Bicycle Built for Two

by Duncan, Alice

  “Hmph.” She turned her head and commenced glaring out the window.

  Alex studied her profile, wondering why they were fighting. More, he wondered what they were fighting about. Was it because Kate still resented his misjudging her character and moral fiber before they met? That wasn’t his fault, as even she’d probably admit if she ever admitted anything.

  Was it because she was afraid he was taking over her life and her mother? This possibility had some merit. She’d even more or less said it outright once or twice, although since he’d come to understand her extreme sensitivity regarding certain aspects of her life, he’d tried very hard to ease her insecurities on the subject. It gratified Alex that he could help Mrs. Finney and, by extension, Kate and her brothers. They were a worthy family, except for the father, and they deserved a break.

  Or was it that kiss? Alex stared moodily out the window and thought about it. He didn’t know about Kate, but he hadn’t forgotten that kiss. Dash it. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to forget it, as a matter of fact. Every time he remembered it, his unruly manhood stood to attention and saluted. He wanted her badly. Very badly.

  Although Alex had spent some time in recent months vaguely reflecting on the subject of marriage, he hadn’t considered the sexual aspects of such a union. Except in terms of providing heirs to keep the family business going, he hadn’t bothered to consider the appeal of certain women on a carnal level. He’d always believed that marriage stood apart from carnality, rather as an ideal of perfection. Alex hadn’t considered that the perfect marriage should include sexual compatibility, mainly because such topics never intruded into conversations and he’d never had to think about them. Until that kiss.

  Because he didn’t care to brood too long on the kiss, with Kate only a foot or so away from him, Alex decided to review the list of ladies who would make appropriate wifely candidates for him. His lip curled when he thought about Mabel Howell, and he made it stop.

  Poor Mabel. She was an all-right sort of lady, but she had a dreadful giggle, buck teeth, and, Alex would swear it, she’d never produced an original thought in her life. Not that Alex believed that women necessarily should be original thinkers. Still and all, he unquestionably required a woman who wouldn’t bore him to death within ten minutes of the conclusion of the wedding ceremony. Besides, the brighter the mother, the brighter the children, and Alex didn’t care to sire dolts.

  Then there was Julia Bigelow. Julia was quite pretty. No buck teeth in her mouth. And she was smart, according to all the teachers in the small school both she and Alex had attended during their growing-up years. Alex held no prejudices against ladies who wore spectacles, and he didn’t think Julia’s own eye-wear detracted from her overall attractiveness. She did have a rather declaratory pattern of speech, however, and one always got the feeling Julia was bestowing a particularly gracious condescension upon a fellow by speaking to him.

  No. Alex didn’t think he’d enjoy marriage to Julia. In truth, and totally without partiality, Julia was a prig and a pedant, she considered herself superior to pretty much everyone else in the world, and she’d make a very uncomfortable wife.

  The notion of Julia rearing his children caused him a pang, as well. He didn’t think children needed to be condescended to and treated like inferior boobies. The notion of Julia treating a child of his loins the way she treated her friends made his blood run cold. Any child of Julia’s would grow up thinking he—or she; Alex wouldn’t mind having girl children—was undeserving and unwanted.

  Not that children didn’t require discipline. However, Alex preferred his mother’s mode of discipline, which was delivered with gentleness, love, and a guiding hand, to what he expected Julia would mete out to her offshoots.

  So. That eliminated Mabel and Julia. Who else was there? Alex brooded over prospects as he continued to gaze absently out at the city.

  Imogene Hamilton. Ah, yes, Imogene. She was a sprightly sort; totally unlike Julia, who was as stiff as a stick, and less giggly than Mabel, who was a brainless nitwit. Alex supposed Imogene was a possibility.

  But, really, as much as Alex liked and appreciated Imogene, he’d always thought of her more as another sister than as a sexually attractive female or a viable future wife for him. Imogene and Alex’s second-youngest sister, Elizabeth, had been the best of friends. Still were, he guessed. Alex had been a big brother to both of them, and he didn’t think he could suddenly begin thinking of Imogene as a wife.

