Summer Lightning

by Cynthia Bailey Pratt

  Jeff glanced at her plate, empty and shining, then down at his own with half a steak to go. His eyes showed his mirth. Edith snapped upright. “I beg your pardon. It’s dreadfully rude to gallop through a meal.”

  “Not at all. It’s a pleasure to watch a lady enjoying her food. Most just pick and nibble, you know.”

  Edith launched upon a more elaborate apology. She did not want to admit to Mr. Dane how deep her hunger ran. Actually, she could have eaten another steak with all the trimmings and never have felt a moment’s discomfort. After a moment, Edith realized that she had lost Mr. Dane’s attention.

  Knowing it was rude, she turned in her chair to look over her shoulder. What was he staring at?

  A blonde girl, tall with an elegant figure, was speaking rapidly to Mr. Waters. Edith stared at the girl with as much attention as Mr. Dane did. A goddess could not have been more lovely, with her beautiful figure, fine bust and swanlike neck. Under her draped mantle, she was dressed in the extremely tight clothing that the latest fashions dictated, with the lashings of ruching and feathers that only the most majestic figure could carry off.

  Edith glanced toward Mr. Dane. “She’s lovely. Is that Mrs. Waters? If so, I must thank her personally for her kindness.”

  “What? No, that’s not, definitely not Mrs. Waters.” Miss Parker’s interested eyes drew more from him against his will. “Her name is Sabrina Carstairs.”

  “Do you know her?”

  He didn’t want to lie, but he wished he hadn’t gotten started.

  “Oh, yes. That is, I knew her once. Briefly. Hardly spoke at all.”

  The blonde threw her hand in the air, obviously exasperated. She twirled away from Mr. Waters and began to walk as rapidly as her tight skirt would allow, with the plain intention of never darkening this door again. As she passed their table, Jeff ducked his head, becoming blatantly interested in his meal.

  Edith, however, openly watched the girl as she stalked past. She’d never seen so truly beautiful a girl before, though she’d often wondered what it must be like to be one.

  Suddenly, the girl stopped, as if she’d thought of several good things to say to Mr. Waters. But instead of walking back to him, she said, “Why, Jefferson Dane, is that you?”

  “Hello, Sabrina,” Jeff said looking up.

  Chapter 5

  “Been in town long, Jeff?”

  “I’m here on business. I’ll be going home in a day or two.”

  “That’s too bad. I would have liked to have seen more of you. Talk over old times.” Her smile was slow, deliberately intriguing. Jeff shifted in his chair and rubbed the back of his neck. He avoided glancing at Edith. What she must be thinking!

  “I’ve found a new place to live, on Elm. Not so fancy as the place I was in when you and I were . . .”

  “Times are hard,” he said, cutting her off quickly.

  “Seems that way. ‘Cept in the cattle business. It doesn’t look like that boom will ever end.”

  Jeff remembered that Sabrina had possessed, in addition to an inviting body, a sharp, almost male mind. She certainly understood the laws of supply and demand. “Like everything else,” he said, “it has drawbacks.”

  He saw that Edith’s bright eyes flickered between the buxom blonde and himself. She seemed as excited and involved as though she were watching a play. He only hoped she was too innocent to guess what his friendship with Sabrina had been.

  “You know, of all the things I miss . . .” Sabrina started to say, putting her hand on his shoulder.

  The waiter had come over to clear the plates. Reaching for Edith’s plate, he knocked over her cup of coffee, sending the spray across the statuesque woman’s light-colored wrap. Miss Carstairs leaped backwards, brushing at her mantle frantically.

  “Oh, you . . . you silly . . . God, what a mess!”

  Edith snatched Jeff’s napkin from under his hand and, with her own, began to mop at the gleaming silk and beading. “It’s all right—I don’t think it will stain.”

  “Not stain! Are you kidding?” She threw off her mantle and thrust it into the apologetic waiter’s hand. “You’re going to have to buy me a new one.”

  Still helpful, Edith said, “Perhaps you can dye it brown.”

  “Brown? I wouldn’t wear brown if it was the last color. . . .” She twisted to look down the rear breadth of her skirt. “Oh, good, at least it didn’t splash my dress.”

