Courting Susannah (38 page)

This time, they sat facing each other, knee to knee, instead of side by side. Aubrey growled some deprecation under his breath, tilted his head back, and closed his eyes. He did not speak again until they were in front of the house once more and alighting from the coach.

“Read the journal, Susannah,” he said. “You'll find it enlightening.”

Yet another early snow was falling, the flakes fat as chicken feathers drifting down from a dark sky. “What are you planning to do?” she asked, feeling suspicious. Perhaps it was because Aubrey had made no move toward
the house but stood instead beside the carriage, the door still gaping open behind him.

“I'm going to find Ethan, for a start. Then I'll probably go back to the store. I'm supposed to be the proprietor, if you remember.”

It was cold outside; the wind bit at Susannah's cheeks. “Very well,” she said, and turned from him, proceeding toward the house. In the middle of the walk, she paused and looked back, allowing her gaze to link with his. “Please take care.”

“Are you worried about me, Mrs. Fairgrieve?” There was a soft smile curving one corner of his mouth, but he looked forlorn somehow.

She said nothing. He knew that she loved him, and she would be damned if she would declare her affection again, in full view and hearing of the carriage driver. After lingering a moment, she continued toward the house and entered without looking back.

She was not ready to face Maisie, nor did she wish to fret and pace over Aubrey, suspecting as she did that he meant to go in search of the Chinaman himself once he'd found Ethan. Victoria was happily knocking down toy blocks as Jasper stacked them, both children overseen by Ellie, and any piano pupils remaining to Susannah had yet to appear.

She recovered the journal from the pocket of the prim navy dress, carried it into the rear parlor, where the piano stood like a lonely monument, sat down in an overstuffed chair, and opened to the first page.

At first, the diary was a cheerful account of meeting Aubrey in Boston, falling in love, marrying, and traveling west. Julia had been impressed with the house when she'd first seen it, and with the store, though less so with Seattle. The city was, she had written, a “noisy, messy place, fraught with ruffians.” She rhapsodized over the
clothes and jewelry Aubrey bought for her, looked forward to a promised tour of Europe with great excitement. Susannah felt a pang at the mention of the trip, for Aubrey had made the same promise to her, though now it probably would never come to pass.

Eventually, Julia's happiness had given way to a growing dissatisfaction with life “on the frontier.” There were no real social occasions, she complained. One could expect only the most asinine forms of entertainment, and fine music was such a rarity that she had nearly forgotten the sound of it. Furthermore, she had begun to suspect that Aubrey was keeping a mistress, an older woman, more sophisticated, more experienced than she was.

Susannah felt rising despair as she read on; it was as though some inner shadow had fallen across Julia's spirit. Instead of passing with time, as such private demons will in most people, Julia's gloom had only deepened. She took to sipping sherry well before teatime and then added laudanum to the ritual.

Gradually, she began to speak of an ardent “love,” growing between herself and Ethan. Although her brother-in-law had not avowed to such feelings in so many words, she confessed, he had let her know that he cared for her in a variety of telling ways. He smiled at her. He instigated conversations. He was always unfailingly polite.

Susannah closed her eyes for a moment, full of sorrow. Ethan had merely been kind to Julia, that was obvious, but she'd been so hungry for affection and approval, so lonely and far from home, that she had misinterpreted his attentions. Pregnancy surely had caused her to be even more emotionally volatile than usual, and then there was Aubrey, believing that she'd been fake to their marriage vows, caught in the throes of his
own pain and disillusionment. What had he said and done to make matters worse?

She shifted positions in her chair and continued to read. She had nearly reached the end of the tragic account when she read the most devastating part, the one Aubrey surely had been referring to when he had first handed her the book that morning in the kitchen.

Julia had visited Su Lin before she went away. She'd found the girl alone and weeping; she must go away, Su Lin had told Julia, because she could bring no joy to Ethan, no honor, but only trouble and disgrace and the worst sort of suffering. She was to marry a Chinese merchant, chosen for her by her father, and she dared not defy the decree, for she would be beaten, perhaps even killed, if she did.

None of that mattered so much, Su Lin had confided, as the terrible secret she was keeping. In a flood of tears, the girl had told Julia that she believed she was carrying Ethan's child. There was a Chinese woman living near the waterfront who could provide a potion that would cause her womb to empty itself, thus sparing her father and future husband in China the shame of a white infant.

Julia made a few sympathetic noises, according to her own account, and then offered to pay Su Lin to take her to the woman.

“Oh, dear God,” Susannah whispered, stricken, her stomach doing a slow roll as she realized the meaning of that request. Tears burned her eyes. Sweet, precious Victoria … had Julia truly valued her unborn infant so little?

She wept awhile and then dried her face, blew her nose, and took up the journal again. Su Lin had refused Julia's demands, and Julia had instantly become angry. She had raged at the girl, in fact, and told her that she loved Ethan, and he loved her in return. All that ever
stood between them, she had said, was Su Lin herself and, of course, the baby. Aubrey's baby.

Su Lin had been distraught, and when Julia offered her a bank draft, signed that morning by Aubrey's own hand—he'd thought he was paying a bill sent by Julia's dressmaker in San Francisco—she had accepted it in silence.

That night, Ethan had come to the house in a frenzy of grief and despair. Su Lin was gone. She'd boarded a ship headed south to San Francisco; from there, she would set sail for China. Julia had pretended to sympathize, but inside, she'd gloated, and she'd said nothing of the girl's pregnancy. Ethan might have gone after her if he'd known the truth.

It was all too vivid in Susannah's mind; she hugged herself and rocked back and forth for a few moments, trying to absorb the tragedy, when it would not be put from her, making it a part of her own soul.

