Taking the High Road (2 page)

Their affair, instead of cooling down and eventually dying, as might be expected, only strengthened. In many ways, Marla became Paul’s true marital partner, the wife he might have installed in his Back Bay home were divorce more acceptable, and less scandal-ridden. Cecelia’s birth proved the final and most substantial bond between her parents, even though she herself was considered that worst of all beings: a
bastard.

Gabe’s frequent visits to the Bostonian had often coincided with those of his friend. Implicitly trusted by both, and more than half in love with Marla himself, for quite some time he had served as her attorney, and Paul’s, in all matters.

“So, I gotta tell you what’s goin’ on with their wills, Cecelia,” Gabe said now, patting her hand with a paternal gesture. In another world, another lifetime, this girl might have been his daughter, and he would always treat her as such. “Thanks to what your parents put aside, you’re in a right good place financially, young lady. You’ve been well provided for, believe me.”

Complete ownership of The Bostonian had reverted to Cecelia, with the stipulation that the place was to be sold and the proceeds used to purchase a legitimate, more respectable business. Also, from her father had been handed down controlling interest in a gold mine conglomerate, at some place in California.

“Another stipulation, though, honey. Paul and Marla didn’t want you to repeat their mistakes. So you inherit only if you will be married by a year from now.”

“Married? In a year? But—but I can’t—I don’t—”

“Yeah, I hear you, Cecie.” Gabe held up both hands, palm out, in the universal gesture that acknowledged her automatic protest. “No man in your life at the moment. But Paul’s idea was that you would move west and settle somewhere around San Francisco. With a nice chunk of change to set you up, you shouldn’t have any problems findin’ some nice young man to make a future together.”

Cecelia shook her head, which had begun to ache despite her indifference to the solace of sherry. Too much. Simply too much vital information to absorb in too short a time. She was feeling overwhelmed and slightly dizzy, wanting only to seek out the hotel room Gabe had reserved for her, and hide away to try making sense of all that happened.

Gabe noticed. He had always noticed the smallest details of her life, this man who often acted as surrogate father when her own hadn’t been available.

“What with just gettin’ home today, and all this hittin’ you like a ton of bricks, you look about done in,” he observed shrewdly. “Oliver is waitin’ outside, Cecie. I’ll have him take you back to the Maximilian, so’s you can have some time to yourself, and we’ll talk some more tomorrow. That okay with you?”

A tiny nod. Suddenly she felt so tired, so drained, that it was an effort even to stand, to gather her parasol and purse, to make her tottering way to the door.

There, Gabe gave her another warm hug. “You won’t never be alone in this world, Cecelia,” he promised, “not as long as I’m around. Now you go on and get some rest.”

Another nod. Forlorn, with tears still gathering to pool in those blue blue eyes. “Thank you, Gabe,” she whispered, from the sanctuary of his broad comforting shoulder. “Thank you for everything. I love you, and I don’t know what I’d do without you in my life.”

He blinked a few times, and swallowed rather noisily. “That works double for me, Missy. Now go on with you.”

In the dim-lit paneled hallway leading to the exit, Cecelia nearly bumped into a young man who was entering just as she had opened the door. He stopped, looking her up and down with hard cold eyes and mocking smile.

“Pray excuse me,” he said in a voice that, oddly enough, asked no excuse for anything he might do. Tipping his hat, he sidled on past toward Gabe’s office and disappeared inside.

Cecelia shivered. Why would any man greet her with that sort of bizarre reaction? Especially one on his way to see Gabriel Finnegan? The visitor was attractive enough, with curly brown hair and eyes of granite-gray. Yet something about his expression, and his attitude, sent chills down her spine. As she started down the stairs to meet Oliver, Gabe’s driver, she did her best to shrug off the encounter. Perhaps, overtired and emotionally upset as she felt just now, her imagination was simply working overtime.

If nothing else, Cecelia decided, her move to San Francisco some eight months prior had provided an opportunity to enjoy more pleasant weather than Boston’s extremes of hot and cold. Glancing out of her second-story bedroom window onto the street below, she could view the beginning of another perfectly beautiful February day, with sunrise already an accomplished fact at 7:30 a.m., and a sunset far distant in the late afternoon.

