Fool's Gold (10 page)

‘I don’t want their damned charity — or yours!’ she burst out angrily.

‘My dear Mrs Owens!’

Seeing the shocked expression on his face, she bit her lip and tried to control her anger. ‘If I am to amend my situation — as I fully intend — then it will be by my efforts and mine alone! If I’m not good enough for your circle because I work in a store and live in a place like this, then I can relieve you all of the embarrassment of my presence!’

He caught her hands in his and pressed them. ‘I meant no offence, you know. Indeed I admire your independence of spirit. But pride is not the only consideration; friendship must surely be allowed to take its place. There are better jobs and better places for someone of your abilities. The Reverend Cooper and I know them all.’

‘Really?’

‘I am deputy editor of the
Tribune
: our offices are used as a sort of employment agency. And the Coopers always know the best lodgings before they come on the market! I’ll let you know if I hear of anything suitable,’ he assured her. ‘It would be a pity to lose the company of the only woman beside my mother who can sing a true note!’

She laughed. ‘I’m sure you are right — but I would still prefer that you did not tell everyone where I live.’

‘Your wish is my command,’ he said gravely, his thin, bony face lightening with a smile. ‘May I have the pleasure of escorting you next week? No need to commit yourself now. I hope we shall meet again before then.’

She thought he was going to kiss her, and had a fleeting return of that nightmare feeling of panic, the memories she had buried and shut out of her mind by the iron control she had enforced to save her sanity. She almost sighed with relief when he merely bent to kiss her hand.

‘Until next week, Mrs Owens,’ he said.

But fate had other plans in mind for her and it was to be some time before she returned to Letitia Cooper’s parlour.

Chapter Nine

Next morning she slept late and there was barely time to wash and snatch a hasty breakfast before it was time for church. Tamsin was very tired and Alicia was inclined to be a little impatient with her, an impatience she regretted when, despite the hardness of the pew, the child fell asleep in the middle of the service.

Perhaps she was finding Aggie Grey’s boisterous brood too much for her, she thought, stroking the little girl’s golden hair out of her eyes. Avoiding Miss Cooper’s anxious enquiries after the service, she hurried her home and put her back to bed. But within an hour, the child was awake again, bouncing impatiently up and down on the bed, demanding to know why she had to sleep in the middle of the day.

‘I want to go out in the sunshine, Lisha,’ she complained vigorously. ‘Why cannot we go for a walk? We could pick flowers on the riverbank. You’d like that, Lisha, wouldn’t you?’

‘Yes, my sweet. It’s probably just what we both need,’ admitted Alicia with a chuckle. ‘Perhaps you’re like me — nothing wrong with you but the blue devils!’

And so it seemed. They walked upstream of the Embarcadero and across the rickety trestle bridge to the little tree-covered spit of land that jutted out into the inlet or slough that Sacramento rather grandiosely called Lake Sutter. In the distance the chimneys of the Californian Steam Engine Works pointed heavenwards, but today no steam or smoke rose from them. They crossed the spit, swinging along hand in hand, their worries for once put aside, revelling in the peace and the warmth of the sunshine, pausing now and again to pick some more herbs until Alicia had quite an armful.

On the steep bank just below the turnpike road they found a fallen tree and sat down on it to eat the last bits of bread and cheese in the hot golden afternoon sunshine. Beatrice, the rag doll, had been tucked into the bag with the food and she sat beside Tamsin on the log, listening to the birds calling and watching the fish jumping in the sparkling waters of the inlet below.

‘No cakes today, Lisha?’ asked Tamsin rather forlornly, head on one side.

‘I don’t think so, my lovely,’ answered Alicia ruefully. ‘Just in case …’

And yet, watching Tamsin running about the clearing, chasing butterflies, it was hard to believe there was anything wrong with her. More likely she was, like Alicia herself, just tired out. The peace and quiet of the clearing was beginning to have its effect on her and she could feel her eyes closing in spite of herself.

‘Come on, my lovely.’ She began to collect up her shawl and her bag. ‘Time we were going back.’

‘Ohhh!’ The child’s face began to pucker. ‘Don’t want to go back to that house …’ She had never referred to Widow Grey’s as home. ‘Just a little while longer, Lisha, please! Beatrice wants to watch the butterflies!’

Alicia turned her head to watch the jewelled butterflies flashing in and out of the sunbeams. The sun was warm on her skin and there was no noise but the birds and the occasional clatter of hooves as riders passed behind them on the turnpike road. It was very tempting.

‘Just a few minutes longer. But stay close. That water’s running quite fast.’

