Fool's Gold (22 page)

‘Show me how to make a plate?’ he suggested unexpectedly.

‘If you like,’ she replied. After all, he was paying for her time.

She padded back across the cool green grass to set up the camera. Patiently she showed him how to place the sensitized paper in the light-proof holder, set it in the camera and then uncap the lens for the required time. In the bright sunlight, Alicia reckoned that about half a minute would be sufficient.

‘Now you do it,’ she told him. And he inserted the paper, slotted the holder into the camera and ducked under the hood to focus.

‘Is that right?’ he questioned.

‘Let me see.’ She pulled off her wide hat and slipped under the lightproof cloth next to Cornish to look through the lens. ‘Perfect,’ she confirmed gravely. ‘Now, put your hand round to the lens cover. Here.’ She reached forward to guide his hand round and he caught his breath at the feel of her pressed close up against him and the perfume of her in his nostrils.

‘Once you have uncapped the lens, you must remain perfectly still,’ she instructed in a calm voice that betrayed none of the disquiet she felt coursing through her veins as their hands touched. Involuntarily she shivered. ‘If you jar the tripod, you will ruin the photograph.’

As soon as she could, she withdrew from beneath the cloth, leaving him to take a few more plates by himself. He insisted on taking a picture of her leaning against the tree by the water’s edge.

‘Now I’ll take one of you,’ she suggested. ‘Stand in the same position, but keep quite still. You can dream of your log cabin, if you like.’

He made no move to go down to the lakeside, but stood looking at her with a strange unreadable expression in his eyes. He reached out and took her hand and once again she felt that strange shivering sensation that she could not control. Yet this time it didn’t feel like fear.

‘Thought any more about my suggestion?’ he demanded, hard green eyes challenging her.

‘I — you see — I —’

‘We could build some sort of understanding between us,’ he went on as if she had not spoken. ‘Think of Tamsin! Think how much happier she would be if she could stay in Tresco — the “lovely green place” she calls it.’ He held her hand tightly between his. ‘I’d care for her as if she were my own,’ he said softly.

‘Is this the man who said there was no place for women and children in the new state?’ Her voice was brittle and high.

‘I’ve said some foolish things in my time. I was very bitter then. I’m sure you’ve heard the story.’

‘Is that why Lamarr is so against you?’

‘I doubt it. If the roles had been reversed and he’d been rejected for me, then, possibly.’ He smiled at her. ‘And you’re trying to change the subject. Answer my question: could we not work together to build Tresco, as we’ve worked together on this?’

She became aware suddenly that her hand was still lying, quiescent, in his and drew it away.

‘If it’s Belle — Mrs Lamarr — you’d have no cause for jealousy,’ he assured her.

‘Jealousy doesn’t come into it.’

The memory of your husband …?’

‘My husband? Ha!’ Her laughter was slightly hysterical. ‘Despite what the Mrs Pikemans and Mrs Bryants of this world would have you believe, not all women yearn for a husband to take their cares from their shoulders! Some of us prefer our freedom. Unlike you, I’ve tried marriage, Colonel, and I wasn’t smitten by it. I have no plans to repeat the experience.’

Back at the ranch, all the photographs came out well. Cornish’s photograph showed her very pensive, her head bowed down and reflected in the still water; hers showed him very stiff, a resentful expression frozen on his face.

Chapter Sixteen

In between working on the maps and photographs she tried to make some order out of the living accommodation at the Mission, whose shortcomings had been shown up only too clearly by Augustus Brenchley’s visit. She hoped Cornish would not think she was exceeding her duties!

One sunny afternoon, she was passing by the stable as Luis led in Kerhouan’s horse to be rubbed down and fed. She stopped to stroke Gwalarn’s nose and heaved a regretful sigh.

‘Oh, what wouldn’t I give to be riding across the hills again!’ she murmured into his glossy ear.

‘You’ve only yourself to blame,’ came a curt voice from the shadows. ‘As long as you’re here, Rosita is at your disposal.’

She jumped as Jack Cornish emerged from the stables, a saddle in his hand.

‘I thought you were out riding the boundaries!’ she said.

‘Just come back. And I mean what I say about the horse.’

‘But I — I have no right to be using your horses now the work is over,’ she objected.

‘I’ll give you two reasons,’ he said sharply. ‘Rosita is eating her head off and getting fat and lazy again with no one to ride her and you’re spending too much time indoors and losing that healthy glow.’

‘I’ll wager you’re glad to be back out on the range again,’ she said shrewdly.

‘Yes indeed! Lamarr caused me to waste far too much time that would have been better spent on the ranch. Not that there weren’t compensations in travelling around with a beautiful woman —’

She looked up at him sharply.

‘— but they were too few and far between,’ he ended blandly. ‘And I have to make up for last year’s neglect.’

‘And yet the land and the animals seem to be in good heart.’

‘Thanks to Kerhouan,’ he admitted. ‘But my stock could be improved.’

She looked at him curiously. ‘All those Longhorns we saw running in the valleys out towards the
agua caliente
— they’re as good as any I’ve ever seen in California.’

