These Golden Pleasures

by Valerie Sherwood

  “Stop here, driver,” he said at last, and looked pointedly past her. “Ah, there’s a sight to loosen the tongue, Roxanne.”

  “What is it?” mumbled Roxanne, turning to look at a handsome brick and stone Gothic structure with turrets and a fancy cupola that stood behind a high brick wall.

  “The city jail,” he said quietly, a warning in his tone. “Now tell me who you really are and what you’re doing in my father’s house.”

  “My name is Roxanne Rossiter,” she said hopelessly. “I’m from Savannah.” In terse sentences she outlined how she had gone to Kansas to live with Uncle Josh and Aunt Ada, and—carefully omitting any mention of Buck or Julie—why she had left. A girl friend had helped her escape a forced marriage with an elderly banker, she fold him. But on her way east her money had run out. When her seat-mate, intemperate Mary Willis, had died suddenly on the train, she had taken the woman’s ticket and the letter and had come to Baltimore, impersonating her in hopes of finding employment and shelter.

  “And what of Mary Willis?” he asked.

  Roxanne told him of the doctor and how there’d been sufficient money for decent burial. She hadn’t stolen the old woman’s money, she added hastily, just the ticket and letter.

  He was silent at that. After a while he gave her a whimsical smile, and she was again sharply reminded of the portrait of Joab Coulter’s father-in-law in the hall. “So a young lady who knows French and who’s gently bred is now emptying our chamberpots,” he murmured.

  Roxanne winced. “I’m serving meals,” she said hastily. “Mrs. Hollister discovered I knew one fork from another and could set a table properly.”

  “Do any but myself know your story?” he asked.

  Roxanne shook her head. “Everyone here accepts me as Mary Willis’s daughter. I could say I’m illegitimate,” she added hastily.

  He laughed. “Best to say nothing at all unless you’re prodded.”

  “You’ll keep my secret then?” she asked anxiously.

  “I’ve kept the secrets of thugs shanghaied abroad vessels, and remittance men one step ahead of the law, and men dying of the fever in tropical ports far from home—the secret of a slip of a girl should be safe with me.”

  She felt almost weak with relief. “They plan for me to be Clarissa’s maid when she returns,” she explained.

  “Do they now? Well, that’s a good idea. You’ll be happier sorting out Clarissa’s dainty underthings, I’ll wager, than scurrying around weighed down by tureens and platters!”

  She smiled.

  “I wish I had funds enough to keep a mistress!” he declared merrily. “Then you could laze around all day, Roxanne!”

  She lifted her chin and gave him a cold look. “I will be no man’s mistress.” She stated it flatly. “I will marry and have a house of my own.”

  “To be sure,” he said, delighted at striking this spark.

  They drove slowly home. When they drew near the house, Roxanne said nervously, “I’d better get out and go home alone.”

  Rhodes demurred, insisting he’d take her up to the front door in style. But she grew desperate. “Please, your father will dismiss me if he thinks I’m setting my cap for his son!”

  He chuckled at that, but ordered the driver to stop. As she jumped down from the carriage, he caught her hand, held it for a moment while his green eyes looked into hers. “My silence has a price, Roxanne,” he said.

  “And what might that be?” she asked, stiffening.

  “That you stroll out with me on Sunday afternoons,” he said, smiling into her sapphire eyes. And she relaxed, gave him a gay wave of her gloved hand and hurried away, to let herself in by the servants’ entrance.

  Now that she’d met him, she understood why Reba had said, Mr. Joab Coulter likes Mr. Gavin best, but everyone else prefers Mr. Rhodes. She too preferred Rhodes, and the memory of his kiss stayed with her like a light caress through the day, and there was a dreaminess in her smile as she lay on her pillow that night.

  The golden pleasures of first love had been denied her, but perhaps she had found something else.

  Chapter 7

  Serving dinner to the three Coulter men in the long dining room of the town house on Mt. Vernon Place was an experience. Stiffly erect at the head of his table sat Joab Coulter with Gavin on his right and Rhodes on his left. All so different, Roxanne thought—and yet, in some ways, alike, for they were all dark-haired, tall and forceful. But Joab Coulter had a fanatic’s thin face; his son Gavin’s countenance was cool and hard and appraising; while Rhodes’s devilish green eyes gleamed in a carefree bronzed face, his wicked smile flashing at Roxanne as she assisted Greaves the butler in serving dinner.

