The Treasure Box (11 page)

“Because you trusted him.”

Outside the window, the afternoon light was fading, and the inside of the cottage had grown dark. Rose lit a lamp and set it by the bedside. “I'm going to put the kettle on. We'll have ourselves a nice tea, with poached eggs and buttered toast and”— she paused and chuckled—“cake. Lots and lots of cake.”

Rachel raised up on one elbow. “I'll come and help you. But
no
cake!”

Rose shook her head vigorously. “No work for you tonight, my girl. You stay here and rest. I'll call you when it's ready. I'll get your sister to—” Her scalp tightened with apprehension. She had never seen her elder daughter at the church, but then there had been so much commotion. She might still be in the village, or— Rachel sat upright. Her eyes, brimming with unshed tears, glittered in the lamplight—the look of some innocent woodland animal with its leg in a trap. And then she asked the question they were both dreading:

“Where is she, Mam? Where is Cathleen?”

Vita knew it was coming. Still, the shock ran through her as though she'd grabbed a live power line. It had happened again— or, more precisely, before. The last time she had been confronted with these emotions, she had been too stunned to do anything but turn inward and grow cold. This time the full force of the abandonment crested over her in a roaring wave. She found herself gasping for air.

When her heart slowed to its normal pace, Vita tried to separate herself from Rachel's situation. True, Gordon had left her for Mary Kate, but he hadn't demeaned her by leaving her stranded at the altar. He had been as honest as he was capable of being— told her face to face that he had fallen in love with someone else, although he hadn't in that moment had the courage to tell her who.

Still, Vita understood all too well the fires of Rachel's hell. She knew the anguish, the misery, the torment, the self-doubt. But she knew something else, too—something Rachel had not yet discovered.

The liberating power of anger.

11
SAFE HAVENS

O
utside Vita's office window, a fat brown sparrow flitted back and forth, building a nest in the high hedge that surrounded the sunroom. Mesmerized, she watched as the bird flew in and out of the dense thicket, carrying twigs and sprigs of dried grass and even a length of hemp twine, skillfully weaving the bits and pieces together to form a cozy sanctuary for its young.

A snatch of a tune drifted through Vita's consciousness—children's reedy voices, singing about God's eye being on the sparrow. Her mind latched onto the image. The bird, close against the glass, had no idea Vita was watching from the other side. Every instinct built into its tiny avian brain had guided the sparrow to the back of the bush; it had chosen this spot, the densest portion of the hedge, to guard its babies from predators and prying eyes. And yet, quite outside the realm of its awareness, the sparrow had positioned its safe haven in full view of Vita Kirk.

Did the Almighty see human beings the way Vita saw the bird—instinctively attempting to shield against danger, desperately fluttering about, trying to create an illusion of security in a world full of peril? And did the Creator smile—indulgently, benevolently—at the creature's attempts to hide even from the gaze of one who meant them no harm?

No harm?
Certainly Vita had no dark designs against the tiny sparrow, but how could anyone possibly say the same about God?

For all that religious rhetoric about a loving, protective Deity, every sign Vita had seen pointed to the opposite conclusion.

Hattie. Gordon and Mary Kate. Sophie. Rachel.

The reality was, bad things happened to good people. And infinitely more irksome, in Vita's mind, was the correlative truth:
good
things happened to
bad
people. Even the Bible said so, if Vita could trust a twenty-five-year-old memory dredged up from confirmation class:
Why do the wicked prosper, O God?

“Not likely to get an answer for that dilemma,” Vita murmured to herself as she punched the button to boot up the computer. People had been raising the question for millennia, but so far God—if such a Being existed—seemed to be taking a long sabbatical.

Apparently Rachel Woodlea was asking the same question.

When the familiar star-studded night sky on the computer screen gave way to a daylight scene, Vita saw Rachel, alone, walking along the river near the spot where Sophie had fallen in. The rush of the water and the song of birds overhead combined to create a placid, restful atmosphere, but Rachel seemed anything but peaceful.

