Blessed Assurance (31 page)

Feeling grim, Linc gave her his arm. Unable to help himself, he
leaned close to her ear and whispered, “Go easy on the champagne or we'll go home early.”

Cecy giggled. “Go home if you wish. I'm off to ‘see the elephant.'” “Seeing the elephant” was the San Francisco term for touring its nightspots.

Outside, the March breeze blew deceptively warm around Linc's ears. In front of the theater, Linc arranged everyone in his Pierce Arrow, but inside himself, he fumed. Miss Cecilia Jackson was going home after supper—if it was the last thing he ever did.

When he walked into the Poodle Dog with Cecilia on his arm, the restaurant rang with tipsy laughter. The head waiter barely seated them before Cecilia ordered more champagne. Over the past few days, Linc'd been so impressed with Cecilia's desire to change her canneries for the better. Why hadn't these meaningful experiences satisfied her instead of champagne?

Struggling not to glance at his watch, Linc couldn't think of anything more boring than watching other people get tipsy. He'd get Cecilia so busy she'd have no time for any more of these “champagne” evenings. Finally, the crème brûlée had been consumed over a discussion of the great Caruso, who would appear in San Francisco in less than a month. Cecy invited everyone to dinner after Caruso's performance. Linc's head ached. Cecy sipped the last of her champagne. Linc summarily signaled away the waiter who'd come to bring another bottle of champagne. He pulled out his watch. “Cecilia, it's nearly three
A.M
.”

“And I have a matinee and an evening performance tomorrow.” Effie rose. “Will you drop me at my hotel please, Lincoln?”

Linc could have kissed the blonde.

Bonnie stood also. “I have an early rehearsal, too.”

“So you won't be going to ‘see the elephant' tonight, Cecilia?” Bierce asked in a taunting tone.

Over my dead body
. Linc steamed.

“If you've seen one elephant, you've seen them all.” Effie waved her hand.

Gratefully, Linc squired the ladies to his car and drove them each home in the cool of early morning. Finally, as he helped Cecilia up to her door, he vowed this would be the last “champagne” evening—if he had to lock her up.

The butler admitted them. Nana waited at the top the staircase, dressed in a plain white flannel wrapper. “You're home at last.”

Linc heard the relief in Nana's voice. Cecy walked unsteadily up the stairs. Nana came down and met her halfway. Taking Cecilia's arm, she led her upstairs. Since the first nurse had quit, Nana now had to contend with Cecy as well as Florence.

He bid them a gruff good night. Outside, Linc gazed at the flickering stars. The stars glinted knowingly, almost mocking him—“You're in love with her.”
Virginia was enough for me. I don't want another love.

Ring. Ring. Linc surfaced from the deep sleep. He hurried downstairs to the phone. “Yes?” he mumbled.

“Linc!” Cecilia cried out. “Come, quick.”

Through the shadowy foyer and up the curved staircase, Linc jogged, side-by-side with the butler. The butler opened Cecilia's mother's bedroom door but remained outside. Linc stepped into a darkened room. Florence lay perfectly still. Was she even breathing? Wearing a forbidding expression, a gray-haired doctor stood beside the rumpled bed, Millie at his side.

In the low lamplight, Cecilia, deathly pale, stood opposite the
doctor. Her auburn hair flowed around her unbound. The giddy young woman she'd been earlier had vanished. “Linc.” Cecilia's voice quivered near hysteria.

Millie spoke up loudly, “Mr. Wagstaff, thank you for coming. Mrs. Jackson took too much of her sleeping tonic by accident. I must have poured out the amount twice without realizing it.”

Cecilia wrung her mother's limp hand.

His voice and expression distinctly suspicious, the grim doctor cleared his throat. “Your mother will live, thanks to her quick nurse's action, but she should not be left alone.”

“She won't be.” Cecilia lifted her mother's hand.

The doctor made a strange disapproving noise then gathered up his bag, bowed stiffly, and left.

Cecilia started to speak, but Millie, with the shake of her head, silenced her, evidently not wanting the doctor to overhear anything. Still in the middle of room, Linc waited in suspense. What had gone so wrong since he brought Cecilia home?

Within moments, the butler returned. “The doctor is gone.” He withdrew closing the door behind him.

Cecilia flew into Linc's arms.

He caught her and the temptation was too much. He pressed her to him, willing his strength to her. Her sobs ripped at his heart. He kissed her hair as though that could blot out her suffering. Even as he calmed her, his awareness that only a fine silk wrapper separated them alarmed him. He forced himself to concentrate on her misery, letting his sympathy increase, overwhelm his longing.
Father, help me say the right words
. Leading Cecilia to a love seat, he eased her down. She wouldn't release his hand, so he sat down beside her. “Millie, please explain what has happened.”

Millie collapsed on a bedside chair, twisting her hands together. “Since the nurse quit, I've been giving Mrs. Jackson her sleeping medication. Tonight, I couldn't sleep. Tried to ignore it, but the prompting came over and over that I should check on her.” She lifted the small amber bottle from the bedside table. “Thank God,
I obeyed. When I came in, I found this empty. I filled this back up with water, so the doctor wouldn't see it was empty. If it leaked out that your mother had attempted…” The woman fell silent as if the dread of what had taken place sealed her lips.