  Their conversation fascinated her, mainly because they seemed never to agree on anything.

  One muggy evening, when a storm was about to break and the air was heavy and breathless, she began to serve from a steaming tureen of delicious Chesapeake Bay oyster stew, but stopped when she heard Joab Coulter’s rumbling voice, sounding as if it had come out of a cavern.

  “Don’t talk to me of steamships, Gavin,” he thundered. “They’re a fad. They’ll go out of fashion eventually.”

  Roxanne, curious, served the soup and then busied herself at the big mahogany sideboard in order to listen.

  “Father, how can you say that?” cried Gavin. “When you know very well that new French ship, La Touraine, is a floating palace that crosses the ocean in seven days! Fifteen courses are served on her dinner menu! Why, I haven’t a doubt the next ships built will abandon auxiliary sails altogether.”

  “Never,” said his father flatly, bringing the palm of his hand down on the table hard enough to shake the dishes. “And as to how I can say that, I’ll point out to you, Gavin, that they talked the same way about the Great Eastern. She was the biggest ship in the world—it cost $300,000 just to launch her back in 1858, and she was a failure, a dinosaur. She’d have ruined her owners if she hadn’t been lucky enough to get the job of laying the first transatlantic cable! And what about Collins—going to rival Cunard!”

  “He did,” interposed Gavin. “The Collins Line’s Pacific held the record for a steamer for thirteen years—330 miles in a single day’s run.”

  “Pshaw,” said his father. “The Baltimore clippers beat that! The Flying Cloud logged 374 miles in a day, didn’t she? And the Sovereign of the Seas once covered 421 miles! And as for Collins’s Pacific, she disappeared without a trace on her regular run from Liverpool, you’ll remember. Blew up in mid-ocean! And how did Collins end up? Forced out, that’s how!” Rhodes was silent, his green eyes flickering as he watched the heated exchange between the two men.

  Suddenly Gavin swung on him. “Why don’t you speak up, Rhodes?” he cried. “You know as well as I do the days of sail are over!”

  Rhodes’s smile had a steely quality. “Not for me, they aren’t.” He said it flatly.

  Gavin sneered. “We’re losing money every year, and you know it. And why? Because we won’t convert to steam, that’s why!”

  Rhodes shrugged. That simple gesture seemed to madden Gavin. His face turned purple, and he leaned forward belligerently. “You’re encouraging Father in this madness,” he cried. “We’ve dropped a packet already and we’ll soon be bankrupt, do you hear? Bankrupt! While you’re away sailing and chasing skirts in every port, I’ve been studying the books!” He stopped talking abruptly, flung down his linen napkin and stalked out of the room.

  His father watched him exit, then turned to Rhodes. “It’s strange,” he said. “We agree on nothing, you and I—except one thing: Sail.” He looked puzzled. “I can’t understand it in Gavin. On all else he’s sane.”

  “Gavin has no feel for the sea or a good ship under him,” said Rhodes. “Only a feeling for money.” He sighed. “You should listen to him, no doubt. His way leads to success.”

  His father snorted. “Success! Why, this is a passing fancy, this steam. A few more disasters and they’ll turn back to sail! It’s clean and i
t’s fast—”

  “And unreliable,” said Rhodes with a crooked smile. “Mind you—” he held up his hand—“I’m for sail. It’s the life I love. But commercially . . He shrugged. “Gavin’s right.”

  His father gave him a cold look. “So now we agree on nothing?”

  Rhodes grinned. “Perhaps the wine. It’s a good vintage. And your selection of housemaids. They’re very choice this season.” His green eyes followed Roxanne’s slender figure as she hurried over to serve them.

  “Keep your eyes from the housemaids,” said the father severely. “You should spend more time in church and less at the gaming tables. Don’t think I don’t know about your wild ways. But you’ve the devil’s blood in you, I’m not forgetting.”

  Rhodes’s face hardened. “My grandfather is a sore point with you,” he said sarcastically. “Still it’s his fortune that Gavin claims we’re losing.”

