Mittman, Stephanie

by The Courtship

  "I suppose that was a lucky thing, considering," Charlotte said. What if his father had admired his physical abilities?

  "Respect is not enough, though," Kathryn said. "I suppose it never is."

  Arthur knocked courteously by the open doorway before entering the breakfast room. "If you'll excuse me, madam, Mr. Whittier has requested that particular glass this morning." He pointed to the tall water glass still at Cabot's place.

  "Oh, dear," Charlotte said, placing her napkin on the table and rising. "Has he taken his bitters, then?" He always liked to follow the medicine with the largest glass of water possible. She reached for the goblet just as Cabot's manservant did.

  "Let him take it in, Charlotte," Kathryn said, her hand on Charlotte's arm.

  "But he needs me," Charlotte said, pulling away and reaching for the pitcher of water to refill the glass.

  "Arthur can bring him his water, dear. Finish your tea."

  It was rare that Kathryn ordered Charlotte to do anything, rare enough so that Charlotte retook her seat and waited while Arthur filled the glass. "If he needs me—" she began, but Kathryn waved Arthur away.

  "How's that dog with the missing leg?" Kathryn asked her out of the blue. "You ever see him anymore?"

  "Occasionally," Charlotte said. She'd convinced Dr. Mollenoff to take in the dog once she'd gotten him fattened up and cured of the infection the fox trap had caused when it had severed the poor animal's leg. Her mother had hated living in an apartment above Dr. Welles's veterinary office, but the barking of dogs and the odor of animals had made the rent cheap enough for even Mina to afford. At first Charlotte had simply made a nuisance of herself, but eventually Dr. Welles had come to rely on her, exchanging a room for her help once Mina had died.

  "And the squirrel?" Her mother-in-law asked.

  "What is it you're trying to say, Kathryn?" Charlotte finally demanded. "There's no need for a bone in your throat with me."

  Kathryn patted her hand gently, leaning in so closely that the stray silver hairs from her head tickled Charlotte's cheek. "You're a good girl, Charlotte, good and kind to all God's poor unfortunate creatures. But sometimes I worry that you've mistaken my son for one of those helpless animals you keep taking under your wing."

  Cabot a wounded animal? Charlotte had never heard of anything so ridiculous. "That's insulting to both of us," she told her mother-in-law through tightly clenched lips.

  "I know you admire him greatly as a lawyer, Charlotte. But don't pity him as a man."

  "I never would," she said, rising. She tried to keep the surprise from her face. If the truth were told, in all the years she'd known Cabot as a lawyer, it hadn't, until that very moment, even occurred to her that, aside from being a lawyer, Cabot Whittier was also a man.

  "Excuse me," Ashford said, appearing at the door so suddenly, she nearly walked right into him. "Oh, the party breaking up? Just in time. There's something I think you're going to want to see."

  There was nothing she wanted to see, she was sure. Most especially not if it meant letting Ashford Whittier take her arm and lead her to the window where he stood so close that she could feel the rise and fall of his chest against her back.

  "Look!" he said, pointing out the window at a small man dressed in white overalls who was carefully, diligently, painting new lettering on the sign that had been on the front lawn so long, it seemed to have grown there.

  "I think you'll want to come out and see this," he said, grasping her elbow and gently guiding her away from the window and toward the front parlor.

  "What's he doing?" she asked, sure that it couldn't be what she suspected, what she'd waited for all her life, it seemed.

  "Come on," he said, his excitement almost as palpable as her own. He helped her down the stairs and kept her hand in his as he led her down the path to the far side of the old sign.

  WHITTIER & WHITTIER, ATTORNEYS AT LAW, it now read, clear as crystal for the world to see. Ash squeezed her shoulders as he stood behind her. "Congratulations," he said warmly. "I didn't think he had it in him."

  She turned and threw her arms about his neck, squeezing tightly and letting loose a shout of pure triumph. She was so comfortable within his arms that she nearly forgot herself and kissed the poor man before letting go of the stranglehold she had on him and spinning around.

