Forget-Me-Not Bride (4 page)

The blood drummed in her ears. A husband would provide a home, and if he provided a home for her, why should he not also provide one for Leo and Lottie? It was common knowledge that men living far from female company, desperate for wives, often married widows. If widows with small children were eligible in these particular marriage stakes, why not not a young woman with a dependent young brother and sister?

The sidewalk seemed to tilt beneath her tired feet. It was a preposterous idea; totally ludicrous. Yet it was the only idea she was left with and, if she jettisoned it, what would happen to the two vulnerable little people she loved best in all the world?

She knew what would happen and she knew it was something she could never allow. Her heart began to beat faster. It would mean abandoning hope of one day falling in love and marrying the man of her dreams. An image of an Americanized Greek God in a dove-grey lounge-suit, a Homburg at a rakish angle, sprang unbidden to her mind. She banished it. Her own happiness was not important. It was Leo and Lottie's happiness that was at stake.

She prided herself on having inherited her mother's practical nature and in the present circumstances practicality decreed only one course of action. Taking a deep breath, her heart racing, she crossed the street and knocked purposefully on the half frosted glass door of The Peabody Marriage Bureau.

‘Alaska?' Amy Peabody, motherly and the wrong side of fifty, was unsurprised by the request. Ever since the
Examiner
had run the story of Mr Daniel Berton's strike at Nome and of how the now fabulously rich gold-prospector had returned to San Francisco with his wife, a wife he had been introduced to via the Peabody Marriage Bureau, the bureau had been inundated with enquiries from young women eager to emulate the lucky Mrs Berton. What she
was
surprised at, however, was the present enquirer's striking good looks and confident bearing. Most young women seeking the help of the Peabody tended to be plain. They also tended to be shyly hesitant. The young woman before her was neither.

‘Alaska,' Lilli repeated, ‘There are gold-miners in Alaska looking for wives, aren't there?'

Amy nodded. There were, but whether they were the kind of gentlemen this particular young woman was looking for was extremely dubious. She said cautiously, ‘You seem a little young, Miss Stullen …'

‘I'm twenty,' Lilli lied. The clock behind Mrs Peabody's head showed five-forty-five. At any minute Herbert Mosley would be returning home. She crossed her fingers, praying to God that one of his business meetings would delay him. ‘If I agree to marry one of the men on your books, they will pay my fare to Alaska, won't they?' she asked, anxious to have her most important query answered.

‘When a young lady's photograph has been despatched to the gentleman of her choice, that is the arrangement.' She lifted a heavy album onto her desk. ‘It is, of course, a reasonably lengthy process. Perhaps you would like to browse through these photographs …'

‘Lengthy?' Lilli's voice was thick with anxiety. ‘How lengthy?'

Amy opened the album and slid it towards her. ‘That depends on the time of year, Miss Stullen. In winter, when no boats can reach or leave the Klondike, it can be as much as five months. In summer, of course, matters can be arranged within five or six weeks. Now these gentleman at the beginning of the album are all …'

Lilli didn't even look down at the photographs spread in front of her. ‘I can't wait five or six weeks,' she said tautly. ‘I can't even wait five or six days. I need to leave for Alaska now. Immediately.'

Amy leaned back in her chair, resting her elbows on the arms, steepling her fingers together. She had known the instant Lilli Stullen had entered her office that she wasn't a typical bride-to-be. And now she knew why. Miss Stullen was running away.

Lilli saw the expression in Amy Peabody's eyes and read her thoughts with crystal-clear clarity. Fresh tension knifed through her. If Mrs Peabody believed her to be running away from criminal charges she wouldn't even consider her as a prospective bride-to-be.

She clasped her hands tightly in her lap. ‘I'm not wanted by the police,' she said, her eyes burning with truth. ‘I have to get away because of … because of a family difficulty.'

Amy Peabody prided herself on recognising the truth when she heard it, and she knew she was hearing it now. She sighed, despairing of the male sex, believing she knew the nature of Lilli Stullen's family difficulty. A father, perhaps. Or a brother. It was a story as old as time; a story she had heard all too often.

She said with genuine regret, ‘If you had come to me a few hours earlier I might have been able to arrange something. Though the majority of my lady clients prefer photographs to be exchanged and to know something about the gentleman they will be marrying, we do also run a slightly less exclusive system of introductions.'

