Jewel of the Thames (A Portia Adams Adventure) (2 page)

I gaped at him, my brain whirring at this piece of data but unable to refute it since I had never thought about this circumstance.

“
That is all, ladies, in terms of the will. There are other papers, of course, that I must share with you.” He pulled out an envelope. “This is the deed to the property in London, left to your grandmother and then to your mother, and now to you, Miss Jameson.”

I was still unable to speak, so he continued: “And these are the divorce papers signed by both your parents last week, dissolving their marriage, and removing Mr. Jameson from responsibility to you, his former stepdaughter.” He glanced at me. “If you would prefer to change your name back to your birth name in light of this, my dear, we can do that immediately. Your mother suggested that I have the paperwork written up and ready for you, anticipating that you might.”

Having been essentially raised by a single mother (after my father was lost in the Great War), I was not pained by the dissolution of my relationship with my former stepfather. Nonetheless, it felt like I was being assailed with life changes at breakneck speed.

Mrs. Jones recovered first. “Surely that is enough. Sir, the poor child has lost her mother and now her stepfather in the same day.”

The attorney agreed heartily, and while I sat, weakly absorbing all that had befallen me, they finalized the process whereby I was passed from loving mother to complete stranger with a few signatures. Even with my limited knowledge of the law, I understood that it would not help to beg or argue at this time, so I read the agreements quickly, as was my skill, and then signed where they told me. The one paper that I found easiest to sign was the one that returned my birth name to me. From now on, I would be known as Portia Constance Adams.

I resolved, as Mrs. Jones pulled on her gloves, to work on this older woman’s kindness to maintain my freedom, though where I would go without friends or family, I knew not.

My plan that I had shared with my mother to try to alleviate her stress had been to try to find work in the local library or schools, to earn enough money to continue my education. During my mother’s quick decline I had done my best to actually secure such a position, but had so far been unlucky in my interviews. My social skills were my downfall, and any patience I might have had for speaking to people had been rubbed raw by the worry over my mother’s condition. At the best of times I could be impatient, so at my worst I was perceived as rudely dismissive. I knew exactly how much money my mother had left in her bank account and had calculated how much longer I could afford to live without a job. It was not long, and I was too proud to say any of this aloud to either the lawyer or this older woman I had just met.

But now there were new options to consider. Perhaps there were opportunities with this new place in London? I could start a new life there … free from the loving memories of my mother’s presence in my otherwise solitary life.

I shook hands with the attorney, advising him to forgive the cat he had banished from his offices since a child had been the downfall of the bird, not a feline at all. The scratches on the birdcage were months old, while the small, sticky chocolate fingerprints on the cage door were less than a week old. He looked shocked and glanced wordlessly over at his birdcage, so I walked over to the nearest window to point to the matching chocolate fingerprints where a child had released the budgie into the skies of Toronto. I took the papers and envelopes he held out and then followed my new guardian out the door.

Why had my mother chosen this stranger as my guardian? Was she a distant relation? My grandmother, mother and for a brief time, my father, were the only family I had ever known. I was more intellectually curious than emotionally curious about our extended family, but my grandmother had been adamantly tightlipped about any other relations. My mother couldn’t give me information she didn’t have, and she had struggled for decades with her own mother’s stubborn reticence. In her last months of life, my mother had admitted, her eyes dropping from mine in that conversation as I now recalled, that her own research had failed to turn up anyone suitable.

Now, as Mrs. Jones hailed a cab, I looked carefully at her features, the distinct profile of her nose and chin, and saw nothing that resembled my mother’s or my grandmother’s features. She seemed to have known my grandmother — was she somehow indebted to our family through that relationship?

I automatically sat down in the cab as Mrs. Jones waved me in encouragingly.

“You certainly surprised the man with your observations about his poor bird, didn’t you?” she remarked, adjusting her gloves. “Probably the average reaction. I must assume that your mother said nothing to you of this arrangement?”