  Sabrina snatched her mantle back from the waiter’s hand. “Never mind. I’ll give it away. It was getting old anyway.”

  The waiter nodded dumbly, even his mustache drooping in his misery. He slunk away without a backward glance. Sabrina stared after him in exasperation.

  Jeff said, “I’m glad you weren’t hurt, Sabrina. Good thing that coffee was cold.”

  “Ah, heck. It’s not worth fussing about- Kind of thing that could happen to anyone.” She glanced after the waiter again. “Poor dope.”

  She spent a few more minutes at their table. To Jeff’s relief, they talked about her royally pampered cat, and her new house, not about the past.

  Always aware of Edith listening, after a few minutes Jeff said, “Interesting. Well, we have to be going.”

  “Wait for the bill, boy. Can’t rook the waiter. Look what he did for me.” She patted the puff of hair behind her head.

  As he stood, he said, “You always look fine, Sabrina. No matter what.”

  “Why, thank you, Jeff. I’ve often thought you were the finest gentleman I ever met up with. You know, I wrote you a letter not too long ago.”

  “I never got it.”

  “I figured that. A gentleman like you would have answered, one way or the other. But if you happen to get it, do me a favor and rip it up. It’s not important now.”

  “All right. I will. Well, we better be getting along.”

  Sabrina glanced at Edith. ‘Thank you, whoever you are. You mopped that coffee up right nice.”

  “My pleasure, Miss Carstairs. I’m sure it won’t stain.”

  Edith stopped him from calling a cab, saying she’d enjoy the walk. She said nothing else, and Jeff didn’t break the silence. He tried to think of a way to reassure Miss Parker that he wasn’t a heartless libertine, using a woman only to discard her when his appetite had been satisfied. It was just his bad luck, he decided, that sent Sabrina to Waters’ place while he was there.

  Miss Parker was probably planning to back out of their business deal at this very moment. All her doubts about his intentions must have come back. The thought filled him with discontent. She might be a naive, funny little thing, but somehow he had faith in her. Besides, she needed him a whole lot more than he needed her. The same instinct that made him collect strays was working on her behalf.

  Edith sighed and Jeff looked at her with an apology on his lips. “I’m sorry about that. Miss Carstairs . . .”

  “Isn’t she beautiful? All that golden hair . . . she seemed very good-natured too, which is not, I believe, a usual thing with really lovely girls. So often they become proud and vain.”

  “Uh . . .”

  “It’s become so warm now, I don’t think she’ll need her wrap after all.”

  “Look, I don’t want you to think ... I don’t mean to . . .”

  He received the full impact of her happy smile. It staggered him to realize she hadn’t been worried about his evil intentions at all. “It was so nice, I thought.”

  “What was?” Was she being sarcastic?

  “The waiter and Miss Carstairs.”

  “Having coffee spilled over you is nice?”

  “No, of course not. I mean, they’re so terribly in love. It’s nice. Not the sort of thing one sees every day, not even in my line of work.”

  Despite the people jostling past them on the sidewalk, Jeff stopped. The brisk clip-clop of the passing horses and the shouts of the drovers faded. He could even ignore the newspaper boy yelling his head off a few feet away.

  “What? That’s nonsense. Sabrina wouldn’t giv
e the time of day to a man who couldn’t afford to give her the best.”

  “The best?”

  “Jewelry, furs, horses ... the best of everything. You should have seen where she lived before. It’s a good thing I only knew her for a month or she’d have driven me into the poorhouse.”

  “I suppose she felt she had to look out for her future. I have often thought a life of shame must be a precarious one. Of course, my life has been thoroughly proper and yet it turned out to be risky in the extreme.” She gave him a direct look. "That keeps me from looking down my nose at Miss Carstairs.”

  Jeff was left gaping. He never thought she’d look at it like that. Any usual woman would have been having hysterics at actually speaking to a “fallen angel.”

  Edith tugged lightly at his arm. “We are blocking the sidewalk, Mr. Dane.”

