The Gamble (I) (33 page)

But most important, if the prohibition amendment was adopted by the people, he’d soon be leaving Kansas for good.

What end would it serve if she acceded to the hesitant invitation in his words? She was a woman with a broken body; she didn’t need a broken heart, too.

“Good night, Scott,” she said quietly, withdrawing into the shadows.

“Gussie, wait.”

“Go to bed. Jube is probably wondering what happened to you.”

When she had quietly closed the door, he stood staring at it, with his palms still tucked beneath his arms. What the hell was he trying to prove? She was right—Jube was sleeping in his bed right now, while he stood at Agatha’s door thinking about kissing her.

He swung around angrily.

She’s not the kind to take a kiss lightly, Gandy, so make damned sure before you do it that you mean it.

If people thought it strange that one of the local saloon owners went to the railway station to see the local milliner off to a temperance tea at the governor’s mansion, nobody said a word. After all, the newly orphaned Collinson boy was with them, and everyone knew they had taken him under their wing.

Willy was wearing his proudest possession: a pair of brand-new indigo-blue Levi Strauss britches with orange stitching and copper rivets—“just like the cowboys wear!”—as Willy had pointed out proudly when he came running into the store to model them for Agatha. “An’, no suspenders, neither!”

“No suspenders!” She had turned him in a circle and duly admired him.

“Nope! Cuz they’re choke-barreled.”

Agatha and Violet had both laughed. “They’re what?”

“Choke-barreled. That’s what Scotty says the cowboys call ‘em. Skinny-legged... see?”

He stood now at the station, seeing Agatha off in his choke-barreled blue denim pants, looking healthy and robust. His brown boots already had hundreds of scuffs, but his nails were clean, he had gained weight, and he no longer scratched.

Agatha, too, looked stunning. She had made herself a brand-new dress for the occasion, a gorgeous creation of tangerine faille. The jacket sported dolman sleeves, with a collar and trimmings of brown velvet. This summer’s
Godey’s
dictated that no dress should be made of only one material, so she’d chosen a deeper melon-colored taffeta for the underskirt, and a stiffer silk faille for the sheath-fronted overskirt: handkerchief-styled—pointed in the front, with cascading rear draperies. At her throat billowed an ivory lace jabot of silk stockinet. Her outfit was completed by a tilted gable bonnet of melon and russet, forming a pointed arch over her face.

Watching her bid good-bye to Willy, Scott Gandy admired not only her dress, but the way its colors complemented the red highlights of her hair, which was coiled into a French twist up the back of her head. He admired, too, her pale green eyes with their mink-dark lashes, her apricot skin, and her fine-turned jawline, which he had liked from the moment he saw it. And her attractive mouth, smiling gamely, though he suspected she wasn’t so anxious to go, now that the last minute had come.

“How long’ll you be gone, Gussie?” Willy held both her hands and looked up angelically. Scott had combed the boy’s hair with extra care that morning—and, for the first time, used a tad of Macassar oil. It gleamed brightly in the sun.

“Just overnight. Now you do as I said and help Violet sweep up before closing.”

“I will.”

Gandy watched her gloved hands adjust Willy’s shirt collar, then brush something off his cheek. “And teeth, nails,
and
ears tonight at bedtime—promise?”

Willy’s face skewed in disgust and he scuffled his feet. “Aw... I promise.”

“I’ll ask Scott when I get back.” She touched the tip of Willy’s nose to soften the warning. “Now you be a good boy and I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

“Bye, Gussie.” He came at her with open arms.

“Good-bye, sweetheart.” She bent forward in the constricting skirts and Willy kissed her flush on the mouth. She held him to her breast as best she could, while he balanced on tiptoes, stretched full-length. For a moment her eyelashes fanned her cheeks and Gandy saw clearly how she’d grown to love the boy. He thought of where
she was going, and for what reason, and admired her for the kind of commitment it took to go. If the law passed, one of them would eventually have to bid Willy a final good-bye. She realized that as well as he.

Agatha straightened. Willy backed up and slipped his hand into Scott’s. She looked up into the man’s dark eyes. They appeared momentarily troubled and she wondered what had brought on the disturbed look.

“Good-bye, Scott.”

