Fool's Gold (9 page)

‘This Jem — he was Corr-onel Jack’s brother?’

‘
Non!
’ Kerhouan was emphatic. ‘He never ’ave no brother. But they both are coming from Cornwall, you understand, and out ’ere, they call all the Cornish miners “Brother Jack”. This
laer
, this thief, this Jem, ’e was there when the mine cave in and they all think Colonel Jack is dead when they pull ’im out. He sees way to ’ave all the gold the others have dug out. When Colonel ’ave ’is senses back, Jem tell ’im ’e save ’im from the mine. So when Colonel leaves, ’e leave Jem in charge of Tresco.’

‘But when he regained his memory …?’

‘That I cannot tell you, for I do not know.’ He shrugged. ‘’E must ’ave known the truth, but I think while ’e was in San Francisco, ’e do not care much what happened at Tresco.’

‘Does he often drink this heavily?’

‘It is when his arm pains him badly, you understand,’ said Kerhouan loyally. ‘Otherwise, no, not even in San Francisco …’

‘I had noticed the arm,’ nodded Chen thoughtfully. ‘But I could give him something better than whiskey to take away the pain. You tell him that …’

‘When ’e is sober,’ warned Kerhouan. ‘When ’e drink this much, ’e is like the bear with the sore ’ead, you leave ’im alone.’

*

Saturday dawned and with it the decision to go to the soirée. Alicia dared not chance offending Miss Cooper and losing the place for Tamsin in her school. She spent the entire day convincing herself that she was far enough away from San Francisco to be safe from accidental discovery.

Before she left early on the Saturday morning she explained carefully to Tamsin where she was going and the child promised to be good for Mrs Grey. Alicia could only hope that the promise of future Sunday afternoons with cakes and tea would suffice to hold off the dreaded nightmares.

The day seemed endless, but at last came the grudging dismissal.

‘I suppose you can go and tidy yourself up, if’n you’re so set on goin’,’ muttered her employer.

She took the bag with her silk dress in it into the back store. Surrounded by barrels of flour, she began to unbutton her blouse, but stopped as a sudden thought struck her. She crossed the room and heaved a barrel of flour in front of the door. Sure enough, just as she was slipping into the dove-grey dress, she heard the handle turn and the door rattle against the barrel. She smiled triumphantly to herself as she heard the muttered cursing.

She rebraided her hair to her satisfaction, coiling it into the nape of her neck and teasing a few curls forward to cluster round her face, then she took out a flask of Kai’s herbal medicine and swallowed it down. When she felt she could face the world, she rolled the barrel aside and stepped out.

‘Good night, Mr Carson,’ she said coolly.

When she got to the front of the store, she did not find the Colonel on the sidewalk, however, but the Reverend Cooper.

He raised his hat, an old-fashioned low beaver, and bowed slightly to her.

‘I am the bearer of Colonel Cornish’s apologies, ma’am. He has been detained on his ranch and will not be able to join us this evening. Letitia hopes that you will not object to my escort instead.’

‘It’s most kind of your sister to concern herself.’

And yet, perversely, she
was
disappointed by the Colonel’s absence, even though she held him at least partly responsible for her present situation!

The company at the soirée was sufficiently varied to make up for his absence, although baritones and tenors far outnumbered sopranos and altos. The general standard of musical performance was not, however, such as to deter even the most amateur of performers. Apart from Mr and Mrs Revel and their pallid-faced son, not one of the others could hit a note accurately and hold it true.

And there was a piano — a rare sight still in California.

‘Do you play, Mrs Owens?’ enquired Miss Cooper.

‘I did — a long time ago,’ she admitted. She thought back to the endless hours of practice her mother had decreed. Robert had sold her piano for a good price to a saloon bar. ‘My fingers are very stiff.’

There was a wider variety of people here than there had been at the sewing bee, including the ministers of the Episcopalian and Methodist congregations and a number of Spanish-Americans, who she was sure must be Catholics. When it came to a social life, there was apparently more willingness to put aside religious and sectarian differences here than in equivalent gatherings in more populous regions. And class differences too, she reflected as she was introduced to a prominent politician — although she wondered whether the greeting would have been so warm if she had still been working with Chen Kai and living under the same roof!

