Bicycle Built for Two (11 page)

“I could use some advice,” Bill said,
overflowing with good will and gratitude. His was the sunniest
nature in the Finney family, perhaps because Kate and her mother
had kept him away from his ogre of a father as much as possible.
Kate, who valued his good disposition but believed it was overrated
under certain circumstances, wished they were still little kids so
she could kick him.

“I doubt that I can offer any advice,” Alex
said modestly. “I was hoping to get some from you.”

Liar
. Kate turned around so her mother couldn’t see the grimace
she adopted for Alex’s benefit. He only grinned at her.
Figured.

“If you don’t mind, everybody, I’m going to
rest now,” Mrs. Finney said.

Kate’s attention instantly snapped back to
her. Hazel Finney was the important one here, she reminded herself,
and she mattered a whole lot more than Kate’s uncomfortable
sensation of being overpowered by Alex and his money. Bending over
her mother, she kissed her on the forehead. “Sure, Ma. Rest up.
I’ll put Billy’s flowers in water while the gents gab about stocks
and bonds.”

Mrs. Finney’s eyes remained closed, but she
smiled. Kate took that as approval of her plan, picked up Bill’s
pathetic bouquet, and marched for the door, past her brother and
Alex.

Bill held out a hand. “Wait, Katie, I want
to ask you a couple of things.”

Sure, he did. As if Kate knew beans about
stocks and bonds. She snapped, “Be right back,” and kept
walking.

Before she reached the door, Alex was there,
opening it for her. As she stomped past him, he said, “Don’t worry,
Miss Finney, I won’t squander the family fortune.”

She felt her face blazing with fury and
humiliation as she walked down the hall.

# # #

The colors and scents of spring rioted in
the countryside. The grasses growing alongside the highway were as
green as sun-sprinkled emeralds, and the wild flowers shouted their
presence in bright reds, yellows, blues, and purples. Birds sang.
Crickets chirped. In green, green pastures, cows lowed and bulls
pawed the ground, wanting to get at the cows. Sheep dotted the far
hills like flecks of ivory, and the apricot, peach, and pear trees
were radiant with blossoms.

Chicago’s filth and stinks
lay behind Alex like a bad dream. This was where he belonged: in
the country. The city was good for a change of pace every once in a
while, but
this
was what he loved. He breathed deeply and contentedly of the
clean country air as his traveling coach neared the family
farm.

“Family farm,” he muttered aloud. He
wondered what Kate Finney would say if he referred to these acres
and acres that had belonged to the English family for generations
his “family farm” in her presence. Nothing nice, he was sure.

The girl was driving him crazy. He’d known
he for two weeks now, and he still couldn’t fathom her. She didn’t
appreciate anything he did, she had a chip on her shoulder the size
of the Rock of Gibraltar, and she treated him with absolute
contempt. What was her problem?

Kate hasn’t had a pleasant
life
, Mrs. Finney had said.
My children didn’t have
advantages
, she’d said.

Alex guessed that must account for Kate’s
cursedly insufferable attitude, but it was still hard to take. It
crossed his mind that his own attitude might not be so genteel if
he’d been reared in the slums of Chicago rather than the glories of
this clean, green countryside. He was still brooding about Kate
Finney when the coach barreled through the iron gates and
approached the house.

Because he’d been puzzling over the Kate
Finney problem since he’d climbed aboard the carriage in Chicago,
Alex observed the English farmhouse with a new and critical
appreciation, thinking of it in terms of Kate, Bill, and Hazel
Finney.

The house was typical of those built in the
early days of the century. Two stories. White paint. Green
shutters. Huge front porch with an awning that extended the entire
length of the house. Lots of big, shady trees lending their
loveliness to the picture. Cows in the pastures that surrounded the
landscape. Alex couldn’t see the chicken coop, but he knew the
chickens were in back of the house, scratching and clucking. The
barn, painted red out of adherence to tradition more than anything
else, stood a few yards from the house. It looked mighty tidy,
considering it was a barn. The pigs resided behind the barn, far
enough away from the house so that the family didn’t have to smell
them, but close enough to slop, even during the snowy winter
months.

