Fool's Gold (25 page)

She hadn’t said what she was doing in the stables with Evans in the first place, and she had made no effort to fight him off. And then there was the vexed question of her relationship with Chen Kai-Tsu … His mouth set in a thin, angry line as he demanded furiously of himself whether that was the sort of mistress he wanted for Tresco?

Oh, he wanted her all right, wanted her badly, more than he had ever really wanted Belle. But was a saloon prostitute the mother he wanted for his children, the children who would carry on at Tresco after he was gone? Morality was not as strict out here as back east — how could it be with so many men and so few women? — but he had found by bitter experience courting Belle that he demanded a loyalty in his wife that she for one had not been prepared to give.

The first of the carts rattled into the yard.

‘Go and tidy yourself up,’ he commanded harshly. ‘We’ll wait on you to eat.’

‘I — I’m not hungry.’

‘Chen Kai sees you with a face like that, m’dear, he’ll have Evans’s guts for a horse-halter,’ he warned. ‘I’ll make your excuses. But make sure you show this evening.’

‘And … Evans?’

‘I’ll deal with him. I’ve told you he won’t trouble you n’more. But — don’t tell Chen Kai. He’s too ready with that knife of his and I won’t see him hang to bolster your vanity.’

Chapter Eighteen

Chen Kai put Tamsin’s supper in front of her and crossed to Alicia’s side.

‘Your head was bad?’ he asked solicitously, placing a cool hand on her forehead.

‘Much better now,’ she smiled.

He looked searchingly into her eyes. ‘You will tell me about it when you are ready,’ he murmured.

‘It was just a headache,’ she insisted. ‘Now, tell me the news from San Francisco. Are the Vigilantes still —’

‘Alicia! Do you think I went about asking questions?’ He smiled. ‘You must ask the Colonel about that. I kept my head well down. But I can tell you some other interesting stories …’

She was, as he had expected, suitably indignant when he told her Pearl’s story.

‘But this Kweh,’ she asked anxiously. ‘He won’t suspect who you are? Don’t forget,
he
had connections with the
tongs
.’

He patted her hand comfortingly. ‘His contacts were all in the Hip Shing Tong, who control the gambling. And perhaps also in the Chee Kung, they specialise in blackmail and intimidation. But Kweh will be in the Hip Yee Tong. They control the brothels and import the girls from China.’

‘I’m glad you paid off the debts,’ she said with a shiver.

‘I should have asked you first …’

‘If you had waited, it would have been too late.’

‘It means we are penniless again,’ he warned.

‘Freedom is more important than —’

There was a curse and a sharp word from the
sala
.

‘Chen Kai!’ The Colonel sounded angry.

They hurried to the main room.

‘Chen Kai, you’ll have to give them a hand,’ muttered the Colonel. He was rather white about the mouth, his left arm held awkwardly across his chest.

‘It’s nothing!’ he snapped at Alicia, and she checked her instinctive movement across to his side. Turning away, she looked around the room, eyes wide in astonishment.

The old carved benches had gone, the piles of papers had been placed in a crate at the foot of the stairs and in their place stood a pair of large leather-covered stuffed couches and four brocade-upholstered chairs, two with arms and two in the latest fashion without, to accommodate the new wider skirts. A whatnot, a number of highly-polished knick-knack tables and a pair of ornate mirrors were stacked together in the centre and on the far wall, over by the foot of the stairs, strangest sight of all, was a small pianoforte.

She looked at the Colonel in surprise. He shrugged. ‘There was an auction at the hotel … Only I don’t know where to put everything. Where do you want the piano?’

The men looked at her expectantly.

‘Over here,’ she said decisively. She spent a thoroughly enjoyable hour, organising everything into its place. To her relief, the Colonel left Juan and Chen Kai to move the heavy furniture: she guessed he’d met his match with the piano.

While Kai and the others were out of the room, she plucked up her courage. ‘Is it bad?’ she murmured as she passed him.

‘I jarred it,’ he replied with a scowl. ‘I must have hit him harder than I realised.’

And then she looked so upset that he wished he hadn’t reminded her.

They stood in the doorway and surveyed the results of their labours.

‘That’s grand!’ exclaimed Cornish with satisfaction. ‘Just as I’d imagined it.’

‘It’s still a bit bare,’ considered Alicia.