  His father’s face paled. “Your mother’s father was a hard-drinking Virginia rakehell,” he roared. “As godless a man as ever walked the earth!”

  “He held his own among men,” murmured Rhodes, sipping his wine, “and died possessed of a fine plantation and a fortune he made himself.”

  “A devil,” muttered his father. “A veritable devil. He had bastards everywhere!”

  “Only in Virginia,” said Rhodes with a wink at Roxanne.

  The next afternoon Roxanne was sent on an errand into southwest Baltimore. She was to pick up some small items for Mrs. Hollister, who made the happy discovery that Roxanne was not only clever with tradespeople but that she would come back with accurate change. She went by trolley and, her errand being quickly concluded, she decided to take a few minutes to stop and see Mary Bridey.

  At the address Mary Bridey had given her, a tall respectable-looking Lithuanian woman wearing a bright red shawl let her in and indicated that Mary Bridey lived upstairs. Roxanne ran up the narrow wooden steps to where a door was open into the upstairs hall—for air, no doubt, to trap the cool breeze that blew through sheer curtains at the windows. And beside those windows Mary Bridey herself sat on a painted rocker, stitching a small patchwork quilt in bright colors.

  At the sight of Roxanne she gave a glad cry and dropped the quilt. Hugging Roxanne warmly, her blue-green eyes sparkling, she proudly exhibited her new domain. It consisted of a bed-living room and a tiny kitchen. Gavin had not been too generous with the little Irish girl, Roxanne saw, looking around her.

  Mary Bridey pointed out her treasures. Her bed, she declared, was “a real Jenny Lind.” Pitying her, Roxanne feigned admiration for the cheap button-turned bed, a far cry from the delicate “spool” she had been used to in Savannah. And see, Mary Bridey added proudly, her green-painted washstand had a white marble top! The organdy curtains that adorned her open windows were an extravagance; she had made them herself, and didn’t they look nice? And the quilt—she blushed—was for “our bed.”

  “Has he been to see you?” asked Roxanne at this mention of the bed..After that first discussion they had never referred to the father of Mary Bridey’s child by name, but only as “he.”

  “No.” Mary Bridey shook her head wistfully. “Although he’s back, isn’t he?”

  “Yes,” said Roxanne. Gavin had been back from Boston for days. Plenty of time to come and see Mary Bridey, she thought bitterly.

  “He’ll come,” said Mary Bridey confidently. “I’m sure he’s very busy,” she added lamely, and continued displaying her treasures.

  Roxanne was further disheartened as the Irish girl proudly pointed out a battered pine “pie safe” with screen wire in the doors and a spindle-back side chair with a mended cane seat, both of which Roxanne recognized as having been discarded by Mrs. Hollister.

  Mary Bridey was eager for news of “the house,” which Roxanne discerned meant news of Gavin. She listened thirstily as Roxanne told her of the doings of both brothers. When Roxanne asked if Mary Bridey would not like to take the trolley back with her and say hello to the staff (and she hoped, without saying so, confront Gavin face to face), the girl quickly demurred and looked away in confusion. Roxanne guessed that Mary Bridey’s new affluence had a condition attached to it—that she stay away from the house and out of Joab Coulter’s sight.

  “Ah, it will be lovely for you when Miss Clarissa returns,” sighed Mary Bridey, changing the subject. “Handling her pretty dresses and scented handkerchiefs and silk underwear—her underwear is all made by the nuns, you know!”

  “Reba told me she was hard to get along with,” Roxanne said dryly.

  “Ah, yes, she’s spoiled, but the stories you’ll hear! All about great balls and tea parties and spicy scandals. She leads such a wonderful life, does Miss Clarissa. She goes dancing all the time, and when she’s on the Eastern Shore—that’s where she comes from—she rides to hounds. Imagine!” Mary Bridey’s blue-green eyes shone, but Roxanne’s eyes were troubled.

  Great balls . . . scented silk underwear . . . riding to hounds . . . how did one compete with the Clarissas of this world? Beauty? Roxanne’s mirror told her she had beauty. But beauty wasn’t enough. Dainty little Mary Bridey had a flowerlike face. And that flowerlike face had only got her into trouble.