  And . . . But this was a ridiculous exercise. Alex knew why he’d been wasting time thinking on it, though. He was trying to downplay his attraction to Kate Finney. Although he hated admitting it, he feared the Kate problem was going to require more than a few idle moments spent contemplating other women. Not only did Alex not give a fig about the other women he knew, but the notion of bedding anyone but Kate left him feeling empty. The notion of bedding Kate and degrading both her and himself left him feeling sick.

  “There’s the hospital.”

  Kate’s simple comment succeeded in dragging his brain back from the dismal contemplation of impossible options. “Ah, yes.”

  “I hope they have one of those wheeled chairs, so Ma doesn’t have to walk down all those stairs. She can take a little exercise, but I don’t want her to wear out before we get to the country.”

  “I’ve arranged for a chair.”

  The skeptical glance she shot him didn’t escape Alex’s notice. He sighed. “I’m not trying to take over your position in your mother’s life, Kate.”

  “I know that.” She didn’t sound like it.

  “I only want your mother to be as comfortable as possible. It will be a long ride for her.”

  “I know that.”

  Alex heaved another sigh. Frank drew the carriage up to the front steps of Saint Mildred’s, hopped down from his seat—Alex guessed poor Frank didn’t want him usurping any more of his duties—and flipped the stairs down. Without speaking again, Alex held out a hand. After a hesitation so brief he might not have noticed if he weren’t so exquisitely aware of everything she did, Kate took his hand and descended the steps. Alex followed her, sighed yet again, and walked with her into the hospital.

  Mrs. Finney, in a wheelchair, with Sister Mary Evodius standing next to her and beaming like the sun itself, awaited them in the hospital’s lobby. Alex noticed two spots of color in Mrs. Finney’s cheeks, and prayed that they signified eagerness to begin this country trek and not fever. He watched Kate rush up to her, smiling as if she hadn’t a care in the world, and kiss her mother’s cheeks. Mrs. Finney glowed at her daughter.

  “You look swell, Ma.”

  “Thank you, Katie, darling. Sister Mary Evodius has been taking good care of me.”

  “It’s a good thing.” But the grin Kate gave the nun held nothing but gratitude and friendship.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Finney. You’re looking bright and pretty this morning.”

  Mrs. Finney acknowledged Alex’s comments with a brilliant smile. “This is so kind of you, Mr. English. I’m so looking forward to getting out of the city for a while.”

  “I’m glad.” Alex smiled at the nursing sister. “Here, Sister, let me take over this operation.”

  “There was no need for the chair,” Mrs. Finney murmured. “I’m not completely helpless.”

  “I’m sure of it, but there’s no need to over-exert yourself.” He was sure of no such thing. For all the color blooming in her cheeks this morning, Alex could swear she grew smaller every time he saw her. It was as if she were fading away before his eyes, and his heart ached for Mrs. Finney and Kate.

  “I can push her.” Kate’s voice was sharp.

  Alex considered telling her not to be foolish, but thought better of it. “If you want to.” He stepped aside. Kate gave him an odd look, almost as if she were embarrassed, although Alex wasn’t sure about that. Embarrassment seemed unlikely from this source.

  Mrs. Finney glanced from her daughter to Alex, sighed, and said, “I’m lookin
g forward to meeting your mother, Mr. English.”

  “Please,” he said, “call me Alex. And my mother is looking forward to meeting you, too. I’m sure you two will find many things in common.” That wasn’t even a lie, although it sounded funny, even to his own ears.

  “Yeah?” said Kate. She sounded absolutely skeptical.

  Her mother murmured, “Katie.”

  Alex didn’t react. He was getting used to being abused by Kate.

  # # #

  Kate mentally swore at herself to stop being such a witch to Alex. It wasn’t his fault he was a nice man to whom she was wildly attracted. She knew good and well there was nothing in a future with him, because he was rich and educated and socially prominent, and she wasn’t. She was dirt. She was nobody from nowhere.

  Actually, she was nobody from the slums, which was probably even worse than being from nowhere. If she’d been born to a poor ranching family in Texas or somewhere, she might exude a tolerable bit of cachet to the folks in Alex’s circle. But, as ever, her luck ran true. It was uniformly bad.

