Blair put Houston to work with so much to do that Houston didn’t have time to think about anything. As soon as Houston got one article completed, Blair had an idea for another one. Pam was so interested in Blair’s magazine that she converted her kitchen into a stain-removal center and tried to find a really effective way to clean velvet. The entire house reeked of ammonia by the end of the day, but Houston was able to report that “two tablespoons of ammonia and two of warm water rubbed well into the velvet with a stiff brush” did the job. Blair said she might make it the headline story. Pam smiled at this, but Houston knew her sister was being sarcastic.
The writing gave Houston a perfect excuse to stay inside and not face the townspeople. Pam left the house often, telling no one where she was going, and was able to keep Houston up to date on the gossip, reporting that Kane stayed alone in his big house with no servants and no friends.
“And no relatives. That should make him happy,” Houston said. “Now, he can work uninterrupted, with no interference.”
“Don’t be bitter, Houston,” Pam said. “Regretting what could have been makes a person miserable. I know. What do you think of including this dye recipe in the first issue? A pennyworth of logwood and a pennyworth of soapbark. I’ve renewed my black felt hat with it twice, and it worked quite well.”
“Yes, of course,” Houston said absently, as she scrubbed away the ink that filled the typewriter keys. Blair had told her that when Remington first issued the typewriter, the keys were constantly jamming together. When the owners looked into the matter, they found that the typists were too fast for the mechanics of the machine, so they decided to make the keyboard as difficult as possible to use. They placed the most frequently used keys all over the board so the typist would have to reach constantly, and thus she’d be slowed down. By chance, the top letters spelled QWERTY.
Two weeks after Houston left Kane, the railroad car that he’d had made for Opal arrived, causing a great stir in the town. With tears running down her face, Opal went to Houston and talked about what a wonderful man she’d left, and how could she do such a thing, and a woman wasn’t a woman without a baby and, with Houston not even having a husband, it was all too horrible to contemplate.
Houston managed to tell her mother that it was Kane who didn’t want her, not the other way around. It wasn’t quite the truth but, somehow, lies to one’s mother, to placate her, were acceptable.
Houston returned to her typewriter and tried not to think of what was past.
* * *
Opal Chandler Gates slowly made her way up Hachette Street toward the Taggert Mansion. She was supposed to be shopping downtown this morning, and Mr. Gates had never questioned why she was wearing her new fox-trimmed suit with the little matching fox hat, but then men rarely understood the importance of clothing. Today, she had to took her best, for today, she was going to beg Kane to take Houston back—if he’d indeed thrown her out as Houston’d intimated.
Houston could be so rigid, Opal thought. She was so much like her father in that. Bill would be friends with someone but, if that person broke his trust, Bill would never, never forgive him. Houston had a tendency to do that. Opal knew that after what Leander had done to Houston, he could disappear for all Houston cared.
And now, something had to be done about Kane. Opal was sure that Kane had done something dreadful, something clumsy and awkward and stupid. But then, that was one of Kane’s most appealing characteristics: he was as rough as Houston was polished. They were perfectly suited, and Opal meant to see them together again.
At the big front door of the house, she knocked but there was no answer, so she opened it and went inside. The hall echoed with emptiness and the lonely feeling of an unoccupied house.
Opal ran her finger along a table in the hall. It was amazing how much dust could collect in two short weeks.
She called Kane’s name, but there was no answer. She’d only been in the house once before and didn’t know her way around very well. It took quite a while to walk through both the downstairs and the upstairs. While she was upstairs, in Kane’s bedroom, she looked out at the gardens and saw him walking across the lawn.
She practically ran down the stairs and across the grass that badly needed mowing. Following a twisting path downward, she found him at the bottom, standing near a tree, smoking one of his lovely, fragrant cigars, and staring into space.
He turned to look at her as she approached. “And what brings you here this mornin’?” he asked cautiously.
Opal took a deep breath. “I hear you got angry and tossed my daughter out of your house.”
“Like hell I did! She walked out on me! Said somethin’ about she didn’t respect me.”
