As soon as he entered the door, Blake took a quick survey of the ladies in attendance. Adriane wasn’t there. He was making his way over to greet Mrs. Wigginham and perhaps find a way to politely ask about Adriane when Stanley Jimson made an entrance with his mother in tow. Fans fluttered and came up to cover faces as whispers swept around the room.
Mrs. Wigginham rose from her chair before Blake reached her. She laid her hand on his arm briefly in passing. “I do appreciate you coming to my little gathering, dear boy,” she said. “And I don’t mean to be rude. We’ll certainly have to talk later, but now I must rush over to ask dear Meta and Stanley where Adriane is. I did so want her to come. I sent her a special invitation just a couple of hours ago.”
“As you did me,” Blake said.
“As I did you.” Mrs. Wigginham smiled up at him. “One can never have too many friends among those who print the news when one is trying to advance a good cause. Don’t you agree?”
“Absolutely,” Blake said as he wondered what the little lady was up to. One thing he was sure of as he watched her scurry across the room to greet the Jimsons. It had little to do with securing more books for the library.
He was easing back across the room himself to try to overhear what excuses Stanley might be giving for Adriane when he was captured by Priscilla Bowberry.
“How delightful to see you, Mr. Garrett,” Priscilla said. “I don’t mind telling you I was beginning to despair of there being any person here who could carry on an intelligent conversation.”
Blake pushed a smile out on his face as he turned to Priscilla. Tall, slim to the point of bony, and going on thirty, Priscilla was beginning to despair of more than the chance for intelligent conversation. While Blake did sometimes enjoy her blunt and often amusing views of the social set, he took pains not to encourage her to think he might be her last best hope for matrimony.
But Priscilla was nobody’s fool. She knew her attributes, and though she might not be a beauty, she did have a lively wit. Even more telling, her family had money. Quite a bit of money. The last time she latched onto him at one of the socials, Blake had the uneasy feeling Priscilla was preparing to make him a proposition, and he dreaded the day he would have to find a polite way to refuse her.
“Priscilla,” he said. “You look lovely as always.”
She smiled, pleased. “And you, sir, lie like the true gentleman you are.”
“Hardly. My father used to say that a man cannot be a good editor and a gentleman at the same time.”
Priscilla raised her eyebrows slightly, making her face appear even more angular. “From the way Stanley Jimson is glaring at you, I do believe he would agree with that.”
Blake turned to look at Jimson, who quickly averted his eyes. “That’s another thing my father used to say. A good editor must of a necessity make a few enemies.”
“Indeed,” Priscilla agreed. “The way you’re going with your paper’s campaign against Coleman Jimson, I hear you won’t have any friends left before long. Or at least friends who might buy papers and advertisements. Coleman Jimson is a very influential man in this city.”
“Then he hardly needs to worry about a few editorials in my paper, does he?”
She smiled again. “I admire a confident man,” she said before she glanced back toward Stanley Jimson. “Young Stanley certainly appears to have lost his confidence lately.”
“Oh.” Blake kept the tone of his voice neutral. “What makes you say that?”
“This unfortunate affair with Adriane, of course.”
“What unfortunate affair? I thought they planned to marry in September.”
“Oh, they do, or so everyone continues to say. But you’ve surely noticed how Adriane has completely vanished from the social scene. They say her father is so worried about the possibility of her throwing over our sweet Stanley that his beard has turned white practically overnight.”
“I thought that was because he was worried about the Herald stealing all his readers.” He kept his voice light.
Priscilla laughed as he had intended before she went on. “You are a concern to him, I’m sure, but not as much of one as Adriane. The poor man is caught in a difficult predicament. There are some who say if he fails to marry Adriane off, Lucilla Elmore may refuse to go through with their own wedding plans this fall.” Priscilla’s voice lowered a bit. “And even worse, I’ve heard the poor man is in some financial difficulty. It’s rumored he owes Coleman Jimson a good deal of money, and that if Adriane doesn’t marry Stanley, he could very well be ruined.”
