Chapter 8
Hello! Well, it's been quite a while. Uni work got well and truly on top of me, so I apologise for the late update. I hope this makes up for it. Now that the Christmas holidays are here, I should be updating more often and more consistently. In the meantime, I've also posted 18+ one-shot about Jack and Katherine's life as a married couple in the past couple of days, so it'd be great if you wanted to check it out! It's very much outside of my comfort zone to write something like that. As always, enjoy this chapter and please leave a review :)
…
For some reason, Jack is expecting Katherine to open the door when he arrives. So, he isn't expecting it when an elderly man in a neatly pressed suit opens the imposing front door of the Pulizter house – strike that, mansion – and looks down a long hooked nose to where Jack is stood at the bottom of the steps. Jack snatches his newsboy cap off his head with nervous fingers and introduces himself.
"Jack Kelly, pleased to meet'cha." He attempts his usual rakish grin, stretching out a still slightly grubby hand to the man.
The butler looks down at Jack's hand, then back up at his face, scanning the poorly concealed bruises with contempt. His hands remained folded behind his back as Jack visibly withers under his gaze.
"The tradesman's entrance is to the rear of the building, sir." The butler tells him in a precise, clipped tone.
"Oh, no, I's here for the dinner? Katherine invited me." Jack attempts another smile.
"Miss Pulitzer?" The only indication of surprise is the way his eyebrows heighten just a fraction.
"That's her!"
"Please wait here, sir." The butler turns smartly on his heel and disappears back inside the house, closing the door behind him.
Jack stares, a little perplexed, at the large door in front of him. He tugs at the starched collar of the dinner suit, hoping the cool autumn air will dry a little of the nervous sweat that is gathering between his skin and then fabric. He's not stupid, he can see the disdain in the man's eyes. It doesn't matter what costume he puts on, he knows he'll never be able to fool these people into thinking he's one of them. There are some stains you can't scrub away. Poverty is one of them. Being a street rat is another.
It takes a good two minutes of him scuffing his new, fancy shoes on the path leading up to the door before it opens again. The butler is there, once again disapproving, but he holds the door silently and stares straight ahead as Katherine rushes past him. She's gorgeous, as ever, but Jack can't help but feel nervous seeing her made up, looking less like herself and more like the kind of woman who sneers at him in the street. Her forest green evening gown has more material in its train than makes up his entire wardrobe and he knows with painful clarity that the little pearl studs in her ears likely cost more than he earns in a year. But the smile on her face reassures him, if only a little.
"Hey, Ace." He grins. She grins back, half tripping down the stairs.
"Offer me your arm." She tells him in a low tone. Jack frowns, but a raise of her eyebrows is enough to tell him that now is his time to shut up.
Dutifully, he holds out his arm and she hooks her elbow through it. He quickly cottons on to why she'd requested this – it looks like he's leading, sure, but there's no doubt in his mind that she's the one helping him up the front steps. Jack nods politely to the butler as they pass him, fighting the urge to direct a smug smile his way.
"May I take your jacket, sir?" The butler asks. Jack instantly tenses, unwilling to give away such an expensive item of clothing to a man who so clearly despises him, but an almost imperceptible nod on Katherine's part is enough to convince him. He slips off the jacket with no small amount of reluctance, but hands it over all the same.
The hallway that Katherine leads him down, all chequered marble floor lined with busts of Greek philosophers and exotic houseplants, is one that he's only been in twice before, neither of which were particularly enjoyable memories. Jack hopes against hope that that isn't what Joseph Pulitzer will be thinking about when he walks in.
Katherine steers him toward a rather ornate oak door and lets herself in. Inside is a room bigger than Jack's whole apartment, draped in gold curtains and ostentatious tapestries that look vaguely oriental to his untrained eye. It's beautiful, enough to make him wonder whether he should have been dreaming of somewhere in the far east rather than Santa Fe all his life. Who are you kidding? Jack scolds himself. You wouldn't fit in in the far east any better than you do here, you idiot.
"Mr. Kelly." Joseph Pulitzer, seated in a large leather armchair drawn up close to the fire on the opposite side of the room, stands, stubbing out his cigar on an ashtray beside him.