He summoned a quarter grin, as if consciously shaking off whatever had been bothering him. “Take care of yourself. And I’ll take care of Willy.” He looked down and waggled Willy’s hand. “We’re plannin’ t’ go over to Emma’s for supper tonight, aren’t we, sprout?”

“Yeah... chicken and dumplin’s.”

Agatha watched the two of them smile at each other.

“Well, I’d best be boarding.”

Scott reached down to pick up her small carpetbag and hand it to her.

“Don’t worry about a thing back here.”

“I won’t.”

For a moment his thumb pressed her gloved knuckles, then slipped away. They stood locked in a moment of uncertainty, a good-bye hug hovering on both their minds. Through her memory flashed the image of him greeting Jubilee on the day of her arrival—his bold caress on her buttocks, the kiss they’d shared while half the town looked on. But now he stepped back and Agatha realized how foolish she’d been even to think it. The hugging that night on the steps was one thing—that had been sympathetic sharing. To do it in broad daylight at the depot was quite another thing, she chided herself. She turned away quickly before either of them could give in to the urge.

From the window of her coach she watched Scott and Willy. Scott was wearing a trim suit of fawn-brown and a matching flat-crowned Stetson. His brown string tie lifted in the breeze, then settled back against his white shirtfront. He said something to Willy and Willy nodded enthusiastically. Then Scott reached into his ticket pocket and withdrew a cheroot. He patted his jacket searchingly and she could
tell he was teasing Willy about something. Willy began searching, too, and came up with a wooden match. Scott clamped the cheroot between his teeth and leaned over while Willy lifted one knee and struck the match against the thigh of his new stiff denim britches. Three times he tried it; three times he failed. Then Scott adjusted the match in Willy’s fingers and demonstrated for him. The next time the match caught and Willy held it gingerly while Scott leaned down and lit his cheroot.

Next he’ll have the boy smoking,
she thought. But instead of frowning at the possibility, her lips tipped up in a melancholy smile. Watching them together—the tall, uncondescending man and the happy blond boy—she saw a growing love flourishing between them. The train began moving and they both lifted their heads, waving—the two most important people in her life. Yet she stood to lose one, and maybe both of them, soon. In less than two months the decision about prohibition would be put to the voters of Kansas.

She rested her head against the seat and let her eyes slowly close. Her eyelids stung and a lump came to her throat. She almost wished the prohibitionists would fail.

The formal garden of the gubernatorial mansion was laid out in a diamond parterre design. Meticulously pruned privet hedges outlined the graveled paths between the profusely blossoming roses. Red, salmon, white, and pink, they scented the air with their inimitable fragrance. Chrysanthemums formed cushions of yellow and bronze at the junctures of paths. Stately yews stood as erect and uniform as a green picket fence around the boundaries, while scattered horse chestnut trees provided lakes of shade at strategic points within the formal design. Upon white iron benches, bustled women sipped tea from demitasse cups while bearded dignitaries in formal attire crossed their hands behind their back and discussed the political situation in harrumphing voices, their moustaches bobbing.

It was all very pompous, very elite. Dressed in her crisp, up-to-date finery, carrying herself with regal bearing and impeccable manners, Agatha fit right in. But all the while
she discussed the format adopted by her W.C.T.U. local in combating demon rum, all the while she learned new methods of reaching voters and spreading antialcohol propaganda, she felt traitorous to the two who’d waved her off at the depot.

The governor was especially decorous, cinched tightly into a winged white collar and black Oxford tie. He bowed over the hand of each lady present, huddling solicitously with Baptist ministers, conferring with well-known illuminaries of the temperance movement.

Drusilla Wilson was there, and Amanda Way, and other notable leaders whose photographs Agatha had seen in the
Banner.
Meeting and visiting with them, Agatha again felt misplaced. Their ardor for the temperance cause ran hot in their veins, while hers had cooled considerably. Recalling her excitement the day she’d received the invitation to this event, Agatha wished some of it still bubbled within her. Instead, she thought about November 2 as the day the guillotine might very well fall—not on Scott Gandy, but on her.