“Are you saying their marriage was arranged by the fathers as a kind of business deal?”
“Good heavens, I didn’t say that exactly, did I?” Priscilla twisted her mouth to hide her amusement as she fluttered her fan. “I suppose I shouldn’t be telling you any of this. The way the Herald and Tribune are battling lately, I’m apt to see my words on your front page tomorrow and be roundly condemned by the whole of Louisville society for having such a loose tongue.”
“A newspaperman never betrays a confidence,” Blake said.
She raised her eyebrows at him. “Another of your father’s sayings?”
“No. Mine.”
“At least I would pray you’d not mention names.” Priscilla looked back at the Jimsons. “But it’s all just too delightful not to talk about it. I’ve even considered paying a call on Adriane to see if I can determine whether she plans to honor her promise to marry Stanley, but I’ve heard she isn’t receiving callers. That wrinkled little man who works for her father comes to the door and says she’s indisposed, and we all know what that means.”
“Perhaps she really is ill,” Blake said, suddenly unable to completely keep his worry at bay.
At his words, Priscilla’s eyes sharpened on him. “Do you know Adriane well?”
“Our paths have crossed a few times at various socials,” Blake said casually. “The first time at just such a meeting as this here at Mrs. Wigginham’s.”
“Yes, I remember.” Priscilla was studying him closely. “We all quite expected a bit more reaction from one or the other of you that day, but as I recall, the two of you hardly argued at all.”
“Only enough to please Mrs. Wigginham, who I’m sure had arranged the meeting as an amusement.”
“That sounds like our Mrs. Wigginham. She’s always planning something exciting and imagines herself quite the matchmaker.” Her eyes widened a bit as if she’d just figured out something that had been puzzling her.
“We must let her have her fun.” Blake avoided Priscilla’s eyes. The woman was altogether too quick.
Priscilla’s lips straightened out in a rather grim line as she studied Blake’s face for a moment. Then she fluttered her fan again as she asked, “Do you believe in love at first sight, Mr. Garrett?”
A bit startled by her question, Blake hesitated before he said, “I’ve never given it much thought.”
She didn’t seem to care what he answered as she went on. “Mrs. Wigginham does, you know. She says that sometimes when a couple first meets you can practically see a spark fly between them. I used to pray such an occurrence would happen to me.”
“I doubt it happens to very many people,” Blake said.
“But it does happen to a few, doesn’t it, Mr. Garrett?” She stepped a bit nearer to him to look directly in his face.
He quit trying to lie to her. “It does happen to a few.”
She smiled a little. “You and I would make an interesting couple. We would always understand one another.”
“You’re a lovely lady, Miss Bowberry, but unfortunately I have no interest in such a commitment at this time. All my time must be spent building the Herald.”
“If only that were true, sir,” she said with a sad shake of her head.
Blake had no answer to that and so instead offered to fetch the lady a glass of lemonade. It seemed the least he could do.
A few minutes later he made his excuses to Mrs. Wigginham, claiming a heavy wo
rkload at the paper. She patted his hand as she said, “At least you made an appearance. That’s more than we can say for dear Adriane, isn’t it? However, Stanley has sweetly offered to carry a report of my little event to Adriane for me. It seems she hasn’t been feeling well.” She lifted her eyebrows. “All this hot weather, I suppose. It’s quite trying dear Stanley’s patience, I do believe.”
“The weather or Miss Darcy?” Blake asked.
“Dare we say both, Mr. Garrett.” She raised her fan up to hide her widening smile, but there was no hiding the smile in her eyes. “If you happen to see Adriane, please tell her how much I’ve missed her the last few weeks.”
“I doubt I will be seeing Miss Darcy.”
“One never knows, does one?” Mrs. Wigginham peered at him with no hint of a smile now. “Sometimes the most unexpected things happen. Especially if we take things into our own hands.”
A little later without actually planning it, Blake found himself going up the steps to the Tribune offices. Beck met him at the door with a scowl.