She paused, waiting for any questions Lilli might have. Lilli had none. She only wanted to know what the ‘less exclusive'system entailed.

‘The Alaskan Klondike is a very rough and ready part of the world, Miss Stullen. Communications are poor and gold-hungry men are not known for staying long in one place. The minute there is a rumour of a big strike, they are off to seek it out. Consequently there have been times when lady clients have arrived in Dawson City to find no prospective husbands waiting for them.'

The expression in her voice was clear evidence of her poor opinion of the prospective husbands in question.

‘And?' Lilli prompted impatiently.

‘And to avoid this kind of catastrophe groups of young ladies travel together and introductions are made by a Peabody Marriage Bureau representative in Dawson
after
their arrival, not before.'

Lilli stared at her. It didn't sound any less exclusive a method of finding a husband than leafing through a dog-eared photograph album, in fact it sounded a lot more civilised.

‘And fares are still paid?' she asked, focussing on the most important part of the arrangements.

Amy nodded. ‘All fares are paid and then, when a gentleman is happy with the lady of his choice, he reimburses the Peabody representative in Dawson for all expenses she has incurred.'

‘I want to go,' Lilli said flatly, ‘But I don't want to wait until the next group of brides goes to Dawson, I want to go now, on the very next boat.'

Amy shook her head regretfully. ‘But that's just the shame of it, my dear. If you had come in here a few hours earlier you could have done so. The
S. S. Senator
sails tonight with six Peabody young ladies aboard her …'

Lilli erupted from her chair, hardly able to believe that her luck had changed so dramatically. ‘But why didn't you say!' she demanded feverishly. ‘What time? What wharf?'

‘Dear heavens, Miss Stullen! You can't leave tonight! You won't even have time to pack!'

‘What time?'

Amy looked into Lilli's blazing blue eyes and knew she was going to be able to accommodate seven male clients in Dawson City, not six. ‘Eight-thirty, Wharf 18,' she said succinctly.

Lilli turned swiftly on her heel, saying as she headed for the door, ‘Then if you can make the arrangements for me, I shall be aboard.'

‘I can certainly obtain a last minute sailing ticket for you.' Amy rose to her feet, knowing that she was going to have to move nearly as fast as her determined young client. ‘The name of the Peabody representative in Dawson is Mr Josh Nelson …'

‘Three tickets,' Lilli said suddenly, one hand on the door-knob.

‘
Three
?' Beneath crêpey lids Amy's eyes flew wide.

‘One for me and one each for my young brother and sister.' Lilli yanked the door open. ‘And don't worry about the cost, Mrs Peabody. My husband-to-be will reimburse Mr Nelson.'

Before a stunned Amy could draw breath to protest, the door slammed shut. Weakly Amy gripped on to the corner of her desk with a steadying hand. What an extremely
forceful
young woman. She could only hope Josh Nelson would be able to cope with the situation when Miss Stullen arrived in Dawson and for the sake of the reputation of her marriage bureau she hoped the husband-to-be would be able to cope also!

‘Please don't let Uncle Herbert be in the house,' Lilli muttered like a mantra as the cable car eased its way up Nob Hill with agonising slowness.

The instant it halted and she stepped onto the sidewalk she broke into an unladylike run. ‘Please let Lottie have packed everything!' she prayed, sprinting towards the Mosley mansion as if all the hounds of hell were at her heels. ‘Please let nothing go wrong now! Please let the three of us be aboard the
S. S. Senator
when she sails!'

‘Where on earth have you been, Lilli?' her aunt asked flusteredly, hurrying into the hall as Lilli rushed into the house. ‘I've been so worried about you! I really don't think your uncle can possibly have meant the things he said to you this morning. I shall tell him how much it will distress me if he turns you out of the house and …'

Lilli sucked in her breath. Much as she wanted to be gentle with her aunt, she couldn't possibly be so. She simply didn't have the time. It had gone six-o-clock when she had left the Peabody Marriage Bureau and it was after seven-o-clock now. She had an hour and a half. An hour and a half in which to collect Leo and Lottie and their travel-bags and leave the house; to travel down-town to the harbour area; to find Wharf 18 and board the boat.