Alex was proud of the appearance of his
family estate. He’d worked hard to keep it up and make it better.
Still, it was basically a farmhouse, and he was basically a
farmer.

He shook his head. Judging from her reaction
to that simple little Polish beer garden, Kate would probably be
stunned into silence if she were invited into what she would
certainly consider such a grand home.

He couldn’t suppress a grin at the delicious
thought of Kate being stunned into silence. It might be worthwhile
to bring her out here for the mere pleasure of shutting her up. He
was sure she’d think Alex and his mother and sister resided in a
great and fabulous mansion, complete with grounds and servants.

To Alex, the English farmhouse was a
comfortable old family home. Big enough, certainly, for a family of
six or more, and with quarters for a household staff, but it didn’t
come close to mansion-size. In fact, the place was pretty much a
typical farmhouse, if one operated a prosperous farm, which Alex
did. And, dash it, that hadn’t happened by accident. It had been
he, Alex English, who had built the family enterprises to their
present level of prosperity.

Recalling Kate’s brother Bill, Alex
acknowledged that he was attempting to do the same with his
family’s assets, such as they were. Bill had to work on a much
smaller scale, but still . . . The boy should be commended for
attempting to dig his family out of the gutter.

Alex had told Bill so, more diplomatically,
of course, when they’d spoken in the hospital two weeks ago. He had
also given Bill a couple of tips he’d garnered from his
investment-minded friends and associates, and had offered him the
opportunity to profit from the World’s Columbian Exposition, as
well. Since Alex was in a position to do so, he’d offered Bill
shares in his own Agricultural Cooperative at a greatly reduced
price.

Bill, unlike his sister, had thanked him for
the information and the offer. He’d made arrangements on the spot
to take advantage of the Agricultural Cooperative offer. Bill’s
appreciation had been overt and absolutely genuine. Every time Kate
thanked Alex for anything, Alex could tell it just about killed her
to do it. Dratted woman.

Conky, Alex’s no-account bird dog, set up a
frenzy of barking that jolted Alex out of his broody mood. The dog
was a total failure as a hunter, but his rapture at seeing Alex
again cheered him up a little. “Hey there, Conky!” he called out
the window. The dog, leaping joyously and making a horrible racket,
trotted alongside the carriage, jumping up and scratching the door
panel every now and then. Alex sighed. What did it matter if the
animal scratched the paint? Conky might be worthless, but Alex
counted him as a friend, and a man couldn’t have too many
friends.

“Alex! Alex!”

His mother’s happy shout yanked Alex farther
out of his mood. He leaned out the window, cupped his hands around
his mouth, and hollered, “Ma!” like he used to do when he was a
boy. Conky barked, too, as if he were echoing Alex’s shout.

Kate Finney called her mother “Ma.” Maybe
they weren’t so fundamentally different from one another as surface
indications would lead one to believe.

“Don’t be an ass,” he advised himself.

When the coach horses drew up to the huge
front porch, Alex saw his little sister tripping merrily down the
steps. Mary Jo, the youngest of the five English children, was
fourteen years old now. The rest of Alex’s siblings were married
and living in or near Chicago. Mary Jo thought she should be
married and living away from home, too, but everyone knew that was
only her age determining her attitude.

Alex loved her even if she was going through
adolescence. He also gave her some extra latitude because he knew
she missed their father, the older Alexander English, who had
passed away only two years earlier. Alex missed their father, as
well, so he tried not to be too hard on his little sister.

“Alex!” Mary Jo screamed. “Alex! Minnie had
her kittens!”

Minnie, the barn cat who kept the rodent
population under control on the English farm, had been doing her
duty for years now, supplying kittens on a regular basis to serve
in the feline rat patrol.

“Are they as ugly as the last batch?” Alex
called as he opened the door and let down the carriage steps.

“They’re
beautiful
!”

Before he could properly brace himself, Mary
Jo threw herself into his arms, propelling him back through the
open coach door. He ended up sitting on the steps with her in his
lap, Conky leaping on both of them, and unable to catch his breath
for laughing.

“Mary Jo, you little fiend, are you trying to
kill me?”

“Mary Jo, really,” their mother said, trying
to sound stern. She couldn’t. She’d never been able to, actually,
which was probably one of the reasons her children loved her so
dearly.