Opal sat down on a stone bench under the tree. “I was afraid of that. Houston’s just like her father was. Would you tell me what happened? Houston won’t tell me a word. That’s also just like her father.”
Kane was silent as he looked back into the garden.
“I know it’s private, and if it has anything to do with . . . well, the bedroom, I know Houston is probably a little frightened, but I’m sure that if you’re patient—.”
“Frightened! Houston? You’re talkin’ about the woman that married me? She ain’t afraid of nothin’ in bed.”
Opal fidgeted with her gloves, her face red. “Well, then, perhaps it was something else.” She waited. “If you’re worried about secrecy, I assure you—.”
“Ain’t nothin’ much secret in this town. Look, maybe you can understand what made her so mad, I can’t. You know I used to work in Fenton’s stables? Well, all the time I worked there I was never allowed upstairs in his house, and I always used to wonder what it’d be like to be master of a big house like that. And later, when I wanted to marry Fenton’s daughter, he said I wasn’t good enough for her. So I left and started makin’ money, yet in the back of my mind was this dream that someday I’d have him to dinner at my house, which was bigger than his, and I’d have a lady-wife sittin’ at the end of the table.”
It took Opal a few moments to realize that this was the end of his story and she was going to have to piece together the rest of it. “My goodness,” she said after a moment. “Do you mean that you built this enormous house and married my daughter to fulfill your dream?”
There was no answer from Kane.
Opal smiled. “Well, no wonder Houston left when she found out. She must have felt quite used.”
“Used! She was damn well usin’ me, too. She married me for my money.”
Opal looked at him seriously, all smiles gone. “Did she? Do you have any idea how hard Mr. Gates worked to keep her from marrying you? In fact, many people advised her not to marry you. But she did. And as for money, neither she nor Blair have to worry about money. They aren’t rich, but they have enough to buy all the dresses they need.”
“Considerin’ Houston’s dress buyin’, that’s a fortune,” he mumbled.
“Do you think Houston wants more, the kind of riches only you can give her?” Opal continued. “Does she strike you as greedy?”
Kane sat down on the bench.
Opal put her arm about his big shoulders. “You miss her, don’t you?”
“I’ve only known her a few months, but I guess I . . . got used to her. Sometimes I wanted to strangle her because she was always makin’ me do things I didn’t wanta do, but now . . . Now, I miss steppin’ on her hairpins. I miss havin’ her interrupt me and Edan. I miss Edan. I miss baseball with Ian and my son. I miss—.” He stood, his face angry. “Damn her! I wish I’d never met her. I was a happy man before I met her and I will be again. You go tell her I wouldn’t have her back if she came crawlin’.”
Kane started up the path toward the house, Opal hot on his heels.
“Kane, please, I’m an old lady,” she called after him, trying to keep up.
“Ain’t nothin’ old about a lady, he shouted over his shoulder. “I shoulda stayed with prostitutes,” he mumbled. “They only want money.”
> Opal only caught up with him when he was inside his office, papers in his hand. “You have to get her back.”
“Like hell I do. I don’t want her back.”
Opal sat down, fanning herself, out of breath. Surreptitiously, she adjusted her new health corset that was boned with thin blades of steel. “If you had no hope of getting her back, you’d be on a train to somewhere else.”
Kane sat in his red leather chair, silent for a moment. “I don’t know how to get her back. If she didn’t marry me for my money, I don’t know how I won her in the first place. Women! I’m better off without her.” He looked at Opal through his lashes. “You think she’d like a present?”
“Not Houston. She has her father’s morals. Apologies and declarations of love won’t do it either. She is so rigid. If there were some way to make her move back in and give you a little time, perhaps you could convince her that you didn’t just marry her in order to repay Mr. Fenton—who really can’t be blamed for not allowing his daughter to marry the stableboy.”
Kane opened his mouth but closed it again. His eyes lit. “I do have a way, but . . . No, it wouldn’t work. She’d never believe I’d do such an underhanded, dirty trick.”