Blake could have pushed the old man out of the way easily enough. Both men knew that as they stared at one another, but it wasn’t something Blake wanted to do. Instead he said, “I have to know if she’s all right. That she’s not really ill or anything.”
“She ain’t sick.” Beck narrowed his eyes on Blake as he considered him for a long moment before he added, “She just needs some time, that’s all.”
“It’s been weeks.”
“Addie will have to be the one to say how much time she needs.”
Blake’s eyes burned into the little man. “Tell her one thing for me.”
“Addie don’t listen to nobody she don’t want to listen to.”
“She’ll listen to you.” In fact the longer Blake stood there, the surer he was that Adriane was just on the other side of the door hearing his every word. He raised his voice a little as he went on. “Tell her, and be sure she understands. Tell her that if I have to, I’ll kill Stanley Jimson before I let her marry him.”
The old man’s eyes changed then, and for a brief moment, Blake thought Beck realized they were on the same side. Then the old man was pushing the door closed in Blake’s face. “I’ll tell her.”
16
Adriane was sitting frozen at her work desk when Beck came back into the pressroom. He looked at her and said, “You heard?”
“I heard.”
“The man appeared to mean every word.”
Adriane kept her eyes away from Beck’s face. “Perhaps,” she said. “Though he’s already proven he can’t be trusted. Don’t forget the Douchester.”
“I think you can trust him on this one.” Beck stepped over to her desk. “You want to talk about it, Addie?”
“No.” Her hand shook as she dipped her pen in the inkpot and a splatter of ink smeared her paper.
Beck watched her blot up the ink before he said, “You can’t just keep pushing it away, girl. You’re going to have to face it sooner or later.”
“I know. Father tells me the same thing every day. How I need to snap out of this ‘unladylike’ lethargy and come to my senses before it’s too late.” She stared down at the paper on her desk until the words ran together. The page was already a mess before she’d spilled the ink on it. Three sentences written with two of them crossed out. “Maybe he’s right. I can’t even write anymore.”
Beck reached over to pat Adriane’s shoulder. “It’ll come back, Addie. The writing. You just have to get this other stuff straightened out.”
“I’m not sure I can, Beck.”
“There ain’t nothing you can’t do, Addie, if you set your mind to it.” He leaned down to look her straight in the face. “You know I’m praying for you.”
“I know.” Adriane blinked back tears and put her hand over Beck’s on her shoulder. “I’m praying too, but maybe I’m not praying hard enough or for the right thing.”
“The right thing? Sometimes we can get all mixed up on what the right thing is.”
“But isn’t that why we pray? So the Lord can give us answers? The right answers that let us know what we should do.” She stared at Beck’s face, wanting to find the answers there she couldn’t seem to get to her prayers.
“I reckon that’s true enough, but the trouble is them answers don’t always come down clear as newsprint.” He pulled his hand away from her shoulder to wave toward a stack of the day’s papers in the corner of the room.
“But why not? Why does everything have to be so hard?” Honor thy father. Those words slid through her thoughts a dozen times an hour. How could she pray for the Lord to open a way to her that her father would never understand? Or forgive.
Beck gave her a long look before he pulled a stool over to sit down in front of her. They were alone in the pressroom, as they were so often in the afternoon these days with her father off to his endless political meetings.
“That’s a question that used to bedevil me some,” he said. “Especially after my May died. So young and all. Didn’t seem to me for there to be a bit of reason for that to happen. You have to understand that I loved her as much as a man could love a woman. I always thought it was a kind of a miracle that she made out like she loved me back. But the one she loved the most was the Lord. It was her that taught me about him. She did everything right.”
Adriane forgot her own troubles for a moment as she tried to imagine Beck as a young man so terribly in love. The grief was plain in his voice even after so many years. She reached out and took his hand. “And then she died.”
A single tear slid out of Beck’s left eye and made a trail down through the wrinkles on his cheek. “And then she died.”
