Josiah's Treasure (24 page)

And who broke mine.

“You are just like a very good son, Ah Mong,” Daniel said, his attention fixed on the road, not really seeing it. The fog was boiling over the western hills, and soon the scenery would be shrouded anyway.

“I try, Mr. Cady. I have no father to honor. I do what I can.”

“Your father has passed away?”

Ah Mong’s eyes shimmered, catching the light from the parlor lamp. “He died in a factory accident. He is with the ancestors now, and I pray to his shrine for courage and strength.” Alarm passed across his face. “Do not tell Mrs. Brentwood, please. She would not like to know about my shrine.”

“I won’t tell her.” Daniel considered him. He had to be the same age as Daniel had been when Josiah had strolled out of the Hunt mansion, never to return. “Your father must have been a good man to have a son care like you do.”
And I envy you.

Ah Mong shook his head, his black braid swishing across his
back. “He was not a good man. He beat me often and lost all our money in the fan-tan parlors in Chinatown. But it is a son’s duty to respect his parents. Confucius teaches that the father conceals the misconduct of the son, and the son conceals the misconduct of the father. Uprightness is to be found when we do this.”

“There is a teaching in our religion that we must honor our mother and our father. It’s a commandment, actually. Not quite the same as this Confucius teaches, but you get the idea.”

“I know it. Miss Charlotte told me that one day.” He blinked, and his eyes freed of their tears. “So we both believe we must honor our fathers, Mr. Cady.”

“I would like to, Ah Mong.” Daniel stretched his legs again, pulled his coat collar up around his neck, seeking warmth. However, an upturned collar couldn’t warm the chill in his heart. “I very much would like to.”

“Y
ou’re a daft laddie.”

Daniel roused from his fitful sleep, his back stiff and his legs tingling. Hidden in the porch shadows, Mrs. McGinnis’s face came into slow focus.

“What time is it?” Daniel asked, rubbing a hand across his face. It had to be early still; the gray fog was heavy on the houses stair-stepped up the street, and the sun was just beginning to tinge the misty sky with orange. Sometime during the night, the quilt he’d seen draped over Ah Mong had ended up on him. He tucked it under his chin and yawned. “It’s really early, Mrs. McGinnis.”

“It’s six in the morn. And afair Miss Sarah has risen, which is the most important thing.”

“How was her night?” he asked, glancing upward toward the second floor, though he could only see a sliver of window casing beyond the porch overhang and he had no idea which room Sarah slept in, anyway.

“She is fast asleep in her bedchamber. Which is in the back and canna be seen from here.” Mrs. McGinnis extended a steaming cup of coffee. “I slipped a wee drop of laudanum in her evening tea.
Nae
near enough to harm her, mind you, but enough to help her rest. Poor lass. So much to fret about.”

Daniel wrapped his fingers around the coffee cup, soaking in the warmth. As he was the cause of much of Sarah’s fretting, the
housekeeper’s generosity surprised him. “Thank you for this. I appreciate the coffee.”

She stood back, drawing her crocheted shawl close around her shoulders. “I’m
nae
being kind to you because I’ve decided you’ve turned into an angel, Mr. Cady, but if you’re willing to brave the San Francisco night air for the sake of Miss Sarah, you canna be all bad.”

“I couldn’t leave Ah Mong out here without assistance.” Propped against the balustrade, the boy snored gently, his head lolling to one side. A meager guard.

Mrs. McGinnis smiled down at him. “He means well, poor laddie. Takes his duty to Miss Sarah seriously.”

“And his promises to my father, as well.”

Even in the shadowy half-light, Daniel could see her expression soften. “Mr. Josiah was a good man.”

How many times could he hear that before he’d stop cringing? Josiah was no more a good man than Daniel was a forgiving son. All those years waiting for a father to return home wouldn’t be so easily forgotten.

“Josiah Cady was a man who abandoned his wife and children. Not so good, to me.” He stated the words like they were unassailable fact. Which they were, as far as he was concerned.