“It sounds perfect. Tell me.”
Kane hesitantly told her and, to his disbelief, Opal thought the idea splendid. “Ladies!” Kane muttered.
Opal stood. “Now, I must go. Oh yes, dear me, I almost forgot. The reason I came was to tell you that the train car arrived and I couldn’t possibly accept it. It’s really too expensive a gift. You’ll have to take it back.”
“What in the world would I do with a pink train? You can travel in it.”
Opal smiled fondly at him. “Dear Kane, we all have our dreams; unfortunately, if they come true, sometimes they aren’t as nice as the dream. I’d be scared to death to travel.”
“Well then, park it somewhere and have it for your tea parties. Are you sure this thing with Houston’ll work? I don’t know if I want her to believe that I’d do somethin’ like that.”
“She’ll believe you, and I think that’s a very good use for the train, but you could have it redone in another color.”
“If you don’t accept that thing, I’ll move it to your front yard.”
“Since you’re blackmailing me . . . ” she said, eyes twinkling.
Kane groaned as she kissed his cheek. “I feel that everything will go well now. Thank you so much for the train, and we’ll have you and Houston to dinner next week. Good-bye.”
Kane sat for a long time, muttering about women in general and ladies in particular.
Chapter 26
Houston had to stifle a yawn as she hurried down Lead Avenue, trying to get her errands done before it started to rain. She was tired after the turmoil at Pam’s house last night that had kept all of them up late.
Zachary had gone to see his cousin Ian at the new house Edan had bought and asked him to go to Kane’s to play baseball. Before Ian was half through expressing his opinion of Kane, Zach put his head down and rammed the older, larger boy in the stomach. They fought a bloody battle for thirty minutes before Edan found them and separated them.
When Zach returned to Pam, his collar clutched by Edan, Jacob was there visiting. He saw his precious grandson covered in dried blood, his face scratched, bruises forming. And touching him was someone connected with Kane Taggert.
Another war began.
Pam, worried about her son’s health, wasn’t concerned with who and why, but Jacob was. Immediately, he began attacking Edan.
“Your fight’s not with me,” Edan said, then left the house.
Jacob started demanding answers from Zach, and when the older man realized that Zach’d been defending his father, Jacob’s anger knew no bounds. His wrath turned to Pam and included comments on her fitness as a mother and allusions to how she came to have Zach in the first place.
For the first time, Houston saw Pam’s temper, and Houston understood why Kane had turned her down the day of the wedding. Both Pam and her father said things they couldn’t possibly mean; neither seemed to have any control. If Kane and Pam had tried to live together . . . Houston didn’t like to think of what could have happened.
Zachary entered the fight, torn between protecting his mother and wanting to be on the man’s side. Both Pam and Jacob started yelling at him.
“That’s not the way to handle a Taggert,” Houston whispered to herself.
She stepped into the middle of the red-faced, screaming people. “Zachary,” she said, in a voice that was at once cool and commanding. Startled, they all stopped to look at her.
“Zachary, you will come with me and we will wash you. Mr. Fenton, you will call your carriage and return to your home. You may send flowers of apology later. And you, Pamela, may go upstairs to your room and bathe your wrists with cologne and lie down.”
She stood there quite still, her hand outstretched to Zachary, until Pam and Jacob moved to obey her. Meekly, the boy took her hand and followed her into the kitchen. He was much too old to allow a woman to wash his face and hands, but he sat there quietly and let her tend to him as if he were four. After a few minutes, he began telling her about the fight.
“I think you were perfectly right to defend your father,” Houston said.
Zach’s mouth dropped open. “But I thought you didn’t like him anymore.”
“Adults fight differently than children do. Now, put on a clean shirt and you and I will visit Ian.”
“That bas—,” Zach began but cut himself off. “I never want to see him again.”
“You will see him again,” she said, leaning forward until they were nose to nose.
“Yes, ma’am,” was Zach’s answer.