  She searched the front window for Cabot's face and, finding it, waved to him and pointed at the sign. Then she hugged herself and waved again just as Argus began squawking at her, trying to eat her elbow right through her freshly pressed shirtwaist.

  From within the house Cabot nodded, waved back, and let the curtain fall.

  His silhouette was still there as she darted around the peacock and raced up the ramp toward the house to thank him.

  ***

  Ash had pulled out the champagne as soon as they were back in the house, but his old grouch of a brother had insisted it was a workday for—as he put it—people who actually worked for a living. Charlotte had looked at the bottle longingly, clearly wishing they could celebrate, but agreed with Cabot that lawyers—she'd pointedly added "especially law partners"—had their reputations to uphold, and had joined Cabot in his office, the smile on her face so wide that Ash feared her lips might split in several places.

  And damned if he hadn't thought about touching his own lips to those places. A stupid foolish thought.

  Jeez, but it was nice to see her happy. She was entitled to it. There was no need for her to know about his talk with Cabot and the fact that it had probably forced his brother's hand. As stingy with his emotions as he was with his purse, Cabot had kept a lid on the morning's excitement and was actually meeting with some investigator instead of taking part in the evening's celebration. Ash supposed he should be grateful, but wished Cabot could have just put it off until the morning and let Charlotte have her moment of glory.

  "It would be a nice night for that frilly thing I brought her from the Orient," he told his mother, placing a rose on Charlotte's plate while they waited for her to come down to dinner.

  "She won't wear it," Kathryn answered, frowning as they both turned at the sound of Charlotte's voice at the top of the stairs.

  "Oh, you'd be surprised what she'd wear," she said, coming down two steps and pausing, then coming down a few more until Kathryn actually gasped and it was all Ash could do to keep his jaw above the celluloid collar of his new blue shirt.

  There was no mistaking it. After all, her legs were at his eye level. And legs they were, covered not by one of her many tailored dark skirts, but by a pair of trousers!

  "Charlotte!" Kathryn leaned heavily on her cane and sank slowly into the nearest chair, apparently horrified. Squinting to watch Charlotte descend the rest of the way into the dark hallway, she blinked several times as if she hoped she were simply seeing things, and fanned herself with her free hand.

  As for Ash, he was now acutely aware of why it was that women did not wear trousers in polite society. Seeing the light slice a path between Charlotte's legs to just beneath where legs and womanhood came together, like some sunbeam pointing to where the treasure was buried, well... try as he could, there was just nowhere else to look!

  "Every inch his partner, don't you think?" she asked, pulling a cigar from her breast pocket and clenching it between her teeth, barely cringing at its foul taste.

  He stared once again at the point where trouser leg met lap. Not every inch, he thought.

  "Dear Lord, Charlotte!" his mother said. "You didn't actually go down to Capwell's and buy that suit, did you?"

  "Doesn't fit too badly, does it?" Charlotte asked, sashaying this way and that as she came the rest of the way down the stairs.

  Ash was familiar enough with a woman's underclothes to know that there wasn't room for them within the confines of those trouser legs. His tongue was thick inside his mouth as he thought of a tailor fitting the fabric to her legs, reaching for the inner seam...

  This was Cabot's wife, damn it! He had no right to these thought
s. Her eyes were sparkling in the lamplight as she shimmied her shoulders, fairly dancing around his mother and himself. He had no right to these desires.

  "Isn't it perfectly wonderful?" she asked, trying to unobtrusively scratch at her leg through rough wool that he suddenly recalled all too well.

  "You find that in the attic?" he asked as she rubbed at her left calf with her right foot.

  Nodding, she said, "Just look at the condition it's in! I don't think it's ever been worn."

  "The attic?" Kathryn asked, fingering the edge of the jacket suspiciously. "I don't recall..."

  It had been his first suit with long pants and his mother, as indulgent as always, had allowed him to pick it out. It wasn't until Sunday in church that it became clear why the suit had been the least expensive one at Pennoyer's.

  "Anything wrong?" he asked Charlotte as she squirmed slightly and ran her hands down her thighs.

