The Tea Rose Part 30

Fiona weighed Mrs. Owens's tea and plunked the bag on the counter with the rest of her things. Then she wrapped her ginger biscuits, weighed out two pounds of flour, and ladled milk from a large two-handled dairy call into the quart-size jug Mrs. Owens had handed her, "Will that be all?"

she asked, starting to total her purchases.

The woman was casting a longing glance at the shop window. "Oh, those new potatoes look so good. Let me have two pounds and a bunch of asparagus, too. Mr. Owens is partial to it. I think that'll do for now. I'll barely be able to carry what I've got."

"Would you like this delivered?"

"Delivered? Finnegan's delivers now?"

"Yes, ma'am. All day Sat.u.r.day and afternoons during the week when my delivery boys get out of school."

"How much?"

"No charge for you, Mrs. Owens." There was no charge for anyone, but why mention it?

"Well, yes, then!" the woman said, flattered and delighted. "And give me a bunch of those pretty daffodils, too. I'll take them with me since I don't have anything else to carry. And see that those boys mind my milk jug!"

Mrs. Owens paid for her goods and left. Without missing a beat, Fiona turned to her next customer. "Now then, Mrs. Reynolds, thank you so much for waiting. What can I get for you?" And after Mrs. Reynolds was taken care of, there was still a steady stream of women to attend to. Fiona was being run off her feet and she was ecstatic. People were buying! They purchased milk and bread and flour -the staples - but they also bought the more expensive items: bunches of fresh-cut flowers, Mary's biscuits, and new spring vegetables right out of the window!

Fiona had agonized over that window. She'd left it to the last minute, only completing it at six that morning. She'd never arranged a window before and hadn't known where to start, but she knew it had to be beautiful ,and so eye-catching that it pulled people in off the street. Standing alone in the middle of the shop, she'd looked around at all the goods that had been delivered - oats, pickles, milk, flour-wondering how on earth to create a display from them. As she saw the sun's first rays brighten the street, she started to panic. Then she heard Joe's voice in her head, saying, "It's all in the presentation, Fee. That's what makes punters want to buy." Her eyes came to rest on a crate of asparagus - she hadn't planned to buy it, it was dear - but the veg man convinced her, saying that people craved fresh vegetables after the long winter and would pay extra for them. Her gaze moved to the new potatoes, so little and rosy in their tender jackets ... the golden loaves of bread delivered by the baker's boy ... the daffodils that Alec had procured ... and the duck eggs, brown and speckled in their hay-lined crate ... and then she had a brainstorm.

Tearing upstairs, she took a white tablecloth from Molly's linen closet.

She grabbed a green vase from the sitting room and a blue and white spattered enamel bowl from the kitchen and ran back downstairs. In the shop's cellar, she dug up an empty fruit crate, a big round biscuit tin, and a few baskets, climbed in the window and got to work. When she had finished, she went outside to view the result.

What she had wrought was a perfect picture of spring. A burst of bright yellow daffodils in the green vase stood in the center of the window atop the biscuit tin, which she'd covered with the white linen cloth. Behind them, standing in a tall wicker basket, were long golden loaves of bread.

Next to them, on top of the wooden crate, was another basket, piled high with new potatoes. Next to that, asparagus bundles tied with twine stood in the blue - and-white bowl. And in front, in a small hay nest she'd made, were six perfect duck eggs. Rustic and inviting, Fiona's display was utterly unlike any other shop window, stuffed as they were with tins of boot black, faded packets of soap, and tired-looking boxes of sweets. Her little tableau spoke of the warm, green days to come. Of tulips poking up through the moist earth and tiny buds on trees. It was heartening and cheerful and delighted pa.s.sersby fed up with winter fruit and old potatoes.

The window ill.u.s.trated for Fiona the first and most important rule of retailing, one she had learned from Joe, from the markets and shop windows of Whitechapel, and one she understood instinctively: Create a desire for something and people will buy it.