She hired a carriage and driver to take her back to her hotel, ate dinner in the elegant dining room, and wished she were at Cyrus and Emma Paulie’s restaurant eating chicken and dumplings with Willy and Scott. She settled into her tastefully decorated room with its screen-printed wallpaper and tasseled draperies and wished she were in her own narrow apartment with the piano and banjo thumping through the floor. She lay back in a bed lined with fat goose-down ticks and wished she were sitting on a hard wooden step looking up at the stars, listening to the coyotes howl and enjoying the scent of a man’s cigar.

In the morning she shopped and found a harmonica for Willy and a carved ivory brooch for Violet. She passed a tobacconist’s shop and paused.

No, Agatha, it won’t do. You’re a single woman and he’s a single man. It simply wouldn’t be proper.

Resolutely, she moved on, but a short distance beyond the shop she stopped and retraced her steps. She stood before the window, admiring cherrywood pipes, tulipwood humidors, and boxed cigars. She looked up and saw her reflection in the pane, lit by the early morning sun of the
warm autumn day. She imagined Scott Gandy beside her, the two of them out for a stroll to the market, he in his flat-crowned Stetson and crisp fawn suit, she with her pert dress and gable bonnet, her hand caught in the crook of his elbow.

A horse and dray passed on the cobbles behind her. The clatter awoke her from her musing and she entered the shop.

Inside, it was dusky and aromatic, the smells heady, rich, and masculine. So different from the smell of dyes and starches and machine oil.

“Good morning, ma’am,” the owner greeted her.

“Good morning.”

“Something for your man today?” His handlebar moustache and rosy cheeks lifted as he smiled.

Your man.
The thought was unduly provocative. Scott Gandy was not her man, nor would he ever be. But, for the moment, it was fun pretending. She knew nothing about brands, however, and realized she’d give herself away by questioning: What wife wouldn’t know her husband’s favorite brand?

“Yes. A pair of trimming scissors, perhaps.”

“Ah, I have just the thing.”

She left the store with a tiny gold blunt-nosed pair of scissors in a flat leather slipcase, wondering if when she reached home she’d have the nerve to give it to him after all.

How forward of you, Agatha. How unseemly.

But he has given me a Singer sewing machine. What is a tiny pair of scissors, compared to that?

You’re rationalizing, Agatha.

Oh, go lick! I’ve been a prude all of my life, and what has it gotten me? For once I’m going to follow my heart.

Her heart led her home, hammering with expectation as the train pulled into the Proffitt depot late that day. Her heart told her she must not search the crowd for Gandy, must not expect him to be there. But she adjusted her hat and checked her hair and hoped her skirt wasn’t too wrinkled and searched the depot for him in spite of herself.

He wasn’t there. But Willy was—still in his stiff blue britches, standing on a bench of the depot veranda, exuberantly waving and jumping.

She stepped from the train and he came hurtling against her. “Gussie, guess what!”

“What?”

“I gots a cat!”

“A cat!” Her smile was radiant, though it took some effort not to search the platform in the hope that Scott might step out of the building belatedly. She told herself it was absolutely ridiculous to be disappointed at his absence.

Willy jabbered a mile a minute. “Vy-let, she said Miss Gill had a litter of ‘em down at the boardin’ house, and if she didn’t git rid of ‘em soon they was gonna have t’ drown ‘em, so I went over there and there was this one, he was purple and white—”

Agatha laughed. “Purple and wh—”

“And he was my fav-rite and I ast her if I could have it and she says yes, so I brung it to Scotty’s and Scotty says I could keep it long as it slep’ in my room nights so’s it wouldn’t get underfoot in the saloon, and during the day Moose can do mousin’ in the storeroom.”

“M... Moose?” Agatha chuckled.

“That’s what I named him, cuz he’s bigger’n all the others.”

“And Moose is purple?” Agatha wondered how she’d ever made it through a day without Willy to brighten it. He scratched his head now from excitement, not even realizing what he was doing, till his hair stuck up like hard-crack taffy.

“Well, sorta—Scotty says he’s gray, but he looks purple t’ me, with white specks where his whiskers come out, and he slep’ with me last night and I din’t roll over and squash ‘im or nothin’! Wait’ll you see ‘im, Gussie! He’s the most beautiful cat you ever seen!”

“Saw.”

“Yeah, well, come on. Hurry up! He’s at the saloon and Jack’s takin’ care of ‘im for me, but I hafta get back and watch ‘im.”

She had little choice but to “hurry up.” Willy picked up her carpetbag and ran.