  "Wrong?" she asked, leading the way into the dining room and sitting down quickly, then wriggling in like some bird in a nest. Ash hid his smile, trying hard to think only of the poor woman's discomfort and not the fact that it certainly served the little hussy right for going around in men's trousers with very likely nothing at all underneath.

  She wriggled again and he coughed to keep his laugh at bay. What did she expect from woolen trousers that cost seventy-five cents? They weren't her lace underthings, that was for damn sure.

  "Problem?" he asked when he noticed her tearing at the back of her neck like some angry mama scrubbing at tar.

  Her hand returned quickly to her lap, where, under the cover of the tablecloth, he imagined it was offering her some slight relief from the cheap cloth's effects.

  However, thinking about those soft, delicate womanly parts being savagely assaulted by the coarse masculine fabric set his own parts to itching. And the more she squirmed and wiggled and rubbed, the harder it became for him to sit still and think of anything beyond what his wicked imagination had begun to conjure up.

  "You haven't taken in a dog, Charlotte, have you?" Kathryn asked when Maria brought in the mullagatawny soup.

  "No, ma'am," she answered, inching forward in her seat to offer still more relief to some beleaguered spot Ash's depraved mind was at that very moment longing to comfort for her.

  "A cat, then?" Kathryn asked, reaching for the silver dish of chutney. "Anything that might be carrying fleas?"

  As he watched, uncomfortable enough himself, she sidled still farther forward in her chair, so far that Ash was forced to consider the possibility of her sliding right off and onto the floor.

  Tears glistening in her eyes, she politely tasted the curried soup as she rocked gently from one side to the other, her shoulders dipping as her hips shifted back and forth, back and forth. Ash's body, traitorous as always, was beginning to respond to her rocking as if it were meant for him—as if it were an invitation to a party he was forbidden to attend.

  "For heaven's sake, Charlotte," he shouted, coming to his feet and shaking out his legs as if his mother had been absolutely right about the possibility of fleas. "Go upstairs and change out of that ridiculous suit before we all begin scratching our skin off in sympathy!"

  "I can wear a suit if I please," she shot back, now openly attacking her elbows with enough vengeance to tear them right off her arms.

  "Not that one." He gestured at the suit she wore and clawed at his own arms. "Just remembering it makes my skin crawl."

  "Now I recall that suit," Kathryn said, her eyes dancing with the memory. "We had to leave the church before the poor reverend had even begun the sermon, your brother pretending to have something caught in his throat, or some such nonsense."

  "And Cabot telling you that you should have expected I'd go for style and not quality. And your insisting that the best lessons were often learned from our mistakes. And Cabot suggesting it was a perfect suit for church because it was certainly a penance to wear it!"

  "Then all men's clothes don't—" Charlotte interrupted herself to stand and pull off the jacket, then commenced rubbing at her sleeves. Ash had the fear, and the hope, that her shirtwaist would be the next to go.

  "You stubborn little thing! You'd have just sat there through the whole meal, wouldn't you?" Ash asked her.

  She smiled a Cheshire-cat smile, leaning against the door frame and using it like a scratching post. "Mmm-hm," she purred. "We law partners can't be thin skinned."

  Good God! The woman hadn't an ounce of guile, or she wouldn't be moving the way she was moving in front of him. In front of him in front of Kathryn! Had she ever tried that little maneuver in front of Cabot? That ought to get the man off his we're-above-such-base-thoughts high horse. It would take more than paralysis to not feel something when she moved like that. A man would have to be dead... for a long time... longer than Ash could imagine.

  "I'd thought to give the suit to Davis tomorrow, but I think the poor child surely has enough troubles," she said as Ash retook his seat. He crossed his legs, slipped the chair beneath the tablecloth, put his hands in his lap. But he still felt as if his mother could surely see that he was the son with the dirty mind, while Cabot was the one with all the moral integrity.

  "Go change," he said as calmly, as coolly, as casually, as he could make the words sound when what he really wanted was to shout them at her.

  "Yes, dear," Kathryn said. "Do get comfortable."

  Leaving the cigar beside her plate, Charlotte pranced from the room and Ash caught the quickest flash of hand to bottom before she was out of sight. He loosened his collar and took a long drink of wine.