She must have dozed off in the hot sunshine, for she woke with a start to a piercing scream from Tamsin.

‘Beatrice!’ Tamsin stood a few yards in front of her, her body rigid as she watched the rag doll fall down the steep bank towards the Lake, then in a flash she had thrown herself after her doll.

Alicia moved instinctively, as quickly as she could, but for one dreadful moment it seemed she would be too late. After the first mad dash to save Beatrice, Tamsin seemed suddenly to become aware of the danger into which she had flung herself. She stopped in panic on the brink of the drop, but the impetus of that first mad dash had carried her too far and she slithered, staggered and slipped over the edge. Throwing herself full-length on the ground, Alicia just managed to catch her hand in the waist of the child’s dress. With a calmness she did not feel, she commanded Tamsin to stop wriggling.

‘Hold still!’ she panted. ‘Now — one arm up to me … slowly!’ The child flung her arm up suddenly and almost jerked them both into the deep water, but Alicia just managed to grab her frail wrist.

Her back hurt her, her shoulders were burning, feeling as though they were about to be pulled out of their sockets. She tried to summon up a last great surge of energy to draw the sobbing child back up the bank, but in her heart she knew she could not do it; the strength simply was not there.

‘Hold still, Tamsin,’ she panted. ‘Keep still. I’m just going to shout someone on the turnpike …’ If there was anyone there, she thought despairingly.

Then, before she could raise her head to call, a black shadow fell across her face and she turned her head to see someone standing between her and the sun. He looked to be at least eight feet tall.

Whatever his height he appeared at least to be quick of comprehension. No exclamations or questions — he simply threw himself down alongside her, pinned her shoulders to the ground with one strong arm and reached down the bank to grip Tamsin’s other wrist.

‘Now, pull hard!’ he commanded and, painstakingly slowly, Tamsin’s tear-stained face appeared over the top of the bank.

She would have liked to lie there on the cool damp grass for ever till the burning, wrenched muscles in her arms stopped aching and her back stopped shooting agonised pains to her terrified brain, but it was impossible. Tamsin was sobbing for Beatrice, her unknown rescuer was saying something she could not distinguish, and another, vaguely familiar voice was exclaiming somewhere behind her.

Catching her breath in great gulps, she rolled over and looked up into quite the most handsome face she had seen since Robert’s death. Blue, blue eyes were gazing down with lively concern from a lightly tanned face beneath a mop of fair curls. As he reached down to draw her gently to her feet, she saw that her unknown rescuer was not quite the eight foot giant he had seemed from her worm’s eye view, but he must have been a good six, broad-shouldered, slim hipped, like one of the Greek gods in her school primer.

And good-mannered into the bargain. As she stammered out her thanks, he bowed over her hand and kissed it.

‘A pleasure, ma’am, to be of service to you — and your little girl,’ he said gravely.

She sought for words suitable to express her feelings, but could find none. ‘Tamsin,’ she said inadequately, ‘say thank you to the gentleman.’

But Tamsin’s normally perfect manners had completely deserted her.

‘Beatrice is going to get drownded!’ she wailed.

‘Who’s Beatrice?’ enquired the other voice. She whirled to see Clive Revel standing patiently holding the two horses, his own and his companion’s.

‘Her doll,’ she replied anxiously.

He looped the reins round a low branch and stepped forward to the edge of the bank. ‘Ah! I can see Beatrice!’ he exclaimed exultantly. ‘Not too far down — caught on a thorn bush.’ He broke off a whippy stem from a nearby clump of young saplings. ‘Brenchley! Hold onto my legs, there’s a good fellow.’

‘But Mr Revel … you’ll spoil your clothes!’ she protested as he flung himself full-length on the mossy bank.

‘Nothing compared to the safety of Beatrice,’ he said with a grin. ‘My father once had to row out to a boat in ’Frisco harbour that was just about to sail back round the Horn, just because my sister had left her rag doll on board! Mathilda she was called, I remember.’ He wriggled forward until he was right on the edge, hanging over, secured only by his friend’s weight on his legs. ‘Ah! I have her now!’

Tamsin was jumping up and down with excitement, barely held back by Alicia. Revel hooked the whippy stick into the sash of the doll’s dress and eased it slowly up the bank until it came within his reach. He stood up, the doll firmly in one hand, dusted himself down with the other, then turned to Tamsin. He bowed to her with a great flourish. ‘Beatrice!’ he said solemnly. With a shriek, the child took the doll and hugged her to her heart.

‘Oh, thank you,
thank you!
’ she cried ecstatically. As Revel bent over her with a smile on his pale face, she flung her little arms around his neck and kissed him enthusiastically, causing him to blush furiously.

