Bicycle Built for Two

by Duncan, Alice

  Kate glanced from him to Mary Jo to her mother. “Is that all right with you, Ma? Do you need me?”

  “I’ll always need you, Katie, but I think I can make it back upstairs with Marguerite’s help.” The smiling glance she gave her daughter was as full of love as any Alex had ever seen. “You go along with Alex and Mary Jo and enjoy yourself.”

  Thus it was that Kate, Alex, and Mary Jo, leaving the tea things behind on the table for Mrs. Gossett and Louise to dispense with even though Kate had offered to help and then seemed self-conscious that she had, left the house that afternoon. Alex discovered himself eager to introduce Kate to his world. He also discovered himself hoping she’d love it as much as he did, which didn’t make sense to him. What did it matter to him if she liked his farm or not? Fearing he knew the answer and that he didn’t want it to be true, he dropped the subject before it could cause him discomfort.

  Mary Jo skipped along merrily, sometimes at Kate’s side, sometimes at Alex’s, and sometimes ahead of them both. “This is the prettiest time of year,” she informed Kate. “Except for the fall, because the leaves are so pretty then. Although winter’s kind of nice, too, because the snow is so pretty and white. And I like summer, too, except when it gets too hot.”

  Laughing, Alex said, “Sounds like you can’t make up your mind.”

  “I guess I can’t.”

  “I think it’s good that you can enjoy it all,” Kate said, sounding as if she meant it.

  Alex glanced down at her and wondered when was the last time she’d been able to relax and enjoy anything.

  He was becoming perfectly maudlin about this woman. He gave himself a hard mental shake and told himself to snap out of it.

  “I’m so glad you came to visit! I really want to know all about fortune telling. How do you do it? Do you read people’s palms or something?”

  “Mary Jo, don’t pester Kate.”

  But Kate shook her head. “It’s all right, Alex. I don’t mind.” She smiled at Mary Jo. “It’s all hogwash, of course.”

  “Is it?” Mary Jo sounded disappointed. Looked it, too.

  “Well,” said Kate thoughtfully, “I don’t know about Madame. I think she really believes in some of the things she does, but I don’t. I only tell fortunes for a living.”

  “You can’t really read palms?” Mary Jo’s disappointment intensified.

  “Oh, sure, I can read palms, but I don’t know how much a person can really read in another person’s palm. And Madame taught me to read the Tarot cards, too. I know she believes in what they say, because she casts a fortune for herself every day. I don’t know if any of it is true or not, but it’s a better living than clerking in Wanamaker’s.”

  “Oh, did you do that?” Mary Jo’s face took on an expression of keen interest. “I’d like to get a job someday.”

  “Yeah?” Kate looked as if she were trying to fight a sardonic expression. “Well, you can take it from me that telling fortunes pays more than Wanamaker’s, although I don’t know if it would if I weren’t doing it at the Exposition. People tend to get their fortunes told for fun while they’re enjoying the fair. And I guess I do have to admit that reading palms is kind of fun.”

  Mary Jo brightened. “Can you read my palm?”

  “Mary Jo.” Alex would have liked to paddle his exasperating sister. His tone was severe.

  “Oh, no,” said Kate quickly. “It’s all right. Sure, I’d be happy to read your palm.”

  “Goodie!” Shooting Kate a penetrating glance, Mary Jo then said, “Do you just make it all up as you go along?”

  “Mary Jo.” This time Alex glowered at her. She didn’t seem to notice.

  “No,” said Kate. “There are supposed to be meanings in the configuration of the palm and the fingers and in the lines crossing the palms. Madame had to teach me.” Another shrug. “Maybe it’s true. I don’t know. But Madame taught me what all the lines and the mounds and so forth are.”

  “Oh, this is such fun!”

  “Do you really think so? Shoot, I’d rather live on a farm like this. It’s so beautiful here. And peaceful. It’s so peaceful.” Kate spoke as if she really meant it, and Alex was pleased.

  “It gets real boring.” A pout marred Mary Jo’s pretty mouth.

  Deciding to interfere before Mary Jo spoiled Kate’s enjoyment of his particular life’s love, his farm, Alex spoke up. “It’s only boring because you’re used to it and you haven’t been out much. Kate knows what city life is like. It’s not all fun, Mary Jo.”

