Josiah's Treasure (33 page)

He’d waited a long time to come to this place, but then he hadn’t found the stomach to visit earlier, to stare at a marble headstone and look for answers.

“Thank you for coming with me, Miss Samuelson,” Daniel said to the woman at his side. “I didn’t know where to look.”

She gave Daniel a brief smile. “You could have asked Sarah to accompany you this morning, once she returned from taking Mrs. McGinnis and Anne to the wharf. She comes up to the cemetery often to visit.”

“She’s upset with me.” More than upset. She’d been rigid with righteous indignation. “She saw me with a reporter yesterday, a man who’s been asking about Josiah and that nuggets rumor. It didn’t look good.”

“I did hear,” she said, her voice gentle with consideration.
Charlotte Samuelson was always considerate and kind, he decided. “I told her not to think you would willingly have anything to do with a man like that.”

“Thank you for defending me.”

“I believe in you, Mr. Cady.” She lifted her pale brows a fraction. “Do you want me to leave you alone with Josiah?” Miss Samuelson understood. Her insightfulness was rather disconcerting, but today, he appreciated it.

“For a minute or two.”

“I shall be right over here. I enjoy reading the headstones. Some folks find that morbid, but I find the practice . . .” She gave a small lift of her thin shoulders. “Comforting.”

Miss Samuelson strolled off, her bright pink skirt belling in the wind swirling over the hilltop.

Daniel stared at the headstone. Below the dates of Josiah’s birth and death, an inscription had been carved into the lustrous white marble.
Beloved Friend.

Beloved friend to whom? Not to him.

He skimmed his hat through his fingers, noticed movement far off to his right. A funeral party was proceeding through the cemetery along one of the narrow gravel lanes, a small knot of folks dressed in black following behind a crape-festooned horse-and-cart, a coffin conspicuous in the bed. They were all men, their dark coats tugged by the wind topping the high ground of Laurel Hill Cemetery and bending the tips of the trees. Possibly a brother or a son among the group, relations who might feel the loss of the individual in that spare wood box as keen as an open wound. A different situation for Josiah, who had gone into the sandy soil on the flank of this mountain without a single member of his family to shed a tear over the dirt.

Daniel clenched his hat brim as the funeral party vanished over a small hillock in the distance.

“Grace loved you until the day she died, Josiah,” he said, thankful Miss Samuelson had moved far enough away to be out
of earshot. Talking to a grave. He’d gone crazy. “She always believed you’d come back. But you didn’t.”

Grief cramped Daniel’s chest. Josiah didn’t deserve his heart-ache. He hadn’t when Daniel had been younger, a miserable boy lonely for his father, and certainly did not now. He had spent hours, countless hours, listening for the sound of Josiah’s gruff laughter in the hallway, watching for the familiar sight of his handwriting on the mail coming to the house, inhaling air in hopes of breathing the sharp sweetness of his cigar. Feeling disappointment over and over again, so often that he couldn’t feel it any longer, numb to the repeated scrapes and stabs to his heart.

I was fourteen, Josiah, a boy on the verge of manhood. And I needed you. Needed a father.

“Beloved Friend.” What a lie.

Why had Josiah never returned? Because of gold? Because California had held so much more appeal than life in Chicago? Because he hadn’t really loved his wife?

Hadn’t loved us?

The carved inscription swam in his vision. Daniel shoved on his hat and drew his gaze off the stone, regarded the ragged lines of tombstones and monoliths climbing the hillsides. There were no answers to his questions, here among the dead.

Miss Samuelson caught his eye and returned. She looked down at the headstone. “He had a small service but he was deeply mourned. Still is deeply mourned by those who were his friends.”

“Who suggested the inscription?” he asked resentfully.

“We all thought it appropriate.” She studied his face. “I hope you come to understand, one day, how wonderful a man Josiah really was. I hope you learn to forgive him.”

She may as well hope he’d suddenly develop amnesia and all those scars on his heart would be forgotten.

“Let me take you home, Miss Samuelson.”

“I am sorry to be leaving you, Miss Sarah, at such a time,” said Mrs. McGinnis, the wind blowing off the bay ruffling the wisps of hair peeping out from her bonnet. Around them, passengers and their companions rushed along, dodging wagons loaded with cargo headed for the warehouses clustered along the wharf. Coal smoke drifted from the steamer at dock, catching in the breeze and swirling away. Stevedores and dock masters shouted above the din of ship’s whistles and the creak of timbers. A cart loaded with mail bags brushed close, forcing Sarah to edge nearer Mrs. McGinnis lest she be swept away in the melee.

“If my eldest sister were still alive, God rest her soul,” the housekeeper was saying, one hand outstretched protectively, shielding Sarah, “she’d be with her bairn at such a time. But as it is . . .”

Sarah squeezed her arm. “Your niece needs you during her lying-in. I’ll be fine here.”

“But the hearing on Monday—”

“Will not be affected by whether or not you’re in San Francisco, Mrs. McGinnis. Besides, Anne will appreciate your company until you disembark at Portland and see her off to Seattle.”

The housekeeper nodded and hugged Sarah briskly, then stepped back. “Tell me again you’ll be fine.”

“I shall.” She dropped a kiss on Mrs. McGinnis’s cheek, causing her to look abashed by the display of affection. “I’ll see you in a couple of weeks. And take care of Anne for me. I think she’s anxious.”

“She’ll be well once she reaches my sister. Besides, hope holds up the head, and that’s what Anne has again—hope.”

“God bless you, Mrs. McGinnis. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“
Wheesht,
lass.” Eyes watering, she snatched up her carpetbag. “Tell that girl and Ah Mong to hurry along. The ship’ll be gone afair that boy brings her belongings.”

“Safe trip.”