Julia had fully expected Ethan to turn to her at last. She would give him solace, and in time, he was sure to forget Su Lin. They would run away together, she raved, her handwriting odd and erratic. If it became necessary, she intended to persuade him that the baby she carried was his. It shouldn't be so difficult, she speculated; she had already succeeded in convincing Aubrey of that same thing, hadn't she?

Subsequently, she had continued a diligent, if discreet, search for the mysterious Chinese medicine woman who could help her to miscarry. Finally, she had found her. She wasn't ready to bear a child, she'd said. She was afraid, and Su Lin had told her the old woman could solve the problem. She must promise, however, that she would never tell Maisie, Mr. Fairgrieve, or anyone else what had happened.

After a few days, a messenger had brought her a
packet of some loose, strange-smelling tea, along with instructions. Julia had immediately brewed herself a dose of the stuff, and it
had
brought on cramps and even some bleeding, but in the end the child did not leave her.

In the last entry, Julia was nearing her time. She was terrified—of the pain, of the damage that might have been done to the baby when she was trying to end her pregnancy, of death itself. So many women perished bearing children, she wrote. How she wished she had never left Boston, never married at all, but instead become a spinster, like dear Susannah.

Susannah closed the volume, and when she looked up, Maisie was standing in the parlor doorway, her eyes sunken, her flesh pale.

“It's that Chinaman,” she said. “They've found him.”

Chapter 19

I
t's that Chinaman. They've found him.
Susannah stared at her friend as the words echoed through her, settling like a cold weight in the pit of her stomach. Laying the journal aside, she rose slowly, shakily to her feet, crossed the parlor, and took Maisie's work-roughened hands into her own.

“There's more, isn't there?” Susannah urged.

Maisie nodded. “They think it was Ethan that done it.”

Susannah swayed slightly, and it was Maisie who held her up. “Dear God.” Of course, the police would blame Ethan. And dozens of witnesses could attest to the fact that he and Mr. Su had exchanged angry words only a few days before on the wharf

“He's been through enough, Ethan has,” Maisie said, and her expression was bleak, her normally florid flesh gray and drawn. Clutching the hem of her long apron in one hand, she pressed it to her mouth. The Fairgrieves were her family, perhaps the only semblance she'd ever known. It was certainly that way for Susannah.

“Somebody knifed him,” she repeated, almost inaudibly this time, and with a haunted sort of horror. “That Su Wong feller, I mean.”

Before Susannah was pressed to say anything further, Mr. Hollister stepped into the parlor, having followed Maisie, no doubt. He was accompanied by a man in a constable's uniform, and while he seemed abashed at having had to deliver more bad news, as he looked at Susannah, she saw a new respect in his eyes, as well as certain reservations.

“It appears that your theory might be right, Mrs. Fairgrieve,” he said after clearing his throat. He glanced at Maisie and cleared his throat again. Susannah dropped into a chair. The constable paced slowly back and forth in front of a window.

Would it never end, Susannah wondered, the darkness and sorrow that plagued this house?

“Maybe you'd like to see Reverend Johnstone,” Maisie said, laying her hand on Susannah's shoulder. “I could send Ellie for him right away—”

“I suppose he'll get word soon enough and come around on his own,” Susannah said numbly.

Maisie stooped to kiss her cheek. “I'll look after Victoria as long as need be,” she said.

Susannah nodded, full of gratitude.

Mr. Hollister was polite enough to hold his tongue until the door had closed behind Maisie, but no longer. “I hope we're not intruding,” he said. He indicated the nervous constable. “This is Officer Fitzsimmons.”

Susannah did not reply directly, nor did she acknowledge the policeman, except with a glance. She was still absorbing Mr. Hollister's recent decision to practice law instead of serving as a Pinkerton man. “Do sit down,” she said, and if she sounded somewhat stiff, well, it couldn't be helped. She wished Aubrey would return from wherever he'd gone, for the presence of Mr. Fitzsimmons, coupled with Mr. Hollister's odd manner, troubled her very much.

The lawyer sat in a wing-backed chair next to the hearth, where a small fire burned, while Fitzsimmons preferred to stand, and Susannah remained where she was, intertwining her fingers in her lap in a vain and belated effort to hide her near panic. She knew right away that the tactic had not been successful, for the policeman's gaze dropped, briefly but immediately, to her hands. So, she noticed, did Mr. Hollister's.

“Did Ethan kill that man?” Mr. Hollister asked. “Did Aubrey?”

“Ethan is a handy scapegoat,” she said, with a pointed look at Mr. Fitzsimmons. “However, I fail to see how anybody could suspect Aubrey.” Now, she focused her full attention on the young and obviously flustered officer. “Have you forgotten that he was beaten so severely that he almost died? Or do you think, perhaps, that he hired his own assailants?”

The parlor doors swung wide before either Fitzsimmons or Hollister could form a reply, and Aubrey strode in, the power of his presence preceding him like a strong wind, filling the room. He had shed his coat, but his skin was ruddy with cold, and there were snowflakes in his hair. Ethan came in behind him.

“Well, Hollister?” Aubrey prompted, ignoring the policeman. “Are you going to answer my wife's questions?” He went to a side table, where several decanters stood, along with whiskey glasses.

Hollister sighed. “Mrs. Parker was your—friend,” he said with as much delicacy as possible, though Susannah knew he would have made no such attempt if she had not been present. “It might have served your purposes to be rid of her.”

“Whiskey?” Aubrey inquired hospitably, offering a shot glass to his interrogator. His accuser.

Hollister hesitated, then accepted the drink. “You
wouldn't have been the first man to set the scene for an alibi, either,” he went on after a bracing sip. “Taking a battering compares favorably to hanging for murder, any way you look at it, and there's always the possibility that the fellows you engaged just got a little carried away with the task at hand.”