby Pacific’s waves as accompaniment.
The horses’ pace slowed further as the farmhouse came into view. Unlike the adobe dwellings they’d been passing, it was built of weathered graying clapboard, in a Southern style, right down to its double-story porches. A wooden swing creaked lazily in a night heavy with natural electricity. The very air was charged.
Farrell paid their fare. The affable coachman left them.
The homestead was surrounded by an iron fence that Olana imagined had once offered protection, but now was so uncared for it lent a sad, neglected air to the place. The remaining parts were rusting away in the salt-sea air.
The singer stopped. More electricity filled the void.
“Shall we present ourselves as weary travelers?” Farrell asked behind her.
“Listen,” Olana cautioned as she heard sounds of underbrush in the scrub pine forest across the road.
Matthew Hart stepped off the trail quietly, in his high laced
moccasins. He crossed the dirt road and stood before the highest part of the rusted iron gate. When he touched it, the lamps inside lit the windows with a golden glow. The door opened next, and a tall, dark-haired woman stepped out on the porch.
“Supper!” she called, though not to him, for the sight of him then halted her next word in mid-syllable. Her hand shielded her eyes, as if the sun was bright. “Matthew,” she said, stretching out the “a” in endearment. Olana heard Farrell take in a pained breath behind her.
The ranger let his cloth bag slip off his shoulder. He met the woman as she stepped off the porch, took her waist between his hands and lifted her in a swinging arc. She hugged him as he buried his face in her neck.
A small, raven-haired girl in a red pinafore darted out from the side of the house and hid herself in the woman’s skirts. Matthew Hart removed his hat, and went down on one knee. He spoke gently, but the girl did not detach herself from the woman. Then he opened his bag and brought forth a doll Olana recognized. He’d lingered outside the toy shop’s window where the doll was displayed until she had to tug at his arm. Now the doll, the woman’s encouragement, and his own patience finally yielded him his prize. The girl took his present in one hand and touched his clean-shaven face with the other.
Olana watched the woman’s hands stroke through Matthew’s hair, as hers had the night after the grizzly bear and the Carson brothers. He’d called her Mrs. Hart then. No wonder he’d smiled his amusement — she’d been a child playing this woman’s part.
Olana couldn’t hate her. She couldn’t even hate him. He’d tried to tell her that he was not free, she realized in the blazing clarity of hindsight. If he could have told her of these two when she was only infatuated, perhaps she might not have grown to love him with the passion she now felt tearing her apart. She should have known. Even when he’d touched her the night long he didn’t do what might have put a child inside her. He had a child. And this tall, piercingly beautiful wife, whose arms now circled them both.
Another woman, her gray hair shining silver in the darkening night stepped onto the porch.
“Storm’s coming, Vita. Where’s the child?”
“Mama — look. Matthew’s home.”
The older woman’s face lit with a delight. One hand glided to her hip, the other touched the back knot of her hair like a girl.
“Well,” she said. “Come inside, the lot of you.”
Olana didn’t turn away until the house’s warm amber light had absorbed them all. The sky flashed suddenly, and she heard Farrell struggle for the words.
“I’m sorry, Miss Whittaker, God’s truth I am. I didn’t know, not a single one of us knew —”
Olana pushed away from his hands, his pity, and stumbled blindly into the woods from where the ranger had emerged. She ignored the sky’s flashing, and the thunder that obliterated Farrell’s call.
When he tried to pull her out of the ditch, she forgot how small a man he was and yanked him into the brambles beside her. Somehow, in the space between a lightning flash, they heard Matthew’s approach above them.
All was silent except for the rain pelting the wide brim of his hat, and the Pacific’s surf there at his back. Olana could only see Matthew Hart’s silhouette as he raised his rifle.
Farrell spoke softly. “Matty. It’s us, lad. Miss Whittaker and myself.”
The ranger’s eyes opened wider. He lowered his weapon. “Christ almighty. How in hell —”
“By train, coach, and tramping, same as you.” Even Farrell was made succinct by the storm. At least he had a voice.
“Well you can damn well find your way back then, can’t you?”
The tall woman appeared beside him. She held a spidery black shawl around her and raised a lantern that illuminated them all. Matthew turned.
“I told you to stay —”
“Move aside.”
To Olana’s amazement, he obeyed. The woman knelt beside Olana and took her hands.
“Cold, even through your gloves.”
“Oh?”
“I’m Vita Hart.”
“I know. Yes. Of course. I know.”
She began to rub the life back into Olana’s hands, and looked to Farrell. “You’re friends of Matthew’s?”
Farrell took off his hat. “Would’ve counted ourselves so, up until a moment ago, Ma’am.”
Vita Hart glanced up over her shoulder, but received only a growl. She shone her lantern closer to Olana’s skirts.
“My tablecloths,” she marveled.
“I’m sorry,” Olana stammered.
“Why, you’re the girl Matthew found in the snow, aren’t you?”
She bit down on her shivering lip and nodded.
“And you, sir?”
“Farrell, Mrs. Hart. Your own, your very own, Farrell. I fed him back when we were building the road.”
“Well.” She smiled. “You must allow me to return the favor.” The woman cast another dismayed look behind her, where Matthew was digging his boots in the mud. “Please forgive the inexcusable rudeness of my son, and come inside.”
“Son?” Farrell scrambled to his feet. Olana felt the crushing weight lift off her chest. “He’s your … Bless my soul, woman, you’re his … ?”
“Yes.” She laughed, reminding Olana of the mission’s bells, were they rung with humor instead of solemnity — full, deep, joyous. Vita turned to Matthew, and held her hand out impatiently. “Give me that firearm and show your friends some hospitality!”
As Matthew surrendered his rifle, Farrell rushed to the woman’s side. “How’d Matty get himself a mother with your disposition, Ma’am?” he said, taking her lantern and offering his arm.
Matthew lifted Olana to her feet and steered her toward the house, all without meeting her eyes.
“You never told me.” He did not respond, but slowed his stride when she stumbled. She tried again. “Your mother. Matthew, she is so —”
His brows knit in anger. “What?” he demanded.
“Beautiful,” Olana said softly.
“Yes,” he said, annoyed, as if she’d told him something obvious — that it was raining, which it was, that they were getting wet, which they were. But his face finally showed signs of a thaw.
 
 
Vita Hart turned Olana’s hat in her long slender hands. His hands, Olana realized. “This is so lovely! Is it what they’re wearing in San Francisco? If I can reblock it while it’s wet, then iron the netting, you’ll only need to replace the feathers.” The small bedroom’s oil lamp picked up the silver strands in her dark hair, less silver than Matthew’s hair had. It was still hard for Olana to believe she was his mother.
Vita placed the hat on the night table, and looked down at the edition of A
Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
that Olana removed from her bag. Olana placed it in the woman’s hands.
“It’s signed. For Matthew by … by the author.”
“My parents and brother met him, the first time before I was born. They were visiting the Hudson River Estate of Frederick Church.”

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