Legacy (42 page)

'Visitor, Mrs. McKay,' the matron said quietly.

A sharp-featured woman, who looked as if she were in her forties, glanced up from her reading, saw me, and stood up. The matron quietly ushered us into a small room with windows on three sides that were lined with potted plants, as though the area served as a sun porch during the day. She turned up the wall lamp and then left us, closing the two doors - French windows, actually - behind her.

'So they can see anything we do,' said Elaine McKay. 'They think you're going to bring me in some laudanum or who knows what else, so they keep watch. There, see?' She pointed at a chair midway down the hall, where the matron was now seated, fumbling with some knitting while she watched us out of the corner of her eye. 'There's old Nursie herself! Yoo-hoo!' And she waved. The matron saw this, of course, and, to my surprise, she waved back.

'Don't look so astonished! At least she treats us as if we were human beings! Do you think we're wild animals in here? Do you think we're crazed lunatics, driven mad by the demons of . . . '

'Mrs. McKay, I believe you sent me this note.' I handed it to her. 'You did want to see me about something, didn't you? Or did you just . . . well, never mind that. I understood from your note that you felt the matter was urgent.'

'Oh, forgive me, Catherine. You don't mind if I call you that, do you? You may call me Elaine if you like. Just let me look at you.' Her voice had a breathy, sing-song quality that made me uncomfortable. I began to wish that I had simply ignored her note altogether.

'You are just lovely, my dear. How old are you? No, you needn't answer. I know already from Amanda. You're twenty-two. Would you believe that I am only twenty-eight? I can see you don't, but it is God's truth. It's the drug that did it. It burns one's life away faster, Catherine. You live a week in a single night, and ten years in only as many months - at least that's the way it feels, so exciting, so full of so many wonders every moment.' She touched her fingers to the loose flesh over her cheeks as she paused. 'Then one day you can't get it, and you look into the mirror, and you see that you've really not gained any time at all. You've just grown old sooner than the rest, that's all, and the days ahead seem so dry and long and empty.' She bit her lip.

'It must be difficult,' I said. 'But perhaps after you've had enough rest and treatment here, and with a proper diet . . .'

'I'll go back to it again, just the moment I'm free, that's what I'll do! I've been in places like this before! Don't you understand? They don't work!'

She crossed abruptly to one of the chairs at the small table in the centre of the room. 'Look at me! I'm twenty-eight years old, and I look as though I were an old woman. I've even had to dye my hair. It used to be red, you know - fiery red. But then there was so much grey mixed in with the red that people thought I was my own mother!' She looked hard at me, tugging at one of the sleeves of her plain black dress. 'So I thought that I ought to stay at this place for a while, wherever Justin was going to be, until he made up his mind.'

'Wait a moment. I don't understand.'

She spoke patiently, as if she were talking to a child. 'I don't care about the others, mind you. But I thought the wife ought to know. Once I've done that, why, I can go back with a clearer conscience, though I don't suppose for long. I'll probably never even reach thirty.'

She stood up and went over to the door. 'So there it is. Now you know,' she said, about to turn the knob.

'But wait! I'm sure I don't know a thing. I haven't understood more than a few words you've said! Why did you ask me to come here?'

'Why to warn you, of course. You're going to be his next wife, so you ought not to have the same thing happen to you. Let him do what he wants with the others, but don't let him give you any.'

She opened the door, giving a prim smile as the matron rose from her chair.

'What shouldn't I let him give me, Elaine?'

'Opium, darling. How do you think I got started?'

She drew back her lips in what had once very likely been a charming smile, nodding her goodbye as though she were on a stage. 'Delighted to have met you, Catherine, though I don't suppose you'll be stopping by again . . .'

She sailed off leaving me vexed with myself for having wasted my time, yet still more vexed at wanting to ask Justin about her. Outside in the fresh air I tried to shake off the eerie feeling that her lilting, almost mocking, words had left behind. It had to be jealousy at work. She wanted to frighten me away, hoping against hope for a reconciliation with Justin. All my feminine instincts told me that her story was false.

Yet I still went from this clinic to Justin's, where I knew he would be working late. I told him exactly what had happened, leaving nothing out, and I waited for his reaction.

He shook his head, bemused, and he leaned back, putting his fingertips together. The blue eyes seemed far away. 'That's all she said - that I got her started?'

'That's all. I didn't understand, really, so I thought I'd ask you.'

He gave a tight-lipped smile and looked directly into my eyes. 'What she says is true. And don't think she hasn't said it before. The courts have heard her complaint long before you did. I'll guarantee you that.'

I was suddenly annoyed with the whole business. 'I wish you'd just explain, Justin! I don't care who's heard it before!'

'Don't be upset. I'm sure she'd be only too happy to see that she'd managed to get under your skin this way. Actually, there's nothing to explain. Opium's a very widely used sedative. I gave her a small injection, completely harmless, one morning after she'd been drinking for several days and had driven herself into hysterics. She rested well, but after a month or so I noticed that the supplies I kept in my medicine cabinet had been tampered with. So I had some locks put on and kept the only key in my possession.'

He shrugged then and turned up a palm in a gesture of resignation. 'And so she began getting it from another source. Do you really want to hear the things she did after that, Catherine?'

I shook my head no.

'If you think I'm to blame in some way, if you think I'm somehow not the kind of man you want to marry, you're free to reconsider. After all, I suppose I owe you a cancellation in return for my leaving you at the train station last June.'

