Under a Gilded Moon(62)

“Look!” Jursey pointed. “One of them rich men from the station.”

Tully tilted her nose in the air. “Aunt Rema said it was him caused a ruction by calling our Kerry the village milkmaid. You won’t catch me tradin’ howdys.”

The air smelled of maple wood burning in hearths and balsam from the nearby forest. Kerry could never think quite clearly with balsam nearby.

Reining in his horse directly in front of them, Cabot touched the brim of his top hat. “Good afternoon.” For all his big-city polish, he seemed to flounder for what to say next. “I hope you each are well.”

Jursey scraped his right toe on the street. “Could be a heap better.”

Kerry shot Jursey a look. “We are well,” she said evenly. “And we hope you are.”

“I was out for a ride. Not . . . looking for anything, or anyone, in particular.” The words came too rushed, then too slow. As if, she suspected, he most definitely was looking for something, or someone, in particular.

“How nice,” she said, not helping him.

She remembered again his disappearing behind the train station. His never volunteering to the police that he’d met Aaron Berkowitz somewhere before. His having possibly been in love with the same woman as the murdered reporter.

Cabot cleared his throat. “So, then.”

“No doubt, Mr. Cabot, your friends at Biltmore are waiting for you.”

He only shifted in the saddle, though, as if he wanted to speak but didn’t know where to begin.

“They say,” Jursey blurted suddenly, “Mr. George Vanderbilt’s got himself a whole field worth of carriages here. If our roof finishes out the falling sure enough, maybe the gentleman here’d put in a word for us to sleep the night in one of them setting empty.”

Kerry tried to catch Jursey’s eye to make him see the fire in hers. But he was chattering now to John Cabot directly.

“We could bring Daddy, too, ’course. Ride him down on Malvolio’s back. Just the four of us curled up inside’d put nobody out.”

Mortification rose through Kerry’s chest into her neck, her face.

Glancing her way at last, Jursey dropped his voice. “Should I not a said that, Kerry? Don’t be riled.”

Cabot stared at her. “Your roof. Is it really in danger of collapse?”

Kerry’s cheeks throbbed. “If you’ll excuse us, we need to be getting back.” Grabbing a hand on either side of her, even though the twins were too old to hold hands, Kerry bolted back into motion.

Hesitating, Cabot touched a gloved hand to the brim of his hat.

They’d climbed the next hill before Kerry turned on the twins—both clearly afraid to speak. Her hands went to her hips.

Jursey ventured something first. “Hadn’t we oughta answered him about the roof?”

Tully spoke up—tentatively, as if she knew too much volume just now might trigger her sister again. “We don’t want to end up all out of friends like the Little Match Girl from our storybook.”

“We are not out of friends. Nor are we out of a home.”

“But the roof—” Jursey attempted.

“Then we’ll sleep in the barn if we have to. Malvolio won’t mind sharing.”

Both twins seemed to sense they shouldn’t mention just now how the wind howled between the boards of the barn in winter. Kerry dropped a hand on each shoulder, partly to comfort—and also to say they needed to keep hushed for a while.

In silence, they walked beyond the busiest, most elegant of the shops on Patton Avenue. Haywood was a quieter contrast to Patton, the former’s striped awnings muted, its storefronts less brilliantly lit. But the effect was pleasant, like the bookish child content in her corner of the schoolhouse.

The shop windows were filled with kettles and ironing boards, with red wagons and leather-bound volumes of Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle. But none of them had the more competitive gleam and glitter of the Patton Avenue shops like Bon Marché.

As if the shop owners here, Kerry thought, would rather relax, read a few chapters of a good novel, and steal a sip of honeysuckle wine between customers before turning back to the cash register.

They swung into the drugstore on the corner, Kerry pulling a few bills from the pocket she’d sewn into her skirt.

“Cash money,” Tully admired, “that Biltmore gave you.” Then, with a frightened glance up at her sister, she added hastily, “That you earned yourself.”

At the counter, both twins picked out green penny candy with a white stripe.

“It’s like you’re one brain,” Kerry muttered, amused. Then, to the druggist, she said, “Is that Chill Tonic an actual help, do you think?”

He turned with a brown bottle in hand. “Folks swear by it. For the heart palpitations. The dropsy. Liver complaints.” Grove’s Tasteless Chill Tonic had advertisements splashed everywhere, even in magazines up in New York.

“But does it actually cure anything?”

The druggist winked. “Even when it don’t, it makes a body think it does, which is sometimes the same equal thing.”

Kerry bought the tonic. Handing her the change from behind the soda fountain, the druggist pushed forward a frothing glass of brown liquid.

“Company’s treat,” he told the twins. “Free samplings.”