Читать книгу Maggie And The Maverick - Laurie Grant - Страница 12

“She sent your son all the way from Houston with that woman, instead of coming herself?” Sarah Devlin cried. She watched out the window as the boy, accompanied by Garrick’s sister, Annie, his sister-in-law Mercy and Martha Purdy, discovered the cat’s latest litter of kittens. “Why, the nerve of that.that—”

“Hold on, Mother. I haven’t told you everything yet,” Garrick said, rubbing his eyes wearily. He hadn’t slept well last night, tormented by phantom pains from his leg and the buzzing questions that refused to leave his brain. Then, just as he’d finally dropped off, the boy had awoken screaming in his room down the hall. Garrick had heard the old woman soothe him, and in a few moments, the crying had stopped.

Quickly he told Sarah Devlin about Cecilia’s bigamous marriage in Houston, and the carriage accident that had left her paralyzed and likely to die of her injuries soon. He also told her about Cecilia’s wish that he not come to see her.

“Lord Jesus, have mercy,” Sarah Devlin breathed, her hand to her mouth. “That poor, misguided girl…your poor little boy…”

“Mama, I’m not at all sure he’s my son,” Garrick warned.

Sarah Devlin’s jaw dropped. “Why, Garrick, of course he is—anyone with eyes can see he is. He looks just like you when you were his age. Are you saying that you and Cecilia.that night you came home…” She turned away in a flurry of embarrassment.

Garrick was no less embarrassed. “Well…yes, Mama. But she ran off the very next day and married the first man who’d have her, apparently. How am I to trust the word of a woman like that?”

“He’s yours, I’m tellin’ you. And you can’t turn your own son away,” Sarah Devlin said.

Garrick sighed. His suspicion that Cecilia had lied to him about Johnny’s paternity had already begun to waver as he’d observed the boy closely over the past twenty-four hours. It wasn’t just the color of his eyes, but things he did—little things, like the way he walked, or the way he slept with the pillow turned lengthwise against his face and chest—that convinced Garrick; they were pure Devlin, and nothing like Cecilia. And now, in the face of his mother’s certainty, he began to think that Johnny was indeed his.

He sighed. “No, I didn’t intend to. But the boy’s scared of me. I can’t get him to come within three feet. And who could blame him?” he added, glaring down at his artificial leg, which, covered by his trousers and shoe, looked identical to the other. “I walk like a drunken sailor.”

“Son, just give it some time,” suggested his mother. “He’ll warm up to you. He won’t think about your wooden leg if you act as if it’s nothing unusual.”

Easy for you to say, Garrick thought, but just then his mother, standing by the window, said, “Look yonder. Here comes little Johnny carryin’ a kitten. You tell him he can keep it if he wants to—it’s old enough to be weaned.”

Sure enough, flanked by Mercy, Annie and Martha, Johnny was coming toward the house, carrying a black ball of fur with all the care a three-year-old was capable of. As the trio came through the door, Garrick could plainly hear the kitten’s mews.

He saw the child look uncertainly at Annie and then at Mercy.

“Johnny, remember, you have something to ask your papa,” Mercy murmured, nodding toward Garrick.

Johnny looked pale but determined. “P-Papa, I want this kitty. Please?”

Garrick found he had been holding his breath and had to catch it again before replying. The boy—his son—had called him Papa. He felt as if the sun had just come out from behind the clouds after years of gloomy days. He felt tears sting his eyes, and blinked, sure it would only confuse the boy to see him cry. He certainly didn’t want the other adults to see it.

“I reckon so, Johnny,” he said. The boy smiled shyly. Moved even more by the gift of that smile, Garrick felt his own lips curve upward. Smiling felt almost foreign to him, as if it had been years since he’d last done it. He added, “What’re you gonna name it?”

“I don’t know how those Conservative Republicans can even claim to be Southerners,” Garrick muttered, crumpling the week-old Austin newspaper in disgust. Then, belatedly remembering the presence of his son, he looked around, but Johnny had just chased his kitten out of the room. “They’re Unionists and always have been, even during the war! Tarnation, they might as well burn Texas to the ground now, ‘cause there’s not going to be anything left to bury once the carpetbaggers and scalawags are done plundering.”

“If we elect a Republican government, maybe Texas will get readmitted to the Union that much quicker,” his brother Cal remarked. It was a week after little Johnny had arrived, and Cal and his bride, Olivia, had come for an overnight visit before leaving on a delayed wedding trip to Galveston. Garrick, Cal and the youngest Devlin brother, Sam, were arranged on chairs in the parlor while the women talked and did dishes in the kitchen.