‘Next time you’re in Sacramento, you can buy a rug and some knick-knacks,’ he suggested. ‘I’ll leave the finishing touches in your hands. Only one thing I beg — not so many frills and flounces and ferns that I can’t move.’ He grinned boyishly. ‘I’m always terrified at Letitia’s that I’m going to wreck the room if I turn around suddenly. And poor Captain Sharples — he just cowers in a corner!’ She chuckled sympathetically. ‘I want it to look smart,’ he went on, ‘but still be comfortable. Is that possible?’

‘It’s your house, Colonel. And the stores would be only too pleased to supply you on approval, so you can send back anything that doesn’t suit you.’

‘I have every faith in your good taste, Mrs Owens,’ he assured her gravely. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. ‘And every faith in you,’ he added deliberately.

She blushed and lowered her eyes in confusion. Oh, glory! Now why had he done that? Totally overset her and made her want to burst into tears! It was almost easier when he shouted at her.

Uncomfortably conscious of everyone’s eyes on her, she fled.

In the kitchen she was pulled up by the sight of a broad back bending over the stewpot from which was emanating a deliciously spicy smell.

She stopped in her tracks, Cornish right behind her.

‘Mrs Owens — meet our new cook, Mrs Santana.’

The plump figure wiped her hands on the apron which covered her black dress and turned away from the fire.

‘Not “Missus Santana”,’ she scolded. ‘You call me —’

‘Angelina!’ shrieked Alicia and rushed across the room to be enfolded in a warm, spicy bear hug.

Cornish looked on in astonishment. ‘I see no introductions are needed,’ he quipped.

‘Let me look at you!’ exclaimed Angelina at last, brushing the ready tears from her eyes. ‘Four years I don’t hear from you if you alive or dead!’

‘Angelina — I sent a note back with the mule!’

‘And then nothing, huh?’ Angelina held her at arm’s length and looked at her shrewdly. ‘You too thin still. That husband of yours still knockin’ you about?
Ay de mi
, what a
malvado
,
heh
?’

Alicia looked nervously over her shoulder, but Cornish had disappeared.

‘He’s dead, Angelina,’ she sighed. ‘Died at Dry Gulch, in the cholera. After that, there seemed no reason to stay on in Sonora.’

‘No reason, huh?’

Alicia flushed at the justified criticism. ‘I’m sorry, Angelina, truly I am, but I wanted to make a fresh start and —’

Kai came through from the
sala
. ‘Angelina — I’d like you to meet Chen Kai-Tsu. My business partner.’ At least he was, she thought grimly, while there was still a business.

Chen Kai bowed politely.

‘Him? Yes, we meet already,’ said Angelina dismissively. ‘But how you be in business with him? These Chinee, they make good coolies, that’s all.’ She turned her back on Kai, ostensibly to check on the stew. Kai shrugged, smiled wryly, then went on his way again. Outside in the courtyard, she heard Tamsin’s excited voice calling to him.

‘Angelina,’ she said softly, ‘for the sake of our old friendship, please be good to Chen Kai. He has been a good friend to me.’

‘Friend? A Chinee?’ She was scandalised.

‘If it hadn’t been for him, I wouldn’t be here today. When there was trouble …’

‘Trouble? A beeg man with a beeg beard and …’

‘How did you know?’ Her terrified whisper echoed around the room.

‘He come to Sonora camp — looking for you,’ explained Angelina. ‘He come to Angelina’s cook house one-two years ago, with some tale of big house back east left to you. Need to find you quick,
he
say.’

‘Liar!’

‘He don’t look like no fancy-pants lawyer I ever met. So I say, you bring lawyers and papers, then I see if I find out where you gone. He get mad, break the place up a bit, but then at last he go away. He don’t have very pleasant ride away from Sonora, I think. I put good herbs in his
tortillas
— give him belly ache for three days! Angelina slow him down real good!’ She laughed, a deep rolling laugh that made her ample bosom quiver. ‘So.’ She set her arms akimbo. ‘Why you stay where trouble is? Why you not go back east when your bastard of a husband he dead, eh?’

‘There was no longer anywhere to go,’ Alicia replied tiredly. ‘That big house — it was my inheritance. But Robert gambled it all away.’ She rolled up her sleeves and began to shape the
tortillas
.

‘Angelina,’ she went on softly. ‘I — I don’t allow myself to remember the bad times. Please don’t make me relive them.’

‘Perhaps better you talk it out with Angelina,’ the cook suggested shrewdly.

‘No! Oh, it isn’t just the misery of those days with Robert. So much more has happened since. I — I call myself Mrs Owens now. There are still too many of the forty-niners who remember Robert.’ She forced a lighter note. ‘And you, Angelina, what brings you so far from Sonora?’

