Rebecca Hagan Lee (26 page)

“Wasn’t your family afraid for you to come here? Aren’t you afraid?”

“Of what?”

“Of Mr. Craig,” Lois breathed. “Of James Cameron Craig, of course.”

“Why should I be afraid of Mr. Craig?” Elizabeth asked. “He’s an old family friend, a well-respected businessman, and a perfect gentleman.”

“He
appears
to be a well-respected businessman and a perfect gentleman,” Lois corrected. “But appearances are deceiving. He’s a criminal, you know.”

“Don’t be absurd!” Elizabeth snapped. “Mr. Craig isn’t a criminal.”

“Yes, he is,” Lois said. “Oh, everything is very hush-hush now. You were away in Europe and your family probably didn’t think anything of it because, after all, she was a Celestial. But James Craig didn’t come to California because he wanted to. He came because he was forced to leave Hong Kong to escape punishment.”

“Punishment for what?” Elizabeth didn’t believe a word of Lois Marlin’s gossip, but her curiosity got the best of her.

“He killed his wife,” Lois whispered. “He killed her with his bare hands.”

“I don’t believe you,” Elizabeth said flatly. James Cameron Craig was no more a killer than she was. He was too patient, too understanding. Too loving. He would never kill the mother of his child. The idea was unthinkable. James Craig could not have murdered the mother of his child. He loved Ruby too much. And his love for her was the pure love of a father for his child. There wasn’t a hint of guilt attached to it. And James wouldn’t be able to look Ruby in the eye if he had committed the horrible crime of which Lois Marlin accused him. “Mr. Craig is one of the few
men I’ve ever known who genuinely likes women and children. In fact, he adores them.”

“So what?” Lois didn’t appreciate Elizabeth’s superior tone of voice. “Everyone knows he prefers Celestial women. His wife was one and he must have at least one or two mistresses over in Chinatown.” She nodded toward the row of buildings beyond Main Street to the right of the square. “How else could he keep spawning these heathens?”

“How dare you suggest …” Elizabeth began in a voice shivering with cold fury.

“I’m not suggesting,” Lois told her. “I’m telling you the truth. Everybody in town knows it. If you don’t believe me, ask him. Ask him what happened to his wife. Ask him how she died.”

“I would never presume to ask Mr. Craig such a personal and hurtful question.” Elizabeth’s voice cooled even more.

“Oh, you’ll ask him,” Lois Marlin asserted smugly. “You’ll ask him. You won’t be able not to ask him now that your curiosity has been aroused. But, take my advice, Miss Sadler, and leave while you still have the chance. The other governesses didn’t stay because they were afraid to. Why do you think he’s still eligible? Surely you don’t believe a handsome, rich bachelor like him could remain unmarried in a town full of eligible women, if there wasn’t something horribly wrong with him?”

Elizabeth got to her feet, then bent and gently placed Diamond in her perambulator before she signaled to Delia to bring the other Treasures. “I suspect you have it backward, Mrs. Marlin,” she said in an oh-so-sweet tone of voice. “I don’t think Mr. Craig has remained a widower because the women in Coryville are afraid he murdered his wife. I doubt they care if he murdered his wife. After all, she was only a
Celestial heathen.
” Elizabeth sneered the term. “I suspect the reason James Cameron Craig has remained a widower, in a town, of plenty, is that he’s afraid the town is full of women with narrow-minded attitudes like yours.”

“Why, I never!” Lois Marlin got to her feet, red-faced and sputtering.

“And you never will, Mrs. Marlin. You never will.” Elizabeth grabbed hold of the handle of Diamond’s carriage, pulled it behind her as she left the brick walkway, and stalked over to the sandbox to rescue a squirming Emerald from Joseph Junior, who had her in a bear hug and was plastering her face with wet sloppy kisses. “If I were you”—Elizabeth turned to give Lois Marlin one last parting shot—“I’d work on broadening my view with an eye toward the future. Joseph Junior doesn’t seem to mind sharing the sandbox with
Celestials.
In fact, he seems to rather enjoy it.” Elizabeth lifted Emerald out of the sandbox, hefted her onto her hip, then grabbed hold of the handle of Diamond’s pram and pulled it behind her. “Good afternoon.”