“Good! Maybe that’ll mean all those bluebellies occupying us like we were a conquered foreign country can go back to the rocks they crawled out from under,” Garrick growled. “Ahem! Beggin’ your pardon, brother,” he said, turning to Cal. “I imagine you’ll be sorry to see them go.”

Cal raised an eyebrow. “Even those of us who served with the Union army aren’t happy when we see federal troops helpin’ Northern swindlers get by with wholesale robbery,” he said mildly.

Garrick realized he’d gone a little far, and looked back at the crumpled newspaper, saying nothing for a moment. Then he changed the subject. “So there’s nothing much going on in Gillespie Springs?” he asked, looking at Cal again. “It must be pretty calm if you’re fixin’ to go away for a while.”

Cal tipped his chair back until it rested against the wall. “Yeah, my deputy’s going to watch over things while I’m gone. I’m happy to leave that tin star at home—I’ve been looking forward to a little time at the seashore with my bride.”

“Well, I hope you two have a fine time,” Garrick said, still feeling awkward about the way he’d talked to Cal a moment ago.

“Whoa! Can this be our brother, Garrick the cantankerous, speaking?” teased Sam, who was sitting just beyond Cal, his long, booted legs stretched out before him. “Sounds like the little feller’s been good for you, Garrick,” he added, nodding toward Johnny, who was now trotting from room to room, pulling a strand of yarn for his kitten to chase.

Sam always knew just how to rile him. “If ‘the little feller’ weren’t within earshot,” Garrick growled, “I’d tell you what particularly hot place you could go to, little brother. I’ve never been without family feeling.”

Sam just grinned.

“He’s a good-looking boy, that Johnny,” Cal said, before Sam could tease any more. “I believe he favors you, Garrick.”

Garrick couldn’t help his pleased smile. “You think so?” Then he grew more serious, and noting the boy had followed the kitten into the kitchen, out of earshot, added, “He’s a good boy. I wish I hadn’t missed his first three years. I—I want to make it up to him, somehow. You know what I mean?”

His brothers nodded. “You’ll do a fine job bein’ a father, Garrick,” Cal assured him, and Sam murmured in agreement.

Garrick frowned, feeling the old familiar despair. “What kind of an example can I be, a cripple? How can he learn what a man is from watchin’ me clump around this farm? Oh, I can teach him to cipher and spell and read, but so could Annie or Mama. How’s he gonna ever look up to me, unless I make somethin’ of myself?” Despite the difficulty of moving around, he grabbed for his cane and hobbled over to the window, then stood staring out into the darkness.

Behind him, his brothers were silent, waiting.

“I think maybe it’s time I did somethin’ more than clump around the farm,” Garrick mused, then raised his hand when Sam started to interrupt. “Now don’t tell me that what I’m doin’ here keeps this household runnin’. You know very well Mama leaves writin’ and figurin’ chores to me so I’ll feel useful,” he said. “Cal, didn’t you tell me that banker fellow Gillespie that used to run Gillespie Springs had been just about to start a newspaper before he got put in jail?”

“Yep, sure did,” Caleb said. “In fact, the printing press was delivered by freight wagon just the other day. It’s just sittin’ there in that vacant building across from the hotel, where Gillespie was gonna have the newspaper office. Mayor Long sure was disappointed. He was lookin’ forward to havin’ a newspaper to read. He said he reckoned that printing press belonged to the town by rights, after all that swindler Gillespie had done, so he said he’d donate it to anyone who’d start up a paper in Gillespie Springs.”

“Any reason I couldn’t be the one?” Garrick said, still staring out the window so that he wouldn’t see the expressions of doubt he was sure were painted all over his brothers’ faces.

Now Sam spoke up. “You? You talkin’ about bein’ the editor? I don’t know why not, big brother. You’re smart as a treeful of owls. You can argue circles around me about politics and such.”

“Shucks, Sam, anyone can talk circles around you,” joked Cal, but he grinned to show it was all in fun. “But Sam’s right, Garrick. You’ve got a fine mind and you don’t use it for much but keepin’ the farm’s accounts paid up and writin’ letters to the editor of that paper about how the carpetbaggers are ruinin’ Texas.” His voice trailed off for a moment. “And you could come home on the weekends and see your son, of course. Mama and Annie’d keep him taken care of during the week.”

