Chapter 29
When the dinner gong is rung, Nash glances over from where he is chatting with Dora on the game terrace.
With her usual frown replaced by a simper, my kitchen nemesis actually looks fetching in a dress of sea-blush coral.
I should stop harboring resentment toward her.
It is petty and unbecoming. Nash must pay her a compliment because she smiles, twisting coquettishly from side to side.
He bows to her, then takes the short walkway up to where I am standing near the band. “May I walk you in?”
Suddenly shy, I accept his arm, my every nerve awakening.
Through the years, I’ve known Nash to be aloof, scornful, a troublemaker, and a rogue.
These new aspects of him—a collaborator, a deep thinker for whom the world has not always made sense either—will take getting used to.
He drinks me in as if I were a tall glass of lemonade on a hot day, escorting me across the travertine patio as if careful not to spill it.
Ahead, Prosper crosses toward the great hall with style, her gloved hands swishing like spring leaves.
I just try to make it there without tripping.
“I was worried I’d lost you to the Spanish flu,” I tell Nash, masking my shakiness with a light rebuke.
“The ponies lost, and I needed to raise funds for my old man. Good news is, I’ve had to delay my enlistment.”
“I’m sorry about your father, but I’m glad you’re not enlisting.”
“Your care touches my heart.” He angles an amused expression down at me.
“I—it’s just that it’s a waste.” The Sanders family has had enough tragedies. And Nash has a natural sense of people. “You’d be an asset to the business if you wanted to stay.”
“The business. I see.”
Is he disappointed? Before I can decide, we reach the great hall, where I will be expected to make a toast, and worries begin to pull at me. I whisper in Nash’s ear. “I need another favor.”
“Is this how it is to be between us?” he says with mock irritation. “You asking favors, me granting them without a moment’s hesitation? What is it, then?”
I tell him what I have in mind, and he lets out a hollow chuckle. “So you want to stud me out like a prized stallion,” Nash says.
A crimson flush sweeps over my shoulders. “I wouldn’t go that far. Just a friendly outing to Rooster Cove between new friends—you and Prosper. Of course, I will be your chaperone. But only if you think you can manage it.”
His eyes narrow. “You wound me.” He sees me to the podium, then makes his way to Prosper’s table.
I am no more comfortable taking the speaking trumpet on this night than I was a week ago, but the mood is different.
I spend a moment reveling in the change.
Gone are the held breaths, the faces frozen in shock.
Tonight the votives along the sequoia tables have been lit, and the audience is pulsing with color.
They laugh; they cheer. Even the whale jaw hanging from the ceiling looks like it’s grinning.
In addition to the salmon, which Cookie smoked on cedar planks, there is fried harlequin duck, Dungeness crab, summer squash, and buttery corn pudding.
Eva, standing next to Father Pinnyhorne in his formal long black cassock with a dog collar, gives me a nod.
I put the trumpet to my lips. “Good evening, I am Lucy. Welcome to Nowhere.”
Nash lifts his head from his three-way conversation—Prosper on one side, Mr. Zephyr on his other—as a stout man approaches. I don’t recognize Yates at first without his footman’s livery. Nash slips him a folded envelope from his jacket.
What business would Nash have with the footman?
Eva clears her throat, giving me a meaningful jab with her eyes.
Pulling my gaze from the pair, I accept the glass of champagne she hands me.
“Usually, we would have our cook commit the salmon bones back to their ancestral waters, but she is unavailable tonight.” Cookie refused to make an appearance, saying she wasn’t needed.
“So let us drink now to the memory of Mr. Dakon Sanders. Some say he walked on water, but we know he just made it look that way.”
“Hear, hear!” folks cry. Nash raises his glass toward me and smiles.
I let the sparkling liquid roll down my throat, then pass the trumpet to the priest.
While he recites his benediction, I keep my eyes half open, hearing Mr. Sanders’s voice once again in my head.
Success is the sum of details. Don’t overlook them.
I am not surprised to see several of the young engineers stealing looks at my fair secretary or Dora throwing eye daggers at Flossie.
Nor am I surprised to see Prosper Tavernish-Cooper, hands clasped tightly, watching Nash beside her through her lowered lids.