The haggard, life-destroyed face of Hazel
Finney intruded into his mind’s eye, and a notion that had
assaulted him several days before in the hospital tapped him on the
shoulder again. He wondered what Kate would have to say about it,
provided his mother approved. Nothing good, he imagined.

But to hell with Kate Finney. Alex had
become quite fond of Mrs. Finney and Bill Finney. If Kate didn’t
want to accept Alex’s offers of friendship and help, he’d just take
his suggestion to the other, more amiable Finneys. Dratted
woman.

What with the general
hilarity of his home-coming and Mary Jo’s insistent questions about
the World’s Columbian Exposition—”For heaven’s sake, Mary Jo,
I
told
you I’m
going to take you to the fair!” “Yes, but
when
, Alex?” “Soon, soon.”—it wasn’t
until almost midnight, after his pesky sister had been trundled off
to bed in spite of her protests, that Alex got the chance to talk
to his mother.

“I met a girl, Ma.”

Mrs. English clasped her hands to her bosom
and beamed at him. “Oh, Alex! I’m so happy for you. When are you
going to bring her home to the family?”

Blast. He’d obviously begun this
conversation the wrong way. “Not that kind of girl,” he hastened to
assure his mother. “For heaven’s sake, Ma.” In spite of his
embarrassment, he laughed.

“Oh.” His mother’s face fell. Then it looked
worried. “Alex, you’re not taking up with the wrong sort, are
you?”

“Wrong sort? What the devil—”

“Don’t swear!”

Alex rolled his eyes. It
took approximately five seconds of being in his mother’s company
for him to turn from am almost-thirty-year-old man into a
five-year-old boy again. “Sorry, Ma. But, no, I’m not taking up
with the wrong sort. And I’m not about to marry the girl I just
met.” What an uncomfortable life
that
would be.

Only seconds later, it came as a shock to
Alex to realize that he’d pop anyone in the jaw if they dared
question Kate or Bill Finney’s moral worth. How had that happened?
And when? Good Lord. He’d better start watching his step around the
Finneys, or anything might happen. He shuddered at the thought.

“Good.” His mother patted him on the knee.
“I hope you won’t marry anyone for a while yet, Alex. I think you
need a little . . .” She stopped speaking.

Alex frowned. “I need a little what?”

She patted him on the knee. “Alex, you’re
the best son any mother could have, and I love you dearly. I know
you’re a generous, kind-hearted man, too, but . . .” She stopped
talking again.

Dash it, if she was going to tell him he was
turning into a fussy old man, as Gil MacIntosh had, Alex might just
have to do something. He didn’t know what. “What, Ma?” he demanded.
“Do you think I’m a selfish pig, too?”

His mother’s eyes opened up until they
looked like blue marbles against a white background. “Alex!
Whatever are you talking about? You’re no more selfish than I am a
Greek! It’s only . . . Oh, Alex, I don’t know. It’s only that you
sometimes act as though you’ve forgotten there are other, less
fortunate, people in the world.”

“Good Gad,” he muttered. “Not you, too.”

She smiled sadly. “Please don’t hate me for
saying that. Nobody could be kinder or more generous to his family
than you are, Alex.”

He gazed at his mother,
feeling abused and put-upon for several seconds. He didn’t know
what to say. Anyhow, if he
had
become, perhaps, the least little bit complacent
in his success, any hint of complacency had been battered out of
him by the Finney family, blast them. “Believe me, I know there are
less fortunate people in the world, Ma.” He did now, at any
rate.

“I’m sure of it.”

Detecting a lack of sincerity in his
mother’s tone, Alex felt himself getting peeved. “Are you through,
Ma?” he asked rather stiffly.

“Oh, there, now, I’ve hurt your feelings.
Alex, please forget I said anything. I didn’t mean it. You’re the
kindest, most wonderful boy in the world, and I should be ashamed
of myself for even mentioning . . .”

There she went again. She didn’t want to
tell him to his face that he was a selfish, uncaring son of a
bitch. At least Kate Finney didn’t have any trouble expressing
herself when it came to enumerating his shortcomings.