I shook my head, tears of anger starting now as I contemplated this betrayal by my closest and dearest relative. Why keep this from me? Did she think me so uncooperative? To be fair to her, I knew that if she had shared this with me I would have vehemently fought the plan — I was a solitary person, and the idea of being under the guardianship of anyone other than my own mother was abhorrent. I sniffed, realizing that my mother had been right to approach this plan without telling me. Not that it made the current situation any better.

“Oh, now, don’t work yourself into a state,” Mrs. Jones admonished, pulling a monogrammed hanky out of her large purse and handing it to me. “She had her reasons, I am sure. And I am most flattered that she would give me such a responsibility. I had not considered that she would.”

I couldn’t bring myself to agree. The whole situation was just too new. I shook my head at my immature reaction. I should have planned for this! I could have! And then maybe my mother wouldn’t have left me with — I glanced at Mrs. Jones from beneath tear-laden lashes — this woman.

I had no desire to live with a stranger, but I didn’t have the financial ability to strike out on my own. Our home in Toronto was heavily mortgaged, I knew, and a home in London in my name was all well and good — but how to get there? And what to do when I arrived? Perhaps I could sell the property from here, take the money and invest that in my future.

As I was folding and unfolding the hanky, monogrammed with an I, an A, and an H in flowing script, the cab came to a stop. I recognized my family home. Only two days ago my mother’s body was being carried out on a stretcher to the hearse that would bear her out of my life forever. I swallowed painfully, shutting my eyes against that memory and forcing myself to think of all the other moments we had spent here.

Opening my eyes determinedly, I had to admit I was also embarrassed for this fine lady to see where I lived. The brick house was tiny, with a front porch that leaned to the right, its posts having been bolstered with cheap beams in lieu of actually fixing the underlying issues with the structure. The exterior had never been painted, at least in my memory, and the once-wooden trim showed this fact the most, made all the more obvious by the shiny cleanliness of the windows, on which my mother had focused her diminishing energy despite my arguments. I stepped out of the cab, my eyes on the front door, listening to Mrs. Jones tell the driver to wait for us.

My eyes were thus fixed because across the doorway was a chain and a lock, barring entrance to the house. As I strode forward, I spied my former stepfather leaning against the rusted chain-link fence, smoking a thin cigarillo. I stopped abruptly as he recognized me and hauled his flabby frame straight.

“Ya finally showed up, did ya?” he slurred at me, obviously deep into his cups despite the hour. I ignored his tone, instead pointing to the door. The smell of his preferred cheap whiskey assaulted me as I ran my eyes over his clothes, trying to assess just how long he had been drinking. His boots were relatively dry, indicating that he had at least changed since last night, perhaps to attend the lawyer's office. But the grungy neckerchief showcased his last three meals at least, his graying chest hair appearing above the stained white cloth. I calculated his last shave was at least a week ago, and I shook off my disgust with effort to ask:

“
What has happened? When I left this morning—”

“
They came after you left, the gits,” he interrupted, pulling a crumpled-up piece of paper out of his pocket and handing it to me as my new guardian stepped closer.

Dreading the note, and yet strangely already anticipating its contents, I quickly scanned it. The basic message was unsurprising: his creditors had seen my mother’s death as the final sign they would never get their money back (a fact I agreed with since my mother was the only person in our household who contributed to the mortgage) and had seized the house as soon as her death was officially announced.

Mrs. Jones and my former stepfather were eyeing each other with what looked like equal disdain, so I dumbly handed her the note and made to look at the door more closely. The lock was secure, so I chose the simpler route, edging around the side of the house to the east window we had never gotten around to mending. Pulling it up, I easily entered my former home, wasting no time on the overturned furniture or broken fripperies. I guessed the state of the house was from the creditors hurriedly seeking out any valuables, but it could have just as easily been my former stepfather doing the same. I made straight for my mother’s room, and taking a worn traveling bag from her closet, scooped a few photographs and memorabilia into it.