“
CELESTIAL HEATHEN
!
THE
nerve of that woman to call a precious little gem like Diamond a Celestial heathen!” Elizabeth was still fuming as she watched carefully while Mrs. G. showed her how to bathe the baby in the sink in the kitchen alcove of the nursery while Delia fed Emerald and supervised Ruby and Garnet at supper.

Mrs. G. shrugged as she cupped her hand and gently scooped warm water over Diamond’s little body, “Now you know what you’re up against.” She had lived a long time. She was wise enough to listen to Elizabeth’s ranting, yet clever enough to keep her counsel until she knew where Elizabeth’s loyalties lay. She glanced slyly over at Elizabeth and added, “Now you know what you
and
Mr. Craig are up against.”

“He built this town,” Elizabeth continued furiously. “He built this beautiful little town, and yet the people who live here shun and insult his children and repeat horrible mean-spirited rumors about him.”

“That’s about the size of it,” Mrs. G. agreed.

“I don’t believe the things Lois Marlin said about Jame—I mean Mr. Craig—are true. I don’t believe he killed his
wife, and I don’t believe he keeps a stable of mistresses in Chinatown.”

Mrs. Glenross raised an eyebrow at that. “So, that’s how the townspeople account for the Treasures? How do you account for them?”

“I don’t,” Elizabeth said. “I accept them for what they are—James Cameron Craig’s daughters.” Elizabeth leaned against a kitchen cupboard and paused. “It doesn’t matter who their mothers are or if they have mothers. He loves those girls, Mrs. Glenross. I’ve only been here a day and I already know that if I live to be a hundred, I shall never see a man who loves his children more than James does.”

Mrs. G. lifted Diamond out of her bathwater, carefully wrapped her in the large towel Elizabeth had waiting, and handed her to Elizabeth. “You’ve learned a lot in one day, Miss Sadler,” she said with a knowing grin. “More than most people learn in a lifetime.”

Elizabeth carried Diamond into the bedroom and placed her on the bureau that doubled as a changing table, finished drying her, then picked up the tin of powder and sprinkled her with talc before pinning on a fresh diaper.

Mrs. G. followed Elizabeth into the bedroom and stood in the doorway watching as she quickly pulled an infant sacque over Diamond’s head. “Now you know how the townspeople feel about James Craig—especially the women,” Mrs. G. said. “Although the local businessmen appreciate his talent for making money, their wives refuse to accept him or forgive him for having been married to a Chinese or for keeping and raising the Treasures as his own. And the women in town will never willingly accept the Treasures into Coryville society.”

Elizabeth wrinkled her brow in thought, then straightened her lips in determination. “Then, we’ll just have to change their minds.”

“How do you intend to do that?” Mrs. G asked.

“We invite them to tea,” Elizabeth replied, suddenly remembering her grandmother’s solution to recalcitrant society women. “We host a couple of splendid spare-no-expense
invitation-only teas. We start with a very exclusive guest list, then expand. Before we know it, every woman in town will want to come.”

“We?” Mrs. Glenross demanded.

“Yes, we,” Elizabeth answered firmly. “After all, this was partly your idea.”

Mrs. G. smiled, a bit sheepishly at having been so transparent. “I guess it was, at that.”

Elizabeth wasn’t fooled by Helen Glenross’s casual offer to help bathe Diamond. She knew the housekeeper had come up to the nursery to oversee her progress with the Treasures on James’s instructions, and Elizabeth had taken full advantage of Mrs. G.’s willing ear to relate her conversation in the park with Lois Marlin. Mrs. G. knew more about James and the Treasures than she was letting on, and Elizabeth meant to enlist the housekeeper as an able ally in her fight to prove how wrong the people of Coryville were in their assumptions about James and the Treasures.

Elizabeth suspected Mrs. G. missed having little Diamond all to herself and was willing to supervise the nursery and its new governess, not only because James expected her to, but because Mrs. G. had overheard her conversation with James in the hallway the night before and was worried about Elizabeth’s handling of the Treasures. But she also knew that unless she did something wrong, Mrs. G. would respect her dominion over the children and the upstairs nursery wing because James had hired her as governess and put her in charge, just as Elizabeth respected Mrs. G.’s dominion over Delia and Annie and the rest of the upstairs and everything downstairs because Mrs. G. was the housekeeper.