‘Uncle Herbert meant every word he said to me this morning,' she said, her breathing still ragged from running; her chest still hurting. ‘I'm truly sorry for the distress this is going to cause you Aunt Gussie, but I'm leaving the house and I'm taking Leo and Lottie with me.'

Even as she was speaking she was heading towards the stairs.

‘No!' her aunt's cry of protest was anguished. ‘No, you can't do that, Lilli!' She began to hurry in Lilli's wake. ‘Your uncle didn't mean for you to take the children with you!'

‘I know that, Aunt Gussie,' Lilli said dryly. ‘But I shall never be separated from them while they are still so young. They've lost Ma and Pa. They're not going to lose me as well.'

As she turned left at the head of the stairs a bedroom door was flung open and Lottie burst out into the corridor. She was dressed for travel in an oatmeal box-coat, toffee-coloured serge skirt, long black-ribbed stockings and high-buttoned shoes. On the back of her head she wore her Sunday-best sailor-hat, held on by elastic beneath her chin, a long blue ribbon hanging down from the back of it.

‘I've done everything you asked me to!' she announced jubilantly, her eyes shining, her face radiant. ‘I told the maid we needed all three travel-bags and I've squeezed everything possible into them.'

Lilli's relief was vast. She had no idea what the temperature was in Alaska in June but she knew that come the autumn they would need every single article of warm clothing they possessed. ‘Get your coats,' she said as Leo tumbled out of the room, ‘and all your winter scarves and gloves.'

‘
No
!' With one hand pressed to the base of her lace-covered throat, their aunt tried desperately to put an end to the nightmare that had erupted around her. ‘Please, Lilli! Please don't take Leo!'

Lilli entered the bedroom and removed a black felt wallet from the back of her wardrobe shelf. It contained money her father had left to them. Money she had guarded carefully. She buried the wallet deep into one of the travel-bags and then turned to face her aunt, saying starkly, ‘I'm sorry, Aunt Gussie, but Ma wouldn't have wanted the three of us to be separated, you know that.'

Her aunt opened her mouth to protest yet again and Lilli said with quiet finality, ‘And neither would she want Leo's name to be changed from Stullen to Mosley.'

It was a truth her aunt couldn't deny and her face crumpled, tears streaming down her cheeks.

With her own heart hurting Lilli put the bags down and put her arms around her. ‘We all care for you, Aunt Gussie,' she said thickly. ‘But Uncle Herbert just isn't … reasonable about things.'

Her aunt clung to her, not denying it, knowing she had lost the battle, as she lost every battle.

From downstairs there came the sound of the front door opening and someone entering the hall. All four of them froze.

‘It's Uncle Herbert!' Lottie whispered, her pupils dilating.

It was then, as Lilli's mind raced to think of a way of escape, that her aunt came into her moment of glory. ‘Leave the house by the servants'stairs,' she said swiftly as, for the first time in her life, she took charge of a situation. ‘I'll tell your uncle that you have already left the house and that Leo and Lottie are upset and have gone to bed early. Go now, my dear! Quickly!'

Lilli needed no urging. Seizing hold of the bags she kissed her aunt on the cheek and with a heavily laden Lottie at her side and Leo trotting hard on her heels, she hurried swiftly towards the servants'staircase.

‘
Where are we going
?' Leo whispered as they bundled their way downstairs.

‘Alaska.'

‘
Alaska
!' Leo lost his footing and toppled down the last two steps. ‘
Alas
…'

Lottie clapped her free hand over his mouth. ‘
Ssssh
!' she hissed, almost as stunned as he was. ‘Lilli will tell us all about it when we get out of the house. Now
be quiet
, Leo, or Uncle Herbert will hear us and neither of us will be going anywhere!'

At this time of an evening the domestic staff were all in the kitchens or dining-room. Making a way through the laundry-room and sewing-room they left the house by a rear side-door.

‘We've very little time,' Lilli said the instant they were clear of the ornate garden. ‘We've certainly no time for questions and explanations. I know the bag you're carrying is heavy, Lottie, but you're going to have to run with it. And despite having little legs, you, Leo, are going to have to keep up with us. Is that understood?'