‘As Longhorns go, they’re not bad,’ he agreed. ‘But I want Tresco beef to be the best there is. Longhorns are simply not good enough for me.’

‘What’s wrong with Longhorns? The Spanish ran them and the Mexicans; everyone out west runs Longhorns!’

‘Oh sure, and if you want quantity, then the Longhorn is your best bet. All that open plain land in Texas now, that’s ideal for running great herds. The Texas plains are not all that prime, but the Longhorn can survive and flourish on very little. The drawback is they don’t mature in less than ten years, for the most part. With the prime and fertile grasslands we have here, why not aim for quality, instead of quantity? Sure, the cities back east are hungry for just about any kind of beef, but what about the cities here? Plenty of money about. And what does the man with money prefer in the way of beef? Even the Texas cattlemen? They go for Shorthorn beeves any time.’

‘But there have only ever been Longhorns in California — haven’t there?’

‘Up in Oregon there are Devon, Hereford, Angus — been thriving up there since the settlers brought them back in the forties.’

‘All right. I’m convinced. But how do Shorthorns in Oregon become Shorthorns in Tresco? They’re not as hardy as Longhorns — they’ll scarcely be good stock by the time you’ve marched them down over the Klamath mountains, always supposing that the Indians don’t decimate them on the way.’

‘They’re already at San Francisco,’ he said with a ghost of a smile. ‘Just waiting for me to go down river and collect them. Captain Bateman reports that they’ve had good sailing weather and very few losses. By comparison, the trip up the Sacramento should be a holiday for them!’

‘It must have cost a fortune to ship them all that way!’ she exclaimed.

‘Investment in the future of Tresco, m’dear. If you don’t have faith in the future, you may as well not be in California. Besides, I won’t have to wait as long for a return as my rivals with their stringy Longhorns: my Herefords will be ready for market at six years. Many of them will be mature already. They’ll just need a good rest and fattening up and there’s plenty of good grass here for that. And who knows? Next year, perhaps even some surplus grain if the harvest comes good.’

‘And calves for breeding stock …’

‘Of course. And a couple of good milch cows. Milk to fatten Tamsin up a little! So you see, I must get down to San Francisco very soon. Perhaps I’ll take Chen Kai along with me.’

‘No!’

‘He’ll be glad of a change,’ he went on, as if she had not spoken. ‘I’ve a deal of business to transact, so I’ll need someone who’s good with the figures.’

‘He — he can do all that here,’ she interrupted breathlessly. ‘He — he doesn’t much like San Francisco.’

San Francisco again! He remembered his earlier suspicions.

‘I may take Kerhouan.’ He shrugged and turned away, but not before he had seen the relief wash over her face.

The subject was not mentioned again; Alicia, spending every spare hour working at the maps, gave it no further thought.

*

Cornish was very tired when he returned to the ranch. He’d spent a long day down at the old Mission buildings, seeing how much work needed doing to make them habitable again. He arrived back just as Brenchley, Alicia and Tamsin rode into the stableyard, laughing, every inch a happy family group. There was a bitter twist to his mouth as he watched Brenchley jump lithely down from the saddle, turn to catch Tamsin by the waist and toss her up in the air before setting her down safely on the ground. Then he turned to hand Alicia down, a warm and admiring expression in his eyes.

‘Colonel Jack! Colonel Jack!’ cried the little girl excitedly as she caught sight of him. ‘D’you know what I did today? I rode Mr Brenchley’s horse — all by myself!’

‘No! Really?’ exclaimed the Colonel teasingly.

‘Really! Really I did!’ she squeaked, quite pink in the face with excitement. ‘I holded the reins and told him when to go faster or slower and Mr Brenchley didn’t do
anything
and please may I have a sugar lump for Star because …’

‘Hold on a moment!’ exclaimed Cornish, laughing at her exuberance. ‘Why don’t you ask your mama? She knows where the sugar lumps are.’

‘Oh,
I
know where they are,’ cried Tamsin impatiently. ‘But Lisha says they’re your sugar lumps and we mustn’t just help ourselves …’

‘She also said you weren’t to trouble the Colonel, Tamsin!’ chided Alicia.

‘No trouble, ma’am,’ drawled Jack Cornish, reaching down to scoop Tamsin up onto his shoulder. ‘Good day to you Brenchley. C’mon, child. We’ll go fetch some sugar lumps … we’d better give Ross one too, or he may get jealous.’

Brenchley must have sensed something in the atmosphere, for he declined the invitation to dine and rode back to Sacramento. After the evening meal, the Colonel took Kerhouan and Chen Kai down to the levée on the Sacramento and Alicia, now that the maps and prints were finished, found herself curiously at a loss.

The sky was still quite light, for they had dined early, and she was not in the least tired. She decided to take the opportunity to explore the rest of the Mission.

There were four good-sized rooms facing on to the central courtyard, most of them empty, but one or two of them with old chests or the odd chair in them. In one was an old oaken table, more suitable for the kitchen than the one they were at present using. If she put the smaller table in the kitchen, the larger one could go into the spacious empty room next to the main room. With one of the chests as a side-board, it would turn the cobweb clad room into an excellent dining room!