“I’m sorry, Beck,” she said softly.
“It was a long time ago,” he said. “And I ain’t telling you about it to make you sad for me. I’m telling you so that maybe you can understand how the good Lord keeps on reaching down his hand to help you even when you think he’s forgot about you. Worse than forgot you. That he just plain don’t care. That’s what I thought when he didn’t make May get well. I got mad. I didn’t want to have no more to do with God if he couldn’t come up with no better answers than taking my May away from me. Because you see, I prayed while she was sick. Down-on-my-knees prayers that I thought ought to be answered. My way.”
“But they weren’t.”
“No, my May died. Same as hundreds of others died from the cholera in Louisville that year. But I wasn’t worried about nobody else’s prayers not being answered. Only mine.” Beck was quiet for a moment before he went on. “It pains me to admit it, but I shut my Bible tight and turned away from the Lord. I know May was looking down from heaven, grieving over my hard heart as much as I was grieving over her being gone.”
Adriane’s eyes went to the Bible Beck kept on his worktable. “I’ve never known a time when you didn’t read the Bible.”
“That’s just it, Addie. A feller might turn away from the Lord, but the Lord, he don’t turn away from you. The good Lord, he just waited me out. Kept on walking along beside me. Understanding. Knowing my hurt. And after a while, I felt his hand on my shoulder again. He helped me see cholera happens. People die.”
“He could have healed her. The Bible is full of miraculous healings,” Adriane said.
“It is. But that wasn’t the answer he had for May and me.”
Adriane looked at Beck. She was glad he’d told her about May, but she couldn’t see what his story had to do with her own troubles. Her own lack of answers to her prayers. “So what answer does he have for me?”
“I don’t know, Addie. But I know he ain’t turned his back on you. He’s gonna help you find a way. This ain’t like the cholera. You just keep on praying, and with the good Lord’s hand on your shoulder, you’ll figure it out. The right thing.”
“One thing I already figured out a long time ago.”
“What’s that?”
“That I don’t know what I’d do without you, Beck.” She smiled as she t
ightened her fingers around Beck’s hand.
“You’d do fine,” Beck said gruffly. “’Cepting, of course, you’d have to learn to set type a heap faster if the paper got out on time. Fact is, we’d best get to work now if we aim to have the galleys ready to run when your pa gets back from his meeting.”
Later, after Adriane had given up on writing her piece and given Beck a filler to use instead, she went out to sit on the back step in the late afternoon sunshine. The old dog came slinking out of the shadows to peer up at her hopefully.
“Sorry, I don’t have a biscuit, Mr. O’Mallory, but I can scratch your ears,” she said as the dog looked at her with dark brown eyes before he poked her hand with his graying muzzle. She smiled a little and rubbed his ears. “You look like you’ve been around. I’m thinking you’ve heard a lot of troubles in your time. You want to listen to mine?”
It was silly of her to want to pour out her heart to a dog, but she needed someone to listen. “I don’t know what to do, Mr. O’Mallory. It’s all such a mess.”
When the dog cocked his head as though to hear better, she rubbed his ears again, before he settled down contentedly at her feet. Adriane leaned back on her arms to raise her face to the sun. As her skin warmed, she remembered how as a little girl, she had tried to soak up the bright light of the sun to carry with her the next time Henrietta locked her in the closet. But she had never been able to store enough light inside her, and the time always came when she had to face the monsters in the darkness again.
Beck told her it was time she faced her problems now. He thought she could. With prayer. Dear Beck. He had kept people away from her and given her these weeks of near solitude. The only person he couldn’t keep away was Stanley who came by nearly every day to alternately beseech and threaten her.
She hadn’t told Stanley yet she would not marry him. She had rather hoped he would be the one to say he wouldn’t marry her when she stopped playing the part of his happy fiancée at all the social functions. But he did seem determined to marry her. Much more determined than she’d ever dreamed he could be about anything. And all the while September drew closer and closer.
Words Spoken True: A Novel Page 17