A woman staring at the window came in, followed by a breathless Ian. Fiona pointed at Mrs.

Owens's order and gave him the address. He quickly packed the groceries in a crate and was off.

Robbie came in as he was leaving and Fiona gave him Mrs. Reynolds's order to deliver. She thought, with irritation, how very helpful it would have been to have her uncle working alongside her as well, instead of pickling himself at Whelan's, She'd dragged him in yesterday, and made him fix the sticky till drawer and show her how to unroll the awning. It had cost her another dollar. And while he was in the shop, he'd criticized many of her purchases.

Some of the vendors had sold her double what he would've ordered for the week, taking advantage of her inexperience. She heard about that until her ears burned. Then he cracked an egg on a plate, poked the flat yoke, and told her it was old. He stuck his hand into the flour barrel, sifted some between his fingers, and found weevils. He saw the three chests of tea from Millard's and told her she'd bought way too much and that it would go stale before she sold it all. He prodded a fish, examined its gills, and told her it was off. She angrily retorted that none of it would've happened if he'd been there to help her with the buying. Grumbling, he'd moved the chests of tell and coffee, along with rusks, oatmeal, and a few other necessities that women came in for often, closer to the counter, and the gla.s.s jars of cocoa, nutmeg, and cinnamon sticks out of the sun; then he told her to get the matches off the meat cooler, lest they take the damp.

For just a moment, he was the knowledgeable, competent shopkeeper she knew he could be, but just as she thought he might stay and help her, he left, saddened by the place. On his way out, he belittled her pretty touches the lace valance, the gla.s.s plates for Mary's pastries, the window boxes, and the hand-painted OPEN sign Maddie had made for her. This was a working cla.s.s neighborhood, he'd said. People were interested in value for money, not frippery.

He was wrong, Fiona knew he was. Working people loved beauty as much as wealthy people.

Maybe more so, since they had so little of it in their lives. But his words had upset her and Nick, who had come over to help her get ready, had to restore her shaken confidence. He'd told her, her missteps were only beginner's mistakes and she had time to put them right. He told her what mattered most were talent and ability, and she had plenty of both. He'd taken her face in his hands and ordered her to march to the fishmonger and tell him to shove that old cod he'd sold her straight up his b.u.m, fins and all. She had, and she'd gotten a beautiful, fresh fish to bring back with her. Then she'd made the miller replace the flour and the poultry man give her new eggs.

As she wrapped the last of the ginger biscuits for a customer - all gone and it wasn't even ten o'clock yet! -Fiona realized that she'd done it: she'd reopened the shop. She had customers ~ dozens of them! So many that she was running out of things left and right. She would have to restock, and quickly "You can't sell off an empty cart," Joe used to say. She was so relieved it had all gone well, but more than that, she was happy. And proud. The tea, the pastries, the pretty window-they were all her ideas and they'd had worked. It was an amazing feeling, to succeed at something. It was a new feeling for her-part happiness, part pride-and she relished it. With a painful twinge of regret, she remembered sitting on the Old Stairs with Joe ,as he tried to tell her about his successes at Peterson's and what they meant to him. She'd been too jealous, too threatened, to listen. If only she bad listened to him. If only she'd tried to understand him, instead of fighting with him. If only, if only.

As she held the door open for a customer who wanted to take her purchases with her, Fiona saw a van pull up outside the shop. The driver came up to the door, asked her name, then handed her a box.

"What is it?" she asked him.

"With him, you never know," he said, already back in his van and snapping the reins.

Fiona looked at the box. It was a s.h.i.+mmering blue rectangle, about twelve inches by fourteen, with a hinged lid inlaid with pieces of iridescent gla.s.s. She turned it over. The words "Tiffany Studios" were etched on the bottom. Puzzled, she opened it. She was surprised to find a newspaper inside-a copy of the New York World. The words "Turn to page 5" were written on the front page.