“And do you think that getting hold of his estate will mend the pain in yer heart?” she asked. “We need to seek the riches of God’s grace, Mr. Cady,
nae
the riches of the earth to heal what ails us.”

“I doubt I deserve the former, although the latter will do very well to rectify a whole host of wrongs.”

The dawning light, rosy-golden, revealed her dismay. Daniel supposed she didn’t much care for people who could not understand right from wrong. “You’ll need to be gone afair Miss Sarah discovers you out here. She’ll
nae
welcome your presence.”

“I intend to leave as soon as I finish this coffee.”

“Good.” She reached for the door handle.

“Wait, Mrs. McGinnis,” said Daniel, stopping her. “I want you to know I have decided to invest in the studio.” He did want to prove that he understood right from wrong. At least, in one particular instance. He and his sisters would hardly miss a thousand dollars, and the money would mean a world of difference to Sarah. “Not a lot—I have promises to keep—but enough to help for a while.”

She stared at him a good long time before replying, likely waiting to see if he’d retract the offer. “
Nae
matter how much she might come to need the money, Mr. Cady, she’ll ne’er accept a handout from you. Especially if it’s meant to alleviate your guilt.”

She’d seemed willing enough the other day. “It wouldn’t be a handout. It would be a loan.”

Mrs. McGinnis looked skeptical. “She still might prefer you live with your guilt.”

“She might at that,” he agreed, feeling satisfaction when her lips quirked. Making Mrs. McGinnis smile seemed quite an accomplishment. “Don’t tell her. I want it to be a surprise.”

“
Och
, it’ll be a surprise whether I’m the one who tells her or
nae
.”

Sarah yawned and stretched, working out the kinks in her neck. The sun was finally up, and it cast a hazy glow across the study, across the empty armchair where Josiah had liked to sit and smoke cigars, his glass-fronted bookcases stuffed with books she hadn’t had the heart to pack away. It lit the mediocre painting of San Francisco Bay he’d bought from an itinerant painter, an impetuous act of generosity that always made him smile. Spilled light over Josiah’s desk, fitted with a leather pad, glass paperweight, and silver inkstand topped with a crystal inkwell and blotter as if he might return at any moment. She wished he would return to give her advice, because the sun didn’t cast much light on
the rows and columns of numbers marching across the account book pages. No matter how often she examined them, the figures added up the same.

She kneaded her neck and examined the numbers one more time. Without Mr. Winston’s contribution, which had yet to appear in her bank account even though he’d claimed she would see the money by now, Mr. Samuelson’s loan would be stretched thin. It would barely cover the balance she owed on the lithograph press plus the girls’ wages and next month’s rent. And when she considered she also needed to pay Mrs. McGinnis and the household’s daily expenses . . . Sarah sighed and squeezed the kink that tweaked a spot right above her shoulders. Now that she couldn’t use any proceeds from the sale of the Placerville property, she was doubly desperate to receive Mr. Winston’s donation, or for Mr. Halliday to hand over the money he’d told Lottie he would contribute. The wonders of the Samuelsons’ cook’s berry tarts must have been quickly and conveniently forgotten.

“You never would have let me sign the lease on the storefront without Mr. Winston’s money securely deposited in the bank, would you, Josiah?” she asked of the room, the scent of his cigars clinging to the desk and the bookcases, the armchair and its small round side table.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, Sarah Jane.
She had been so desperate to secure the shop, so perfect in every way, that she had forgotten his best piece of advice. But then, how could either of them have known Daniel would appear and destroy all of her plans like a flood wiping away everything in its path?

She closed the leather-bound book and tried to slide it into the top drawer of the oak desk, but the ledger jammed against an object wedged at the rear. Reaching inside, Sarah pulled out a palm-sized folder of heavy blue paperboard embossed in gold. It was an old tintype of Grace Cady, hidden away. Sarah held it up to the light. Daniel’s mother had posed leaning against a chair, opulent curtains and a potted palm at her back, her hair coiled
over her shoulder. Even in the severe dress she’d chosen for the portrait, she was beautiful, though her expression was filled with a wistfulness, a melancholy that Sarah had never wanted to recognize before. Not from the wife who had loved a man Sarah had idolized. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d caught Josiah staring at the photograph, only to have him stash it away as if ashamed of his sentimentality. Why had he left her? Was the pursuit of gold truly that much more important than being with his wife? And had Daniel inherited not only Josiah’s mannerisms but his father’s weaknesses, as well?

