The Whiskey Tide (38 page)

     
"Must have been some dice game," he said roughly.

     
Joe could feel their emotion. They were used to giving, not getting. The thousand dollars cash he'd persuaded the landlord to take for the house had been money well spent.

     
"I promised to give advice on the tree," he said taking his exit.

     
Drake had vanished, upstairs probably. For once Arliss was simply sitting, without a kid in her lap. Her eyes were sad.

     
Joe dropped onto the opposite end of the threadbare couch. "Listen, I told Vogel to keep an eye out for a sewing machine and he found me one. It didn't run, but I've got it going okay now, near as I can tell. You want it?"

     
Her eyes lighted and she seemed about to leap. Her excitement faded almost as quickly.

     
"Vogel doesn't give stuff away for free."

     
"I fixed a motor for him in trade. You can make me up a couple of shirts if you want to square things. Sorry it didn't turn up in time for you to use for Christmas."

     
She flung her arms around his neck, looking her own age and laughing.

***

     
Kate said some birds pecked at those of their own kind who looked different or weak. The company gathered for Aunt Helène's Christmas dinner scrupulously avoided any hint that Theo was different or that anything awful had happened to him. Nevertheless, as their forced cheer chattered around him, Aggie was sure it must feel like so many sharp beaks tearing his skin.

     
It shocked her he was being subjected to this. Even his sisters, self-important Clarissa and sweet but vacant Ivy, hadn't been allowed to see him the two days he was hospitalized. No visitors until his nerves were stronger and he recovered from having his stomach pumped out, the doctors advised. Now, just one day after coming home, he was being barraged by company. He looked whiter than the damask draping Aunt Helène's table. Aggie could see the effort it took him to answer when somebody spoke, and she and Kate were both seated too far away to help him out. Why in God's name hadn't Aunt Helène canceled her silly dinner? And what could have pushed Theo to such a desperate act?

     
Besides her family and Theo's, some cousins of Aunt Helène's had come, and a stuffy old couple with vague business connections to Uncle Finney. Aunt Helène was putting on the dog, of course. Goblets for water and three for wine at each place. Gobs of silver. The butler hovering. Conversation that would put a bull to sleep forced its way out in snatches. Only Woody was happily unaware of the strained atmosphere.

     
"I'm going to have classes after New Year's," he told Theo over plum pudding. "And Santa brought me picture postcards of King Tut's tomb."

     
"That Egyptian business is fascinating, isn't it?" Theo smiled wanly. "I'd like to see those pyramids and places, wouldn't you?"

     
"You could," Uncle Finney blustered eagerly. "Fellow like you who's been in the army could get around that part of the world all right. You could take Pierce. Weather ought to be decent enough for a crossing by March."

     
Very briefly Aggie entertained a charitable feeling toward her uncle. Theo made no reply.

     
"He could if Kate hadn't broken his heart," Clarissa said in a nasty voice.

     
Aggie swallowed a lump of plum pudding so suddenly she had to swallow it a second time. Everyone was staring.

     
Clarissa glared back. "Are you all blind? He's been crazy about her for years. It's her fault he's miserable — her fault he almost died—"

     
"Clarissa!" Aunt Helène gasped.

     
"Well, it's true. I told him he ought to get married, and he said the girl he wanted to marry had turned him down. He didn't have to spell it out."

     
"You don't know what you're talking about." Theo pushed to his feet and groped for his cane.

     
Kate looked as if she'd been struck in the face.

     
"See? He won't let anyone say a word against her!" Clarissa sniffed.

     
"Why don't you shut up?" suggested Aggie.

     
Theo was almost out of the room. Kate flung her napkin onto her chair and started after him. Clarissa's words continued to erupt.

     
"But Kate has important things to do with her life, like making sure we don't wear feathers on our hats—"

     
"Stop being an utter ass!" Aggie's voice rang as clearly as Aunt Helène's crystal. Her mother's expression was horrified, but for once Aggie wasn't keen to watch Kate pecked at either. "It was years ago when she lectured us about feathers, and at least she's concerned about more than snooping and tattling, which is all you've ever accomplished!"

     
"I think... it might be best if we left," Mama said weakly.

     
With a shrug Aggie tossed her napkin onto the remnants of her plum pudding — which she'd always thought was a nasty dessert anyway, once you'd eaten the hard sauce. She went after Kate. Hearing voices from the library she paused to listen.

     
"I'm sorry," Kate was saying.

     
"That I have an idiot for a sister? So am I."

     
From the doorway Aggie watched her sister hug him clumsily. She wondered whether Theo really had asked Kate to marry him, and knew he had. With her certainty came a spurt of the familiar jealousy toward her sister. Not that she had any interest in Theo herself, except as a cousin, and you shouldn't have to marry someone just because they asked. Still, it rankled that Kate had always been the one he liked best.