From her bedside table I picked up the precious photo of her wedding day, running my finger over my father’s visage.

Looking around the room at the quiet femininity of the homemade lace pillow covers and the soft pink of the crocheted blanket, I sat down heavily on her neatly made bed. My mother would have been mortified at the condition of her house, having worked so hard to keep it clean and sparkling despite her ex-husband’s and (I had to admit) my own more slovenly lifestyle. It was only in the past few months, when she had to rely on me in her weakness, that it had fallen far below her standards, cobwebs apparent in the corners of the room and the wooden floors lacking their usual shine. And now with the contents of the house in disarray, I purposely turned my eyes toward her personal effects. Her medicines were still laid out on the vanity. Her journal was still tucked under her pillow. If I closed my eyes, I could still smell that curious mix of lemon and cinnamon that had followed my mother around in her final months. What was I going to do? This house was not even mine anymore. I was out of time, dramatically so.

Scrubbing at my wet cheeks with my knuckles, I dug into my purse to pull out the few bills I had left, counting them out. Probably enough for one night at a hotel, but not much more. I shoved them into the traveling bag, adding the wedding photo and my mother’s journal. I leaned down under the bed to pull out my mother’s jewelry box, not surprised to find that it had been raided, probably by my former stepfather. I clutched at my mother’s silver cross around my neck. The funeral director had handed it back to me by this morning before the burial, and really that was the only piece I would have missed. The cross was tiny, half the length of my pinkie, handed down from my grandmother at her death, and now to me. The chain was slim but dropped the cross itself right at the base of my collarbone, resting there coldly but comfortably, as if it had always been so. I shuddered at the thought that my stepfather might have denied me even this tiny memory of my mother.

I slammed the lid of the jewelry box shut and threw it back under the bed, feeling the urge to scream out loud but somehow stifling it and instead leaping to my feet to stalk to my own room.

I was in no way a clotheshorse, so I saved room for some favorite books, a well-worn pair of walking shoes and a traveling coat. I looked around, remembering better times, and had to again fight the urge to scream. The hours I had spent as a child, waiting for her to get home from one of her many jobs, cuddled on her bed wrapped in her oldest shawl and reading whatever newspaper or journal she had brought home from the library for me. How she would carry me from this bed to my own when I fell asleep waiting, and gently kissed my head before pulling the covers up over me. I couldn’t be here any longer. What had made me think I could be here after my mother was gone?

Hearing a raised voice outside, I quickly climbed back out the way I had come.

I was shocked to see my former stepfather shouting at Mrs. Jones, inches from her face. She was silent in her disgust as he accused her of stealing from him and demanded recompense for whatever my mother’s will had promised her. My anger was well stoked by the time I reached her side, as much on behalf of my poor mother as my new guardian, neither of whom deserved this man’s bile. She said not a word to him but extended her hand to me, which I readily took, and, while the neighbors gathered to see what the fuss was about, we headed toward our waiting cab with as much dignity as we could. My former stepfather made the further mistake of reaching out to grab at my shoulder as we had almost gained the sidewalk, and that was when the last astonishing thing happened on that horrible day full of surprises.

Mrs. Jones turned and planted her cane between his legs near the ankles so that his momentum caused him to trip and fall in a cursing heap on the ground behind us. Instead of bolting for the cab, as I thought she would, she stood over him that way, her cold eyes daring him to stand and confront us again. He was a coward to his very soul, though, and gritting his teeth, he just crawled away, hobbling on his injured ankle and grumbling under his breath.

The last of my ties to this city had been cut; this house was no longer my home, the pathetic man crawling away was no longer my stepfather and I was ready to leave all of this behind. I looked expectantly at Mrs. Jones, wondering if it would be difficult to persuade her to let me move to London, a city I had always longed to visit but never dreamed of traveling to. A city that was as far away from my crushing memories as possible.