Forget-Me-Not Bride (29 page)

She thought of Kate and Edie and Lettie and herself. Not one of them had become a Peabody bride because they were yearning for a husband. Apart from Edie, they had all become Peabody brides because they were running away from unbearable domestic situations.

‘Susan
is
all the things you thought her. She's refined and educated and honest and kind. She's also very, very shy. And it isn't easy for a shy woman to find a husband, Mr Jenkinson. Especially when she's over twenty-five and especially when she's not particularly pretty.'

‘Not pretty?' Mr Jenkinson looked at her as if she had taken leave of her senses. ‘Not pretty? Miss
Bumby
?' He drew in a deep shuddering, incredulous breath. ‘I would have you know, young lady, that Miss Bumby is
beautiful
! A veritable pearl among women! A … a
Zenobia
!'

Lilli didn't know who Zenobia was, but whoever she was, she was obviously someone Mr Jenkinson held in high esteem.

‘Then why not try and understand how deeply unhappy she has been,' she said reasonably. ‘For only a very unhappy woman would have resorted to the Peabody marriage bureau. And can't you also try and imagine how she feels now? She doesn't
want
to marry a man she doesn't know. She wants to marry a man who is congenial to her, a man she respects.

‘But the scandal … the gossip …' There was perspiration on his forehead, agony in his eyes. ‘I'm a man of the cloth … a minister of religion …'

‘If you don't save Susan from the humiliation of being auctioned in Dawson City like a piece of meat you're a man not worthy of that religion,' Lilli rejoined crisply. ‘You would certainly be proving yourself to be not worthy of Susan.'

Deciding it was a parting shot she couldn't improve on she turned her back on him, walking swiftly away, hoping to God she hadn't made a tortuous situation even worse.

‘How could it be worse?' Marietta said bleakly, heaving her travel-bag to the door of her cabin ready for disembarkation. ‘Susan is still crying as if she's never going to stop. Kate is with Lord Lister and when she's finished telling him her rigmarole about being affianced he's going to think she's nothing but an immoral little flirt. The Pig is still stalking Edie. Lettie is convinced Josh Nelson isn't going to accept any pay-offs. And Lucky Jack has just told me that Dawson is dying and near dead and that all the dance-hall girls are leaving for Nome.' It was a depressing litany.

‘I think I'll go and try and find Lucky Jack,' Lilli said, knowing that if anyone could cheer her, he could. ‘Where is he?'

‘When he left me he was heading in the direction of the lower-deck saloon. Do you think I should try and make myself look monstrously ugly so that Josh Nelson won't even consider putting me up for auction, but will be grateful for whatever pay-off he's given?'

When Lilli peeped into the lower-deck saloon it was to see Lucky Jack deep in a game of cards with Saskatchewan Stan and the two men who had accompanied him when he had disembarked from the
Senator
. She sighed. Where cards were concerned, Lucky Jack was a lost cause.

She strolled across to the deck-rails, looking out at a river bank thick with trees. Across the swirling slate-grey water came the sound of woodpeckers drumming against the bark of spruce and pine. In their shade an enormous bear was fishing. High in the sky chicken hawks wheeled and hovered.

She sighed again. It was beautiful country. The wildest and the most beautiful she had ever seen. She wanted to be out in it, exploring it. She wanted to be able to camp beside gurgling creeks; to stride over hills thick with wild flowers; to learn all about the Indians and their ancient way of life.

Her mouth quirked ruefully. She couldn't imagine Lucky Jack camping beside creeks or striding over hills. In fact the longer she knew him, the harder it was to imagine him anywhere but at a card-table. And she could no longer imagine him enthusing about her desire to learn more about the Indians and to be of some service to them.

Her eyes darkened as the
Casca
steamed around yet another of the Yukon's interminable bends. Without Mr Jenkinson's school there was no obvious way for her to be of service to them. Unless …

Across the water came the carrying howl of dogs. Soon she could see a scattering of tents. At the
Casca's
approach a half dozen Indian children rushed down to the river's edge, waving furiously. Her spirits lifting, Lilli waved back.

Unless she opened a school of her own. Elation suffused her. Unless the Reverend Mr Jenkinson came to his senses and married Susan and settled in Dawson, opening the school he had intended to open, she would open her own school. And she wouldn't allow Lucky Jack's lack of enthusiasm to deter her. This was something she had to do for herself. This was something she knew she was
meant
to do.