“Why would I leave the boy here? I’m his papa, by thunder, and the boy belongs with me.”

His brothers exchanged glances, saying nothing.

“Mama isn’t gonna be happy about lettin’ Johnny go away,” Sam said at last. “She’s awful fond a’ the little feller already.”

“So am I,” Garrick said, and realized it was true. “But I’ll bring him home to visit often enough. Once Mercy has her baby, Ma won’t mind so much.”

“Sure, why not? If you can write those fiery letters to the editor, you can write newspaper articles,” Cal said, obviously warming to the idea. “And just think, every week you could write an editorial and criticize—or praise—any ol’ thing you wanted.”

Garrick thought getting to express his opinion in print, in his official capacity as editor, sounded very fine indeed. Then he had a disturbing thought. “But I don’t know anything about running a printing press.”

“Well, you could learn, I reckon,” Caleb assured him. “You could hire someone who’s worked on a paper, and get ‘em to teach you. You’d be the editor and write the articles, and he’d run the press.”

“But what about Johnny? I have a responsibility now,” Garrick reminded himself aloud.

“Shoot, I imagine Livy’d be willing to lend you her housekeeper,” Cal said. “Senora Mendez is always complaining we don’t give her enough to do, and asking us to have a baby real quick so she’ll have somethin’ to keep her busy.”

“You are tryin’ to comply with that command, aren’t you, brother?” Sam inquired, his face the picture of innocence.

Cal grinned. “Maybe.”

Garrick watched his brothers, suddenly envious of their happiness. Both of them had found a good woman to marry. That avenue seemed closed to him, however. Even if Cecilia had entered a bigamous marriage, he wasn’t free to marry again—and even if he were, what woman would marry a man with a wooden leg?

Resolutely he shut his mind to the idea of a woman’s love and focused on the rising excitement he felt about the idea of starting a newspaper. He was ready for a change. He’d been sitting around the farm for too long as it was. If he didn’t try something new, he’d just become an old man before his time, and Johnny would grow up smothered by his grandmother and his aunt, who, with the best intentions in the world, cossetted the boy too much.

“All right, ask that Mendez woman if she’ll be my housekeeper. I’m going to do it, boys. I’m going to start a newspaper in Gillespie Springs. You reckon you could find a house for me there?”

Sam let out a rebel yell that had the women running from the kitchen to see what was the matter, and Cal clapped him on the back. “I’m sure of it, brother,” Cal said.

“Gillespie Springs!” the stagecoach driver sang out, as he reined in his team in front of the Gillespie Springs Hotel.

Maggie Harper sighed with relief. The jolting, swaying ride, which was supposed to have taken only a couple of days, had taken three and a half, thanks to the spring rains. The roads between Austin and Gillespie Springs were a quagmire. Torrential downpours had delayed their start two mornings out of the three, and at least twice each day the driver and the men in the coach had had to push the coach out of muddy ruts.

Once, a flash of lightning had struck a nearby tree, which terrified the team and caused them to gallop on in a runaway panic. They had gone a full two miles before the driver could rein them in, and Maggie had been sure that at any moment the coach would hit a bump, tilt and crash onto its side, crushing its hapless occupants.

Afterward, to amuse herself as the tedious, muddy miles rolled by, she’d composed a newspaper article in her head as if the worst had happened. The headline read: Stagecoach Overturns—Famous Female Journalist Tragically Perishes Before Her Time.

The red-faced woman in black bombazine sitting across from her glared in her direction. Belatedly, Maggie realized she had been smiling. The journey hadn’t been enjoyable, but the rain had finally stopped, the sun was shining and they had at last arrived in Gillespie Springs.

Mrs. Red Face was just one of the fellow travelers Maggie wouldn’t be sorry to bid farewell to. The coach was filled to capacity with two rotund drummers who had a fondness for foul-smelling cigars, an anxious mother holding a teething, fretful baby, and Maggie—and of course Mrs. Red Face, who had surely uttered a complaint for every mile that passed.

Every fifteen miles the coach had stopped to change teams, but it was usually raining too hard for Maggie to get out and stretch her legs. Every fifty miles they’d halted for a longer time, so the passengers could eat, drink and relieve themselves, but the stations were crude and dirty and the food was hardly fit for consumption.

The coach creaked to a stop, and after Maggie descended, the driver lifted her bag down to her.

“Thank you, sir. I hope the last leg of your trip goes smoothly,” Maggie said.