“Why?” she fumed, pacing back and forth on the bank. “Why?”

Vita could feel the girl's turmoil in her own stomach. She hadn't yet figured out how, but sometimes when she went into the Treasure Box program, she could hear people's thoughts and share their feelings. Not always, and not with everyone, but often enough that she was becoming accustomed to the sensation.

It was rather like viewing a movie and reading the book simultaneously. On screen, she saw the action and heard the dialogue. But inside, on a deeper level, Vita could actually understand what the characters thought, how they felt. She could see the world from their perspective.

Like now. Vita had watched Rachel's aborted wedding only a few hours ago, and yet she knew that for Rachel, two agonizing weeks had passed—fourteen days of solitude in her tiny room.

Knew that Rachel had quit her barmaid's job at The Judas Tree, and that Elisabeth Tyner, the dressmaker who had created her wedding gown, had offered her a position in her shop. The pay was adequate—better than what Rachel had earned at the tavern, and the working conditions were pleasant. Yet Rachel hadn't been able to bring herself to say yes. People in town were still gossiping about the wedding fiasco, and Rachel still felt unprepared to face their pity and disdain.

Vita watched as Rachel continued to pace.

“Won't someone answer me?” she shouted to the rushing river.

“Sophie? Papa? God? Anyone? Please, I beg of you, won't someone tell me what to do?”

At last Rachel gave up pacing and seated herself on the riverbank. She gazed out over the tumbling rapids, listening intently for any interior voice. But no voice came, not a single word of comfort or advice or direction. She had come up with only one solution to her dilemma, one final recourse, and it was a last resort that made her insides ache with dread.

To leave home, to go to another village. To begin a new life.

She had more than enough money to start over. She would split the two hundred pounds with her mother to help with expenses and with Colin's schooling. Perhaps when she got settled Mam and Colin might want to join her.

But no. Rachel knew, deep in her heart, that Mam would never be able to leave this place. It had been her home for more than twenty-five years. As a newlywed, barely out of her teens, she had come to live in the cottage on the edge of the woods. Every living soul who knew her name walked the streets of this village.

Here her children had been born, and her husband buried.

If Rachel were to do this, she would be doing it alone.

Alone
. The word gashed into Rachel's heart like a dull knife, scattering bits and pieces all along its path. She should be a wife now, a new bride on her way to a new life, protected and cherished by a faithful husband. But Derrick was gone, and so was

Cathleen. To another village, another county? Perhaps even another country?

Of course,
Rachel thought
. America
. Derrick had talked incessantly about the wonders of the land across the sea. Marble cities with brick-paved streets. Riverbeds lined with nuggets of gold.

Vast emerald prairies, lakes of sapphire, and amethyst mountains jutting to the sky. Emigrating had been his dream for years, and Cathleen certainly would need no persuasion. She would do anything to get away.

“America,” Rachel whispered, nodding to herself. “They've gone to America.” And although she could not know for sure, she felt a sense of finality settle over her, as if she were rid of both of them forever. All that was left now was for Rachel to make her own decision—a choice for
her
life, for
her
future.

But could she do it? She could only begin to imagine the struggles she might face—finding work and a place to live, making new friends, carving out a space for herself in an unfamiliar town. Still, it could not possibly be worse than living for the rest of her days in a village where people turned their heads aside and whispered behind their hands as she walked by.

Rachel got to her feet, brushed off her skirt, and with one last longing gaze at the willow trees along the riverbank, turned and set off for home.

At last Mam's cottage came into view. She walked straight past the front door and headed down the path toward the barn.

Now. It had to be done now, before her nerve failed her.

Once inside, Rachel pried up the loose board where Sophie's Treasure Box lay hidden and reached a hand inside the alcove.

Nothing. She stretched her arm as far as it would reach, but her fingers grasped only dust and cobwebs. Had she pulled up the wrong board? She blinked, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dim light. But there was no mistake.