Linc let the awful truth sink in. Attempted suicide. Cecilia wept into her hands, hiding the tears.

Millie continued in a flat tone: “I was able to wake her enough to force her to be sick, then she fell unconscious again. I summoned the doctor. Thought he might be able to do more.”

“But why did she?” Cecilia choked on her words.

Millie gazed at Cecilia. “The truth, the facts are hard, but you need to hear them.” Millie paused to wipe her eyes with a handkerchief. “Cecy, you don't remember much about your parents, do you?”

Cecilia shook her head. “I've wanted to ask you, but I didn't want to hurt…mother.”

Linc's anxiety inched higher.

Millie bowed her head. “I should have told you.” She sighed. “But I hated to stir up the ugly past. Now I must do so to prevent more happening.” She looked into Cecilia's eyes. “Tonight, your mother tried to take her life because she was afraid you are following her sad path to alcoholism.”

Linc, proved right, regretted it. Cecilia crumpled in his arms, her sobs vibrating against him.
I put her in temptation's way
. He tasted acid regret.

Cecilia lolled weakly against Linc's shoulder. He held her. “Tell me, Nana,” she begged in a whisper. “Please”

Linc nodded.
Put an end to this.

Millie perched on the end of the tapestry love seat, her face drawn in the low light. “Your mother confided only in me and I kept her trust all these years. It all started when your father went to Boston to find a wife.”

Linc's mind went back to the
Bulletin
editor, Fremont Older, who'd told him one version of August Jackson's life.

“Your father became fascinated”—Millie paused to blink away tears—“with your Aunt Amelia.”

Cecilia sat upright. “Aunt Amelia?”

Cecilia's tone echoed his own disbelief. Had the two sisters been romantic rivals?

Millie nodded. “Your aunt was quite striking in her youth. But very headstrong. Even though strongly attracted to one another, your father and aunt fought—constantly. Then they had one huge argument and broke up.

“To make your aunt jealous, I think, your father turned his affections to your mother. Your mother was being pressured by her father to marry his wealthiest friend—a man nearly seventy–years old.” Millie drew in air, sounding defeated. “Your mother, only seventeen, accepted your father's proposal instead and eloped with him. I've always thought she married just to get away from the elderly suitor, her father, and bitter envious older sister.” Millie drew in a shivering breath. “Then you were born only eight months after their wedding.” Millie frowned as in pain. “Your father used this against your mother.”

“What?” Cecilia trembled against him.

Linc tucked her nearer. “He accused her of being pregnant by someone else when they married?” Linc asked, well aware of the implications of this and how powerless a woman would be in this situation.

Millie nodded. “It wasn't true, of course, and he knew it. Anyone could see the resemblance of Cecy to her father.”

“I wish I wasn't anything like him!” Cecilia cried out.

“Was that the reason Cecilia was sent away?” Linc asked as he fought the urge to hate Cecilia's father. A man who'd turn against his own child.

Millie continued, “By then, Mrs. Jackson had given in to despair and numbed herself with alcohol. Your father was a violent man. They had dreadful arguments.”

Cecilia nodded against Linc. “I remember,” she whispered.

“Was the short pregnancy his only reason for his ill treatment of his wife and daughter?” Linc asked, trying to understand the twisted logic.

“Was it, Nana?” Cecilia's voice quavered.

Millie pursed her lips. “I think he regretted marrying your mother. After all was said and done, I think in his way he'd loved Amelia but had been too willful and stubborn to suffer a woman who wouldn't knuckle under to him. He despised your mother for the very reason he married her, her compliance.”

Linc shook his head.

Millie said, “He used your mother's attack of delirium tremens as an excuse to rid himself of both his unwanted wife and his daughter. He telegraphed Amelia and she arranged for Cecy to be sent to the Boston school.”

Cecilia gasped. “My aunt?”

Millie's faced turned darker. “She took revenge on your mother for stealing her love by helping to take her daughter from her. Truly, your aunt would have been a match for your father. Both evil.”

Linc nodded grimly, recalling all the times he'd wondered about the aunt's motives himself.

Wiping away tears, Millie sighed. “Your mother was sent to the sanitarium and I was dismissed. I thought my heart would break when I had to leave you.” Millie choked back a sob. “But I had no money, no legal way of stopping your father. I only had my prayers. And I've prayed for you every day since your father wrenched you from me. Oh, why didn't I tell you the truth right away?”

A tap at the door startled Cecy. She'd been completely immersed in the agonizing past. Linc went to the door and Nana drifted back to Cecy's mother's side to check her pulse again. Cecy wrapped her arms around herself, missing Linc's warmth.

After speaking to the butler, Linc turned back to face her. “I've a phone call.” He left and returned within minutes.

“What was it?” Cecy leaned toward Linc, her hair falling forward. She tossed it back over her shoulder. “Is something wrong at home? Del?”