  He was in deep trouble, and once again, only Cabot could help him.

  Cabot, whose job it was as the woman's husband to reach out to her, to take her hand, touch her shoulder, unbutton the back of her blouse. Cabot, who had tutored the girl into a lawyer, should now have the pleasure of ushering her into womanhood. Cabot, whose responsibility it was to see that Charlotte was happy, satisfied, fulfilled. If his brother was so bent on Charlotte being all she could be, how about that side of her?

  He could feel his mother's eyes boring into him, just the way they had when he was younger. All the world's oceans hadn't hampered her ability to read his thoughts and disapprove. Yet even knowing his weaknesses, she managed to remain full of unconditional forgiveness for his every wayward thought and act. And the more she forgave, the more full of self-recrimination and self-loathing he always became.

  And why shouldn't he hate himself, salivating over his brother's wife like she was a two-bit tart?

  "Lovely, isn't she?" Kathryn asked him.

  "Who?" He gave her his blankest stare, which she didn't even pretend to buy.

  "She's just what your brother needed." Kathryn stared at him as though he actually required the extra warning. "She's the light to his darkness. The warmth to his coldness. She's the laughter to his—"

  "And what is he to her?" Ash heard himself ask. "When she cries, is he the comfort to her sorrow? When she's lost, is he her beacon in the night? When she doubts herself, is he there to tell her who she is? Or just who he wants her to be?"

  Kathryn was quiet, fingering the edge of one of her teaspoons, aligning her silverware as if her children's happiness depended on where each implement rested on the table, when Charlotte returned. She was clearly not in "something comfortable" as his mother had suggested. He could hear the rush of petticoat beneath a heavy wool skirt as she hurried to her chair. And while she might have forgone the stays, her shirtwaist was as starched and stiff as ever.

  "It's just you and me and Mother," he said with as much exasperation as he felt. "Why can't you once wear something lovely? Something full of lace and fluff and femininity? We'd swear never to tell, wouldn't we, Mother?"

  "I don't care for all that frippery, that fuss and feathers," Charlotte said, pulling at her cuffs to straighten them. "I am not some decoration for a man's pleasure. If you want lace, you wear it!"

  "Really? I see. I stand corrected. Then I suppose th
ose stockings I found in my room, the ones with all the lace, weren't yours?" he asked. "Just some stranger's, who left them there in passing?"

  Beet red. Strawberry bright. Ripe-apple shiny. Oh, but the woman could blush a robin's breast pale by comparison.

  "Are you implying," she asked, trying to busy herself with catching up on the main course of deviled rump steak, "that I would wear something as frivolous as lace-topped stockings?"

  "Ashford Whittier!" his mother scolded. "Such a topic of conversation! And at the table! I never!"

  Ignoring his mother, he leaned forward and stared at her while she struggled to swallow the last of her meal. "Are you saying they weren't yours? Because if I remember my fairy tales right, there would be a way to prove to whom they belong. Think they would fit, princess?"

  "Ashford! Stop this before it goes any further!" Kathryn pounded her cane against the floor for emphasis, but darned it if the girl hadn't gotten his dander up with all this ridiculous denying of who and what she really was, inside, deep inside.

  "Why would I have a patently capricious piece of—"

  "You denying it or sidestepping the question, counselor?" He was leaning over the table now, his nose nearly touching hers.

  "What if they were mine?" she asked, her eyes over-bright.

  "Is that an admission?" He signaled for Rosa to wait where she was, holding the dessert he had requested be made in Charlotte's honor. "Answer the question," he demanded. There was a flush of power that surged through him and for the first time ever, he could understand what his brother saw in the law.

  "Am I on trial here?" she asked, folding her arms over her chest.

  He stared at the pretty face above the no-nonsense white shirtwaist. "Yes."

  For a moment the room was silent, and then Kathryn rapped her cane once again.

  "Ashford, sit down! Stop this at once," she sputtered, reaching for her goblet and knocking it over. Water flew across the table, trails of it reaching out for Charlotte, who ignored the cold wetness that was seeping through her sleeve.