She was giggling and Jacob Henry Canterbury was sure he had never heard such a sincerely joyful sound in his whole existence.
"Oh come, Frank. Let me just try!" Audrey Kai begged through her laughter. The young lady sat poised in the passenger seat of the Lane, cheeks flushed from a good quarter hour of merriment and a touch of the winter breeze. Franklin Escher a studious mild-mannered chap appeared completely wild as he drove with his hair and scarf flying about him.
"No, no, no. With all those skirts? It'd be a marvel if you didn't get caught in the pedal and drive it into the nearest tree and then where would we be?" Frank teased. This argument had been going on for about four minutes now, it was how Frank had lost his hat. Jacob suspected if he didn't put a stop to it soon, Audrey might well do something to cause Frank to crash the automobile without the girl ever steering. But the giggles stopped him.
"I would predict it would put them into the nearest tree."
Jacob startled at the quiet voice, his shoulders popping up and his feet clumsily spinning him around to find the source. His arms instinctually lifting, giving away his status and privilege immediately by tucking his thumb underneath his curling fingers.
Christopher O'Connell controlled his immediate instinct, to reach out and correct the boy, while also popping him over the head at his carelessness. Critter believed a man, no matter power or money, should always know how to defend himself properly. Instead, he inhaled sharply and leaned back pushing his weight through his shoulders carefully indicating he meant the boy no harm. He squinted and shifted his gaze, allowing the boy to settle on his sudden appearance.
"Mr. O'Connell, was it?" Jacob recalled politely, holding out his hand in greeting.
"Yes, Christopher O'Connell. I am impressed you've kept her from driving that carriage, Mr. Canterbury." He took the hand, and smiled approvingly.
"That's been mostly Frank's doing, though his hat paid a dear price for his steadfastness." Jacob shrugged. Both men watched the automobile speed around a corner disappearing from sight. Christopher took a step forward, into the dirt road, as if drawn immediately to put Audrey Kai back into his sights.
"They'll just go around the block." Jacob offered cautiously. Since their first meeting over the summer on the shore, Jacob had immediately noticed the way Mr. O'Connell fretted over his friend. When Jacob had mentioned it to his younger sister, Emma shared how she thought Mr. O' Connell seemed to be teetered to Audrey in the same manner young mothers were tied to their young children. But Jacob had never known young mothers to have the unnerving precision Christopher O'Connell seemed to possess.
"Yes," O'Connell drew out the word, still studying the corner for a moment before tilting his head up as if to study the time of day by the sun.
"We picked this square because it's so quiet here, between the Eagle editions. The newspaper, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, has it's building just down the road a bit." Jacob explained.
"A wise choice for an afternoon ride, in what is that, the new Lane?" O'Connell took the step back off the road. His gaze was now, intensely fixed on Jacob.
"I think that's what Frank called it. These carriages are all the rage amongst the fellows at Princeton, but I haven't paid them much attention." Jacob tried to control his urge to shrug under the vivid brown eyes. Hearing his father's insistent and unyielding demand to stop acting like a boy among men. O'Connell smiled, an easy relaxing grin immediately infectious by its genuine warmth.
"Miss Audrey mentioned you've been in the city more, tending to your father's business. Once you've finished at Princeton, will you be staying in New York?" O'Connell asked. With Audrey still out of sight, Jacob mused this was the longest time Christopher O'Connell had ever conversed with him. The man stood taller than Jacob, by a fist and a half, and his stare seemed to know everything about a person.
"Can't be sure. There is a lot of movement west. Father's looking at some expansion…" Jacob caught the peculiar expression that flashed in the brown eyes fixated on his own, but pressed on, finding himself giving voice to a question he'd had for months. "Are you family to Miss Audrey?"
"What does Miss Audrey say about me?"
"Miss Audrey doesn't say much about anything not about the present." Jacob did shrug now, straightening out his arms to lock his elbows, uncomfortably. He watched as a boy came scurrying down the road, a stack of newspapers under his arms.
"You know her history?"
"I know what the gossips say. A dead brother. A disgraced sister. A dead mother. A dead father." Jacob recited the rumors he had heard in the kitchens and parlors of the shore. The newsy was closer now, having spotted the two men, he was oddly stalled in his pace as if surveying the likelihood of his sale.
"The gossip says she's an orphan." O'Connell offered. He had noticed the newsy as well and nodded to the boy to offer them a paper.
"An orphan." Jacob repeated the terrible phrase, feeling the despair of the idea of being without a family. Without a place in the world.
"In my experience, orphans tend to find their way to a family." O'Connell explained before flipping a single nickel into the air. "Give me a paper then."
The newsy, swimming under a cap and a coat to big, was barely visible through fabric and dirt. A hand darted out and caught the falling nickel and handed over a folded paper.