After yawning and stretching luxuriously, she selected her wardrobe, attended to morning ablutions, and was tucking herself into undergarments when a knock sounded at her door.

“Come in, Bridget,” she called.

“Oh, I see you’ve chosen that lovely blue frock to wear today,” approved the maid. “One of my favorites. And a fine thing that looks on you, Miss. Is it somethin’ special you have goin’ on, then?”

“I like it, too, especially for today’s late meeting that I have scheduled. I just wish—” A whoosh of breath as the folds of fabric slipped over her head.

“Wish what?” Bridget was busy adjusting this and that, tying and fastening whatever needed to be tied and fastened.

“That someday I might be able to dress myself, without help!” Cecelia laughed. “These formal day dresses, that need two people to put only one together—well, it’s just very aggravating to feel such a victim to women’s fashions, that’s all.”

Bridget was shocked. “But, Miss, if you were able to get along fine by yourself, then what would
I
do?”

Smiling, Cecelia turned to pat the girl’s arm. “Oh, I would have no problem finding plenty for you to take care of otherwise. But I wonder—how
does
any female manage her wardrobe without having the luxury of a maid?”

“Hmmph.” A sniff of disdain. “Simple things, if you ask me, put on in a dash and a promise, that wouldn’t hold together for any appropriate occasion. Not that I would ever want to find out, I’m sure.”

“Well, but—”

They were still arguing good-naturedly over the issue as they descended the stairs, greeted Mrs. Liang, the housekeeper, and partook of breakfast—each, according to station, in their separate area. While Bridget, with her peppery personality, enjoyed her employer’s friendship, she wasn’t about to presume upon it. Especially under Mrs. Liang’s critical eye.

“Will you be coming home directly after classes end today, Miss Powell?” asked the housekeeper now. Before emigrating to the distant land of California with her parents, she had attended a missionary school in China; and, despite a Far Eastern appearance, with ivory complexion and hair arranged into shining black coils, she spoke perfect English with only a slight British accent.

Cecelia glanced up from the newspaper she had laid out carefully beside her porcelain coffee cup. “No, not till almost dinner time. I have an appointment to meet the parent of a possible new student today. Um—what are we having tonight?”

The dark eyes tilted up slightly, the controlled mouth widened into a smile. “Watercress salad and vegetable beef stew.”

“Oh, that’ll make me hurry home. Two of my favorites.”

“Indeed. I do recall your mentioning that fact, when both dishes were served last month.” Another smile, then the housekeeper offered a small satisfied nod before disappearing through the swing door to her own realm.

Cecelia returned to her newspaper. She had skimmed partway down one column when an advertisement for travel tickets caught her attention. Leaning one elbow on the table, she propped her chin into her palm and stared out into space, across the room and through the muslin-draped window, open to morning sunshine and spring air.

Travel tickets. How well she remembered her own, those long months ago, as she readied her person and her belongings to move three thousand miles away, to a place she’d only barely heard about and was unclear what might be expected when she arrived there. Also, the fact that she had just gotten home from a similar exhaustive odyssey was enough to daunt the strongest heart.

For a week, after Gabe had collected information, more details, addresses, and maps, they discussed pros and cons between the two types of travel: overland, partway by train and the rest of the way by wagon and horseback, over appalling terrain; the other route by steamship from New York to Chagres, then via railroad to Panama City, then another steamship to Manzanillo and San Francisco.

Not surprisingly, Cecelia opted for the second choice. “It sounds easier to deal with,” she ventured hopefully, “and a less lengthy journey. Which I would appreciate, being on my own.”

“On your own!” Gabe tut-tutted that notion. “Of course you won’t be on your own. Bridget has already volunteered to keep you company. And I’ll be right along with you, gettin’ in the way and bein’ underfoot and makin’ a general nuisance of myself.”

“You will? Oh, Gabe, that’s wonderful! But what about everything you have here—your law practice, and all your properties, and so on?”

