The Wedding Promise

by Carolyn Davidson

  “I imagine that most every piano west of St. Louis could use my skills,” he said abruptly. “I have no time to spend on your parlor upright.”

  “It’s a Steinway.”

  His head lifted and he tensed visibly. “You play?” He waited for her reply.

  “Not as well as its owner,” she said quietly. “Or as well as he could play it, were he able, I should say.”

  He waved her away, an imperious movement of his veined hand. “I will talk to you later.”

  Rachel released her breath, a sigh of relief. Stepping to the lone chair on the stage, she settled herself in to wait

  The name of Jacob McPherson apparently rang a bell in the mind of David Solomon. “He was promising, a talented man.”

  Faint praise, perhaps, but when Rachel asked her favor, it was granted without hesitation.

  “Is it Jake he wants to meet, or the piano he wants to tune?” Cord asked as he lifted Rachel from the buggy.

  “I don’t know. And to tell the truth, I don’t care,” she answered, climbing the steps to the porch. “He’s coming here in the morning to tune the piano, and if Jake isn’t at least polite, I’ll be furious.”

  Buck Austin headed for the barn, leading the sleek mare. Cord watched as his latest acquisition, the shiny black buggy he’d purchased only last week, rolled away.

  “I don’t think you even paid attention to the new buggy,” he told Rachel, following her into the kitchen. “All I heard was David Solomon’s name all the way home.”

  “Not true. I noticed my skirt didn’t get snagged when I slid across the seat,” she said, casting him a sidelong glance.

  “You didn’t bounce around either,” he pointed out

  She turned to him, a placating smile curving her lips.

  “I noticed, Cord. I didn’t even need a bonnet to keep the sun off, and the padding on the seat was most comfortable.”

  “I bought it for you,” he said, slipping his arms around her waist.

  She lifted an eyebrow in doubt. “You bought it so that we could attend the theater in style. Although I don’t know what you’ll do when everyone wants to go at once. There’s only room for three people in that seat.”

  “It affords a bit of privacy, though,” he pointed out.

  “I noticed your arm around me,” she admitted, reaching to stroke her palm down the firm line of his jaw.

  “There’s leftovers in the oven,” Lorena said from the doorway. “Didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I thought you might be hungry, and we didn’t wait supper for you.”

  “We were late. Rachel waited to talk to the piano tuner at the theater, and I sent Jamie on home with the wagon.” Cord released his hold on Rachel and bent to open the oven door. “Smells pretty good in there.”

  “I’ll get out some plates,” Lorena volunteered. “We had johnnycake and a kettle of beans with ham and new potatoes.”

  “I’m too excited to eat,” Rachel declared, and then denied her claim as she inhaled the aroma from the stove. “Well, maybe I could manage just a little.”

  “Jake all right?” Cord asked quietly. That Rachel counted heavily on his brother’s good behavior in the morning was a fact. His spirits had been somewhat lighter of late, but Jake might very well resent the intrusion of a stranger in the house.

  “He came out for supper. Said I didn’t need to be carrying trays back and forth when he could very well make it to the table.” Lorena’s eyes were lit with a glow akin to happiness, Cord decided as she announced her news.

  “Just for tonight or every day?” he asked dubiously.

  She shrugged. “Sounded like he meant every day, to me.”

  “Mr. David Solomon will be here in the morning,” Rachel told her. “He’s come to town to tune the piano at the theater, and I’ve asked him to work on Jake’s.”

  Lorena was silent for a moment as she considered the news. “I’ll tell him, if you like.”

  Cord shook his head. “No, I’ll go in when we’ve finished eating and give him the news.”

  “I don’t want some fly-by-night fella touching that piano.” His mouth set in a firm line, Jake faced his brother from his chair.

  Cord shook his head. “He’s far from that.” He hesitated, and Jake eyed him watchfully.

  “Rachel said the man thought he recognized your name.”

  Jake’s frown denied the idea. “I doubt that.”