She did, and saw that her ad, the one Nate and Maddie had done, the one she'd run in the Chelsea Crier; took up the entire page. She was stunned. How had this happened? She hadn't run this. She couldn't afford to. The World was a huge city paper, not some little neighborhood rag. Maybe that explained why the shop was so full of people.

A small white card slid out from between the pages and fluttered to the ground. She picked it up. The writing was large and masculine. It said: My Dear Miss Finnegan, I hope this small gift contributes to your success Best wishes William R. McClane WILLIAM MCCLANE WONDERED if he was losing his mind. He was late for a supper at Delmonico's and he could not afford to be. It was a private slipper hosted by the mayor. Many of the city's leading financiers were attending. It would be the perfect forum to talk up his plans for a city-wide, subterranean railway, to generate interest and excitement among the very people whose support would be crucial to his success.

And what was he doing? Sitting in his parked carriage on the G.o.d forsaken West Side across from a small grocery, waiting, hoping, for a glimpse of a young woman whose face he had not been able to put from his mind since he'd first seen her a week ago in the offices of his bank. A face that was full of contradictions-at once anxious and determined, open yet guarded, strong yet heartbreakingly vulnerable. A face that was the most compelling he had ever seen.

On an impulse, on the way up Fifth to dinner, he'd told Martin, his driver, to turn left. He said he wanted to make a stop before Del's. Martin had raised an eyebrow at the location. "Are you sure of the address, sir"!" he'd asked. When Will a.s.sured him that he was, Martin shook his head as if to say he didn't understand him anymore. Will knew the feeling; he didn't understand himself He didn't understand why he had risked his bank's money on a girl with good ideas but no experience. Or why he'd made his secretary Jeanne go across town every day for four days running to search the newsstands until she found a copy of the Chelsea Crier with Fiona's ad in it so he could run it in the word.

He didn't understand why he thought about a girl he didn't even know a hundred times a day.

Or why -with a full life, with the demands of his business and the pleasures of friends and family-he should suddenly find him. self feeling unbearably lonely.

Forty-five years old, William McClane had had a long time to live with himself to know his own mind. He understood his motivations, knew his goals. He was a shrewd and rational man, one who had used his formidable intelligence and brilliant business sense to parlay a modest family fortune into a staggering sum of money. He was a highly disciplined man who prided himself on his adherence to fact and logic, and on his inability to be swayed by emotion or flights of fancy.

So what on earth was he doing here? Lurking like some masher?

On the way over, he'd told himself he was merely attending to business.

Looking out for his bank's a.s.sets. He was just making sure Miss Finnegan got off on the right foot. After all, a shop was a lot for a young woman to handle. But as the minutes ticked by, bringing the hour hand of his watch closer and closer to seven and still she did not emerge from the shop, the disconsolate feeling that suffused him forced him to admit that his visit had nothing to do with his a.s.sets and everything to do with the stricken look in her eyes after Ellis had turned her down, the touchingly brave way in which she'd held her head up and her tears back as he addressed her, and the relief in her face, real and palpable, when he'd told her she could have the shop.

He had to know that she was all right. That things had gone well for her.

And if they hadn't, he wanted to be the one to put them right. She had sparked feelings in him. Feelings of concern and protectiveness, and deeper, unfamiliar ones, too. Feelings he did not understand and could not name.

Will checked his watch. It was exactly seven o'clock; he really should be leaving. Not only was he late for Del's; he was attracting attention. His brougham, custom-made in England, easily cost twice what any of the surrounding buildings did, and people were stopping to stare at it. And, to his horror, at him in his evening attire. At Del's or the opera house, no one would've glanced twice, but there, in this working-cla.s.s neighborhood, he was making a spectacle of himself. And that was something a man of his background and breeding did not do.

He was about to rap for Martin to drive off when the door to the shop opened and a young woman wearing a long white ap.r.o.n came out. His heart stopped at the sight of her. Fiona. She slipped the hooked end of the long pole she was carrying into a metal eye over the doorway and began to roll up the awning. And then, before he even knew what he was doing, he was out of his carriage and striding across the street. As he stepped onto the sidewalk, the shop door opened again and a young man came out. He took the pole from her, finished rolling up the awning, then suddenly picked her up and twirled her around, both of them whooping and laughing. When he put her down, she kissed his cheek.