He smiled, and I stood up, feeling safe and secure again. 'Oh, don't be foolish, Justin. I could tell she was twisting the truth! I just needed to ...'

He was holding me in his arms then, and we kissed, and I was glad I had come, after all. He squeezed me tightly before he released me. Then he smiled again.

'So, what do you think of the news of our friends this afternoon? Or have you heard?'

'I heard about Sprague's stern-wheeler on the river.'

'Not Sprague. About the Graybars. No? Well, it seems our friend Brad has disappeared.'

'Disappeared! Brad Graybar?'

'And he's not likely to come back, either, I'd say. Took almost every dollar he had with him, including the payroll accounts. There'll be a lot of very unhappy men at Graybar's mill when the end of the week comes around. The sheriffs looking out for a riot.'

I was thinking of Steven and what he had said about Legacy. 'Could they be planning to use that money to somehow save their property? But that couldn't work, could it? He owes the men for their time . . . '

'No. My guess is that Brad was just looking out for himself. He's probably left the country. He took that woman with him, the sheriff said, but he left Steven high and dry. And now Steven's the one who'll have to face going bankrupt when they've given up the search - unless he runs off, too.'

Chapter Seventeen

The first Saturday in October dawned crisp and cool. I rose early. Even though I should have felt a special elation, I was tired from a busy week. And I was ravenously hungry. Downstairs in the kitchen, I waited impatiently while Mrs. Jennings, the plump-faced Irish woman who had been our cook from as far back as I could remember, got ready to serve me hot cakes and coffee and set bacon strips to frying on the griddle. The two of us were the only ones up just yet; it was barely light, too early for the rest of the staff to rise on a Saturday. Mother had gone off to New York, partly to visit friends and partly to compare styles for my wedding gown. Justin and I were to be married in less than a month.

'You've got a good appetite for so early, Miss Catherine.' Mrs. Jennings beamed behind her gold spectacles as she watched me at the big centre table. 'We're going to miss you when you're married. All of us will.'

For some reason I felt argumentative that morning. 'Oh, come now, Mrs. Jennings, you ought to know better than to think I'd let Justin pick my staff for me, especially in the kitchen! If anyone ought to be worried about missing anyone, it should be Justin's cook, not you. All you'll need to think about is how you're going to get used to a new stove - and how you're going to manage getting deliverymen up to Legacy. As a matter of fact, I may even have you start up there tomorrow. What would you say to that?'

She rested her hands on her ample hips and looked at me, bewildered. 'Now, don't you go joshin' an old woman, Miss Catherine.'

'Old! Why, you're not even fifty yet!'

One hand went to her bun of greying hair, as though patting it into place. 'Humph. That's as it may be. I'm plenty old enough not to take movin' lightly, let me tell you! Here today and somewhere else tomorrow, why, that's just. . .' She broke off and turned to the griddle, where the bacon needed tending, muttering to herself.

'Oh, now you don't have to worry, Mrs. J,' I said, thinking for a moment that I might really have unsettled her. 'You'll have plenty of time. But we could start tomorrow if we wanted to. Legacy's going to be mine this very morning.'

'Oh, that's why you're up so early!' She wiped her plump hands on the towel she kept hanging beside the griddle before she picked up the bacon strips with her tongs and set them on a plate. 'How big is the kitchen up there? What sort of a stove? And how big is the cold cellar? You don't mind my askin', do you, Miss Catherine? These are things that can make a difference, you know.'

She brought me the plate and then started to refill my coffee cup, but she nearly spilled the coffee when I admitted that I had never even seen the kitchen at Legacy, much less the cold cellar. 'Land sakes! You've bought a house and not even . . . why, suppose it ain't a good 'un? How you gonna feed all those folks at your weddin'?'

I patted her arm affectionately. 'There, there. I'm sure the kitchen will serve us very well. Brad Graybar's had banquets and balls up there, and I've never heard any complaints. All the same, though, I promise I'll have a look at it this morning before the auction.'

'Auction? You mean you haven't bought it yet? Why, Miss Catherine, then someone else could just as easy outbid you! We might be stayin' here, after all.'

I smiled. 'Oh, I have my doubts about that. Probably there won't be any other bidders this morning. Most people think the auction's this afternoon, down at the courthouse. That's how the notices read in the paper - that Graybar properties would be auctioned off by the sheriff at two.'

'You mean they're havin' a special auction this mornin'? What are the folks this afternoon goin' to say?'

I shrugged. 'There's nothing much they can say. This auction was advertised, too, only in a different edition of the paper, and in smaller type, of course. This morning's sale is for the Graybar residence and the land.' I smiled inwardly, recalling how willing the sheriff had been to do me this personal favor. It seemed ironic that only a few months earlier the same man had come so very close to selling off my properties. And now, instead of going bankrupt, I was about to take back Legacy after the Graybars had held it for ten years. And the Graybars, instead of 'helping' Mother and me, were now in worse financial straits than I had ever been. Brad had not been located since the day he had cleared out his payroll accounts and disappeared. Steven had remained. To his credit, Steven had sold his own mansion in town in order to pay wages to the hundred men who worked the Graybar mill and camp. He had moved into the Legacy castle, but he had spent most of his time in the mill, working feverishly. But there was no staving off the inevitable. The income the mill produced after expenses could not match the greater amounts demanded by the creditors. And with Brad gone, those bankers were in no mood to be persuaded into an extension of credit. Brad had lost in the legislature when the governor's veto had held, and his running away had only made matters worse for Steven.