  He walked a few steps on. “Wait a minute. What about the waiter? You don’t mean that Sabrina and that ... I can’t even remember what he looks like. There’s no way those two are . . .”

  “But of course they are. It stands out all over them.”

  “You can’t know that for sure.”

  It had been like a halo shining around the two of them. A brightness that hovered a few inches above the heads of the dazzling blonde and the younger waiter. The closer they’d been to one another the brighter it had grown.

  “Any woman,” she said, settling for a mundane explanation, “who just received a cup of coffee over what was obviously a brand-new mantle and who didn’t instantly crush the offender must be in love.”

  “Maybe she didn’t want to cause a scene,” Jeff said and immediately reversed himself. “No, Sabrina likes scenes. The louder and more public the better.”

  “Love has the power to change people.”

  “Well, maybe you’re right,” he admitted. “Maybe she has settled down with a waiter. That would explain the cheaper rooms. But she was still flirting with me ... wasn’t she?”

  “I imagine it must be something she can’t help. Some girls are just born knowing how to flirt.” Edith wondered what it would be like to squeeze—ever so lightly of course—the firm muscle beneath his sleeve. But her upbringing forbade any such act.

  When they reached the hotel, Edith said, “Thank you again for lunch. Please don’t forget to give me Mrs. Waters’ address so I can write to her.”

  “I’ll bring it to you in a few minutes.”

  She nodded and headed toward the mahogany-railed staircase that swept up from the lobby. Passing two dignified older women on the stairs, she nodded and smiled. In return, she received a set of glances so frosty that the humid summer air seemed to harden into a winter’s chill. They seemed almost to switch their skirts out of range of some contamination.

  Pausing on the stair, Edith turned to watch the ladies descending, a puzzled frown puckering her brow. Had she accidentally offended them? How, when she’d hardly stepped out of her room? Perhaps her singing in the night had disturbed more people that Mr. Dane had told her about.

  From here, she could see him at the desk. Suddenly, he pounded his fist against the blotter. A faint ring sounded among the thudding, as the blows moved the summoning bell. Wondering, Edith started down the stair.

  Jeff met her halfway across the lobby. His tanned face showed red as an Indian’s, his brown eyes hard as horse chestnuts. “Come on,” he said in a grinding whisper. He took her arm and turned her again toward the stairs.

  “What is it, Mr. Dane?”

  “The management has asked us to leave.”

  * * * *

  “Damn and blast them to hell,” Jeff said, striding along the hall. He still towed her along by the arm, though he seemed to have forgotten about her. “It’s a fine thing when a man can’t even do right by a fellow creature without a bunch of prudish old women . . . that Dilworthy ... he saw the state you were in last night! What could any decent man do but make sure you were all right?”

  He stopped outside her door. Edith felt as though she’d been dragged along behind a runaway train. He held out his hand for her key. “Pack up your things, Miss Parker. I’ll get my grip and we’ll shake off the dust of this place in two hoots.”

  “Surely there’s no reason to leave so abruptly, Mr. Dane,” Edith said, digging in her bag for the key. They were the first words she’d been able to slip in.

  “I don’t stay where I’m not wanted, Miss Parker. They’ve made their feelings clear on the subject.”

  “But all I have to do is explain . . .”

  “I’m not having my business told to a bunch of busybodies just to stay here another night. It’s not worth it.”

  Mr. Maginn had been threatening but he hadn’t stormed as impressively as this. Jefferson’s responsive face had become stony, only his hot eyes showing his anger. His voice was tight and hard as he thoroughly castigated everyone in the hotel, excepting only the young hallboy and herself.

  Yet she wasn’t afraid as she had been frightened of Mr. Maginn. She knew instinctively that Mr. Dane would never harm her. “So, what hotel will we go to next?”

  “We’re not.” He took the key out of her hands, turned it quickly in the keyhole and pushed open her door. “I’ve got Waters’ word that he’ll take the meat. So we’re going home.”

  “All right.” The way Mr. Dane combined the two of them into an “us” warmed her as though she had entered a room and everyone had turned to welcome her. “I haven’t a bag to pack my new clothes in. Do you think you could advance me a few dollars?” Asking him for more money brought a hot blush into her cheeks.