Will stopped in his tracks. The man was her husband, of course. For some reason, he hadn't pictured her married. She'd seemed so alone to him that day at the bank, as if she had no one to fight her battles, no one in her corner. Watching the two of them, he marveled at their excitement, their giddy emotion. They must've had a good day, made some money. That a few dollars could make anyone so happy amazed him. Anna, his late wife, had never embraced him like that, not even when he'd made his first million. He suddenly wished he were back in his carriage. He was an interloper barging in upon their happy scene. He felt awkward and, to his bewilderment, achingly disappointed.

He turned to go, hoping he hadn't been noticed, but in that instant Fiona saw him. Her face, already glowing with happiness, became incandescent.

"Mr. McClane! Look, Nick, it's Mr. McClane, the man I told you about! The one from the bank! Oh, Mr. McClane, you wouldn't believe the day we had! There were so many people! Rivers of them! Oceans! We're out of everything! We've nothing left to sell, nothing at all! And it's all because of you!"

And then she flew across the few feet between them, flung her arms around his neck, and hugged him so hard she nearly choked him. He was so shocked, and so delighted, that he was absolutely lost for words. His hands came up to her back. He could feel the heat of her body through her blouse. Her hair tickled the side of his face and her cheek felt like satin against his own. She smelled like b.u.t.ter and tea and apples and a warm, sweetly sweaty woman.

And then, as if remembering herself, she pulled away and took a fl.u.s.tered step backward and his whole body keenly felt the loss of her touch. "You've done so much for us! First saving the shop for me and then the ad!" she said "How did you get it into the World? Did I leave a copy with Mr.

Ellis?" Sill didn't wait for an answer, but kept talking breathlessly, sparing him an explanation. "You don't know what this means for us ... for my family." She was smiling still, but he saw a bright film of tears in her eyes. "We won't have to move and I won't have to find work and the Munros can stay and ... oh no! Oh, look what I've done!" Will followed her horrified gaze to the front of his jacket and saw that it was covered in flour. ''I'm so sorry! Let me get a cloth!" She disappeared into the shop, leaving him standing next to her companion.

"Excitable old thing, isn't she?" he said, looking after her and laughing. He extended his hand. ''I'm Nicholas Soames, a friend of Fiona's. I'm very pleased to meet you." '

Only a friend? Will brightened and shook his hand. "The pleasure's mine, sir."

Fiona came out and fussed with his jacket, rubbing at the flour and generally making things worse, until he a.s.sured her it was fine and would surely come out with a good shake. Privately, he was glad that Charlie Delmonico kept spare jackets and trousers closeted away for his best customers in case of spills or splashes. As she gave up, stuffing the cloth into her pocket, Nick turned out the gas lamps, locked the shop's door, and handed her the key.

''I'm going to go upstairs and see if Mary needs help with the supper, Fee. What should I do with this?" He held out the Tiffany box Will had sent her earlier in the day.

"Let's have another look!" she said eagerly. Nick opened it. The box was stuffed with bills and coins. They looked at the money, then at each other, then burst into laughter like two children with a box of candy. Will couldn't recall ever having had so much fun making money. Maybe he ought to give up mining and lumber and subterranean railways and try shopkeeping.

"Hide it somewhere,' Nick. Put it under my bed. That's next month's mortgage payment. If Michael finds it, he'll drink every saloon in the city dry." She looked at Will. "My uncle has a bit of a problem with whiskey. I'm sure Mr. Ellis told you."

Will nodded. Ellis had, using some very choice words. He was a bit taken aback by Fiona's directness. No one talked openly about such things in his circle. They went on all right-drinking and gambling and worse. But the rule was what you didn't talk about didn't exist.