  “You can say that again. Where I live, it’s no fun at all.”

  “Really?” Mary Jo’s pout faded.

  “Really.” Kate shot Alex a quick smile. “It’s so serene here. And green. There are days when I go a mile out of my way to pass the park because I need to see something growing. I’d love to see some of your cows and horses and pigs and other animals.”

  “Cows and pigs? Really?” It didn’t look to Alex as if Mary Jo quite believed in Kate’s interest in cattle.

  “Sure. The only time I ever see a cow is when we use the bones in soup. I think it would be fun to see the soup bones on the hoof, if you know what I mean.”

  “All right, then, come this way.” Alex took Kate’s arm. He didn’t want her wandering off with Mary Jo, although he wouldn’t have minded if Mary Jo had wandered off by herself. Guiding her down a path between some rhododendron bushes, he aimed for the closest pasture. His father had removed the cattle part of his farming enterprise to a location farther from the house than it had originally been, since cows tended to produce smelly residual products.

  “Golly,” said Mary Jo, apparently aiming to stick to Alex and Kate like glue, “I didn’t know anybody actually liked cows.”

  “I think they’re darling. Pigs, too,” said Kate stoutly, although Alex got the feeling she was putting on an act for Mary Jo’s sake. He admired her for it.

  “Darling? Pigs?” Alex pretended to be offended. “Good Lord.”

  “Sure.” Kate gave a little skip. “I think cows and pigs are adorable.”

  “Well, we’ve got plenty of both of them, so you can feast your eyes on their adorability until you get sick of them.”

  “It probably won’t take long,” added Alex’s sister. “Cows and pigs stink like anything. Then you can read my palm.”

  Kate laughed. Alex said, “Mary Jo,” again, sternly. Mary Jo pasted on an innocent expression that Alex didn’t believe for a second. He was pretty sure Kate didn’t, either, but she only laughed some more.

  # # #

  The fresh country air caressed Kate’s skin like a healing balm, and she breathed it in as if it could cure all her psychic wounds. That was probably silly thinking, but she couldn’t help it. She loved this place. The notion of actually living on a farm like this, with all this green loveliness growing all around her, was akin to an impossible dream. It was all so beautiful. She was afraid she was going to make herself look ridiculous by showing how much she loved it here.

  Therefore, she attempted to appear dignified as they passed by the hedge of huge bushes loaded with gorgeous flowers. Kate had no idea what they were. She paused before a bush covered with bright red flowers. “Would it be all right to pick some of these? For my mother?” Darn it, she was blushing; she could feel it.

  “What?” Alex stopped walking and turned, looking bemused. He saw the bush to which Kate referred. “Oh, of course. Pick as many flowers as you want, Kate. These are rhododendrons. They have a lovely flower, don’t they?”

  “They sure do.”

  “Why don’t you wait until we’re walking back towards home,” Mary Jo suggested brightly. “That way they won’t wilt. And I’ll help you pick some roses and peonies, too. My favorites are the peonies.”

  “My goodness. You know what they all are?”

  “Sure.” Mary Jo appeared surprised. “My mother taught me all about flowers. Don’t you have flowers where you live?”

  “Uh, no. I don’t have a place to grow f
lowers where I live. I go to the park when I have time. There are flowers there.”

  “Kate lives in a flat, Mary Jo,” Alex said, hoping his repressive tone would curb her chattiness. He knew how Kate could get, and didn’t want her to blow up at his sister, who was curious out of innocence, not unkindness.

  “What’s a flat?”

  “It’s a room over a shop,” Kate told her. “It’s not much, but it’s mine.”

  “I wish I could have a flat,” Mary Jo said wistfully.

  Kate gawped at her. Alex chuckled. “You might not like it as much as you think you would.”

  “Bet I would.”

  Kate could have given her one or two pertinent facts of life that might disabuse her of that notion, but she held her tongue. She considered it a flaw in her nature that she found Mary Jo’s innocence irksome. By rights, all children Mary Jo’s age should be innocent. It was poverty’s fault, and her father’s, that Kate’s own innocence hadn’t lasted past babyhood. Because she suspected her irritation grew out of some kind of jealousy of Mary Jo and her family and her circumstances, she suppressed it ruthlessly. Herbert Finney wasn’t Mary Jo’s fault any more than he was Kate’s.