  Cord shrugged, as if accepting his theory. “Well, I only know what she said.”

  Jake’s mouth twitched as if he barely stifled the urge to know more.

  “Rachel said the man heard you play in New York. He’d like to meet you.”

  “I can’t imagine why.” Jake’s words were tinged with sarcasm.

  Rachel spoke from the doorway. “I can’t either, now that I think about it. A more disagreeable man than you, I can’t conceive of.”

  “I don’t need everyone on my back,” he said after a moment. “Cord gave me what-for this morning. Rena made me ashamed of myself before supper, and now the both of you come in here asking me to be a good boy tomorrow.”

  Rachel’s eyes narrowed as her gaze moved between the brothers. “You had a fuss this morning?”

  Jake considered her. “I suspect you had more to do with it than you’ll admit, Miss Rachel.”

  “What happened?”

  “He told me I was a lazy dolt, in no uncertain terms.”

  She turned to her husband. “You said that?”

  “Among other things. I told him to tend to the account books, on a daily basis.”

  Rachel’s mouth twitched. “And did you agree?” she asked Jake.

  Jake looked sulky, his brows drawing together. “I can’t see that I have much choice. Cord was about as sore at me as he’s ever been in his life.”

  “I suppose he’d be understanding if you can’t handle the chore,” Rachel said smoothly, as if Cord were not present. “Should I talk to him?”

  Jake’s head jerked up quickly. “I suspect you’ve already done that, ma’am. He said you accused him of letting me malinger in my room.”

  She looked thoughtfully at him. “I may have suggested the idea.”

  “I’m surprised it wasn’t his idea for me to take my meals at the table. How did the pair of you manage to let me think of that by myself?”

  Cord grinned at his sarcasm. “Now, here I thought you took pity on Lorena, carrying all those heavy trays down the hallway.”

  A sheepish smile tilted his lips. “That was part of it. She was cooking and bustling around the kitchen while you were in town, and I didn’t have the gall to ask for a tray. I said I’d decided it was time to join the family for meals.”

  Rachel closed her eyes, fighting the sudden rush of tears that followed his words. He’d come so far, so soon.

  “Rachel?” His chair rolled closer to where she stood. “What’s wrong?”

  She blinked back the moisture. “Nothing, actually. I suppose I feel like I’m imposing to ask you for more than you’ve already conceded today.”

  His sigh was grumpy. “Go ahead. Ask away.”

  “Come into the parlor in the morning when Mr. Solomon arrives. Just be polite and shake his hand. He’s a wonderful man, Jake, skilled and talented.”

  “Most tuners have a certain amount of talent.”

  Cord’s voice provided a further nudge. “He’s staying over an extra day, Jake, just to come here.”

  He glowered, his glare moving first to one, then the other. “You’re putting on the pressure, Cord. I don’t like being the object of anyone’s pity. Here’s the poor, legless pianist. Come out and take a look.”

  “I can promise you he won’t look at you with pity,” Rachel told him quietly.

  “Really.” Jake’s tone doubted her word.

  “Really. He won’t be able to see you, Jake. He’s blind.”

  His ear attuned to the upper registers of the keyboard, David Solomon appeared unaware of the wheelchair in the wide doorway of the parlor. He s
truck a note, then stood, leaning forward over the strings to make the adjustment, repeating the process several times before he was satisfied.

  It was a tedious job, Jake had decided years ago, but the rapt expression on the man’s face belied that assumption. Slender fingers touched the notes of a chord, then spanned octaves, his head tilted to listen to the sound.

  Shaking his head, he bent to his task once more, then spoke, his words abrupt. “Why don’t you come closer, instead of watching from over there in the doorway?” he asked, holding a pair of pliers aloft.

  “I didn’t want to disturb you.” Jake rolled his chair across the room slowly. “Mr. Solomon?”

  His fingers sought the small tool bag, and David Solomon replaced his pliers within. “Yes. I assume you are Jacob McPherson.”