  Perhaps not totally. Her father was in jail again, and with Alex pressing charges, maybe he’d stay there long enough for her to relocate. Again. Maybe her luck was turning. Probably not. Pa would probably find her wherever she went. It irked her that if anybody did the world a favor and shot him dead, it would be the perpetrator of that act of mercy who got sent up the river. If justice prevailed in the world, her father would have died before he’d been allowed to cause so much trouble and terror and pain.

  She bit her tongue and didn’t utter a word of protest when Alex gently lifted her mother into the carriage. She even smiled at him. A little bit. He gave her an ironic salute, and she knew he understood her smile had been forced. What’s the matter with me?

  An answer eluded her and continued to do so as Alex settled a lightweight blanket over her mother’s knees, then turned and assisted Kate into the carriage. He was a prince of a guy, really. She shouldn’t resent his attentions to her mother, since they were making Ma happy. Ma’s happiness mattered more than Kate’s state of confusion. A lot more.

  The carriage ran pretty smoothly on the paved streets of Chicago. Kate had noticed before this that Alex’s carriage rode more smoothly than any cab she’d ever been in. Money could sure work wonders. She shot a peek at her mother’s face, and wished money could work a wonder of a permanent nature for Hazel Finney.

  “This is so nice,” Mrs. Finney murmured as the carriage rolled along the highway.

  Kate watched with fascination as the houses got farther and farther apart, and green stuff began showing up at the sides of the road and in people’s yards. She’d seen fancy houses before, so she knew that many people who were wealthy enough actually grew grass in their yards for no better reason than so the kids in the families could play there.

  A grass lawn sounded sort of like a poor girl’s version of heaven to Kate Finney, who’d grown up playing on the streets. Heck, she’d learned to dodge the milk wagon and the delivery carts by the time she was three. Walter and Bill and the Griswold kids used to make a game of it.

  “This is really pretty,” she said, hoping the comment would serve as an offering of some sort to Alex, who didn’t deserve her bad temper.

  “You think so?”

  He sounded merely curious, so Kate didn’t snap at him. “Yeah. We don’t get much green growing stuff in my neighborhood.” She spoke lightly, because she didn’t want her mother to start feeling guilty.

  “True, true,” Mrs. Finney said upon a sigh that set her to coughing. The spasm didn’t last long, although it made Kate’s heart skip and her fear rise up like a monster in her heart.

  “You okay, Ma?” Her voice was breathy with worry.

  “I’m fine, Katie.” Mrs. Finney took a small flask out of her handbag and sipped from it. “The doctor gave me this. It helps to calm the spasms.”

  “I wish we’d had more rain recently,” Alex said, sounding as if he, too, were concerned. “There’s so much dust being kicked up by the horses and the carriage wheels. I think I ought to let down the isinglass windows until we get farther out into the country.

  He moved to do so, and Mrs. Finney laid a hand on his arm. “Please don’t do that, Mr. English. I mean Alex.” She gave him such a sweet smile, Kate would have wept if she did things like that. “I’d rather see the countryside than worry about my health right now. I—well, I don’t know how many more opportunities I’m going to have to see this.”

  Kate uttered a strangled noise that she hoped didn’t sound like a sob as Alex sank back down onto the seat across from her and her mother. “Of course,” he said. “I understand.”

  So did Kate, and she hated it. Very seldom did she allow herself to admit that her mother was dying. When Kate thought about Ma dying, she felt as if her heart were being gouged out of her chest by a monster’s claws. If Ma died, she’d die.

  Or she wouldn’t die, which would be worse, because then she’d be left to face the world all by herself. Sure, she’d have Bill and Walter, but they always looked to her for everything. She’d have no one left to whom she could talk, of whom she could ask advice, to whom she could cry if she needed to. And sometimes, although she hated to admit this, too, Kate Finney cried.

  Oh, God, please don’t take Ma away from me.

  As usual, God paid no attention to Kate Finney.

  Chapter Eleven

  Mrs. Finney managed to stay awake almost the whole way to the English farm, but nodded off during the last portion of the trip. Alex had thought to provide pillows for her—the darned man thought of everything—so Kate propped a couple of them next to her, and her mother lay her gray head there. Kate wanted to cry but, naturally, didn’t.