“You’re welcome, Miz Harper. You’d better get up on the boardwalk yonder before those boots’re soaked through,” the driver said, pointing to the mud that squished up to her ankles. “Ain’t ya got someone meeting ya here?” “Oh, someone’s expecting me, sir, don’t worry. I just have to find my way to the newspaper office.”

A small town, Gillespie Springs nevertheless had a prosperous look on this sunny April morning. Next to the hotel on her right, Maggie could see signs announcing a millinery and a barbershop. When she turned to look to her left, she saw a bank, a doctor’s office, a general store, and across the street from those buildings, the saloon, the jail, a telegraph office and the livery. So where was the newspaper office? Then she noticed the small, new-looking building right across the street.

She narrowed her eyes to read the sign swinging in the breeze beneath the new building’s overhanging roof. “The Gillespie Springs Gazette, Established 1869,” she read aloud. Yes, this was it. The ad in the newspaper seeking an experienced pressman, or printing press operator, had mentioned that the venture was a new one. When she had written offering her services, Garrick Devlin, the editor, had responded with flattering speed.

Of course, Devlin might not have done so had she signed her letter with “Margaret Louise Harper” rather than “M. L. Harper.” Pangs of guilt had assailed her all the way from Austin, but she knew she had to find a way to leave there, and if misleading a prospective employer about her sex would secure her a job in another town more quickly, then mislead she would. Surely once she told Mr. Devlin why she was every bit as qualified as a male printer, he’d give her the chance to prove herself.

Garrick Devlin. She’d formed a picture of him in her mind. With a name like that, he must be an older man, probably in his fifties, with a balding head and spectacles perched on his nose. He’d have a plump, comfortable wife and a brood of grown or nearly grown children. Perhaps he’d already be a grandfather, and if so, no doubt he’d be a doting one. He might be skeptical of hiring a woman, but she’d tell him about her experience. Why, she’d started as a printer’s devil for her father, a veteran newspaperman, back in Ohio, and progressed to the point that when they got to Austin she’d been John Harper’s most-relied-upon reporter.

Devlin had to accept her! She just couldn’t go back to Austin! She’d rather die than face the knowing looks, the sneers, or the attentions of the officers and officials of the Freedmen’s Bureau, who suddenly seemed to find her irresistible—ever since Richard Burke had left her house that night.

Of course he had boasted of his conquest. She’d known it the very next week, when she’d gone with her father to a New Year’s Eve ball put on by the army for its staff and the rest of the Northeners who now lived in Texas. She’d seen the ladies whispering behind gloved hands in corners, staring in her direction, only to fall silent when she approached. They were distant and vague when she tried to converse with them, and some even looked right through her and walked away with an angry swish of skirts—as if she were a saloon girl who’d dared to trespass where only ladies were welcome!

Her dance card had been full that night, though, a fact that only seemed to make the officers’ wives and daughters hate her more. But she could take no joy in being the belle of the ball, for it was achingly clear that the men who danced with her were only looking to sample the delights Captain Burke had told them about.

Of course her sudden change in popularity—a belle on the dance floor, a pariah among women—could not escape her father’s attention, even as absentminded and preoccupied as James Harper could be at the best of times. She’d had to tell him what had happened between herself and Captain Burke. It was only the second time she’d ever seen her father cry; the first time had been when her mother had died. He hadn’t condemned Maggie, though. He’d been so kind and loving that she’d felt worse than ever.

She didn’t have to worry about him doing any violence to Burke—though he’d expressed a fervent desire to hurt him—because the captain had suddenly and conveniently been “called to Washington” two days after his last meeting with Maggie.

Maggie knew she’d been fortunate beyond measure when her “monthly visitor” came as usual two weeks after Burke’s departure, for she could imagine no hell worse than having to carry the fruit of her foolish liaison. Now they could put this unfortunate happening behind them, her father had told her, and things could go back to normal.

James Harper had protested when she’d told him she had to leave Austin. Things would blow over, he’d said—but she knew they would not. Her position there was untenable. Even though she was willing to forgo what social life there was for Yankees in Texas, and just live for her work, she could no longer endure her father’s pitying kindness in the midst of her disgrace.

Maggie couldn’t tell him that, of course. She’d told him she needed a change of scene, to try her wings. He’d been adamantly against her going off alone to take a position, but she had reminded him she was an adult with some limited funds of her own, and in the end he had given her his reluctant blessing.

Now she took a deep breath and began to wade through the ankle-deep mud that separated the newspaper office from the hotel.