Miner's Daughter

by Duncan, Alice

  What a miserable truth to discover at this point. And there wasn’t a single, solitary thing she could do about it, because she’d already opened her foolish mouth and asked her stupid question. And he’d accepted.

  Darn it, sometimes life just stank.

  In spite of Mari’s most recent attack on his character, honor, and moral fiber, Tony felt pretty good about life. And about her.

  So, she was beginning to understand the necessity of appropriate dress and behavior, was she? And she’d actually, honestly and truly, asked for his help. What a change. What a coup. What an astonishing about-face. Watching her out of the corner of his eye, Tony knew he was going to enjoy this process. He’d been longing to get his hands—so to speak—on Mari Pottersby ever since they first met. Now he had her approval to do it.

  He couldn’t wait to begin shaping her into a proper lady. It would be his great pleasure to beget—so to speak—a new Mari. Working closely together, they could fashion her into something special. Why, once they got entangled—so to speak—with each other, who knew what might happen?

  Hell, as Tony squinted at her slantways so as not to upset her any more than she was already upset, he thought that one of these days, if she was willing to follow his advice and guidance, she could be a truly remarkable lady. She was already a remarkable female. It was the lady part that needed work.

  “We’ll begin tonight,” he told her with glee.

  She jumped and clasped her hands together in her lap. “What? I mean, I beg your pardon?”

  He frowned. There was no need for her to be nervous about this. He didn’t intend to be an unkind tutor. “I said, we can begin tonight.”

  “Begin what?”

  Her huge brown eyes, opened wide and staring at him at the moment, were one of her best assets, and Tony intended to see that she used them well. The passenger-side tire rattled over something, and he swung his attention back to his driving. Shoot, he’d better watch out, or he’d crash the car, kill them both, and all of his hard work on Mari’s behalf would go for naught. Not that he’d done any yet, but he intended to.

  “I said we can start your education tonight. After we wash up at the Melrose, I’ll take you out to dinner and maybe a club.”

  “A club?” A fearful note had crept into her voice.

  “You know,” Tony said, grinning at the notion, “a nightclub. A nightspot. Where there’s dancing and music.”

  “Um, I can’t dance. Very well, I mean.”

  “No problem. I’ll teach you. There’s nothing to it.”

  “Oh.” He could tell she didn’t believe it. She would. He’d see to it.

  He heard her swallow and turned to peek at her. He didn’t let his gaze linger, no matter how much he wanted to, because he didn’t want to cause an accident.

  “It’ll be fun.”

  “Will it?”

  “Sure, it will. And, don’t forget,” he added, in case she thought to ask if her Peerless duties included nightclub patrol, “this is all for your education and for your future. If you do a really good job in Lucky Strike, and the public comes to love you, you could make lots more money in the pictures.”

  “Oh.”

  Most of the women he’d met would kill to get into the pictures, except those excruciatingly proper ones from back East who believed everything and everyone in the world who didn’t belong to their set were beneath them. He couldn’t conceive of why Mari seemed indifferent.

  Oh, yeah, now he remembered. That damned mine of hers. Tony wished she could get her mind away from that useless pit.

  “Um, I don’t think I really want to do any more pictures after this one,” she said in a soft voice. “I don’t think it’s, um, up my alley or something”

  Damn. Tony commenced scowling, wondering how he’d overcome this one. Then he brightened. It didn’t matter. She still wanted to learn how to behave in public; that part hadn’t changed. If she didn’t have the added motivation of the moving pictures to spur her education, it didn’t matter. He could still have a lot of fun with her. So to speak.

  “That’s all right,” he said. “We’ll still start your education tonight. If you don’t like the nightclub, we don’t have to stay long.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You don’t have to sound so darned miserable, Mari. I’m not going to beat you or anything. I thought you wanted to do this.”

  She heaved another sigh. “I do, I guess.”

  “Well, then. Just trust me. I’m a good teacher for this sort of thing.”

  “Are you?”

  He shot her a grin. “Sure.”