"Mr. Pulitzer." Jack plasters on a smile. "Pleasure to see you, sir."
"Likewise, I'm sure." The man remains tight lipped, neglecting to offer a hand.
"Mr. Kelly, may I introduce my mother," Katherine quickly diverts the conversation in an effort to dissipate tension so thick you could cut it with a knife, gesturing toward an older woman reclining imperiously upon a chaise longue beside the window, "and my younger sisters, Edith and Constance." The two girls, far younger than Katherine, rise from where they were playing with their dolls by the hearth and drop into low, neat curtsies.
Jack nods politely at all of them, then, on a whim, shoots a wink at the shy little girl Katherine had introduced as Constance. She isn't quite quick enough to hide the smile that tugs at the corners of her mouth before returning to her game.
"Mr. Kelly, how lovely to meet you," a younger man, perhaps only a year older than Jack himself, with Katherine's curly hair and straight nose, stands from an armchair beside Joseph and strides over with outstretched hand, "my dear sister has told us so much about you. Do have a seat." He gestures toward an empty seat on the two-seater sofa with a curling mahogany back beside his armchair.
Jack thanks the man, who he assumes to be Ralph, Katherine's older brother, and dutifully sits down to take in the group. Katherine, looking mildly disappointed, takes a seat beside her mother, folding her hands demurely in her lap. Jack can feel the eyes of everyone in the room on him, even as the low buzz of conversation returns to the normal volume. Ralph, seated on his left, leans in conspiratorially.
"Absolutely splendid to have you here, old chap." Jack can only nod in response. "Let me introduce you. This man here, this is Mr. Arthur Brooks, son of Mr. and Mrs. Brooks, terribly important folks in the newspaper business you know. And over there is my brother Herbert."
Jack surveys the room carefully, taking in everybody and trying to suppress the instinct developed from years on the streets of noting every possible exit and escape route. Beside him on the sofa, though pressed up against the farthest armrest and staring determinedly ahead, is this Arthur Brooks. So then, this is his competition. The man is young, maybe twenty-four or twenty-five and handsome. Tall, yet not quite so tall as Jack, which he notes with some pride. His straight blond hair is neatly combed and accompanied by a trim, tidily curled moustache bearing no insignificant resemblance to a hairy caterpillar which had made its home on his upper lip. Jack relishes the notion that Brooks, with all his good breeding and inherited fortunes, doesn't have a patch on him looks-wise.
The man's folks are seated on a neighbouring sofa, matching Jack's. The resemblance between them and their son is striking and Jack can't quite work out which one of them Arthur looks more like. He doesn't know whether that makes Arthur excessively feminine, or his mother incredibly mannish. Herbert, despite the dinner suit that suggests a masculinity beyond his years although he must be younger than Crutchie, lurks in the corner of the room staring moodily out of the window on the impeccably trimmed garden with a look of grumpiness only fifteen-year old boys can truly master.
"Mr. Brooks," Jack extends his hand to the man sitting next to him, fighting the urge to see what he'd do if he was to spit in his palm, "how'd you do?"
The man turns as if he's been burned. His eyes flick down to Jack's outstretched hand, then back up to his face. He doesn't offer his own hand.
"Charmed, I'm sure, Mr. Kelly." He allows the silence to hang in the air for a long moment until Jack drops his hand. "Remind me again, darling Katherine may have mentioned it, what is it that you do?"
"I works for old Joe over there," Jack grits his teeth into a pleasant smile, "illustratin' for The World. An' I do some set designin' for a theatre. Yoursel'?"
Before Arthur can respond, his mother jumps into the conversation.
"Oh, how delightful! I do so love the theatre – would you have designed anything I'd have seen? I saw the most delightful production of Romeo and Juliet back in July, the design was just stunning. I must admit I quite fell in love with it!"
"Well, love lies not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes," Jack smiles, the quote coming out of his mouth before he can quite think it through, just trying to avoid mentioning the Bowery. Miss Medda's is the friendliest theatre in every sense of the word and even Jack has enough tact to recognise that the mention of its name wouldn't go down well in polite company.
In his peripheral vision, he sees Pulitzer's jaw drop and then quickly clench back into place as Mrs. Brooks' face breaks into a smile of wonderous excitement.