But outside, Mr. Tavernish on the patio gives me pause.
He leans on his cane, bent close in conversation with Red, whose hair is now more silver than flame.
Red gestures with his cowboy hat, but there’s nothing casual in the set of their shoulders.
Perhaps a Catholic blessing makes the lime man uneasy. Or is there a safety concern?
Dinner is served, and I am forced to resume my hostess duties. After Eva and I work down a few bites, she pats her mouth on a napkin and whispers to me. “Auction is starting.”
Mr. Broadbean, the stout cabinetmaker who always conducts the auction, eagerly stands before the podium holding a basket of hankies collected from the display above the punch bowl. I wash down my mouthful, then get to my feet and take my place at Broadbean’s side.
“Folks, this is our eighteenth Gatheround!” Broadbean starts slow, with a nasal voice that makes itself heard without the need of a trumpet.
“Yes sir, we started this tradition with one single hankie, embroidered by Lydia Sanders herself, which fetched a whopping fifty dollars, never to be matched.” He pauses, and a murmur ripples through the diners.
“But maybe we can change that tonight,” he continues.
“We have twelve beautiful handkerchiefs, whose owners are anonymous so as not to influence the bids. You must have cash, gold, or silver on you to bid, and we’ll go in increments of a dollar.
Once I hit the gavel”—he bangs the wood hammer on the podium—“all bidding stops. Banker will collect the proceeds, all for the benefit of the Orphans’ Society. Shall we begin?”
I lift the first handkerchief and hold it for all to see. Three kittens embroidered in orange, gray, and black peek out of a round basket.
Cries of “aw!” and meowing start up. I have no doubt who stitched this one.
Mrs. Bonefat is somewhere in the crowd but does not make herself known.
Broadbean winds up and begins. “Folks, a finer example of kittens has never been seen this side of the Pacific. When you start tearing up and reaching for a hankie, why, the sight of these sweet bouncing balls of fluff will pump up the waterworks even more.”
“Hold it over here!” calls someone from the left side of the room.
I wave the scrap like a matador with a very tiny cape. Someone whistles, no doubt emboldened by drink.
“One dollar,” calls a voice with a Jamaican accent.
Perhaps Boots and Mrs. Bonefat are just good friends. But a handkerchief is a public declaration, even if the creator is anonymous.
“Do I hear two dollars?” asks Broadbean.
And so it goes, with the mustachioed Banker briskly collecting the winnings in a wooden box.
By the eleventh hankie—Prosper’s—several bidding wars have gotten the blood pumping.
People’s bellies are filled, and Broadbean’s ridiculous commentary has stretched people’s smiles ear to ear.
Tavernish is back in his chair. Red has been joined by Koa, both of them standing by an arched doorway to the patio.
“Let’s see if we can break the bank with this lovely piece of work with the initials PTC embroidered on a—go to Jericho—is that a pineapple? Yes, it is a spiky, bombastic-looking thingamasquigger. Now who could PTC be?”
Prosper answers that rhetorical question with waves to the left and to the right, and the bidding starts right away.
Nash raises his hand when the offer goes to five dollars but is quickly outbidden.
“Folks, a scrap of cotton has never been more exciting. Just think of how this will feel when it absorbs unwanted moisture on your face. Do I hear seven dollars? Eight?”
Nash raises his hand. Prosper delicately cools herself with her mother’s fan as the bidding climbs. Another finishing-school trick? She certainly has the room’s attention.
“Nine? Do I hear nine? These are fine stitches, each one as even and straight as new dollar bills.”
“Nine,” says the man on the other side of Prosper, an oilman.
“Do I hear ten? Look at that T, sturdy enough to comb your hair, Sveyn. Oh wait, you don’t have any.”
People laugh. Prosper throws Nash a shy glance.
“Ten,” he says.
“Going? Going? Sold!” Bang goes the gavel.
Banker collects the winnings, and I present the last hankie. My own.
“And now, the final proffer,” Broadbean announces with the gravity of one reporting an approaching storm.
People scoot closer to get a look at the black-and-white figures on an ocean of blue. The stitches are loopy—embroidery not a forte of mine—but it is unique.