  She didn’t appear reassured, but Tony’s mood had been rising ever since they’d left Madame Dunbar’s place, and he wasn’t worried. He’d treat her kindly, she’d learn, and who knew what might happen? Several interesting thoughts flitted through his mind, but he decided he’d best not dwell on any of them. For one thing, they might lead to disappointment for him. Worse, they might lead Mari to consider him a cad, and he’d lose her forever.

  He didn’t mean lose her, as when a man loves and loses a woman, of course. He only meant . . . Well; he knew what he meant.

  Motoring south on Fair Oaks Avenue, they’d left Pasadena and civilization behind and were now driving past an extensive sycamore grove. Tony breathed deeply, enjoying the fresh air of the country

  After several miles of quiet, Tony said, “So, do you like it here, Mari? I’ve thought about maybe moving to Southern California. It’s . . . oh, I don’t know. It’s nicer than back East. At least the weather is.”

  It would also remove him from the octopus-like influence of his father. Tony’d been writhing under his father’s thumb for much too long. Not that he worked for his father. He’d long ago made sure that he had his own business interests. What’s more, they’d prospered and he was now a rich man in his own right. But his father was always after him to go into the family business.

  Tony would rather kill himself. Not that he didn’t respect his old man, but he knew him too well to want to work with or for him. Maurice Ewing was a master manipulator, a conscienceless bastard, and an almost unstoppable money-making machine.

  The reason Tony had agreed to this plan, to come out here to watch over Maurice’s investment, was mainly that it would give him a chance to investigate a part of the country that intrigued him. Tony even had investments of his own out here. Several orange processing plants, oil refineries, health spas and resorts, borax mines, and fish-canning factories owed a good deal of their founding monies to Tony Ewing.

  Now that he was here and was seeing Southern California for himself, he liked it even better. There seemed to be something invigorating in the very air.

  “You didn’t like the weather in Mojave Wells.”

  He turned, distracted from his happy daydreams, to see Mari eyeing him resentfully. With a sigh, he turned again to the road. “I know. I don’t like the weather in Mojave Wells. Too hot. But look around here. Isn’t this nice? Sure, it’s warm, but look at all the shady trees and all the green stuff growing. It’s very pleasant. Don’t you think so?”

  She sighed, too, and admitted, “Yes. It’s very pleasant?”

  It sounded to Tony as if she wished it weren’t, and he wondered why. Then, again, he remembered that damned mine of hers.

  That must be it. She didn’t want to like it here, because that would make going back home and tackling that hole in the ground even more of a wretched business than it already was. His heart twanged painfully, before he made it stop. She’d made her bed. If she didn’t have sense enough to climb out of it when it became obviously worthless, that was her fault.

  Hers and her father’s. Damn. Tony wished he hadn’t thought about her maniacal father.

  In an effort to keep himself out of the rut Mari seemed determined to occupy, he said cheerfully, “I’ll bet there are all sorts of opportunities for a bright young lady in these parts. I understand there are lung hospitals all over the place. I’ll bet you could nurs
e in one if you wanted to.”

  He could feel her staring at him. Darn it, it wasn’t his fault she was stupidly single-minded. He said somewhat tartly, “Yeah, I know you’re not a trained nurse. You’re a miner. But the mine isn’t paying, and never will, and you might as well face it and decide to do something else.”

  She sniffed. He couldn’t tell if it was a disdainful sniff or not, but he had his suspicions.

  “Okay, okay. I know you promised your old man you’d work his mine, but honest to God, Mari, you can’t keep on sacrificing yourself for him forever.”

  “It’s not a sacrifice.”

  He gaped at her, incredulous. “What do you mean, it’s not a sacrifice! Look at you! You’re a beautiful young woman, and you’re killing yourself in that damned mine! That’s not only a sacrifice, it’s a pointless one.” He took in her hard expression, set lips, and indignant eyes, and slammed his hands on the steering wheel. “Oh, hell, it’s useless to talk to you about anything.”

  After a few moments, Mari said quietly, “It’s not useless to talk to me about how ladies behave.”