It took her over an hour to sweep and dust the proposed new dining room to her satisfaction. Another twenty minutes with a damp cloth — she really must get some beeswax next time she was in Sacramento! — followed by a good buffing made the old oaken table quite fit to go into the kitchen. She knew that moving the large table was beyond her, but she had a great desire to see whether the oak table would look well in its new home and by dint of much pushing and pulling, she managed to manoeuvre it over to the wide doorway. It proved to be not quite wide enough, however, for it refused to go through and jammed, just as she heard the sound of voices in the courtyard.

‘Bitten off a bit more than you can chew again, Mrs Owens?’ queried Cornish sardonically as he surveyed the situation.

She became uncomfortably aware of her dirt-streaked face and the strands of hair that had slipped out of their coils.

‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered, wiping a grubby hand over her forehead and leaving more dirty streaks behind. ‘I thought it would be a good idea … and the long table from the kitchen in here … but perhaps you don’t want a dining room. And I shouldn’t have interfered.’

‘It’s an excellent notion, m’dear,’ he reassured her. ‘But why the deuce you couldn’t have got someone else to help, I can’t for the life of me see.’ He crossed the room to the outer door and hollered: ‘Luis! Xavier!’

The boys, who had been scrubbing out the dishes across at the bunk-house, came at a run. ‘Finished your chores?’ demanded the Colonel. They nodded. ‘Then give me a hand with this table.’

‘But …’

‘Yes?’

‘Should you? I mean, your arm …’

She knew it was a mistake as soon as she said it and could have bitten her tongue for her folly.

He looked at her for a moment with narrowed, angry eyes, then said in a voice as cold as a Sierra winter: ‘You concern yourself with your health, Mrs Owens, and I’ll concern myself with mine.’

Without her interference he would probably have let the lads take much of the strain, for they were sturdy youths, but it seemed to her that he made a point of taking as much of the weight as they did.

In a few minutes the table was in place in the kitchen and looking very well there. Fortunately, as Jack Cornish decided to take the large table through, Kerhouan and Kai came in and took over his end smoothly, without a word being spoken.

‘Anything else, Mrs Owens?’ he asked icily. ‘While we’re all in the mood?’

‘Nothing that won’t wait,’ she replied, still berating herself mentally for her folly.

‘That old chest would make a good
buffet
,’ rumbled Kerhouan. ‘If Mrs Owens thinks it good, we will fetch it here, Chen and I.’

‘An excellent idea!’ she exclaimed, as if the thought had never before occurred to her, then wished she had stayed silent as she felt Cornish’s cynical gaze on her.

Once the chest was installed, she began to rub it down.

‘Make any improvements you like, Mrs Owens,’ said Cornish softly from just behind her. ‘But don’t try to do them alone — I can’t afford to have you sick before we’ve sworn all those maps and photographs.’

‘Your concern for my welfare does you credit, Colonel,’ she replied sarcastically.

‘And yours for mine. But don’t make the mistake Lamarr did and think me less of a man for a crippled arm.’

*

Brenchley had arranged for the documents to be sworn when Alicia came into town to visit the theatre. Sitting in the gig she was quite startled to see Chen Kai ride up alongside.

‘But you can’t come!’ she exclaimed unguardedly. ‘Who will look after Tamsin?’

‘She’s staying with Letitia,’ the Colonel informed her laconically. ‘The housekeeper will look after her while you are at the theatre.’

Before she could argue, Tamsin, grinning from ear to ear at the treat in store, came bouncing along on Kerhouan’s shoulders.

‘Chen Kai-Tsu and I are off to San Francisco,’ revealed the rancher. ‘Perhaps you and Brenchley could revise your plans and join us?’

‘San Francisco? But Kai — you mustn’t!’ she cried in alarm.

‘The arrangements have been made, Mrs Owens,’ stated Cornish impatiently. ‘Letitia is quite happy …’

‘But Chen Kai …’

‘… is in my employ,’ he reminded her harshly. ‘I need him in San Francisco. And now, if you please, the horses are becoming restless.’

She looked at her friend with wide, panic-stricken eyes, but he shook his head very slightly and hooded his eyes. Biting her lip with frustration she took her seat and settled Tamsin between herself and Cornish.

Tamsin’s bag was tossed into the back along with hers and, after a last word to Kerhouan, the little party set off.

‘Sure you won’t change your mind, Mrs Owens?’ Cornish enquired with a sidelong glance. ‘Come with us to San Francisco! I believe Edwin Booth is playing Hamlet.’

She steadied her voice with an effort. ‘Thank you, but I believe we will stick to our original plan.’ Another thought struck her. ‘How long will you be away?’

‘Only a couple of days. I’ve some freight to pick up in San Francisco and some more hands to hire on. I believe Captain Bateman can do the trip in a mere fifteen hours, but I have no intention of risking a boiler blow out like the
Pearl’s
captain did by racing her.’

‘You’re travelling on by river?’

‘A more tolerable mode of travel than the old overland pack mules. Yes, I guess we should be back within two or at most three days; long enough to get the jetty finished, I hope.’