"You know your Shakespeare! How marvellous! Arthur here won't so much as crack a volume of Shakespeare open." The man beside him frowns, but says nothing. Jack straightens his shoulders a little.
"Well, Katherine's been a good influence on me. She's doin' her best to educate me, though I'm afraid she's fightin' a losin' battle."
"Not at all," Katherine smiles, leaning forward, meeting his eyes for a single conspiratorial moment before looking to Mrs. Brooks, "Jack is an excellent student."
"It was very kind of you to lend out our Shakespeare collection to the less fortunate, Katherine." Joseph Pulitzer cuts in, his tone clipped.
Jack freezes. Shit. He's screwed up, he's screwed up real bad, and he knows it. Why the hell is he trying to quote from a book he's essentially stolen from his boss? He presses his lips together and shifts backwards on the sofa, barely able to even feel indignant at his classification as 'less fortunate'. Katherine, for her part, looks about ready to throw a punch, so Jack tries in vain to soothe her with a look. Her eyes, however, are fixed on her father.
"The less fortunate perhaps deserve them more than us," Katherine replies, snappish, unwilling to sit idly by and bear her father's criticism, "as they most likely work harder to achieve the knowledge they have."
Silence hangs heavy in the air. Jack wants to disappear into the floor.
"Shall we move to the dining room?" Mrs. Pulitzer rouses herself, holding out her hand for Katherine to help her up from the couch. "I would imagine dinner will be ready by now."
The party rise and Jack follows, head ducked and fighting the urge to rub at the back of his neck. When he does dare to look up, though, Ralph shoots him a kind smile and, when they enter the dining room, indicates for Jack to sit beside him.
Jack goes to sit down, but stops himself when he realises that everyone else is standing behind their chairs. When Pulitzer finally reaches the head of the table and sits down, followed by the rest of the party, Jack quietly congratulates himself on saving that one.
The dinner itself, he reflects later, could have gone a lot worse. Sure, he was always a mouthful behind everybody else as he carefully gauged which of about a million different forks was the correct one for which dish, but nobody really spoke with him other than the occasional pitying question from Ralph. The women were engaged in chatter about the latest Parisian fashions and the men were talking over the increasing value of shares in different companies. Jack sat quietly and ate his dinner, trying valiantly not scarf it down to sate his growling stomach. He was pretty sure the amount of food on the table would be enough to feed the entire lodgehouse for a month. Katherine kept him going, though, flashing him secretive little smiles across the table whenever he caught her eye. Perhaps, he had thought, it might be worth it just to see those smiles.
It's only after the dinner, when they all retire into yet another sitting room, this one furnished with a grand piano, that things start to go wrong. Whilst Joseph Pulizter has, up until this point, allowed his eyes to simply skim over Jack as he surveyed the table, acting as though his presence was not merely unwelcome, but also unnoticeable, this comes to an abrupt end.
"Well, Mr. Kelly, you've been fighting again, I see. Pray tell, what was it about this time? Did the bakery put up the price of bread?" Jack bristles. What gets to him is how casually Pulitzer says it, puffing it out around his cigar with a small, pressed-together smile. All the eyes in the room are on them.
"Actually, it was your cronies, the Delanceys. S'what happens when you's trying to stop 'em murderin' a ten year old boy for lookin' at 'im the wrong way." He responds, meeting Pulitzer's gaze with daring in his eyes.
The older man frowns and opens his mouth to continue when Ralph claps his hands together and stands up.
"How droll is an evening with no music! Katherine, my dear, you must oblige us, play a little. I'm sure our guests," he shoots Jack a conspiratorial smile, "would be delighted."
"Ralph, I have not played before company in-" Katherine stutters, looking lost.
"No, Katherine, you must." Pulitzer cuts in. "We didn't spend all that money on governesses for nothing now, did we? Mastery of an instrument is a sign of a young lady with breeding. Refinement."