‘We're nearly there,' Lettie's voice said from behind her. ‘According to Saskatchewan Stan, Dawson is just around the next bend.

‘Where are Marietta and Edie? And Kate? Has she told Lord Lister she's affianced?'

Lettie nodded. ‘I don't know how he's taken the news. Kate is perfectly calm. It's not a natural calm though. Marietta says she's retreating into herself as a form of self-protection against her grief. She says we shouldn't leave her on her own in case she … in case she …'

She didn't have to finish her sentence. Lilli knew very well what it was she unable to say.

Over Lettie's shoulder she saw Marietta and Edie, Kate and Susan, walking towards them. Susan looked dreadful, the dark line of hair on her upper lip starkly noticeable against the pallor of her skin. She was dressed, however, impeccably. Her tailored suit was toffee-brown. Her shirtwaist was cream, its high collar impeccably starched. Her silk tie was burnt umber as was the ribbon on her boater hat.

Kate looked perfectly composed and deathly ill. She was still wearing her midnight-blue, leg o'mutton sleeved dress. Where once it had enhanced her gentle dignity, now it served only to age her, making her look a woman in her thirties, not her twenties.

‘So we're nearly there,' Marietta said, a sizzling orange blouse clashing gloriously with her frizz of ginger hair and vivid pink skirt. ‘Come over here, Edie. Next to the rail. Then you'll be able to see.'

A huge rocky bluff masked the next bend in the river.

‘And it's the last bend!' they could hear Saskatchewan Stan saying to his acolytes excitedly. ‘Lord a-mighty but we're nearly there now! Nearly there!'

The
Casca
began to steam around the bend. Edie slid her hand into Marietta's. Lilli's hands tightened on the deck-rail. Marietta sucked in her breath. Susan clasped her hands so tightly together her nails dug deep into her palms. Only Kate remain oblivious, not caring anymore about anything.

The
Casca
rounded the bluff and there, before them, lay a sight Lilli knew she would remember life-long. Another river, a river she knew to be the Klondike, roared into the Yukon from the right. Beyond the junction of the rivers rose a tapering mountain with the great scar of a land-slide slashed across its face. And at its feet, spilling into the surrounding hills, lay a city of false-faced saloons, frame stores, two-storeyed log hotels, dance-halls and banks. And tucked higgledy-piggledy everywhere, squeezed between saloons, oozing out of alleys onto the water's edge, overflowing up the hillside, were small log cabins and tiny shacks.

‘Well, here we are,' Susan said tightly. ‘Welcome to Dawson.'

As the
Casca
passed the foaming mouth of the Klondike and swung in towards Dawson all Lilli could see were men. The dock was black with them. There were men with breeches tucked into high-top boots, broad-brimmed hats shadowing their faces; slick-suited men sporting gold nugget watch-chains and big black Stetons; men wearing high starched collars, diamond pins glittering on their shirt-fronts; men wearing Prince Albert coats and top hats; men wearing mukluks and gaudy mackinaws and thick caps; men wearing hard hats; men wearing ten-gallon hats; men in the blue and gold uniform of police officers; men in the Mountie scarlet of police constables; Indians in beaded skincoats and moccasins.

‘But no women,' Lettie said, her face impassive. ‘Mrs Peabody wasn't joking when she said there was a dearth of women in the Klondike.'

‘I'm scared,' Edie said apprehensively. ‘You won't leave me, will you, Marietta? Promise me you won't leave me.'

‘I'm going to do my best not to leave you,' Marietta said, a furrow of anxiety creasing her forehead. ‘But if I have to, you'll be all right a long as you keep with Lilli or Lettie or …'

‘There's Mr Nelson,' Susan said bleakly. ‘I wonder what arrangements he's made?'

‘We'll probably all be boarding together somewhere,' Lilli said, aware that Susan must have lodgings of her own in Dawson. ‘Will you be coming with us, Susan?'

Susan nodded. ‘Oh yes,' she said, her eyes red from weeping. ‘That's the only comfort I have now. That we're in this together and that I'm not alone.'

The
Casca
shuddered as the anchor chain rattled out. Seconds later the gangplank crashed down and the stampede to disembark began.

‘Let them all go,' Susan said, not moving. ‘After all, we're not in a hurry, are we?'