  Jake nodded. “Yes, I am,” he added quickly, his gaze taking in the half-closed, deep-set eyes of the piano tuner.

  “I heard you perform in New York City, at a recital, while you were studying there.” The older man swung around on the piano bench and held out his hand, palm up. “Let me have your hand.”

  Jake rolled closer and leaned forward a bit, placing his fingers against the older man’s palm.

  They rested there for a moment and then both of the veined, aged hands enclosed the more youthful, graceful one. David Solomon touched the fingers, the knuckles, ran his own sensitive fingertips over the full length of Jake’s hand. Then released it.

  “The other, please,” he said quietly.

  Within his chest, Jake’s heart beat a stronger cadence than before, his breathing deepened and he felt a strange vitality sweep beneath his skin to penetrate his inner self.

  He placed his left hand where the right had been, watched as it was handled with the same intense scrutiny by the aged hands of the master tuner. And then it was released and Jake rested it against his thigh.

  “You no longer play?”

  “No.”

  “Why?” He tilted his head questioningly. “Because you are in an invalid’s chair?”

  “Enough of a reason, I would think, Mr. Solomon.” A flush of combined anger and embarrassment rose to heat Jake’s face. The urge to turn and roll from this room, from the abrasive presence of this man, was almost more than he could resist.

  “Are your hands damaged in any way that I could not perceive?”

  “No.” Abrupt and chill, the word put an end to the interrogation, as far as Jake was concerned.

  “Wait, don’t go.”

  Before wheels could be put into motion, the words halted him. Jake paused, fingers poised to spin the chair about.

  “All of us bear wounds of one kind or another, Mr. McPherson. Yours and mine are more obvious than those of others, perhaps.” Mr. Solomon drew forth a wrench from his bag of tools and leaned over the exposed strings to apply it to the appropriate place.

  “I have no legs, no feet. Hence, I cannot use the pedals, sir.” Jake’s voice rumbled from his chest, and the pain of his words resounded in the room.

  “Have you lost your knees, too?” He sat upright and touched the uppermost keys, playing a downward scale slowly, then reached the octave, playing each end alternately.

  Jake waited until David Solomon had made his next adjustment before he answered. “I have my right knee.”

  “How fortunate for you.” Sitting erect once more, his fingers played a short passage, imbuing the notes with a strangely tender resonance. “Without eyes, I must rely entirely upon my memory. At least you are able to learn new music.”

  “Which amounts to tinkling sounds without the pedals. Without being able to sustain the—” He stopped abruptly. “You know what I’m saying, Mr. Solomon.”

  “Yes, I do.” He nodded his understanding. “But with a right knee, you should be able to press a pedal put in place beneath the keyboard. Fastened to a steel bar, then wired to the loud pedal. You’d lose the soft control, but then…” He shifted his shoulders, and his smile was radiant.

  “I think you could live with the use of one pedal, Mr. McPherson. I think you could make music to stir the soul.”

  Jake’s snort of disbelief was loud. “A pedal beneath the keyboard? Where have you ever seen such a thing?”

  “I’ve never seen it, I have to admit. But I know it can be done.”

  Jake blushed anew. “I spoke too quickly. I apologize. Of course, you haven’t seen it.”

  “A matter of speaking,” said the tuner. “I took no offense.”

  “How could it be done?” A faint lilt of hope touched his speech, and Jake wished for its retrieval. There was no sense in wishing for what might never happen.

  “Surely you have a blacksmith in town?”

  “Yes, certainly.”

  David Solomon spread his hands, a gesture of finality. “There you have it. Ask him to come here and take the measure of what you need. Better yet, I’ll go back to town and talk to him. Between us, we should be able to sort out the situation.”

  “You’d do that for me?”

  “No, not just for you. For the music you have in you.

  For the lives of others you may yet reach with your talent.”

  “I’ll never be on the stage again,” Jake said bitterly. “There is no room in this world for a man who must carry his own custom-made piano with him.”