Elizabeth gave the housekeeper a quick decisive nod. “That’s settled. Now, would you like to feed Diamond her bottle or shall I?”

A wide, joyful grin transformed Helen Glenross’s plain features into something akin to beauty. “Let me go downstairs and get the bottle I’ve got warming for her,” she said
to Elizabeth. “I’ll be back in a flash to feed and rock our precious little angel.”

JAMES ARRIVED HOME
from the office around half-past five. Eager to see his daughters and to find out how Elizabeth had fared on her first day on the job, James made his way upstairs to the nursery after briefly stopping in his study to drop off his leather satchel. He was late.

He entered the nursery after the Treasures had had their supper and during the scheduled bathtime. James recognized the sound of voices and of water splashing coming from the water closet as he walked into the playroom. He didn’t see Elizabeth, nor did he see Garnet or Ruby. A freshly bathed Emerald stood patiently, near the warming stove in the playroom, as Delia knelt on the floor in front of her and made a game out of drying Emerald off with a fluffy terry-cloth towel. James decided Elizabeth must be busy bathing the older two girls.

“Good evening, Mr. Craig,” Delia greeted him as she looked up from the game of peekaboo.

“Good evening, Delia.”

Emerald shoved the towel away from her face, grinned broadly, and reached out for her daddy.

James bent and lifted her into his arms. “How’s my little sweet pea?”

“Da,” Emerald gurgled happily. “Da.”

“That’s right,” James said, hugging her naked little body close to his. “Your daddy’s home.”

Emerald hugged him one last time, then squirmed, struggling to get down and return to Delia and the peekaboo game. Realizing Emerald had tolerated all the loving she could stand for the moment, James reluctantly set her down on the floor. He glanced over at Delia. “Where’s Miss Sadler?”

“Washing Ruby and Garnet,” Delia replied, confirming James’s earlier supposition and one of his biggest fears.

“By herself?” he asked, somewhat alarmed by Delia’s casual disregard of what was likely to turn into chaos. Ruby could be notoriously stubborn during the best of times, and bathtime was not one of her best times. She hated the very mention of the word
bath
, despised the bathtub, and did her absolute best to avoid the water and the whole process. He had, forgotten to warn Elizabeth, and had no idea how she would manage.

“I warned her about Miss Ruby,” Delia replied.

“And?” James was on pins and needles.

“She said she’d manage.” Delia reached beneath the edge of her skirt and produced a white cotton nightgown, then grabbed hold of Emmy as she made a dash for the freedom of continued nudity and quickly dropped the garment over her head. Delia got to her feet, lifted Emerald from the floor in mid-yelp, and carried her into the bedroom to diaper her.

James marveled at the fourteen-year-old housemaid’s adeptness. “How long has Miss Sadler been in there with them?”

“A while,” she answered.

Unable to contain his curiosity, he called to Delia, “I think I’ll go see how Miss Sadler is faring with Ruby.”

“She managed just fine with Miss Emerald.”

“Ruby’s an altogether different kettle of fish,” he replied. “I think it might be a good idea if I go see how she’s doing for myself.”

“Suit yourself,” Delia called from the bedroom.

Fully intent on doing just that, James left the main room of the nursery and walked through the kitchen alcove to the bathroom. He paused before knocking on the bathroom door, listening to the exchange of conversation from within the room.

“I can’t reach you over there, Ruby,” Elizabeth said in a cajoling tone. “Please come over here and sit by Garnet.”

He didn’t hear Ruby respond to Elizabeth’s request, and James imagined his eldest daughter standing at the far end of the large bathtub defiantly shaking her head.

“All right, Ruby, you leave me no choice.”

James recognized the note of resignation in Elizabeth’s voice, heard the whisper of rustling fabric, and the sound of water sloshing against the deep claw-footed cast-iron bathtub, and experienced a brief moment of perverse satisfaction. He knew it was wrong to feel a sense of fulfillment in knowing his latest governess had failed, but he couldn’t help the swell of love and pride he felt at being the only person Ruby found worthy of her complete faith and trust. Having grown accustomed to Ruby’s adamant refusal to allow anyone but him to bathe her, James expected the bathroom door to open any moment and yield a victorious Ruby and the latest in a long line of defeated governesses. What he didn’t expect, when he knocked once on the door before opening it, was Elizabeth Sadler’s solution to the problem.