“No, but I have to leave—”

“Don't.” Feeling herself begin to gasp for air, she held her arms to him in silent appeal.

He grasped her upper arms, urging her to stand up. “I wouldn't go if it weren't absolutely necessary. I'll come back as soon as I can.”

His strength had eased the anguish of hearing about her past. Why couldn't he stay and hold her until her mother woke? Mother might still die. But seeing his resolve, Cecy repressed a bone-deep shudder. “You'll come back?”

“As soon as I'm able.” He hesitated, then bent to kiss her on the lips. She threw her arms around his neck and clung to him. All the effort she'd put into starting a new life was slipping through her fingers like silk thread. Only Linc seemed able to guide her. She hated needing anyone. She forced herself to let go. “I'll be waiting.”

Giving her his unspoken promise again, he left.

Feeling as though all the life had been drawn out of her, Cecy crept over to stand beside Nana who put her arm around Cecy's waist. Cecy stared down at the limp form on the bed. Would she wake? Why had she feared probing the truth? “If she'd only spoken to me…”

“She's led a solitary life for so long…” Nana shook her head. “I wish you'd seen her when she was so young, so pretty.”

Cecy took a calming breath, bringing air in slowly and pushing out anxiety. When she'd come into her inheritance here in San Francisco, she'd thought her powerless days were in the past. But money couldn't help her now. The worst outcome, though, had been averted tonight. Her mother had been saved by Nana. “No more secrets. My father. My aunt. My grandfather—they'll never touch her life, my life again.” Saying the vow out loud gave her strength.

Some tight knot in Cecy unfurled, then dissolved. She took another deep breath, pressing down the last trace of her panic. “Nana, you were right. The truth has set me free.”

 

The story of twisted evil Linc had listened to made him ache. Many in this new twentieth-century scoffed at the existence of evil.
Fools.
Parking on deserted Market Street, he charged into the
Bulletin
building, unusually bright for the hour, nearly dawn. Would he be able to scotch another scandal?

The door to Older's office was open. His heart pounding in his ears, Linc stepped inside. Looking back at him were Fremont Older and the other San Francisco managing editors, one each from the
Examiner, Call,
and
Chronicle.
He'd come to know them over the past months.

“What's all this about?” the
Examiner
editor, a slender young man with spectacles asked.

Linc began, “You've all been contacted by Dr. Kemper?”

The rumpled
Call
editor leaned back in his chair. “Let me guess, you don't want us to run the latest chapter in your favorite redhead's scandal?”

“It's news. We print news.” The spectacled
Examiner
editor shrugged. The gray-haired man from the
Chronicle
kept his silence like Older.

Showing a confidence he was far from feeling, Linc leaned against Older's filing cabinets. Cecilia's reputation—what was left—hung by a strand. The scandal of attempted suicide outweighed everything else. Suicide was a shame which couldn't be washed away. The worst of it was—Cecilia would be blamed. He imagined a headline:
WILD HEIRESS DRIVES MOTHER TO SUICIDE
. But keeping the attempted suicide from the papers wouldn't be easy. What could he tempt them with?

Linc prayed for a persuasive argument, for God to move the hearts of these men. “First I think you all owe Cecilia Jackson an apology. Every one of you here knew the truth about Victor Hunt and you still painted her as the villain.”

“Is she really writing for your muckraking journal?” The young editor peered over his round spectacles.

Linc knew then what he had to offer them. “Yes, and in my first issue out in a week, she exposes the disgusting conditions of canneries across the Bay—”

“Canneries? What kind of punch does a story like that have?” The rumpled
Call
editor sneered.

“Miss Jackson wrote an exposé of the horrible abuses of the work
ers—men, women, and children in the canneries owned by”—he paused dramatically, then made himself grin—“Miss Cecilia Jackson.”

“What?” the rumpled editor unfolded himself.

“Why would she do something like that?” The bespectacled editor looked amused.

Linc spread his arms in a what-could-I-do gesture. “It was her decision. She went with me and worked a sardine catch there.”

The young editor grinned. “A young lady of quality worked in a sardine cannery?”

Linc nodded. “She lasted the whole eleven-hour shift. The experience changed her. Her article not only graphically describes four-year-olds gutting fish while their mothers work nearby. She also outlines the changes she has already set in motion.”

Older spoke up for the first time: “What changes?”

Linc glanced at him. Later he'd thank Older for calling to warn him of the doctor's revelation. “First of all, in voluntary compliance with the new Pure Food Act, she's ordered all the canneries across the Bay to be scrubbed spotless.”

“Since I eat sardines on toast, I'll thank you not to tell me just how dirty they were,” Older quipped.

Linc smiled at him. “Next, she's commissioned a mechanical engineer to improve the machinery design for safety and increased efficiency.”

The
Chronicle
editor finally spoke: “I'm sure all this is interesting, but I have better things to do.”

Linc ignored this. “She's already signed construction contracts for a large a settlement house across from the cannery. It'll include a nursery, an infirmary with a nurse, a day school, a bath house, and a laundry for all cannery workers.”