Katherine glares at her father, but stands up and crosses the room to the piano, seating herself before the instrument and delicately shuffling through the leaves of sheet music on the stand. With her lips pursed in concentration, hair swept up, framed by a halo of light from the oil lamp on the wall – Jack's fingers itch to draw her. He wants to freeze her in his mind like this so that he can get her out and look at her whenever he wakes up from a nightmare. He's in a place where he's the most hated boy in New York, but, in that single moment, he's never felt more at home. It makes it all the worse when he realises that it's the last time he'll ever see her like this. The night is dark, and she is beautiful. He loves her, and she is beautiful. This has to end, and she is beautiful.
She starts to play something classical and the Brooks murmur approvingly at her excellent choice. But she stops rather quickly, turning back to them.
"I need someone to turn the music for me," she says, eyebrow arched, "Ja-"
"It would be my pleasure." Arthur Brooks rises from his seat before Katherine has time to even finish Jack's name and walks over to the piano. She looks momentarily incensed, but quickly schools her features back into a reserved countenance, shooting an apologetic look at Jack.
Jack isn't too bothered, if he's being honest, because he knows that he'd just turn it at the wrong time – he can barely read words, never mind music - but he's quite sure that Arthur is standing rather closer to his girl than is absolutely necessary. He looms over her right shoulder, keeping his hand on the page even when he isn't turning it, stooping a little until his head almost rests at the juncture of her neck and shoulder, where the long, smooth line of her figure leads up towards her beautiful face.
Katherine, for her part, is more than sure. She can feel his breath, warm and unpleasant, ghosting across her collarbone. When she fumbles over a particularly difficult part, fighting the urge to mutter one or two of the choicer curse words Race has taught her, Arthur begins to run his finger along the stave, guiding her playing. She has never felt more patronised in her life. She shoots Ralph a glare, furious with him, good intentions be damned, for putting her in this position.
Jack just watches, caught between fury at Arthur and admiration of Katherine, as the remainder of the party murmurs in quiet conversation. Then, he feels a tap on his knee and turns his head. Before him is Constance.
"Is the little boy you helped alright?" She asks, looking up at him with big brown eyes. It takes him a minute to figure out what she's talking about.
"Oh, Les? Yeah, he's fine. He ain't hurt, he jus' needed somebody to stick up for 'im."
"It was nice of you to fight for him." She nods decisively. "Daddy says that he fought for us in the war."
"Does he?" Jack responds, trying to keep the disdain out of his voice as he shifts forward in his seat to better talk to her. "Well, that's what you does for your friends. Friends is worth fightin' for."
"Katherine says that you're her friend." Constance states, like it's the most obvious thing in the world and not at all unusual. Jack finds himself wishing that he hadn't been introduced to her sisters as a mere friend.
"Yeah, I am."
"Do you fight for her?" She asks, tilting her head to the side like a little garden bird.
"Every damn day." Jack chuckles softly, under his breath.
"Pardon?" Constance frowns. Jack remembers himself.
"Yeah, I'd fight for her, if she asked me to." He says, slowly. "But I think your sister is real good at fightin' her own battles, don'tcha think?"
"Yes." Constance nods, considering. "Will you be my friend too?"
"Well, 'course I will." Jack smiles.
Constance nods at that and walks away, leaving Jack a little dumbfounded at the exchange, before returning with a large china doll. The chubby doll has tight blonde ringlets, bright blue eyes, and rosy cheeks. Jack wonders if healthy children are supposed to look as vibrant as this doll, as Constance, so full of life and health and vigour. God knows none of the kids at the lodgehouse have ever looked like that.
"This is Rosie. You can play with her, if you like. Only my friends are allowed play with her."
"Whoa, isn't she gorgeous!" Jack grins, taking the doll and sitting her daintily on the sofa arm between them. "She looks like you, y'know. Are you's sure you ain't her sister, 'stead o' Katherine's?"
"No, silly!" Constance giggles, shaking her head like Jack is the funniest person in the world. "She's a doll. I'm real."
"Oh, so you are." Jack replies, rolling his eyes and smacking his palm against his forehead in mock stupidity. "What games do you an' Rosie play, then?"
"We play tea parties, and hopscotch, and hide and seek." She lists. "What games do you and Katherine play?" Jack almost chokes, trying not to the think about the way that Katherine and he talk and kiss and embrace.
"We's a bit borin', I's afraid," Jack manages, "we jus' talks, mostly."