  “I’d rather live here. It’s so . . . I don’t know. It’s alive and growing. Where I live seems to be more . . . Oh, I don’t know; dead and dying, I guess. Or something.” Kate felt silly after her artless confession, and braced herself for scorn or, worse, pity.

  “Golly, I don’t think so. I think it’s boring here.” Mary Jo’s own sweeping gaze didn’t indicate pleasure in her surroundings.

  “I could stand a little boredom from time to time,” Kate said dryly. “Anyhow, I think it would be exciting to have my own home, and to be able to sew curtains and cook meals and that sort of thing. I don’t really like having to work away from home in order to make enough money to survive. Not that my flat’s much of a home, but . . .” Her words petered out again. She wished she’d stop blurting out these personal confessions. They made her life sound so shabby. Which it was. Kate heaved a huge, grass-scented sigh.

  “I think it would be fun to have a job and earn my own money.”

  “Hmmm.” Kate didn’t want to get into that one. Since pretty, spoiled little Mary Jo English didn’t know what the heck she was talking about, there didn’t seem much point to arguing.

  “You only think so because you don’t have to.”

  Kate glanced up at Alex, who had made the comment, and rather sharply, too. “Yeah,” she said. “Maybe that’s it. I guess if your very life didn’t depend on it, working at a paying job might not be so wearisome.”

  “Maybe,” said Mary Jo, clearly unconvinced, but unwilling or unable to argue.

  Kate suspected she’d been threatened with all sorts of punishments if she didn’t behave herself during the Finneys’ visit.

  “The trouble with you, little sister, is that you have no responsibilities whatsoever, and Kate has too many.”

  “Um—” Kate said, but Mary Jo interrupted, which was all right with her, because she didn’t want to go into her own miserable life situation any more than she had to.

  “That’s not fair! I do, so, have responsibilities! I have to feed the chickens and gather the eggs and slop the pigs and do all sorts of other chores!” Mary Jo’s cheeks bloomed with indignant color as she flounced along in her made-over dress.

  “You don’t have the sorts of responsibilities Kate has,” Alex intoned haughtily. “No young woman should have to shoulder such burdens.”

  “Humph.” Still rebellious, Mary Jo picked up a stick and threw it as hard as she could.

  “Well, now, I don’t know about that,” Kate said, trying for a placating tone, although she agreed with Alex regarding the disparity of the burdens meted out by a Maker Kate had been told was benevolent. She hadn’t believed that one since she was around three or four. A benevolent God wouldn’t have burdened the world and its inhabitants with people like Kate’s father.

  From out of nowhere, a black-and-white dog bounded up to them, Mary Jo’s stick in its mouth. Kate jumped back and uttered a small shriek. She wasn’t really afraid of the dog—exactly—but she was certainly startled. She hadn’t met many dogs in her life, except a few that were kept by merchants in her neighborhood as guard dogs. Those dogs were worth being afraid of. This specimen, with his vacuous brown eyes, wagging fluff of a tail, and floppy ears, didn’t appear to be terrifying. In point of fact, he seemed sort of bouncy and happy and pleased with the world, himself, and the three humans in his vicinity.

  “Well, there you are, Conk!” Alex sounded delighted. “I wondered where you’d got yourself off to.”

  Kate’s assumption that the dog—Conk? What a peculiar name—belonged to the English family was confirmed by Alex’s next action. He reached down, grabbed an end of the stick, and began a growling tug-of-war with the dog for possession of the stick. Kate couldn’t distinguish one growl from the other. Her astonishment that Alex English, refined gentleman farmer, could play with a dog warred with her left-over alarm at the dog’s abrupt appearance in her life.

  Mary Jo laughed with delight.

  Kate slammed a hand over her thundering heart and watched man and dog wrestle over the stick. Nuts. She hated being startled like that. Since Alex was occupied, she turned to Mary Jo. “I presume that’s your dog?”

  “Alex’s.” Mary Jo shouted when Alex, capturing the prize, reached back and flung the stick about twice as far as Mary Jo had. “His name’s Conky. He was one of Romeo and Juliet’s puppies, but he was scared of gunfire, so he couldn’t be used as a hunting dog.”