The refreshments too were of a different nature, although just as lavish. The sight of the cold meats, jellies,
sala
ds and fruits laid out for the delectation of the guests made Alicia’s mouth water so that she could hardly bear to turn her back on the table and concentrate on the music and general conversation. So little did the Carsons pay her and so much did she pay the Greys for lodging and looking after Tamsin that very little was left over and in the middle of this land of plenty, she often did not have enough to eat. She had been mad to send the money back to Tresco.

The conversation in between the musical items was all about the situation in San Francisco. While her fingers moved obediently, though a little stiffly, over the keys to accompany Mrs Revel’s rendition of ‘Where’er you walk’, selected from Miss Cooper’s wide range of music books, Alicia listened avidly to the gossip and speculation, but no one seemed to have any certain knowledge, each condemning the other’s opinion as ‘mere rumour’.

She was glad to accept the offer of a drink from young Mr Revel when at last she was released from the piano where she had ended by murdering ‘I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls’ from
The Bohemian Girl
with the enthusiastic but totally untalented Edith Pikeman.

‘A brave effort, Mrs Owens,’ he said softly. ‘I think you might just have saved the honour of Messrs Bunn and Balfe!’

‘Barely, I think,’ she replied with a chuckle.

‘May I offer you a glass of this excellent punch?’ he went on. ‘Octavius Cooper is a dab hand at the blending.’

The guest were all helping themselves liberally to this potation, a glowing bowl of fragrant ruby red liquid with the crystalline snows of the Sierra Nevada floating on its surface. Alicia accepted a glass and sipped at it delicately, savouring the glow of it as it seemed to spread through her veins, dispelling the feeling of tiredness that had filled her body ever since she had started heaving the barrels and sacks that morning.

There was a stir at the door and a portly Spanish-American entered, a stunningly beautiful woman at his side. They were rapidly enveloped by a crowd.

‘The Leons,’ murmured Mr Revel in her ear. ‘Just back from San Francisco.’

‘What news from San Francisco?’ demanded Mrs Revel almost immediately. ‘Does the Vigilance Committee still govern the town, or have Sheriff Scannell and Mayor Van Ness come out of their bolthole and taken the reins of government back again?’

‘For myself,’ interrupted Mrs Bryant, her colour high, ‘I’m all in favour of the Vigilantes if City Hall is too cowardly to enforce law and order!’

‘And corrupt!’ growled Mr Revel Senior. ‘While the like of Belle Ryan can buy a jury with her ill-gotten money …’

‘The gamblers and the harlots run the city like their own private kingdom!’ objected another. ‘More than time they were stopped! All power to the Vigilantes, say I!’

‘Hang the lot of them!’ said one.

‘Hanging’s too good for some of those villains!’ cried another.

‘Ladies! Gentlemen!’ The Reverend Cooper was deeply shocked. ‘Let us not fall out over the matter. Let us rather thank God that we in Sacramento have not been visited with the misfortunes that afflict our neighbours on the coast, and pray that He may bring a just and fitting end to this sad episode.’

‘Amen!’ said the beautiful Señora Leon fervently. ‘We imitate San Francisco in so many ways. In this, let us hope not.’

‘They have hanged four more of the murderers, Andrews among them,’ said Leon. Only sharp-eyed Miss Cooper saw the sheet of music slip from Mrs Owens’s fingers and flutter gently to the floor. One glance at her dead-white face and she stepped wordlessly between her and the rest, effectively blocking her from their view.

‘Now they’ve moved on to other crimes — corruption and so on …’ Leon went on.

‘That’ll keep ’em going the next five years!’ muttered Captain Sharples with grim humour.

‘They were to disband this month. A lot of the petty criminals had the sense to get out before the warrants came, and the Vigilance Committee are providing tickets to help them on their way. Governor Johnson has finally stood up and said ‘enough’, but I don’t think anyone’s taking any notice. He’s declared a state of insurrection, but both General Wool at Benicia and Captain Farragut at Mare Island have refused to send in troops.’