“Well, shoot, honey. I’ve been wrappin’ up business and sellin’ things right and left, even as we speak. D’you think I could let my two girls hie off on their own, again, ’specially to that heathen western land, leavin’ me behind to worry and wonder what’s happenin’?”

Cecelia bent over the map spread across the desktop, her finger tracing a line from state to state. “A fresh start, then,” she murmured. “For all of us.”

“Yessir. Give me a little more time to close out all my affairs here, get some assets sold, set up a power of attorney, and we’re good to go.”

“In that case,” Cecelia, feeling relieved and much reassured, “do you agree that taking a steamship is the better option?”

“I do indeed, Cecie. I like my comforts, y’know. Nothin’ comfortable about jouncin’ along more’n a thousand miles in a damned Conestoga, behind a team of smelly oxen. My backside just ain’t up to that kind of travel.”

And so, to use the Biblical phrase, it came to pass.

Business commitments were resolved, possessions packed or sold or disposed of, personal ties severed, houses and apartments closed up.

On one fine day in early July, Gabriel handed Cecelia Powell and his niece into the private carriage he had hired, and, followed by a dray holding all their worldly effects, they set off for New York Harbor. Both girls felt the excitement of starting a new life in a new part of the country…and yet, not so much. Excitement was mixed with trepidation and mild weariness for the undertaking of yet another pilgrimage.

At the dock, they boarded a newly built steamship, the Liberty Belle, and settled into spacious cabins; a large enough vessel, according to Gabe, to be quite comfortable during their voyage, yet small enough to be friendly.

Upon embarkation, all three of them hung over the rail like five-year-olds, fluttering farewell handkerchiefs to the crowd left behind—at least, the girls did. Gabe executed a few easy waves or an occasional salute to no one in particular, just to feel in the swim of things.

Slow, gradual maneuverings from quieter waters to the greater ocean beyond, and they were on their way. There remained only inclusion in steamship life, with scrumptious meals at any hour of the day, games of shuffleboard, bracing walks around the outer decks, and nighttime dancing under the stars.

Enough unattached young men were available to keep Cecelia from feeling like a wallflower. The extended cruise home from Europe just last month had familiarized her enough with shipboard routine to accept any romance for what it was: occasional flirting, nothing serious. At the end of the voyage, or upon any change of vessel, casual goodbyes would be exchanged and parties could continue on to their separate destinations, with, it was to be hoped, no stronger emotion involved than mild regret and definite well-wishing.

Calls at various ports not only extended time for the passage, but allowed a chance to sightsee. While the South was becoming increasingly immured in political upheaval, with Charleston the recent site of the Democratic National Convention, and with Savannah’s Merchants and Planters Bank financing a wharf full of cotton bales bound for New York, stately old homes in both cities offered the charm of architecture and hospitality.

Key West, with its lush semi-tropical setting of sand and surf and intriguing banyan trees, kapok trees, and palms, also served as a harbor for slave ships and their wretched human cargo. New Orleans provided relief from more serious matters, as travelers were treated to tours of scenic areas, both by carriage and by paddlewheel.

Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on your point of view—the wild gold rush days of California madness had passed on by some ten years or so ago. The entire Eastern seaboard had heard of and palavered over the hardships involved in getting to The Promised Land. Gabe and his entourage, having quite comfortably visited a civilized American metropolis in several states, honestly assumed that the remainder of their trek would continue in the same vein.

Thus, the sight of Chagres on Panama’s coast came as a shock. The village has been built mainly of large thatched huts that provided no sanitary conveniences; nor were roads, replacement stores, or modern lighting readily available. The bewildered natives had to cope with a steady influx of crazy people from all over the world, determined to make their way to California so that they might start picking up gold nuggets, right off the ground.

The Liberty Belle’s passengers had arrived during the wet season. First the travelers were drowned by rain; shortly after, they were steamed halfway dry by the blazing sun.

“Now I know how a clam must feel,” murmured Cecelia, drooping under the merciful shade of a protective awning on board ship.

“We’re in luck, though, girls,” Gabe announced. “We got us reservations on the railroad ’cross the Isthmus. Once we get all our stuff on board, it’ll only be a few hours till we see the Pacific Ocean. Imagine that!”