chapter 5
Sunday, August 26
Light rain splattered against the open window next to the dressing table where Gabrielle Caldwell primped for church. With a shoulder-heavy sigh, she slammed the window shut and leaned closer to the mirror to examine the damage the morning’s high humidity had wreaked on her perfectly coifed hair.
There it was, the little traitor. Did it really think it could escape her punctilious gaze? With a deft pinch of tweezers, she plucked out an offending gray hair, the second such invader within the year. She smiled at her reflection in triumph then frowned at the fine lines the smile brought out around her eyes.
Bret McGowan was to blame for this. Just the thought of the self-seeking, arrogant bastard’s return would age any woman ten years. She daubed a puff into a box of face powder and hurriedly camouflaged the budding crow’s feet.
A bottle of hair coloring or a daub more powder and rouge in the right places, and she would look as young and desirable as ever. She touched the beauty spot on her neck with a reassuring gesture and dismissed her worries over what Bret might think of her now. The bastard!
Although she would be twenty-nine in two months, Gabrielle knew she was still desired by men of any age. Among them was Liam Dawson, whose family cattle business had expanded across Texas with plans for the rest of Southwest in the new year.
At thirty-six, Liam had a bright future and would make an impressive husband in spite of his faults, including his less-than-dapper appearance. Though too much time spent with bovine company tended to make men dullards, Gabrielle was sure she could cure his shortcomings through constant exposure to refined culture and good taste.
Then there was Timothy DeRocha. His importing and exporting business was growing at an astonishing pace, turning him into what he liked to called a “self-made twentieth century entrepreneur.” Gabrielle knew Timothy’s family background was a concern of her father’s, but such worries would fade as the DeRocha fortune increased.
And what about Hadlee Foster and his family’s mercantile shipping line? Gabrielle ran through the list of eligible bachelors once more, reassuring herself in the process that her marriage opportunities were, as always, practically unlimited. All she had to do was accept the proposal closest to her heart and Bret McGowan be damned!
Gabrielle applied a dab of imported skin cream to a dry spot on her face and massaged lightly. Then why was it she often regarded Liam, Timothy, Hadlee, and the others like them with nothing more than amusement?
She sighed, knowing full well the truth that had been her curse since the day they’d first met. Though thirteen years her senior, she still felt that Bret McGowan exuded more passionate force than all of Galveston’s boyish gentlemen put together.
Even if she could not deny her feelings, Gabrielle reasoned, how many more years did he think he could get by on the seductive appeal of his rugged looks before each character line deepened into a crevice on the jowls of a lonely old man?
Gabrielle rubbed harder and used the back of her hand to wipe away a tear. That was her problem; she had to stop thinking with her heart. Was there anyone else she could add to the list? Liam’s excited telephone call about meeting Doctor Hellreich made this mystifying man sound all the more intriguing and filled with a powerful, magnetic personality.
After all, several women, including the young widow Balfour had already been spotted in his company. The nerve of Constance Balfour! Her husband, Charles, not even dead and buried six months and already she’s out gallivanting like some strumpet tourist from New York!
Gabrielle glanced over at the brown legal envelope stamped HIGGINS & LUCAS lying on her bed. How like Bret to say one thing while trying to sweet talk his way into another. She still wasn’t decided about attending the ball with her father and the special delivery business query from Bret only complicated matters. Did he expect her to convince her father to invest in his latest idiotic get-rich scheme? Oh, she should just rip up everything and ignore this irritating fool of a man for the rest of their natural lives.
A gentle breeze from the open window blew across her face and she wiped away a tear with her finger. Try as she might, though, Gabrielle couldn’t deny her mixed feelings of anger and curiosity about Bret’s return. Her throat suddenly dry, she swallowed, remembering how his slightest nod of appreciation thrilled her.
What a foolish, naive girl she had been.
It was ridiculous for a society woman of her standing to fret over such trivial things. Mercy on any woman idiotic enough to lay her hopes and dreams at the feet of a man like Bret McGowan.
Gabrielle dried her tears with an embroidered Chinese silk handkerchief, a gift from Timothy, and stepped to the window. The rain had stopped, and the morning had turned blue and sultry. A knock sounded at her door.