It’s a good thing,
Sarah thought as she ran a fingertip down the length of the paperboard folder,
I haven’t fallen in love with your son, Grace Cady.
Because if she had, she might come to fully comprehend the unhappy yearning in the woman’s eyes. Yet one more time in her life.

“I might not mind if he fell in love with me, however. He might part with enough money to pay some of my bills.” Sarah laughed softly, at both her recent compulsion to frequently talk to herself and at the thought Daniel Cady might have actually meant his tossed-off comment to invest in the studio. She may as well believe in fairy tales.

Sarah stowed the photograph in the desk and fitted the ledger into its spot next to Josiah’s long, flat mahogany box. It would be wonderful if it contained a stockpile of money and resolved her problems—although, she thought cynically, its contents would probably belong to Daniel Cady too. It didn’t matter; Josiah always said the box merely contained old papers he hadn’t bothered to keep in his safe. Its key was missing, and she’d never had the heart to break it open. She’d leave that to Daniel too.

Downstairs, Mrs. McGinnis was flicking a feather duster across the parlor room furniture.

“Miss Sarah, I didna ken you were up already!” the housekeeper declared when she spotted her descending the stairs. “The sun’s barely over the horizon.”

“You didn’t put enough laudanum in my tea to get me to sleep that late,” Sarah said, smiling. “I wanted to go through the accounts. The money Mr. Winston promised me at Josiah’s funeral has yet to put in an appearance. Hopefully Mr. Grant has sold my painting. I could use the cash and soon.”

Mrs. McGinnis tutted and glanced over Sarah’s shoulder at the front door. “Come into the kitchen and have a bite to eat, then. I’ll have some hot coffee for you in a twinkling.”

“You can serve it in the dining room. I haven’t opened yesterday’s mail or finished reading the newspaper. I’m more comfortable at the table.”

The housekeeper huffed what sounded like an exasperated sigh. “If you wish.”

Sarah watched her rush off. “She’s in a strange mood this morning, Rufus.”

The tabby, fixated on something beyond the front door, acknowledged Sarah’s comment with the merest flick of an ear.

“Do you see Ah Mong out there?” Sarah peered through the cut-glass pane, spotting a patch of blue that had to be the boy’s tunic. Shooing Rufus aside, Sarah opened the door. “Did you have a good night, Ah Mong? You should come in and have some breakfast.”

“The house is safe, Miss Sarah.”

“I see that. Thank you.”

He nodded and handed her one of their quilts, the lemon-and-cardinal star-patterned one from the spare bedroom, and a coffee cup.

“I didn’t know you’d taken to drinking coffee, Ah Mong.”

“I do not drink coffee. Mr. Cady left the quilt and the cup. I need to return them to you.”

The cup was still warm, and she could smell the lingering aroma of fresh coffee rising off the china bowl. Sarah stared down at it stupidly, before lifting her head to blink at Ah Mong. “Mr. Cady? What are you talking about?”

The boy buried his arms within the sleeves of his tunic. He looked as though he wished the rest of him could hide there too. “I should not have told you.”

“You must tell me, Ah Mong. I insist.”

“He stayed here last night. With me. More eyes.”

“He did, did he?” After she’d told Daniel not to. The nerve of the man. “Apparently my feelings on this weren’t to be consulted.” Which would also explain Mrs. McGinnis’s earlier peculiar behavior; the cup of coffee hadn’t miraculously appeared on its own.

Sarah flounced out onto the porch and scanned the street. There, almost at the corner, trudged a familiar figure barely visible in the morning mist. Daniel, waving a jaunty hello to the milkman trundling down the road in his wagon. If he’d spotted Daniel lolling on the front porch, he would have delivered to Mrs. Brentwood, along with her morning milk, the best gossip yet.