“MISS SWEETIE?” ONLY one sleeve of Nathan’s oak-brown sweater is pushed up this time, exposing an ink stain that looks like a paw print. The fireplace casts a halo around his thatch of hair. “Would you like to come in, or are we still strangers?”
The blazing fire in their hearth beckons me forward, but I remain fixed to my spot halfway between the door and the stairs.
“Still strangers,” I say crisply, willing my heart to pipe down. Bear is nowhere to be seen. I briskly hand Nathan the column and then step back. “Please pardon the delay. What did your mother think of ‘The Custom-ary’?”
“She agreed it was very good. But I am sorry. We are a moderate newspaper. She worries that if we print something too, er, radical, they will call us carpetbaggers. We would go out of business.”
“I understand.” I hide my disappointment in a brisk and forward manner. “Please tell her not to worry. I am a seasoned professional, not some ingenue who will cry into her handkerchief at the slightest rejection. If one column doesn’t serve, I move on to the next.” I dust off my gloved hands with two quick movements.
“Delighted to hear it.”
“Any new subscriptions?”
“Yes. Ninety-seven!”
I gasp and clap my hands. “Ninety-seven! That is swell!”
“All thanks to you.” With a grand sweep of his arms, he bows low to me.
I hear myself giggling and stop immediately. “Ahem. Well, I don’t have all night. Does this column serve?”
Nathan, who has started to move his feet back and forth in a lilting gavotte, abruptly straightens. “Oh, er, let me see.” When he is done, a smile skims his face. “Very serviceable. Certainly puts the male pressures in perspective.”
I shouldn’t linger, but when the window is opened, the breeze always floats through. “Which pressures are those, Mr. Bell?” I hug the undyed coat to me, rooted to the spot by the certainty that I am about to learn something very intriguing about Nathan, something I would never hear eavesdropping.
“Well, er, the pressure of providing for a family.”
At least that is a nobler concern than that voiced by Merritt Payne. “Your parents have given you a noble profession.” A profession that Lizzie Crump has no reservations entertaining.
“Noble, yes.” He bends his neck to one side, and a joint pops. “But a printer’s life means late hours. Constant soot. Work that wears the fingers to the bone . . .” His eyes drift back toward the print shop. I can’t help wondering if he is thinking about his mother.
I adjust my hat, which has scooted so far down on my forehead as to act as a blinder. “Late hours. Constant soot. It sounds dreadful. If it is such a concern for you, you could always prepare a disclaimer, much like the horse breeders do.”
His eyes crimp. “That would certainly give new meaning to the word mare-ried.”
“Yes. ‘Here comes the bridle.’”
He tucks his chin, hiding his grin, just as I conceal one under my scarf. But I must shake myself loose of the sticky web that has trapped us both. “Mr. Bell, I seem to have used up all my stationery.”
“Say no more. If there’s one thing we have, it’s paper. Payne Mills supplies ours at a good discount. It’s one of the reasons we can afford to stay in business.”
“Payne Mills?”
“My father and Mr. Payne attended Yale together.”
“Oh.” I’m not sure which surprises me more, that Mr. Bell knows Mr. Payne or the other way around. He disappears for a moment, and when he returns, he passes me a package whose weight suggests a fifth ream of a hundred sheets, plus a box of envelopes. “There you go. Enough for several letters and maybe a few memoirs while you’re at it.”
“Is that a comment on my age?” I snap.
“No, only your experience, which of course must be vast.” He leans forward, as if to catch a glimpse under my hat.
I recoil so quickly, I give myself a crick in the neck. “Of course it is. Well then, good night.”
“Before you leave, I have been doing some thinking. You see, I’d attributed Bear’s poor manners to a regression in training. But she also gets excited when she encounters people with whom she has developed an affection. She starts herding them, as if she wants to protect them.”
A cold sweat makes me itch to molt my clothes and slither away. But I don’t move a muscle.
“Is it possible that we . . . know each other?” The words fly like darts looking for a mark.
It takes me a moment to recover my wits. “There are some people, when you meet them, you feel as if you’ve known them all your life. And then there are people who live under your nose all your life, yet you don’t know them at all. Perhaps the same is true for dogs. I bid you good night.”
I leave him to untangle that and stumble away. I can’t help feeling that despite the layers, he has somehow managed to see right through me.
Twenty
Salt and Pepper swirl through the front door of the Payne Estate like soap bubbles pushed in by a breeze, their faces glowing.
Salt looks especially fetching in a dress of watermelon pink, her plush smile brimming with pleasantries. She dips side to side as I help her remove her coat. There’s a giddy energy about her that makes even her Eau de Lilac perfume bounce around in my nose. “Guess how we got here?” Salt asks Caroline, who sashays down the staircase at a regal pace.
“Adam and Eve had too much time on their hands?” Caroline says dryly.
“No. Bicycles!” Salt claps her gloved hands. “Miss Sweetie called them ‘freedom machines,’ and they are such fun.”
The sneeze building in my nose screeches to a halt, like the rest of me. It wasn’t just my imagination. More women are trying out the safeties.
Salt runs a hand down each narrow sleeve. “We ‘exercised our limbs.’”
I swear Caroline turns a shade of green equal to Pepper’s mossy dress. She trudges to the drawing room without even waiting for her guests.
Pepper sheds her coat and hands it to me. “Thank you, Jo. Remember this hat? You made it for me last spring, and it’s still my favorite.”
“Of course, miss. I’m pleased you still like it.” The color sets off her eyes, and the pheasant feather is still tight and shiny.
In the drawing room, the ladies arrange themselves around the card table, and Noemi pushes out the tray.
Salt tugs off her riding gloves with delicate plucks of her fingers and tucks them into a fashionable chatelaine bag that hangs from her waist. “It only took us two days to learn the safeties. You should’ve seen all the looks we got from the boys.”