"That is boring." She wrinkles her nose.
"Why, I knew you were young, Mr. Kelly, but I wasn't quite expecting a child that plays with dolls." Arthur interrupts, smirking, and Jack is hit by the sharp realisation that the music has stopped.
"Mr. Kelly is my friend, that's why he's allowed to touch Rosie." Constance immediately whirls around to face the man, staring up at him.
"You're quite the ladies' man, aren't you Mr. Kelly?" Mrs. Brooks laughs, half indulgent.
"If they're from the circles which Mr. Kelly moves in, I would imagine that to call them ladies would be rather an overstatement." Jack's eyes flick over to where Pulizter is smoking in the corner. He rubs his hands up and down his thighs, trying not to form them into fists, before responding.
"An' I imagines that ladies from any circle of society would value certain other qualities over social class, sir."
The room falls silent once again.
"Well, Arthur, I think we really must be getting home." Mrs. Brooks announces, jumping up from her seat like she's been electrocuted, and turns to Mr. and Mrs. Pulizter. "Thank you ever so much for the lovely dinner. You must allow us to return the favour soon." Then to Katherine. "And you must accompany your parents, Katherine. I should be delighted to hear you play again." The Brooks gather their things in a flurry of handshakes. Amidst the commotion, Jack follows suit.
"I also should be gettin' off." He says, getting to his feet as the butler enters to show out the Brooks. "Thanks fo' the dinner. It was lovely."
A quick round of goodbyes, during which Joseph remains conspicuously silent, Jack retrieves his jacket from the sullen butler and leaves the building just as the Brooks' carriage is pulling away. He stops on the front steps, heaving in a breath of the cold night air, before setting off back toward the lodgehouse, relishing the thought that tomorrow he can finally move into his new apartment. He only gets three houses down the street before-
"Jack!" He turns around to see a breathless Katherine pelting down the pavement toward him, her curls bouncing almost out of their style, the skirt of her long green gown yanked up a little. "Jack, wait up!" He stops. Faces her. "I'm sorry," she breathes, her chest heaving, and Jack has to fix his eyes firmly on her face to prevent them from dropping lower; he is not a rake, "my father, he-"
"Katherine." She stops. Stares. She's two metres away from him and it's already enough to addle his brain.
"Don't, Jack." She says slowly, shaking her head, disbelieving. Damn her, damn her and her ability to see right through him every time. She's half desperate, half angry.
"Katherine, don't go makin' this harder than it already is." Jack fixes his gaze on a spot just over her left shoulder, unable to meet her eyes.
"Jack, they're all idiots, don't listen to them!" Her demeanour cracks.
"One of us has to!" His too. Then, softer. "It's fine if you can jus' ignore 'em, Ace, but I can't. Okay? I can't."
"It's not up to you." Katherine shakes her head. She's not crying, not yet, but even in the dim light of the streetlamps, Jack can see her eyes glistening. He doesn't know what he'll do if she starts crying.
"'S damn well up to me." He replies, hating himself with every word. He wants to back down, to tell her how much she means to him, let her kiss away every insult that has been levelled at him. He wants to lay down beside her and watch her hands wave as she tells him about her latest story. He wants to paint her; he wants to paint her for hours, to study her form until his fingers cramp up. "Fuck," he rubs his eyes, wincing as he touches the tenderness around his bruised one, "I love you, Ace. I loves you so much it nearly kills me."
A pause.
"You've never said that before."
"'S true."
"Then stay." She sounds fierce, but he knows better. She's begging. Pleading.
"I can't. Ace–" He stops. Swallows. Considers. "Arthur seems like a terrible guy, but… he's got more to offers you than me." She opens her mouth to speak, but he holds up a hand. "I's nobody. I know you ain't seein' that right now, but one day you will. In a year, or five, or twenty. An' I don't wants to still be around when you realises I ruined your life."
Jack Kelly does the hardest thing he's ever done in his life. He turns and walks away.
"Jack! Jack Kelly, you get back here right now!" He knows what she'll look like, crying on an empty street in some sort of ball gown, hair askew and make-up running down her cheeks, lit by the streetlamps.
He keeps walking.