  Roxanne roused herself. “I must be getting back. Mrs. Hollister will wonder what’s happened to me.”

  “Ah, do come again soon,” pleaded Mary Bridey. “The woman downstairs barely speaks English, and I’m so lonesome here.”

  Roxanne promised she would and left, going back down the wooden stairs. In the hall below stood the tall Lithuanian woman in the red shawl. It was her house, Roxanne knew, and Roxanne returned her smile as she left. In the street outside, before she hurried off to catch her trolley, she turned to look back at the shabby yellow brick row house, sandwiched monotonously among a long line of identical neighbors, and felt resentment at the way Mary Bridey had been treated. Poor Mary Bridey . . . her baby would be born on the “wrong side of the blanket,” though she must have come to the Coulter house a fresh-faced colleen full of hope ... it wasn’t fair.

  Roxanne had gotten off the trolley and was hurrying home when she saw Rhodes coming toward her, driving a buggy. Drawing up to her he said merrily, “I’ll show you the waterfront, Roxanne!”

  When she protested that she was expected back, Rhodes said airily, “Nonsense. I’ll tell Mrs. Hollister I had a hankering for some soft-shelled crabs and saw you with your market basket. Come along!”

  As Roxanne climbed in beside Rhodes, she became uncomfortably aware of the powerful thigh muscles that brushed her own legs while she settled next to him.

  “Clarissa’s coming home tomorrow,” he said. “Then maybe you’ll have more interesting things to do.”

  She smiled at him, listening to the clatter of the horse’s hooves, noting how expertly he handled the reins, how gentle but firm was his touch.

  “Do you like Baltimore?” he asked. “Have you made any plans for the future?”

  “Why, yes,” said Roxanne pertly. “I plan to marry a millionaire I’ve not yet met, and have a lady’s maid of my own. And scads of diamonds.”

  He laughed. “With your face, you could do it!” They had reached the waterfront and were clattering past a ship’s chandlery with picturesque small-paned windows. Rhodes pointed out an Old Bay Line steamer down at the dock. “Overnight to Norfolk,” he said. “Clarissa sometimes visits friends in Norfolk.” Roxanne looked at the steamer and yearned to sail on her. She felt a pang of envy for the absent Clarissa. “Where is Clarissa now?” she asked.

  “She’s been visiting friends in New York and Boston and buying out all the shops. You can expect to spend hours and hours just sorting through her purchases—if she hasn’t lost most of them on the train on the way here!” Rhodes laughed.

  He handed her out of the buggy as if she were a fine lady, and Roxanne smiled and pushed back a lock of her fair hair that blew in the salt air. Still playing tour guide, Rhodes indicated here a fine old gaff-rigged sloop in the dredging fleet
used for oystering, and there sloops with skipjack rigs. He told her that the growing blue crabs, which were confined in floats, from May to October became the succulent soft-shelled crabs so popular in Baltimore. Everywhere fish were being hawked, and Rhodes pointed out that there were some two hundred kinds of fish native to the Chesapeake. Besides the fishing fleet, there were ships from everywhere, loaded with iron, tobacco—which was the green gold of southern Maryland—and a variety of raw and manufactured products.

  “You’re from Savannah,” he said abruptly. “Did you know that the first steamship to cross the Atlantic sailed from Savannah? It was named for the city, and was financed by Savannah merchants. Why, America’s first iron steamship was launched from Savannah.”

  Roxanne hadn’t known that, but she lifted her head a little more proudly at the knowledge. Still . . . her eyes fell on one of the beautiful and rakish Baltimore clippers that rode the Bay.

  “One of ours,” he said softly. “I don’t think I’ll like Gavin’s world of steam, Roxanne. Even though it’s surely coming.” His voice grew richer. “Can you imagine what it’s like to have the deck of that ship under your feet, Roxanne?”

  “Is she the one you returned on from your last trip? When you visited San Francisco?” she asked.

  He nodded and frowned. “She’s lying around waiting to pick up cargo. The clippers won’t hold as much as the steamships will. It’s too bad.”

  Roxanne agreed with him. The fair ship rode lightly as a gull upon the water. How could one compare her with an iron vessel belching smoke?