‘I no want to leave Sonora. I have good
cantina
there, still much miners like Angelina’s cooking, you bet!’ boasted the older woman. ‘But I don’t get any younger. My son, he want me to come live with him and his new wife. Great wedding present for her, huh?’ She guffawed as she swung the stewpot aside. ‘So I take pity on his wife and say no. But my
cantina
is very hard work. He tell me his boss need good cook. I meet his boss in San Francisco and he give me good terms, so I sell up and here I am.’

‘Your son?’ Had she ever met any of Angelina’s children?

‘Pedro — my eldest — he work here at Tresco. He and Julia live over by Twin Peaks.’

Pedro Santana — the sheep man! Angelina’s son! ‘Now I know why he always looked so familiar!’ she exclaimed. ‘He reminded me of you!’

‘So you hadn’t forgotten old Angelina altogether?’

‘How could I?’ she responded warmly.

‘You think I be what the Colonel wants, huh?’

‘Of course!’

‘And you show me the ropes?’

‘Gladly. As — as long as I’m here.’

It occurred to her suddenly, sickeningly, that there was no longer any need for her at Tresco. Fool that she was not to have realised it before!

‘I — I’d better go and see who’s eating here tonight,’ she said awkwardly. ‘And — Angelina — I’m glad you’re here.’

She eventually found the rancher sitting in the courtyard in the shade of the lemon tree, stitching a torn saddle. As she rounded the corner to speak to him, she realised she could hear Angelina’s tuneless humming and the clatter of dishes through the high kitchen window! How long had he been sitting there?

‘We’ll be four to supper this evening,’ he said blandly before she could voice her question. ‘You, me, Chen Kai and Kerhouan. We’ll eat in the new room, tell Angelina.’ His eyes went back to the viciously curved needle with which he was stitching the new leather and he went on calmly: ‘Quaint, you knowing Pedro’s mother, wasn’t it? A small world, this California of ours.’ He looked her straight in the eye, his steady gaze unwavering.

‘A small world,’ she agreed miserably. She fixed her eyes on the gnarled branch of the tree. ‘Once Angelina has settled in, Colonel, I assume you’ll have no further employment for me.’

He set the saddle aside and stood up, so that she had to look up at him.

‘I’ll be needing Chen Kai for some time yet. He tell you I asked him to stay on as my deputy? I want him to sort out the accounts, keep the books, start off the new rice fields for me. And I guess if I want Chen Kai, then I get you too,’ he said deliberately.

‘But I’ve told you, I can’t … I won’t …’

‘Marry me? I wasn’t aware that I’d asked you again. Good idea bringing Angelina here, don’t you think?’ he went on blithely, ignoring her embarrassment. ‘Don’t you look forward to eating decent food again? I do. And of course, as a bonus the cook can chaperone the housekeeper and the housekeeper can chaperone the cook.’

There was a deep chuckle of delighted laughter as Angelina surged around the corner to find out whether anyone was planning to eat that night.

‘Señor!’ she chuckled. ‘I am past the age of needing a chaperone!’

‘As I am,’ echoed Alicia. ‘But — thank you, Colonel Cornish, all the same.’

Over Angelina’s superb dinner they discussed the plans to start rice fields in the water meadows. Dishes and plates were moved around the table, knives, forks and salt cellars pressed into service to explain how ditches and dikes would be cut to drain the water and allow it back in through cuts and dams to flood the land in preparation for planting the young rice shoots.

‘Diversification!’ declared Jack Cornish enthusiastically. ‘That’s the only answer. Then the weather and the markets, the gluts and the shortages, won’t bankrupt you.’ He reached out for a plate with his left hand and stopped abruptly, his face drained of colour.

Kerhouan picked up the thread of the conversation again, but the optimism of the evening had faded and by the time Angelina’s delicious desserts arrived on the table, Jack Cornish was growing morose and melancholy, drinking more and more heavily.

He leaned forward and pounded the table violently.

‘Tell me, someone tell me, why we’re making all these plans. So Lamarr and his crew of perjured bloody lawyers can snatch Tresco from us? God only knows!’ He shook his head angrily. ‘We should be locked up, the lot of us. Don’t you agree, my darling Mrs Owens?’

‘Go to bed, Jack,’ ordered Kerhouan sharply.

‘Me and my bottle,’ muttered Cornish in a slurred voice, reaching out to pick up the whiskey bottle by the neck, swinging it gently. ‘Go to bed with a bloody bottle … G’night to you all.’ He sketched a caricature of a bow and left the room.