  “Then make this part of the world a better place. Make your own world brighter. Allow your music to feed your soul, Jacob McPherson.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The train whistle sounded in the evening air, blown on

  the prevailing wind from the west. The station platform held only four people, two satchels and a covered basket.

  “I hope you’ll enjoy the bread and jam Lorena packed for you,” Rachel said, her heart overflowing with a gratitude she could not find words to express.

  “Bread and jam? I opened the lid, Miss Rachel,” David Solomon said with a gentle smile. “I smelled ham and fresh melon and my fingers found a tin of cookies.”

  “We wanted you to have home-cooked food until you reach your next stop.”

  “No one has ever treated us so well, I must admit,” the younger member of the duo said.

  “You’ve done more for us, for my brother, than I can ever say,” Cord told David Solomon, his hand clasping that of the master tuner.

  A brilliant smile touched the face of the blind man. “I only hope Jacob will find his way back to the world of music. He has an abundance of talent, but a soul that is starving for sustenance.”

  “Did he try the pedal?” Cord asked.

  David Solomon shook his head. “Not while I was there. Your Mr. Hunsucker said he would be willing to come back out to make adjustments if the apparatus did not work out as planned.”

  He bent his head for a moment. “I suspect Jacob wanted to be alone when he worked the knee pedal for the first time. If he cannot operate it, his disappointment will possibly be more than he is willing to allow another to see.”

  The train whistle blew again, a lonesome sound in the early-morning air. The two men were facing a long day’s ride to their next stop. With a mighty clanging of its bell and a flourish of steam and cinders, the engine passed them by and the passenger car pulled up alongside.

  Horace placed his arm under his companion’s hand and together the two men boarded, the train hardly stopping before it picked up speed once more.

  Rachel lifted her hand to wave and then found her fingers pressing instead against her mouth as a sob erupted from her throat.

  “Tears, honey?” Cord asked, his hand rising to brush away the moisture that trickled down her cheek.

  “That man worked a miracle for Jake.” She fished in her pocket for her hankie and blew into it. “I think his life will be much different from now on.”

  “Only if he makes it so,” Cord answered. “He’s the one who has to make changes. Like you told me, neither of us can be responsible for Jake’s happiness, Rachel. And the good Lord knows you’ve done more than enough already.”<
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  Her glance was swift, but she caught the element of anger he could not hide. “I wasn’t aware I’d taken on that task.”

  “Seems to me like you have,” he stated firmly.

  She huffed out a breath and opened her mouth, only to close it again, her lips squeezing tightly together.

  Well, so much for that, he thought with a surge of irritation as she lifted her chin defiantly. A flicker of unease gave him pause, and he turned her from the edge of the platform toward where the new buggy waited.

  Surely she knew how much time she’d spent with Jake. She wasn’t taking any pains to conceal her presence as she stopped by to pass the time of day with him. It was obvious enough to him that there was a bond between his wife and his brother.

  A bond that had even infringed at times on his own needs. The ugly specter of jealousy had been an unwelcome visitor on more than one occasion of late, Cord admitted to himself. Could Rachel be so blind that she did not know how often Jake’s name intruded?

  The buggy cut a wide circle as it left the station, and Cord waved at Conrad Carson, who was sweeping the sidewalk in front of his store. Another fine example of Rachel’s influence on the men in this town. Even now the man was probably gazing after the buggy with envious eyes.

  Cord snapped the reins sharply over the back of his mare and she swung into a showy trot, her tail swishing as though she would draw eyes to her performance. John Hunsucker pumped the bellows in the doorway of his blacksmith shop, lifting one hand in greeting as the buggy passed.

  It was not totally his imagination that John had spent considerable time speaking with Rachel yesterday. She’d offered him coffee and served it while he drew up a diagram of the apparatus he would build for the piano.

  Then, upon his return several hours later, the burly blacksmith had asked her help as he put together and adjusted the metal adaptation to the pedal. Cord had watched for a few moments from the parlor doorway as those enormous shoulders had fit carefully beneath the keyboard, Rachel bending to hand him his tools.