“Gabrielle? Dear? Are you ready yet for church? We don’t want to be late.” Her father sounded more agitated than usual.
“In a few minutes, father. We have plenty of time. Services don’t start for another forty-five minutes.”
“But it’s the new surrey. I want to take a different route, a longer one to help break it in.”
“It rides perfectly well. I don’t find it uncomfortable at all.”
“Gabrielle, please. Do I ask so much of you? Humor me in these small things.”
She did not want to have another quarrel with her father. Their disagreements had become more frequent and severe since Bret’s return. Father would never admit it, but she knew Bret was a worrisome concern on his mind these days. He was always pestering her father’s business partners at the Galveston Wharf Company with promises of oil riches ready to gush out of the holes he was drilling near Beaumont.
Her father was doing his best to ignore him and it was eerie how just the sight of Bret could make her father falter in his step as if he’d seen a ghost. “We don’t have to be concerned about Bret, father, if that’s what you’re worried about. He seldom ever showed up for church in the past, and I doubt his travels have brought him anywhere closer to salvation.”
“That man is more of a fool than William McGowan ever was. Why couldn’t he just stay away?”
Gabrielle opened the bedroom door. Her father stared at her, the dark shadows under his eyes stressing the wrinkles. “You would think a McGowan man would have finally learned to be thankful for what he had instead of losing everything again on some ridiculous notion.” Her father’s expression softened and he smiled. “My, how you remind me of your mother sometimes.”
Gabrielle smiled kissed her father on the cheek then closed her door in silence.
A languid breeze from the Gulf stirred the pink and white oleanders, filling the air with their sweet scent and nearly masking the earthy tang of the horse. Gabrielle’s father tugged on the reigns, guiding her horse, Chestnut, toward the walkway in front of Trinity Church.
Timothy De Rocha, dressed in his finest dark gray English tailored suit, helped Gabrielle step down. “What a vision of heavenly loveliness you are this beautiful Sunday.”
The morning tranquility was abruptly shattered by the clamorous approach of Bret McGowan’s horseless carriage. Gabrielle and the assembled congregation stepped back in astonishment as he raced toward the surreys and horses bellowing smoke from the back of the infernal machine.
Bret raised his goggles and smiled at Gabrielle as he roared by, making the blood in her heart gather speed in time to the acceleration of his passing vehicle. A few moments later, he turned the corner and was gone from her sight once more. Gabrielle took a few deep breaths and steadied herself. How could she still allow Bret to have this effect on her after all this time?
Timothy looked at Gabrielle and her father with an expression of disgust. “Most men become more refined after they have been abroad. Culture is always wasted on the uncouth.”
“Well put, Mister DeRocha,” Gabrielle’s father said.
Gabrielle held Timothy’s extended arm and walked by his side toward the open church doors. The absolute impudence of the man! She took a deep breath. I should return Bret’s letter unopened. He flaunts his lack of respect in front of God-fearing churchgoers. No self-respecting Christian woman could ever tolerate such behavior in public. Gabrielle raised her chin and smiled charmingly at Timothy. She thanked God again to be rid of her affection for such a selfish, inconsiderate lout like Bret McGowan.
The service over, Arley Caldwell joined the congregation moving in sluggish unison with the sultry breeze wafting in from the Gulf. Gabrielle, with Timothy DeRocha on one side and Liam Dawson on the other, strolled on the sidewalk just ahead of him, shading herself with a pink-striped parasol. How she reminded him of her mother at times. Arley paused and looked down. And Lord, how he missed his Melissa almost every waking moment of his life.
Arley puffed on his pipe and tried to appear unconcerned when Gabrielle glanced back at him. He certainly didn’t want her to accuse him of eavesdropping.
At the mention of Bret McGowan, Gabrielle waved the men away and turned to him. “Oh, Father. Timothy and Liam are terrible. You mustn’t allow them to talk about Bret anymore and you must forbid me to listen if they do.”