‘Clearly I should have rescued the doll and abandoned the child!’ said the fair man with a rueful smile.

‘I’m sorry,’ apologised Alicia with a rueful smile. ‘But you see, Beatrice is the most important person in her life.’

‘After you, surely, ma’am?’

‘Perhaps,’ she agreed gravely, but in her heart she knew it was not true. Beatrice was constant. Alicia had abandoned the child when she needed her most.

She could feel her legs beginning to tremble as reaction set in and she was grateful when Brenchley pushed her gently back down on to the log.

She looked up, sudden tears filling her eyes.

‘I cannot find the words to thank you enough. Both of you. God knows what I would have done had you not been by.’

‘Only too delighted, ma’am,’ responded the tall man, bowing gracefully over her hand. ‘May I introduce myself? Augustus Brenchley, ma’am, always at your service.’

‘I thank you, sir, and you, Mr Revel, for rescuing us from the results of my unforgivable carelessness.’

The fair giant smiled sweetly down at her. ‘Not carelessness, ma’am. You were simply overcome by the heat of the day. Too many late nights, I daresay. I confess, I have been pleasantly surprised at the variety of entertainment offered by Sacramento society.’

She had to suppress a bubble of hysterical laughter at the suggestion that her social life had caused her exhaustion! Heaving the sacks and the barrels from early morning to late at night had left her barely enough strength to walk back to the Greys and crawl into bed. The thought of dancing the night away was in itself quite exhausting!

‘Mrs Owens is not able to give Sacramento society the pleasure of her company as much as Sacramento would like,’ commented Revel smoothly. ‘But you may meet her again at the Coopers’ soirée on Saturday.’

He pressed her to join them at the Orleans Hotel, where they were to meet some friends later that afternoon, but much as she would have welcomed a good slug of whiskey — an unladylike habit she had got into with Angelina in times of stress — she knew all they would offer her would be a cup of coffee.

‘You are very kind, gentlemen, but Tamsin has had an uncomfortable afternoon and the best place for her is bed,’ she replied firmly.

Mr Brenchley took Tamsin up before him on his horse and, Alicia having declined Revel’s horse, they walked back across the trestle bridge and along the edge of town to the Greys. They picked their way through the stagnant pools and she grew hot with embarrassment as Aggie Grey and a handful of mucky children leaned over the rickety garden fence to watch them lift a sleepy Tamsin down, but she was too tired and anxious about the girl to care what Brenchley thought.

She refused to let either of the men carry Tamsin upstairs, although it was no easy task for her to do it herself, for the child was heavy and her long skirts and full petticoats hampered her on the rickety staircase; she could not bear them to see the squalor of the house or the bareness of their room.

She sat up all evening, sponging the little girl’s head as she tossed and turned, berating herself for her folly in taking her to the lake. How could she ever face Kai again after betraying his trust?

Towards midnight, Tamsin seemed to grow a little quieter. Her own eyelids were heavy as lead, so she slipped into the bed, cradling the child in her arms. She was soon asleep, but that night, for the first time in weeks, she dreamed once more of prison. ‘They will hang you, of course,’ said the voice gloatingly. She could not see the face but she knew it was evil, evil. ‘I’ll make sure of that.’ She woke up in a sweat, hands clutching her throat. Shaking, she groped for Kai’s herbal draught and hoped for oblivion.

Tamsin grew steadily worse the next morning. Alicia sent apologies to Missus Carson and, swallowing her pride, a note to beg Miss Cooper’s help. But Miss Cooper was out of town with her brother, and Aggie took one look at the feverish child and commanded her mother to throw the two of them out.

‘I ain’t risking none o’mine taking the fever!’ she shrieked. ‘An’ I ain’t having no sassy notes from Ma Carson telling me to nurse the brat whiles my fine lady goes back to work!’

Before Alicia could draw breath, they were out on the muddy sidewalk, their traps bundled up beside them. Once more she had to swallow her pride. She sent a lad to hire a cart with her last few coins and deposited herself, the child and the bundles on Sullivan’s doorstep. Even if it meant that she had to work in the saloon, she had to have a roof over their heads at least until Tamsin recovered.

*

The Colonel did not appear again until early on Monday morning and then he looked so grey that it was a wonder to the men that he had managed to get out of bed at all.

Chen crossed the room without a sound and set a mug of acrid green liquid down in front of him.

‘Drink this, if you please. Then you will feel like new.’

Cornish sniffed it suspiciously, looked sideways at the cook, then came to a swift decision and drank it in one gulp.

‘My God!’ he gasped from a burning throat.