  He squinted at her again before turning back to the road. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll talk to you about how ladies behave.”

  Big deal.

  Chapter Ten

  Mari awoke the morning after her very first night on the town any town feeling like a princess in a fairy tale. Last night had been a dream come true.

  First Tony had brought her to this incredible hotel. She blinked into the pale dawning light in the luxurious room and, if she hadn’t felt the sheets around her, would have believed herself to be dreaming yet. He’d been utterly casual about it, as if he stayed in places like the Melrose Hotel all the time and it was nothing special.

  That was probably true of Tony, but it was special to Mari. She tried to imprint every detail of its elaborate architecture, fine furnishings, lavish carpets, hoity-toity bellboys, and everything else in between on her brain so she’d never forget it, even if she lived to be a hundred and ten.

  Then he’d escorted her to dinner at a restaurant so fancy, Mari’s heart had quailed even as they’d walked up to the door, arm in arm. Tony had been sweet to her, too, anticipating her anxiety and trying to put her at ease. He did a fair job, handling the snooty maitre d’ with his own superior brand of snootiness, and securing them a table in a tucked-away corner. The table sat next to a gorgeous palm tree, and from their vantage point, they could see everyone entering and leaving the restaurant.

  Tony had pointed out several local, even national, celebrities. She’d seen Mr. Huntington, the railroad magnate, and a newspaper man whom she’d never heard of, but who Tony said had all but started the Spanish-American War a few years back. He’d indicated a burly fellow he called Lucky Baldwin and told her a number of stories about him, too, until she began to wonder if all rich men were unscrupulous vultures.

  Vultures or not, Mari had been pop-eyed with fascination. Until Tony’s civics lesson, imparted at that classy little tucked-away table, she hadn’t understood how great an influence other people’s money, and other people’s newspapers, could have on politics. Tony reinforced Martin’s lectures on the potential power of the motion-picture industry. And she was part of it. In a way.

  Dinner had been superb. Mari ha- never before tasted half the stuff she’d eaten last night. Heck, she’d never even heard of scallops or endive or of the process Tony called sauteeing. She’d always called it frying, but he’d explained the subtle differences between the processes to her. She wasn’t altogether sure, she understood them yet, but she was willing to take what he said on faith.

  And that was a revelation, too. She trusted him. Tony Ewing, who had grated against her pride from the moment she’d first seen him, she saw now as a friend and adviser. Perhaps not a friend. In truth, Mari feared her feelings for Tony Ewing went far deeper than friendship.

  But that was nonsense. Nothing in the world was greater than friendship. She’d be greatly honored if Tony were to consider her his friend.

  Opting to forget about her feelings in favor of savoring her memories, Mari ran over her own personal menu in her mind so she wouldn’t forget anything she’d eaten. She aimed to impress the tar out of Judy Nelson the next time she saw her. Judy’d probably never heard of a scallop either, and Mari would bet her boots she’d never heard the word sautee.

  The dinner and the fancy surroundings were only a lead-in to the main event, however. When they’d entered the restaurant, Marie had observed an area devoid of tables in the center of the room. The dark crimson carpeting ended at the edges of the round, polished wood flooring. Tony told her that was the dance floor, and that they were going to dance after they ate. He pointed out the band to her then, its members sitting on a platform at one end of the room and looking every bit as dressed up as the diners.

  The very idea of dancing in those cosmopolitan surroundings alarmed Mari. And that was putting it mildly. Heck, she’d only danced once or twice in her whole life, and that had been at square dances at outdoor picnics with other yokels like herself.

  She’d told Tony so and begged to be excused. “Can’t I just watch this time?” she’d asked, trying to keep the quake out of her voice.

  He’d laughed at her. For the first time, his laugh didn’t make her want to slap his face, probably because he’d reached for her hand, held it gently in his own, and patted it tenderly. “Don’t worry, Mari. By the time we’re ready to dance, you’ll be fine. You’ll see.”

  She hadn’t believed him, but he’d been right. This morning, the fact astounded her.

  “Must have been the wine,” she muttered at her empty room.