"Nice to have met you, Mr. McClane," Nick said, heading inside.

"And you, Mr. Soames."

"Can you join us for supper, Mr. McClane? Or is it dinner? I get mixed up, I'd love to have you. We all would. It's meant to be a bit of a celebration. At least it is now! This morning I was so worried, I thought no one would come. Do join us! Nick brought champagne."

"It's Will, I insist. And I'd love to join you, but I'm due at a business supper shortly."

Fiona nodded. She looked at the ground, then up at him again, her lovely smile gone.

"Probably a nice quiet supper, I imagine. You'll have to forgive me. I don't usually rattle on so. I'm too wound up. I don't know how I'll ever get to sleep tonight."

Will realized she thought he was declining her offer because she'd put him off with her boisterous behavior. Nothing could be further from the truth. "Miss Finnegan, you didn't ... please don't think ... I like that you're excited about your shop. I'm the same way. Give me half a chance and I'll talk ears off about my subway. Look, I still have a little while before I need to be uptown. I find a walk often helps greatly when I'm wound up. Shall we take a short stroll?"

''I'd love to! Mary won't have the supper ready for a while, not with Nick, up there meddling.

But I'm not keeping you, am I?"

He flapped a hand at her. "Not at all. I have plenty of time," he said. He didn't. He was good and G.o.dd.a.m.ned late. And he didn't care.

She smiled again-a broad, generous smile that was genuine and unselfconscious and utterly disarming. He had put the smile there and the realization of it made him happy. She took off her ap.r.o.n and laid it on a step inside the doorway to her flat. ''I'm ready," she said. "Let's go."

"Hold on," he said, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket. He gently rubbed at her cheek with it. "Cinnamon. A long streak of it. Looks like you're leading a war party." She laughed. Her skin was as silken as a rose petal. He kept rubbing even though the cinnamon was gone, then stopped before she thought he was only trying to touch her. Which he was.

They set off and she told him if she was to call him Will, then he must call her Fiona. He agreed, suppressing a smile at her appearance. Strands of hair had sprung loose from her twist and her clothes were grubby and rumpled. But her face was flushed with color and her magnificent cobalt eves were sparkling, Will thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

As they headed east on Eighteenth Street, he asked her about the shop, what her customers had bought, and where she'd gotten her good ideas. Her answers were smart and insightful. And then she started asking him questions. Peppering him, really. On how wealthy New Yorkers had made their fortunes. What did they make? What did they sell?

"Well, Carnegie made his fortune in steel," he began. "And Rockefeller in oil. Morgan in railroads and finance and ... why do you want to know all this anyway, Fiona?"

"Because I want to be rich. I want to be a millionaire, Will."

"Do you?" he asked, smiling at yet another taboo broken. Another social rule blithely tossed over her shoulder and smashed like an old milk bottle. She obviously didn't know that women weren't supposed to talk about money. At least the women of his cla.s.s. He had a feeling she wouldn't have given a d.a.m.n if she did know.

"Yes, I do. How do you go about it? How did you do it?"

Smash went another milk bottle. Never inquire too closely about a friend's finances, he'd been taught. But he found her directness refres.h.i.+ng and her appeals for advice flattering and he had no hesitation in answering her. "With a small family fortune to prime the pump, timber lands I'd inherited in Colorado, and the foresight to buy more land there with plenty of silver in it."

Her brow wrinkled as she frowned. "I haven't got any of those thing~," she said. "But I was thinking-if the shop does well, I could take out another loan and open a second. Maybe ten or fifteen streets north of the current one ... "

"In h.e.l.l's Kitchen? I think not."

"Well, south then," she ventured. "Or a few blocks east. Maybe in Union Square. I've been there, it's very busy. And then I could open another and before long I'd have my own chain ... "

Will gave her a long look. "Don't you think it might be wise to walk for bit before you run?

You've been open one day. And a very good day it was, but you still need to learn a few things before you open a second shop."

"Like what?"