Sarah waved until Mrs. McGinnis was swallowed up by the
crowd collected beneath the roofed shed covering the dock. She turned and spotted Ah Mong, a satchel in one hand and a wicker basket in the other, hurrying behind Anne. A few more minutes and Anne would be securely boarded onto the steamer and safe from Frank.

“Thank you,” Sarah said to the boy, taking the basket from him while Anne took hold of the satchel containing items of clothing Minnie and Sarah had been able to lend, as well as a few of her personal belongings Emma had fetched from the Benevolent House. Which hadn’t been much.

Ah Mong inclined his head and returned to the rented trap to wait for Sarah. Sarah found the ticket collector and led Anne along the dock, evading other passengers hurrying for the gangplank.

A sea of ship masts bobbed to their left and their right. Anne eyed the sailing vessels, the seagulls wheeling among the rigging. “I’ve never been on a boat before.”

Sarah rubbed her hand down the coarse sleeve of Anne’s thin wool coat, rummaged this morning from a secondhand clothing shop. Beneath was a new dress Sarah had ordered for her weeks ago, intended for opening day of the studio. A day Anne would never see. Or the other girls, either, thought Sarah broodily. “A steamer is perfectly safe.”

“It might be, Miss Whittier, but Cora’s not the only one who can’t swim.”

She responded to Anne’s slender smile with one of her own. It seemed a million years ago that Cora had fallen into the pond at Golden Gate Park and Daniel had rescued her, ages before Sarah had come to learn that not only was he hard-hearted, he was as false as fool’s gold.

“You’ll arrive in Portland on Tuesday,” said Sarah. “Not too long a journey, and I suspect you’ll never be out of sight of land. Plus, you’ll have Mrs. McGinnis to distract you. The voyage shouldn’t be too difficult, especially for a woman as strong as you are.”

“Not as strong as I wanted to be. I stayed with Frank for too long. Let him tell me what to do, even when I knew it was wrong.” She swallowed, the lace banding her dress collar quivering with the motion. “At least we’re safe from him now.”

We’re safe?
Sarah cocked her head. Had she misunderstood Anne’s words, spoken in a whisper, barely audible above the ruckus of the wharf? She decided she had.

“Here, take this.” Sarah handed her the wicker basket packed with lunch and a few other items of food. “If you find you can’t tolerate the food they serve onboard, Mrs. McGinnis has made certain neither of you will starve. Her sister will collect you when you arrive in Seattle. She sent us a short telegram last night and has agreed to take you on as her housekeeper. I wish the position was a better one, one that could take advantage of your talents. I’m sorry it won’t.”

“I will make it work, Miss Whittier.” Her gaze was steady, her jaw set, refusing to be cowed by the world. No matter how it treated young women alone.

The steamer’s whistle tweeted, a signal that departure time had arrived. Sarah and Anne started for the gangplank, a young man jostling them in his haste not to miss his passage.

“I’ll write,” said Sarah, “after you’re settled, to let you know how the shop fares. I’m sure the other girls will want to give you their news and hear how you’re doing.”

“I’m not as sure as you, but I’ll be glad to hear from you and any of them.” Anne startled Sarah with an embrace, the basket swinging from her elbow knocking against Sarah’s hip. Suddenly, she reached into the deep pocket of her skirt. “Wait! I almost forgot to return the money Mr. Cady loaned me.”

“I’ll repay him for you. Keep that.”

Anne nodded. “Thank you again for everything, Miss Whittier. I will pay you back.”

“There’s no need.” Anne would be better off saving her pennies for her future.

“But I shall. I promise. I have to. You’ve been my salvation.” “Anne.” That was all Sarah could say, her throat tightening around words.

Anne rushed up the short gangplank. When she reached the steamer’s deck, she turned and waved. “Trust in God, miss. He rescued me. He’ll do right for you,” she shouted over another screech of the boat’s whistle. Then she was gone, shouldering her way into the cabin spanning the deck.

Sarah waited, hoping to see either Mrs. McGinnis or Anne’s face appear at one of the windows, but that was the last she saw of the girl. Tears burned Sarah’s throat. Loss . . . she would never get used to the pain of separation, of having to say good-bye. Aunt Eugenie had torn her away from her mother’s grave that stormy, humid Ohio afternoon, her arms groping the empty air for the harsh wooden cross scratched with her family’s names. One of many good-byes she’d been forced to say. Likely, this would not be the last.

She inhaled and turned her face to the breeze, letting the wind dry her eyes. There was no time for tears, not when she needed strength to face her own trials.
Have faith. Trust in God.
How she wished she could.

Squaring her shoulders, Sarah returned to the trap she’d rented to take Anne and Mrs. McGinnis down to the wharf, parked at the edge of the road that fronted the quay.

Ah Mong, straight-backed on the seat, watched Sarah climb up. “They will have a safe trip, Miss Sarah. It is a good day to travel and start a new life.”

The gangplank rattled as it was pulled onto deck, and the ropes tethering the steamer to dock were cast off. “How can you tell that, Ah Mong?”

“My grandfather would say the day is right for such things,” he replied solemnly. Sarah grabbed the side of the seat as he flicked the reins across the horse’s back, spurring the mare forward. “But I would say I trust in your God.”

Thankfully, the remainder of Saturday had passed without hearing either from Daniel or that loathsome reporter. Sarah hid away at the shop, where work could be relied upon to distract her, until it had grown late and she’d had to return home to an empty house. A lonely place without the homey sounds of Mrs. McGinnis clanking pots in the kitchen or humming over the stove, scolding Rufus over some offense. Sarah plucked a hairpin from between her lips. If she lost everything tomorrow, including the house, where would either of them go? Maybe Mrs. McGinnis would return to her niece in Portland or go to her sister’s in Seattle. And she herself would . . .