Doc - Mary Doria Russell [149]
Wordlessly, Alexander von Angensperg reached toward the girl’s pale and pretty face. His fingers felt cool when he touched her cheek, flushed and pink.
Mary Clare’s age, he was thinking. Poor child. Poor child.
“I will pray for you,” he promised softly, cupping her chin in his hand.
Hope smiled.
The Fates laughed.
Belle frowned.
“Um. Thank you, sir,” she said.
Under the Table
At speed, steel wheels clicking over rail joins have a cradle’s rhythm. Lulled by the heat and the train’s sway, at least half the people in the second-class car were dozing. Wyatt was drowsy himself and Mattie Blaylock was sound asleep, her head drooping against his shoulder.
He was pretty sure Mattie had enjoyed going to Topeka. On balance, anyways. She liked looking in the shop windows and there were some good shows in the theaters, but she was kind of spooked by how the political people acted when Wyatt introduced her. Men would smile and tell Wyatt how he was a lucky fella to have such a lovely lady on his arm, and so on. Mattie’d just stand there without saying anything back, the suspicion plain in her face. The silence would go on until Wyatt said something like “Yes, sir. I guess I am.”
First time that happened, Mattie rounded on him when they got back to their hotel room, like it was his fault when other men paid her a compliment. “I ain’t lovely and I ain’t no lady, and you ain’t lucky to have me, and you know it!” she told him, and he couldn’t tell if she was going to cry or spit. “What am I supposed to do when people say shit like that?”
Wyatt blinked. “Well,” he said, trying to be helpful, “Lou says thank you.”
“A man talks nice, he wants something,” Mattie muttered.
She was pretty bitter about that. You could tell. And truth was, Wyatt did want something, but he was getting better at living with a woman again, and figured now wasn’t the time.
“Nice ain’t always a trick,” he said, watching her undress. “You’re prettier’n you think,” he added, realizing that it was true just as the words were coming out of his mouth. He didn’t say anything about the “lucky” part. Mattie might’ve noticed that, because she just looked at him hard and snorted before she turned her back to him.
Later that night, lying in bed, thinking, it struck him that Mattie’s story was like Dick Naylor’s. It was natural that she was nervy and suspicious. All men had ever done was ride her hard and hit her. But if a horse could change, so could a person, and Wyatt thought maybe Mattie would get used to being treated better, like Dick had. He hoped so, because Morg was right. Mattie wasn’t such a bad person. She’d just been ill-used in her youth.
Sure enough, a couple of mornings after that, when they were getting ready to go out for breakfast, he noticed Mattie gazing at her reflection in the mirror. She tried a little smile then, and he could see her lips shape the words “Thank you,” like she was practicing, the way he had practiced “Mississippi” and “fifty-five.” Before she could catch him looking, he turned away because he didn’t want to spoil it for her. He knew how different you could feel when you saw yourself different, and he liked that he was helping Mattie the way Doc had helped him.
That was when, without warning, a wave of feeling washed over him. It wasn’t love, like he had for Urilla. Even so, it felt pretty good.
As the convention went on, Mattie started saying “Thank you” out loud when somebody said something nice to her, and then she’d glance at Wyatt and he’d nod, sort of proud of her. She still looked embarrassed, and never said more than two words if she could help it, but she started standing up a little straighter, like maybe it wasn’t so bad to be noticed.
Course, nobody in Topeka knew what she used to be. As far as anyone at the convention