Houston and Zachary spent hours with Edan and the rest of the Taggerts. Houston felt as if she’d stepped into the middle of someone’s honeymoon, as Jean and Edan kept giving each other looks when they thought no one else was looking.
Sherwin took over the boys and had them both in the back garden pulling weeds and moving rocks. By the time Houston and Zach returned home, he was too tired to be angry at anyone, and he and Ian had a date tomorrow to play baseball with some of the town boys, all of whom Houston had called and invited.
When at last she’d climbed into bed, after having heard Pam’s three apologies and four thanks, she was exhausted. On the table by the bed was a vase of two dozen red roses from Jacob Fenton to “Lady” Houston.
Now, she was still tired as she ran to catch the streetcar before the rain began again.
She was nearly at the corner, approaching the Chandler Opera House, when thunder cracked, the skies opened and the rain began—and a hand pulled her into the alleyway. Houston’s scream was covered by the thunder.
“You’ll have ever’body in here if you don’t be quiet,” Kane said, his hand over her mouth. “It’s just me, an’ all I wanta do is talk to you for a minute.”
Houston glared at him through the rain that was running down her face.
“This is the same place that I pulled you in that first time, you remember? I asked you why you’d defended me to that bad-tempered little woman. This is sorta like an anniversary, ain’t it?”
His face softened as he spoke and, as he let his hand on her mouth relax, Houston let out a scream to wake the dead. Unfortunately, the rain covered her scream, and the people within hearing distance had moved indoors.
“Damn you, Houston!” Kane said, replacing his hand. “What’s wrong with you? All I wanta do is talk. I’m gonna take my hand away and if you scream I’ll stop you. You understand me?”
Houston nodded, but the moment he released her, she pivoted on her left foot and started out of the alleyway. Kane, with a curse of disbelief, made a grab for her and the stitching at the waistband of her dress tore away.
Houston turned back to him, her face furious as she looked down at her dress, now attached only for a few inches at the front. “Can’t you ever listen to what a person says? I don’t want
to talk to you. If I did, I’d be living with you,” she shouted above the rain. “I want to go home. I don’t care if I never see you again.”
As she again turned to leave, Kane reached out for her. “Houston, wait. I have somethin’ I wanta say.”
“Use the telephone,” she said over her shoulder.
“You little bitch,” Kane said through clenched teeth. “You’re gonna listen to me, no matter what I have to do.”
He made a grab for her, succeeded in pulling the rest of her skirt away and they both fell into the mud that was about three inches of soft ooze from several days of rain. Houston fell on the bottom, burying her face in the wetness, while Kane, on top, remained relatively clean.
Houston managed to lift the upper half of her body out of the sucking mud. “Get off of me,” she said, her lips closed to prevent the mud from entering her mouth.
Kane rolled to one side. “Houston, honey, I didn’t mean to hurt you. All I wanted was to talk to you.”
Houston turned so she was sitting up in the mud, but didn’t try to rise as she used her skirt, now completely torn loose and hanging about her hips, to wipe some of the filth from her face. “You never mean to hurt anyone,” she said. “You just do whatever you want, no matter who gets in your way.”
He was grinning at her. “You know, you look pretty, even like that.”
She gave him a hard look. “What is it you have to say to me?”
“I . . . ah, I want you to come back to live with me.”
She continued wiping her face. “Of course you do. I knew you would. You lost Edan, too, didn’t you?”
“Damn it, Houston, what do you want me to do, beg?”
“I want absolutely nothing from you. Right now, my only wish is to go home and take a bath.” She started to rise, struggling over the suction of the mud and her torn skirt.
“You can’t forgive nobody for nothin’, can you?”
“Like you can’t forgive Mr. Fenton? At least, I don’t use others to get what I want.”
Even through the rain, Houston could see Kane’s anger staining his face. “I’ve had enough,” he said, advancing on her and pinning her against a wall. “You’re my wife and by law you’re my property. I don’t care if you respect me or love me or whatever else you think you gotta have, you’re returnin’ to live with me. And, what’s more, you’re gonna do it right now.”