"A good headline?" Jacob asked excitedly as he dug in his own pockets.
"A Schoolboy Suicide." The boy grinned through the dirt. A soft growl escaped O'Connell. "President Roosevelt got the government boys all riled up by forbidding some stuff." The boy offered as a secondary headline.
"Hasn't President Roosevelt always got someone riled up?" Jacob asked the seriously, holding out three brand new pennies.
"Everyone likes to agree or disagree with Roosevelt, makes a good headline." The boy dropped the paper and picked up the pennies in the same movement. "Evening, Gentlemen."
Christopher O'Connell was scanning the evening paper in his hands, in the same peculiar way Jacob had watched Audrey do before. It was quicker than his father had ever read a paper and always felt more searching than reading.
"Have you ever been in a fight, Jacob?" O'Connell asked suddenly. Jacob was tucking his paper into his coat pocket, hoping to surprise Audrey.
"My tutor tried to have me box, I never quite took to it." Jacob found himself answering without thinking, as if Christopher O'Connell couldn't be denied. The taller man took a step closer and Jacob reacted by stepping back. O'Connell smiled again, that same genuine warmth, and reached out with an open palm.
"Let me see your fist here." He instructed. Again, Jacob found himself following the direction without question. As he clumsily started forming a fist over the open palm, O'Connell used his own thumb to hold Jacob's out of being tucked under his curling fingers.
"You'll break your thumb that way." O'Connell instructed softly. "And, if you ever throw a punch try to aim for the soft parts, because hitting someone still hurts the hitter. Swing with your whole body, not just with your arm. You might only ever get one good hit in, so you should be trying to make it worth the effort."
A shrill whistle broke the quiet of the afternoon, before the puttering of the carriage roared around the corner. Frank and Audrey still laughing and arguing loudly. O'Connell dropped Jacob's fist and turned his attention to Audrey, at the same moment the girl snapped her eyes up to the sky. Jacob followed her gaze, as he had followed O'Connell's earlier, but saw nothing.
The carriage sputtered to a halt just steps from the two men. O'Connell was at the passenger side before Jacob even blinked, holding out his hand to Audrey.
"Mr. O'Connell, a splendid surprise to see you here!" Audrey beamed at the man, as he helped her down from the carriage.
"Miss Audrey, a scarf may have been advised for this afternoon's particular activities?" Christopher murmured to her, taking one his hands to her wind flushed cheek for just a moment. Not long enough to be questioned as proper.
"Jacob, you didn't tell me the lovely lady was so spirited! Lost my hat to the cause." Frank's laughed boom over whatever conversation exchange happened between O'Connell and Audrey.
"You should go retrieve the young man's hat, Miss Audrey." O'Connell suggested.
"Yes, I think I see it from here Frank, dear." Audrey giggled again, still maintaining that wonderful air of happiness Jacob had never experienced with her before. In a sweeping motion, she had hiked up her skirts and taken off down the road.
"Franklin Escher, sir." Frank held out a hand to O'Connell.
"Christopher O'Connell, pleasure meeting. Marvelous automobile, it's the Lane?"
"Lane Steam Engine. My father had been on the list since October of last year, that factory can't keep up with the demand." Frank nodded.
"We were just taking it out for an afternoon ride, the evening paper's just come out Frank." Jacob fidgeted with his pocket watch.
"Yes, yes. We must get back, mother insisted on you and Miss Audrey coming to dinner Canterbury." Frank nodded.
"You'll take a carriage back to Manhattan?" O'Connell glanced away from the Lane he had been studying to question Jacob.
"Yes, yes, their carriage is sitting in front of my father's house now." Frank clapped enthusiastically seeing Audrey running towards him, waving his hat above her head.
Jacob nodded at O'Connell, a queer understanding that the older man was asking if he would keep the girl safe.
"I must get to an evening business arrangement, myself." O'Connell announced.
"Frank, stand still for a moment!" Audrey laughed as she struggled to place the fallen hat back onto the boy's head.
"Let me, you'll poke my very eye out, wicked creature." Frank teased moving out of her reach but snatching his hat. Audrey teased a pout for a mere second before moving to Jacob, who held out his arm expectantly for her.
"You'll call next week?' Audrey smiled, the same easy and genuinely infectious grin that Jacob swore he spotted on O'Connell earlier. Was it possible the grin was born from the girl, not the man.
"I shall Miss Audrey. It was a pleasure running into your company this evening. Canterbury," O'Connell nodded his farewell as Audrey tucked her arm around Jacob's crooked elbow.
"Mr. Eschler, pleasure," O'Connell called out as Frank stood in front of the Lane, cranking it into life again.
"Peculiar fellow," Jacob whispered to Audrey.
"Frank's a regular old sport, not peculiar at all." Audrey laughed, pushing Jacob to the driver's seat of the carriage.