  “Ah . . . Romeo and Juliet?” Kate was beginning to wonder if she’d stepped out of her own personal world and into an alternate one where everything was exactly opposed to anything she’d ever known. Conky the dog, after sprinting heroically after the stick, leaping low brush and bushes growing in his way, made a flying jump and caught the stick right before it landed. It was a spectacular catch, and Kate was impressed.

  Mary Jo clapped and hollered, “Good catch, Conk!” She turned to Kate. “Romeo and Juliet are Mr. Howell’s hunters. Alex bought Conky from him because Mr. Howell’s dogs are supposed to be the best pointers around, but Conky isn’t. He’s a dunce when it comes to hunting.”

  “Why did Alex name him Conky?”

  Mary Jo’s smile widened. “It was because Alex was trying to teach him to catch. You know, when you throw a dog a scrap of food, and he catches it in mid-air?”

  Kate didn’t know, but she was willing to accept this tidbit of dog lore on faith. “Ah,” she said. “Yes, but . . .”

  “It’s because Conky didn’t understand. He’d wait until the bone or the bit of biscuit conked him on the head before he’d realize it was meant for him.”

  “I see.” She eyed the dog, who was racing back to his master as if the trip was the most important of his life.

  “He learned eventually, but, Alex still claims Conky’s as dumb as dirt. And he still doesn’t have a good hunter, either.”

  Mary Jo’s laughter rippled out on the spring air, reminding Kate of tiny white flowers, from which fanciful imagery, she presumed she was losing her mind, if she hadn’t already lost it. Kate Finney couldn’t afford to get fanciful. “I see. Um, and Alex goes hunting often?”

  “Oh, sure.” Conky arrived at Alex’s feet with a slide and a shower of dirt, and Mary Jo leaped back to avoid getting her skirt spattered with flying pebbles and dust. “He hunts ducks and geese and deer and other game. You know, keeps meat on the table and all that.”

  “Ah. I didn’t know that.” She hadn’t known that rich men had to shoot their meals, for that matter. She observed Alex and his no-good hunting dog for a few minutes, and came up with another assumption. He probably didn’t have to shoot his meals. He probably did it because he liked hunting. Or he was miserly and didn’t want to pay more for food than he had to.

  Scratch that one. Alex English might annoy the life out of Kate on a regular basi
s, but he definitely wasn’t a tightwad. He was more generous than any other person she’d ever met, if it came to that.

  Alex held the stick up so that Conky couldn’t get it. The dog jumped on him, smearing Alex’s trousers with dirty doggy prints, and Alex laughed ruefully. “Down, Conky! Behave yourself. You need to meet someone.” He turned to Kate. “Kate Finney, meet Conky English, the low-down, no-good, non-hunter of a hunting dog. But he’s a good boy in spite of his defects and shortcomings, and even if he isn’t the brightest candle in the box.”

  To Kate’s astonishment, the dog obeyed its master and got down. He even sat on his black-and-white-spotted rump and looked up at Kate, his tongue lolling. She’d never seen a dog do that, either. Because the dog was gazing at her with huge, pleading eyes, and because his feathery tail was whipping up a dust storm behind him, Kate said, “Er, hello, Conky. Good doggie.”

  “Shake, Conk,” Alex commanded.

  The dog lifted a paw for Kate to shake. She did it, thoroughly charmed. “Did you teach him to do that, Alex?”

  “Sure did. It’s about the only trick he knows. He’s a total failure at what he’s supposed to be, which is a hunting dog, but he’s friendly and shakes hands like a champ.”

  “He’s an expert at fetching,” Kate said, feeling defensive on Conky’s behalf.

  “He is now.” Alex laughed. “We had some awful battles at first. He didn’t mind fetching, but bringing things back again was another matter. It took me forever to teach him to return the items he fetched.”

  “Is that true, Conky?” Kate knelt beside the dog, who indicated his appreciation by licking her face. Laughter bubbled up in her, spontaneous and unexpected. “Ew!”

  “Hey, Conk, lay off the lady.” Alex spoke sternly, but Kate heard the laugh in his voice.

  “He’s a good, good doggie,” crooned Kate. “And he fetches beautifully now, no matter how long it took him to learn how.”