Arley sighed. He could no more do that than he could prevent the spreading hollow in his heart, which each year seemed to make it weaker without the solid center of purpose and authority he had carried as a younger, happily married husband and father.
The approaching snap and click of quick-step boots made everyone turn. A local regiment, preceded by its captain on horseback, paraded in two columns down the street. Sunlight glittered on the brass buttons of their blue coats and the varnished, black leather of their boots as the colors fluttered by proudly in the wind.
Arley paused to watch. How Melissa had enjoyed watching him march. A warm, passionate kiss always awaited a twenty-one-year-old rowdy without a stitch of sense in his britches or a five-cent piece to match. Arley had savored those embraces when he marched through Cooke County toward Gainesville in the bitter fall of ’62. The worst of a bad situation beyond anyone’s control and best forgotten by all who are still fool enough to remember.
Arley saluted the flag, wincing from the stiffness in his joints. What would Melissa think of him now? He followed the procession until they turned a corner and disappeared. Arley put a fresh pinch of tobacco in his pipe and struck a match.
Gabrielle strolled up and took his arm. “Father, please. If I hear another word about Bret.”
Timothy stepped briskly to Arley’s other side. “As I was telling Gabrielle, sir, Bret spent an entire week in bed when he first returned.”
Liam tried to squeeze in at Gabrielle’s side. “Yes sir. He was in a sickbed with God knows what. Sent his man, Philip, rushing around town for medicine. Still looks paler than a flounder’s belly to me.”
Arley sighed. “Sometimes I think my bones are hardening into granite. My right knee hardly bends these days.”
“I read about some sort of rare metal ring,” Timothy said. “Conducts the body’s natural electricity. Good for rheumatism I believe.”
Arley gazed out into the water. “Sounds like a spare part for Bret’s infernal contraption. We’re men, not machines.”
“Exactly, sir,” Liam said in his ingratiating manner. “That’s precisely what Doctor Hellreich reported in the Daily News. I’m looking forward to attending his next lectures. They’re quite entertaining and educational from what I’ve heard.”
“Oh Father, you must let me attend the next lecture too,” Gabrielle said, twirling her pink parasol. “I hear he favors giving women the vote. He sounds like a very practical man with more common sense than many I’ve heard.” She frowned at Timothy and Liam.
Arley considered both young men. He couldn’t decide which fool he pitied and which idiot he despised. They didn’t have a clue about the doctor’s deeper principles and theories. Part of a generation of sheep without a shepherd. What would they ever know about how a man must change to survive in a cruel and unforgiving world? And who will miss them when the wolf comes to thin the flock?
A spasm of irritation crossed Arley’s face and he turned away to watch an old schooner breaking waves across the Gulf. He glanced back at his daughter’s two suitors. How were pampered and perfumed men like these entitled to inherit the fortunes created from the blood, sweat and tears of a tougher breed? Sheepish grins flickered across the young men’s faces then each turned their attention back toward the water.
“Please father,” Gabrielle pleaded. “Won’t you introduce me?”
Arley looked at his daughter again. “I suppose your mother would have found talk of woman’s suffrage amusing. One of my greatest regrets is not being able to hear her laughter with yours.”
Gabrielle glared at him. “Father if you won’t then I’m quite capable of—”
Arley raised his hand. “All right, Gabrielle, since you insist.”
Gabrielle covered her mischievous grin with her fan, turned and strolled back along the sidewalk toward the parked surrey and horses, resting her open parasol on her shoulder.
“She’ll be fine, gentlemen,” Arley assured them. “Sometimes her opinions get the best of her prudence.”
“Certainly, Mr. Caldwell,” Liam said. “Lord knows we’ve all had quite an earful lately about women’s so-called rights.”
Timothy nodded. “What kind of world would it be if a woman’s intuition was thought to be more useful than a man’s intelligence?”
Arley packed his pipe in his smoking pouch and closed the flap. “Good day, gentlemen,” he said without tipping his hat. “I’ve enjoyed our conversation.” As he walked away, he swore he heard the crackle and splinter of his hardening bones with every trudging step. Every McGowan was a damned fool and it will be a cold day in hell before a Caldwell joins them.