  “We’re almost there,” Alex whispered after several minutes of silence on the part of the coach’s occupants.

  Kate realized he’d been watching her mother and herself closely during the preceding couple of hours as his fancy carriage rolled them out of Chicago and into paradise. It looked like paradise to Kate, at any rate. She nodded. “I think Ma’s getting kind of tired.”

  “Evidently.” Alex smiled, nodding toward the sleeping woman, and Kate’s insides fluttered.

  Because she knew she’d been unjustly snappish earlier in the day, and because she truly appreciated what Alex was doing for her mother, she said, “It’s really pretty around here, Alex. I’m surprised you ever want to leave it to visit Chicago. I’d want to stay here, where it’s so pretty and clean.”

  “I like visiting the city sometimes, but this is my home.”

  Kate wished she could say that. She’d kill to be able to live in the country. And wouldn’t Billy and Walter love it? They would. She could envision her brothers working behind plows and doing other farmerly things of a similar nature. They, unlike their father, were hard workers.

  Also, Kate didn’t know about Walter, but Billy loved animals and horticulture. She couldn’t even remember all the strays he’d taken in over the years. And even though he lived in a flat not unlike Kate’s in a boardinghouse for young man and located in an even worse neighborhood, he liked to grow vegetables in a box he’d built and set up in his window. He brought Kate carrots and radishes quite often, and had even managed to grow beans on a trellis he’d rigged.

  Recalling something Alex had said to her a few days ago, she said, “How long has your family lived here?”

  “We’re into the fourth generation.”

  He didn’t sound proud exactly, but Kate heard what she identified as satisfaction in his tone of voice. She didn’t resent it. If she could claim sixty or seventy years of family farming in so gorgeous a setting, she’d be satisfied, too. “That’s a long time. My family was in Ireland three generations ago.” She shrugged, grinned, and added, “One generation ago, too, come to think of it.”

  Darn it, why did he have to go and chuckle like that? Every time he chuckled, everything inside her curled up and started purring. “I remember your mother te
lling me she was from Ireland.”

  “Yup. So’s my old man.” Kate wrinkled her nose, a reaction that had become automatic for her over the years whenever her father intruded himself into the conversation.

  Alex was silent for a moment or two. “I’m sorry, Kate. I’d give anything to free you from your father’s influence.”

  She’d been looking down at her mother and thinking how pale and exhausted she appeared, but Alex’s words made her head snap up. “Thanks, but you’re doing plenty already.”

  His lips thinned as he pressed them together, and Kate wanted to slap herself upside the head. She hadn’t meant to sound so defensive. It was only that every time he did or offered to do something nice for her or her family, she reacted badly. She wasn’t used to people being nice to her, darn it. Because she knew she’d managed to offend him again, she said, “Thanks for filing charges. I think that’ll help some.”

  “Not enough,” he said grimly.

  She sighed. “Nothing’s ever enough when it comes to him. I guess we won’t have any peace until he kicks off. With my luck, that’ll be years from now.”

  He looked at her for long enough that she got to feeling uncomfortable, then said only, “We’ll see.”

  Whatever that meant. He sounded like Madame. She didn’t trust him.

  Oh, who are you trying to kid, Kate Finney? she asked herself nastily. You know darned well you trust him. He’s one of the only people earth you do trust.

  The thought didn’t comfort her appreciably. She didn’t want to begin counting on Alex to be there for her, because she feared for her state of mental health once he vanished from her life. She had no doubt whatsoever that he would.

  “It’s right there.”

  His brief comment jolted her out of the bitter contemplation of things that could never be. Kate turned her head, trying not to jostle her mother, and looked out the window toward where Alex pointed. The carriage took a slow, sweeping turn and passed through a gate that Kate could only consider picturesque. It reminded her of a gate belonging to a huge estate, pictures of which she’d seen in a book at the church school she’d attended. Sister Benedict, who’d taken a liking to Kate, had let her look at it whenever she wanted to. The book contained photographs and paintings of famous English castles and mansions. Kate had spent hours pretending she lived in one of them.