"Like the nature of your clientele. Open a shop like yours in h.e.l.l'" Kitchen and your window will go in in ten seconds flat. They'll rob you blind. It's a rough neighborhood. And yes, you're right- Union Square is very busy, but it caters to a well-heeled crowd looking for luxury goods, not groceries.

Take some advice my father gave me when I was starting out, Fiona: Use what you know to grow.

Right now, you don't know enough about the city's neighborhoods to make major investments in any of them. Don't get ahead of yourself. Start small."

"How? With what?"

Will thought for a few seconds. "You said that all your cakes and biscuits sold out, right?"

Fiona nodded.

"'You know sweet pastries sell, so now try savories. Meat pies ... chicken pies those sorts of things. It's a risk-you may not sell them- but it's a calculated one. Odds are you will. Try a selection of good candy. If people are buying biscuits, chances are they'll buy chocolate. What else? The Asparagus sold out, right? I had the most delicious braised lettuces at Rector's the other night. They were new, not full-grown. Maybe people who like fresh vegetables would buy those, too. Maybe not, but you should investigate every possibility. Antic.i.p.ate every need. Be the first to give your customers what they want, even if they don't yet know they want it."

A window opened above their heads. A woman leaned her thick forearms on the sill and in a heavy Irish brogue shouted, "Sean! Jimmy! Where the divil are yehs, yeh b.o.l.l.o.c.ks? Yer pork chops are gettin' cold. Get in here "Ow or I'll whale yeh both!"

"Pork chops, Will," Fiona said wryly, gesturing up at the window. "That's what my customers want. I'm not going to get rich selling those."

Will laughed. "Maybe not. At least, not right away. But you'll learn. You'll find out what sells and what doesn't and why. And you'll build on that knowledge. You'll get smart, Fiona. And that's the first step to getting rich."

"Is it?"

"Yes. I never would've known to buy my silver mines if I hadn't been in Colorado already because of my lumber interests there. I wouldn't be trying to sell the city on my subway plan if I didn't have a thorough knowledge of underground engineering from my mines. Trust me on this. Use what you know to grow."

They continued to walk and talk, heedless of time pa.s.sing, and not once was there an awkward silence, a second when one of them couldn't think of anything to say. Will was utterly enchanted by Fiona; he'd never met anyone like her-a woman so pa.s.sionate, so direct and honest, so completely without guile. She fascinated and intrigued him and he wanted to know more about her.

He asked about her family, and when she told him what had happened to them he stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk on Eighteenth between Fifth and Broadway, unable to believe what she had endured. It explained everything about her, answered all his questions. Why she was here. Why she was struggling to make the shop successful, why she was determined to make herself wealthy. He admired her courage, her fort.i.tude, but his heart ached for her, too. Without thinking, he took her hands in his and told her to come to him if she ever needed anything - help, advice, anything at all.

He hadn't meant to do it; it was a forward gesture, but the impulse overtook him. She simply squeezed his hands back, thanked him, and said she would.

When they reached Union Square, Fiona exclaimed at how far they'd walked and said she would have to get back. Supper was bound to be ready. Before they did, however, she spotted a flower seller-a thin, grubby girl of no more than twelve - hawking her wares. The girl had crimson roses. Fiona looked at them longingly, then suddenly said she would have some even though they were dear. As a treat for a good opening day. He tried to buy them for her, but she wouldn't allow it.

He noticed that she gave the little girl more than the price of the flowers. She loved red roses, she told him, and gave him one for his b.u.t.tonhole.

When they finally arrived back at the shop, a little redheaded boy. Her brother, he learned-was hanging of out the window. He bellowed at her to hurry up. Everyone was starving, he said. Will kissed her hand, held it for longer than he should have, then finally told her good-bye. He looked back once as his carriage pulled away and saw her standing on the sidewalk holding her roses, looking after him. And never in his life was he sorrier at the imminent prospect of a bottle of Chateau Lafite and a seven-course meal.