It was gone. Not just the two hundred pounds, wrapped in its burlap cocoon, but everything. The lace collar. The handkerchief doll. Colin's picture. Everything that held Rachel's memories. Cathleen had taken it all.

Even the Treasure Box itself.

Vita shielded her eyes as the scene on her computer screen shifted.

Bright afternoon sunlight glittered on the cresting waves. A pod of dolphins leaped playfully in the spray churned up by the prow of a massive Cunard liner with the name
Carmania I
on its side.

On the foredeck, two figures stood leaning over the rail off the port bow, laughing and pointing. A man and a woman.

She grabbed his hand. “See, here come two more! And a baby! A little dolphin family.”

But he wasn't watching. His eyes were fixed on the horizon.

“Look.”

She followed his gaze and squinted. “What am I looking at?

A shadow? A cloud?”

“Can't you see it? The island? The harbor? The statue with her hand raised up?”

“How absurd. You can't see anything from here.”

He laughed. “Use your imagination, darling, not just your eyes. I see a new world and a new life.”

Gradually, as they watched, the smudge at the edge of the world took on clearer form, and she drew in a deep breath. “New York. At last. The Land of Opportunity.”

The man turned, and Vita caught her first glimpse of his face. Derrick Knight. “Since I was fourteen years old, I've been counting the days until this moment. Waiting for my new life to begin.”

Cathleen tossed her curls. “Don't you mean
our
new life?”

“Of course,” he said absently, putting an arm around her waist and drawing her close. “Of course.”

By the time the ship entered the harbor and drew up even with the Statue of Liberty, Derrick and Cathleen, along with all the other passengers, had retrieved their belongings and come back up on deck. Now they stood pressed shoulder to shoulder along the rail—some of them cheering, some gaping in silent awe at their first glimpse of their new country.

Derrick filled his lungs with the clean, fresh air. “
Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free—”

Cathleen turned up her nose as if she had caught a whiff of one of the passengers from steerage. “What on earth is that?”

“ A poem. By Emma Lazarus. It's inscribed on a plaque in the base of the statue. I read about it.” He grinned down at her. “
The wretched refuse of your teeming shores—
”

“You and your poetry,” Cathleen scoffed. “Besides, I don't like it one bit. Tired? Poor? Huddled masses? Wretched refuse? How insulting!”

“
Send these, your homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
” Derrick finished.

“
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
”

“Well, I suppose that part's all right,” she conceded. “What happens now?”

“According to the officer I talked to yesterday, we'll stop first at Hudson Pier. Doctors will come aboard and examine us to make sure we're not sick, and then—”

“You mean they think we're carrying some kind of
disease?
”

Cathleen shuddered. “That's absolutely ridiculous. This isn't the Middle Ages—it's 1921! And we're perfectly respectable people.”

“Just be thankful we were able to travel second class. The riffraff below decks are taken to Ellis Island. I hear
they
stand in line for hours for their medical exams and processing. A great many of them end up being quarantined for months—if they don't die first.”

“But we'll be cleared to go ashore beforehand?” Cathleen persisted.

Derrick nodded. “And then we go through customs.”

“How long will that take?”

“I have no idea how long it will take, my
dear,
” he responded through gritted teeth. “Try to be patient, will you? You've got your whole life ahead of you.”

The scene on the monitor faded to black and reappeared with Rachel seated before the hearth, staring into the fire. Flames licked the dry wood and sent sparks shooting up the blackened chimney.

“It's gone,” she said through clenched teeth. “The money. The box.

Everything I worked for, dreamed of, cherished.”

The longer she sat there, the more enraged she grew, until her own soul blazed with a white-hot fury.

Rachel Woodlea had finally found her anger. And she wasn't the only one.

“I've never been one to speak ill of my own children,” Mam said, slamming bowls onto the table and sending spoons clattering against the rough wood. “But if I ever get my hands on that eldest daughter of mine, I'll teach her a lesson she'll not soon forget.”