  “I forgot.” The anger seemed to die down in his eyes. “I’ll run out and buy you one. Get your stuff together to be ready to go when I come back.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Dane. Shall I pack for you?”

  “I’ll take care of it. I don’t travel with much.”

  In her room, Edith wasn’t sure she’d made it clear that Mr. Dane was to be repaid for the valise. She considered going down to catch him, but the idea of passing before all those critical eyes turned her knees to water. Coward though she might be, Edith shrank from that ordeal.

  After laying out her new clothes neatly on the bed, Edith remembered she had not yet written to thank Mrs. Waters and her mother for their charity. Fruitlessly opening and closing the desk drawers, Edith realized that there was not a scrap of paper to be had in the room. And the only pen she found had a broken nib.

  Twice she walked to the door. Twice she turned back. Orpheus gave an inquisitive chirp. “I know,” she said, shutting her eyes. “I’m as spineless as a jellyfish. It’s not as though they’re going to eat me, and I must write Mrs. Waters. I can’t be so basely ungrateful as not to reply to her kindness.”

  The hall of the castle was lit only by flickering torches. The shadows fought the light as Lady Jessica crept down the stairs into the great cold halt. The secret papers were in the mighty hewn oak table that Sir Ivor used when holding his corrupt Court of Justice. She halted on the rough steps as two guards, their swords clanking against mailed legs, passed below her. Lady Jessica longed for the safety of her tower room. But no ... Lord Jeffrey’s life depended on those papers! She would not fail him.

  “Pardon me,” Edith said, her voice tiny.

  The clerk did not move. He thrust letters into the guests’ boxes with unnecessary violence.

  “Might I trouble you . . .”

  Shoving in the final letter, the clerk turned. On seeing her, his bony nose wrinkled. “What do you want?”

  “You’re the man who was on duty last night?”

  “Yes, young woman, I am. Really, haven’t you caused enough trouble? Are we to have a scene?”

  She recognized him now. Not so much by his sour face but by the faint, smudgy glow about him. Concentrating, she saw that someone loved him devotedly, though the reason was not easy to see. He didn’t deserve to hear what she had to say. Edith fought to keep the words back, but they could not be denied.

  “What’s your name?
”

  “Dilworthy, as if that’s any of your business, young woman. Now, please . . .” He shooed her away with a flapping hand as though she’d been a stray cat. “Your ‘friend’ will be back soon and then you and he can do as the management of the St. Simeon has asked. This is a respectable . . .”

  “Listen to me, August. It’s important.”

  “Threats don’t mean . . . how did you know that?”

  Edith leaned forward to give her words more emphasis. “Does someone meet you every morning when you go home?”

  “Kindly tell me how you know my name.”

  “Is there someone like that? Always there when you come home and at other times too? Does she take care of you in little ways that maybe you don’t notice? Clean laundry, your favorite kind of cookie . . .”

  The fussy little man primmed his mouth as though wild horses wouldn’t make him speak. Then he said, “My landlady’s daughter makes me breakfast.”

  “That would be ... ?”

  His small eyes grew narrower still. “Are you some kind of fake spiritualist? This is worse than I thought. Immorality is one thing; blasphemy is another. I’m going to call a policeman, young woman. Trying to flimflam decent . . .”

  “Listen to me,” she said again.

  Reaching out, she placed her hands over his. As the connection was made, Edith saw everything very clearly. The girl loved him but was beginning to despair, certain the object of her worship would never look at her. If the situation didn’t change, August would lose her, growing ever more bitter until his soul could never be untwisted.

  “It’s very important, August. Tomorrow when you go home, you’ve got to notice her. Ask her about her interests, find out what she likes to do. Be good to her.”

  The desk clerk stared past her shoulder as though he’d gone absentminded. “I’ve heard her mother call her Katrine. When I left for work today, Katrine gave me a bun warm from the oven for my dinner pail.”

  The glow around the clerk had brightened noticeably. If it went on like this, soon other people would see it. Edith hoped they’d be kind. Some people would find ridiculously humorous the thought of this bellicose little man being involved in a romance.