Remaining on deck, they watched as hordes of men they now knew by sight strode down the gangplank and on to dry land. Some of the disembarking men they were on more familiar terms with.

Saskatchewan Stan, so short and roly-poly he seemed to roll off the
Casca
, not walk; Lord Lister, his handsome face white with tension; the Reverend Mr Jenkinson, walking without any sense of purpose, merely letting the crowd carry him along.

Susan's net-gloved hand was pressed tight to her throat, her heavy-featured face so ravaged by heartache Lilli couldn't bear to look at her.

‘There goes Miss Nettlesham,' Lettie said, mercifully attracting attention away from Lord Lister and Mr Jenkinson. ‘Do you think her beau is waiting to greet her?'

Miss Nettlesham, sensibly attired in a brown broad-cloth skirt and double-breasted wool jacket and dutifully escorted by a member of the
Casca's
crew, was walking with barely concealed excitment towards the slick-suited figures at the front of the crowd.

‘It's time we were following her,' Marietta said at last. ‘Otherwise Mr Nelson will be sending a search party out for us.'

In nervous apprehension, carrying their suitcases and boxes, they walked towards the gangplank.

As Lilli stepped on it she could see Lucky Jack stepping on to the dock. With vast relief she saw him make a bee-line towards Josh Nelson. Hopefully, by the time she introduced herself to Josh Nelson, he and Lucky Jack would have come to a satisfactory financial arrangement and there would be no question of her being subjected to the medievally barbaric humiliation of an auction.

‘Oh poor Miss Nettlesham!' Lottie suddenly exclaimed. ‘Look, Lilli! She's having an argument with a quite dreadful looking man!'

From her birds-eye view on the gangplank Lilli looked in the direction Lottie was pointing. Miss Nettlesham was indeed having an argument and not only with one man, but with two. One of them obviously thought himself quite a swell. He was wearing a shiny-looking suit with a garish vest and had a cigar clamped firmly in one hand, a hand he was angrily gesticulating with.

The other man reminded Lilli of The Pig. Coarse black hair grew so far down on his forehead it nearly met with his beetling eyebrows. Similar mats covered his immense forearms, exposed by the rolled-up sleeves of a none-too-clean shirt.

‘Do you think she needs help?' Lottie asked, perturbed. ‘Do you think one of those men is her beau?'

‘Very possibly,' Lilli said, aware that if she was going to go to Miss Nettlesham's aid she would have to do so before she introduced herself to Josh Nelson.

As she stepped foot on Dawson soil she said, ‘Tell Marietta what's happening, Lottie. Tell her I'll catch you all up in a few minutes time.'

As Lottie scurried to do her bidding, Lilli pushed through the throng towards Miss Nettlesham.

‘You told me he was a gentleman!' Miss Nettlesham was protesting in cracked tones to the cigar-smoking swell. ‘You said he was a member of Dawson's élite! You said
you
were a member of Dawson's élite! How could you have lied to me so shamefully? How could you have lured me out here, to the back of beyond …'

‘Aw, come off it Rosalind,' the swell said impatiently. ‘This isn't Boston! As far as Dawson is concerned I
am
a member of its élite …'

‘Not wearing such a cheap, shiny suit you aren't!' Miss Nettlesham had begun to cry. ‘And your friend is … your friend is …' Words failed her and sobs convulsed her.

Lilli touched her arm. ‘Miss Nettlesham. Can I be of any assistance?'

Mortification flashed across Miss Nettlesham's patrician features. Lilli could see her struggling to decide whether to salvage her pride and deny that anything was amiss or to admit that things were very much amiss and to accept whatever help was available.

‘Judas priest!' the swell's companion said explosively. ‘I ain't here to be insulted! You ain't the only person bin lied to shamefully, ma'am. I wuss told you wuss a fair bit o'flesh. If I'd wanted a dried up prune for a wife I could have git meself one without no help from no-one.'

Bright spots of humiliated colour burned Miss Nettlesham's cheeks. Tears of humiliation glittered on her sandy eyelashes. ‘I've been duped, Miss Stullen,' she said unsteadily, looking almost as if she might faint. ‘My brother has criminally misled me.'

‘Quit the bullshit, Rosalind'her brother said crudely. ‘Lou here has paid good money both to me and to the marriage bureau for a wife. Whether he's happy with the goods he's getting or whether you're happy is neither here nor there. You're stuck with each other so you'd better start getting acquainted.'