     
"It had nothing to do with you," Theo said. "I simply couldn't stand any more of everyone being so happy, all the holiday cheer, while I...." He gestured aimlessly. "The only pity is that I botched the job."

     
Aggie's throat caught.

     
"Don't you be an ass too," she said with all the teasing she could muster, and sailed into the room. "If I lost you, who could I call when I wanted pancakes?"

     
Kate frowned, not understanding, but Theo did and chuckled. The sound of it pleased Aggie, made her feel that she was doing something useful. She slipped an arm through his and squeezed.

     
"We're being taken home in disgrace."

     
"That hasn't happened in some time." His smile was tired but genuine, not like the ones he'd manufactured over dinner.

     
"I know. We've neglected Woody's education terribly."

     
Theo laughed aloud.

     
"Have Pierce bring you over tonight. Peg left a wonderful baked ham, and fondant galore."

     
Kate's expression held disapproval, but Aggie ignored it. Theo looked happier.

***

     
Kate sat at the desk in her room, where she seemed to retreat more and more. Her mother and Rosalie had been cool toward her in the two weeks since Christmas. Though they'd condemned Clarissa's accusations as cruel and unfair, and though they never said as much, they were upset to think Kate had turned down Theo's offer of marriage. Her fingers flipped through field notes she'd once so carefully made, but they seemed to belong to someone else from another lifetime. She was startled by a knock on her door.

     
Her mother glided in before she could answer.

     
"Your uncle is downstairs," she announced tightly.

     
Kate waited.

     
"He's offering to pay for you to return to college this term. Quite generous, considering. If you left day after tomorrow you'd only have missed a week of classes. He believes — I agree — as smart as you are you'd have no trouble making it up."

     
Temptation licked through Kate like a fire. In its wake came suspicion. The timing of the offer felt wrong. Why hadn't Uncle Finney offered this earlier?

     
"No," she said.

     
Her uncle's sudden overture felt too like a bribe. Like he wanted her out of the way for some reason.

     
Her mother shoved the door shut behind her. "I've had enough of this ridiculous resentment toward your uncle."

     
"This has nothing to do with resentment. My tutoring job doesn't end until June."

     
"Can't you think of someone else for a change? You've spurned a kind, decent man who's devoted to you. Can't you at give him a chance to heal?"

     
So that was Uncle Finney's ploy. Concoct a story that would turn the others against her if she refused.

     
"Theo managed to carry a torch with me away all last year," she said shortly. It would never occur to her uncle to hatch such a plan for Theo's sake. She brushed past her mother, stung by her accusations of selfishness, and went down the back stairs.

     
The kitchen felt deserted. Peg was working afternoons at a bakery to relieve them from paying her full salary. Aggie slammed in from outside, her nose red from crying.

     
"Ag?" Kate was too distracted to voice concern, but Aggie heard her unspoken question.

     
"I got fired!" Aggie kicked free of her galoshes. They struck the wall and bounced. "`Nothing personal. We needed extra help for the holidays and don't need it now.'" She blew her nose and marched to the phone. "Well, I'll show them!" She turned her lips to the mouthpiece. "Felix? It's Aggie Hinshaw. I know I was rotten to you, but I need a job. You said once you'd help me. Will you? Please?"

Twenty-eight

     
Through half of February Kate kept alert for further maneuvering by her uncle, but he largely ignored her. All outward appearances hinted he'd given up pressuring Mama to sell. Instead, he became alarmingly attentive to his sister, showering her with brotherly affection, even taking her out to lunch alone several times. It made Kate wary.

     
Mama's friends had begun to exclude her from the luncheons and other fussy events she enjoyed. Her financial plight as well as the threat presented by an attractive widow made them uncomfortable. She doggedly applied for work, though Kate suspected it was futile. Her mother had no commercial skills and was clearly unsuited for the menial and physically demanding tasks available to untrained women. All of it made her vulnerable to Uncle Finney's persuasions.

     
Other worries piled up. Billy's mother died despite all he'd gone through to buy her medicine and Kate wondered how he'd manage on his own. Aggie had launched an impulsive campaign to coax Theo out of his doldrums, raising the danger that Theo might fall for her, since he, too, was vulnerable and Aggie flirted as unconsciously as she breathed. When Kate tried to reason with her, Aggie laughed off the warning. She was seeing Felix again, too, and working at some modeling job he'd found her.

     
Six months. Just six more months and the bulk of their worries would be over, Kate promised herself as she slogged through sleet at the end of an afternoon of trying to introduce information into the minds of three giggling, disinterested girls. Come July she'd be able to make another rum run. Until then there was just enough in the bank to cover loan payments.