  But it hadn’t been only the wine. It had had more to do with Tony’s kindness and gentle instructions. The delicious food had helped, of course, as had the hour or so they’d sat at the table dining, talking, and watching others dance.

  By the time Tony held out his hand for her to take and led her to the dance floor, Mari’s heart had hardly hammered at all. And even that small remaining trepidation had faded quickly, because he’d started out with a simple two-step. By the time Mari’d graduated to the turkey trot, she was completely relaxed and having more fun than she could ever remember having.

  It didn’t hurt that she looked better than she ever had, up to and including her footwear. A pair of evening slippers had mysteriously appeared at her hotel doorway earlier in the afternoon, wrapped in a beribboned box and held out to her by one of the upper-crust uniformed bellboys. Apparently Tony had decided she needed a flower in her hair, too, because he’d arrived at her room with a real one, a red rose. Mari felt very stylish as they swept into the restaurant, and, wonder of wonders, the feeling stayed with her all evening.

  When she swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up, her feet ached. She smiled what she imagined was a silly smile as she limped over to the dressing table. Her feet were sore from dancing the night away, and she’d never felt so good. Ever.

  When she took a hot bubble bath in the Melrose Hotel’s magnificent bathroom, using toiletry products she had a sneaking suspicion Tony had purchased and made available for her, she felt even better. There was a lot to be said for luxurious living; even she had to admit it.

  Her ecstatic mood began its slide back to normal when she donned her mother’s old dress, preparatory for the trip back to Mojave Wells. And the heat. And the shabbiness of her cabin. And that empty mine.

  And Tiny. She shouldn’t forget Tiny, the thought of whom made her happy again. She loved her dog very much

  Still, she knew she looked less than glamorous when she answered Tony’s knock at her door, clad in her and-me-down dress and clunky shoes. She’d polished the shoes, but it hadn’t altered their disreputable condition noticeably. She’d tried to improve herself by tucking one of her crepe-paper flowers behind her ear—and it did help a little bit. It made her feel slightly perkier, even if her perkiness didn’t show.

  Tony didn’t glower, though, which she too
k as a good sign. In truth, he didn’t seem to notice her much at all, except as a being he had to transport from one location to another. He said, “All ready?” in a businesslike voice as soon as she opened the door.

  It took her only a second to regain her balance, which teetered precariously at being so abruptly confronted with reality. But she’d lived nineteen years as an impoverished nobody. One evening of grandeur couldn’t wipe out a lifetime’s worth of nobodyhood. She swallowed hard and said, “Sure am. Let me get my bag.”

  “I’ll get it.”

  She wasn’t surprised when Tony barged past her, grabbed her shabby carpetbag, and hefted it up. Rather weakly she said, “Thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  At least he honored her with a sort of cocky grin. Evidently, he hadn’t retreated altogether into his former aloof pose as king-of-the-world.

  But that wasn’t fair. He hadn’t assumed the position on his own. Mari’d put him there because she’d felt so inferior to him. Bother. Sometimes she absolutely detested her penchant for recognizing her own shortcomings. She’d established him on the blasted pedestal, and it wasn’t his fault, but hers.

  She followed him out of her room, still starry eyed, but trying to hide her condition. She did venture to say, “Um, I had a real good time last night, Tiny. You were right. It wasn’t so scary after I got used to it.”

  He cast a brilliant smile at her from over his shoulder. “See? I told you I was a good teacher.”

  She silently thanked her Maker that Tony had opted to ignore her slip of the tongue. She really wouldn’t have blamed him for not wanting to be called by her dog’s name. “Right. You sure are.” And she was an idiot for wishing he could see himself as something more than her teacher.

  “And you’re a terrific student, too.”

  It was nice of him to say so. Mari didn’t respond.

  “Say, are you hungry, Mari? If you can wait for an hour or so to eat breakfast, we can stop at a little place I know on the way to Mojave Wells. It’s in the community that calls itself Arcadia. Lucky Baldwin has a big ranch there, and there’s a place called Baldwin’s that serves great food.”