‘Perhaps they think reform was long overdue,’ commented Mr Reese.

‘Perhaps,’ agreed Señor Leon. ‘But matters are going from bad to worse. I shan’t be going near San Francisco again — and I don’t recommend anyone else here to do so.’ He paused and scanned the expectant faces around him. ‘You see, they sent Sterling Hopkins out with an arrest warrant for James Moloney, and there was a brawl, and David Terry —’

‘The Supreme Court Justice?’

‘The same. Governor Johnson’s hot-headed friend. Stabbed Hopkins in the neck. He’s not expected to live. They’ve thrown Terry into prison at Fort Gunnybags and are threatening to hang him.’

‘But — but — they can’t hang a Justice of the state court!’ exclaimed Mr. Barrington angrily.

‘If they don’t — then it means he’s above the law,’ reasoned Señor Leon. ‘Not exactly what the Vigilance Committee has been fighting for. But maybe they’ve overreached themselves this time? The Captain of the
John Adams
has demanded the Vigilantes hand Terry over.’

‘And what have they to say to that?’ asked Mrs Revel eagerly.

‘They’ve abandoned their plan to disband,’ he said sombrely. ‘And if Hopkins dies, I think they will hang Terry and that will put them against the Governor himself.’

‘The Navy against the Vigilantes,’ began Miss Cooper in a horrified whisper.

‘It would be open warfare,’ agreed Señor Leon sombrely. ‘And both the Vigilantes and the Governor are sending to Sacramento for support.’

There was a short thoughtful silence, broken at last by Captain Sharples.

‘I see Colonel Cornish is not here tonight,’ he observed.

‘And what of that?’ demanded Miss Cooper aggressively.

Captain Sharples shrugged. ‘Perhaps he felt it was his duty to rejoin the Vigilantes,’ he speculated.

Alicia shivered. Someone had walked over her grave.

‘Another glass of punch, Mrs Owens?’ offered Mr Revel, returning to her side as the gathering broke up into small groups.

‘No, I thank you,’ she declined the offer. She had scarcely eaten anything today, for Missus Carson had not allowed her a break, to make up for her early departure. ‘Perhaps later on.’

Miss Cooper was bewailing the lack of a good violinist. ‘Here we are with a violin, a harp, a piano, and we can’t play any duets. What a pity Colonel Cornish could not come!’

She assumed that this was one of Miss Cooper’s usual butterfly changes of subject until Revel assured her that the Colonel was one of the best exponents of the violin, or, as he insisted on calling it, the fiddle, that California had ever seen.

‘But come, Mrs Owens,’ he rallied her. ‘A well brought up young lady like yourself surely had some lessons on the harp? Enough to play a simple duet with me and satisfy Miss Letitia?’

‘I’m afraid not, Mr Revel. My mother taught me to play the pianoforte, but there it ended, I fear.’

He sorted through the various bound volumes of songs until he found a book of Scottish ballads and persuaded Alicia to sing one of Robert Burns’ beautiful songs with him. Her voice was not big, but it was sweet and true and blended well with his pleasing tenor, so that when the last note died away the applause for the first time that evening was more genuine than polite.

The cold collation was eaten, to the accompaniment of much speculation about the situation in San Francisco, which Alicia managed to avoid, and at last, to her relief, the evening drew to an end. This time, Mr Jones, the elderly clerk, was not present to help her out of her dilemma and she stood by helplessly while it was decided that the Revels would see her safely home. Her only consolation was that the older Revels decided to go with their married daughter and her husband, leaving their son to escort her.

‘My God!’ he said softly as the gig drew up alongside the crumbling sidewalk outside the Widow’s Grey’s.

‘It is … only temporary,’ she began to stammer. ‘Until we can establish ourselves …’

‘This is no fit place for a lady,’ he said firmly. ‘Whatever are the Coopers thinking of?’

‘They don’t know where I live …’

‘But — they could surely help you to a better place!’