“Now this is curious. Those are sea wolves.” Broadbean’s speaking pace has slowed, as if he is working out how best to sell this one.
The mood shifts. Some bury their faces in their drinks; others stare wide-eyed as I show the hankie around.
“A mother and a calf, it seems. A fine example of our wildlife created by a remarkably steady hand. Who will start us off?”
Murmurs start up, and the hand that created the hankie no longer feels so steady. It seemed like a good idea at the time, a way to bolster the image of sea wolves. But with all the horrified glances aimed my way, I am tempted to drop the controversial square onto the nearest votive candle.
At a middle table, Gilly stands up shakily. “They’re evil, sent by a demon,” he slurs. “Those sea wolves are why we don’t have salmon. Why we don’t have Mr. Sanders. And they’re getting closer every day!”
Jeers start up from somewhere, and Jeddah tries to pull his father back down.
“Maybe we don’t have salmon because you’re hitting the bottle again, eh, Gilly?” yells someone.
Gilly hasn’t touched a drink since he was hired, but it seems his old demons are surfacing.
“He can’t hook ’em anymore!” adds another voice.
Swaying, Gilly grabs at the table, knocking over several cups. “I done my job all these years. ’Tain’t my fault!” he tells Father Pinnyhorne, who has scooted his large frame between the tables, attempting to comfort the man.
Broadbean bangs his gavel. “Order! They pegged Shimmelfen for it, so rest easy, folks.”
The words tug a thread of guilt through me.
“Now, who will start off our bidding on the sea wolves?” Broadbean continues.
“Ten dollars,” says Nash, holding up a hand, grinning at me.
He should be careful. If he is trying to win over Prosper, bidding on my hankie will hardly endear him to her.
Broadbean gestures at my scrap with his weighty arms. “Now, who will make it eleven?”
“Eleven,” says a voice from the back. Koa steps into the room, setting his hat far back on his head. A maid offers him a drink, and he takes it gratefully, then knocks it back.
Broadbean points at Koa. “Three cheers for Koa—eleven big ones for the sea wolves. Do I hear twelve?”
Nash drapes his arm over the back of his chair, not bothering to look at Koa. Here’s his chance to get even for Koa’s swipe at his face, but I hope he doesn’t take it. “You hear twenty, auctioneer.”
Breaths are drawn in. I can feel my face flaring like a new lightbulb.
Broadbean pulls at his suspenders. “Good gravy. How about twenty-one?”
I shoot Koa a warning look, one that begs him not to part with another hard-earned dime, for he will lose this cockfight; a look that promises to make him a whole battalion of badly stitched hankies if he really needs one.
Koa ignores me. His eyes have turned black. “Thirty.”
Nash twists back all the way now. “You sure you have enough in those pockets of yours?” he asks in a voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Why don’t you come check them?” Koa shoots back.
The room has become a field of jackrabbits, sitting up, ears perked. Mr. Zephyr has scooted his chair away from Nash, a frown twitching his mustachio.
Nash smiles. “A hundred.”
“Accepted—thank you, generous bidders,” I say, though my voice is lost in the exclamations. I fight the urge to go tie Nash and Koa’s rooster combs into a knot. Prosper watches the feud with a surprised, almost wry expression.
“A hundred and one,” says Koa.
Broadbean holds up his expressive hands. “Well now, before we go any further, Banker would like to see what you’re bidding with.”
Nash silkily pulls his billfold from his jacket and fans his folded bills between his thumb and finger.
Broadbean rubs his hands together. “I see we came prepared. What about you, Koa?”
Without looking at me, Koa reaches around his neck and pulls out the flat gold nugget that belonged to his father. It gleams even from across the room, like a Chinook salmon surfacing on a sunlit day.
I hear gasps, maybe my own. How could he give up a keepsake like that so easily? He already took his shot.
I have crumpled the hankie in my fist and am tempted to go punch him.
“Two hundred dollars, and I hope that settles that,” booms a voice from the door to the big house.
A gent with the figure of a knife and a taut beer belly stands in the doorway.
Silvery hair helmets his head, and pointed shoulders are double tent poles for his loose jacket.
A weighty fulcrum of a nose balances blue-gray eyes.
“Well met, Gotty!” cries Mr. Tavernish.