Memory's Embrace (6 page)

“I’d be honored to accompany you!” mimicked Joel Shiloh furiously.

Tess stiffened. Incredibly enough, she’d forgotten his presence for a moment. Bad planning, for now she was alone with him. “Are you jealous, Mr. Shiloh?” she asked acidly. “If so, I would suggest that you go to church with Mr. Waltam and my aunt.”

He made no response, except for a rude noise that came from low in his throat.

Tess went to her bicycle and grasped the handlebars, ready to go for a Sunday morning ride along the river road. With any luck, she wouldn’t encounter another deluded peddler in her travels.

Joel stopped her with startling ease. “Will you take my picture?”

“What?” She stared at him, wide-eyed. Confused. And wanting more than anything to take Joel Shiloh’s photograph. When he moved on, as peddlers invariably did, she would have the likeness to remember him by.

But why should she want to remember, for heaven’s sake?

“Please?” he prompted, in a disturbingly gruff and humble tone.

“All right,” Tess answered shyly, and then she hurried into the house and up the stairs to her room. Her camera was on the bureau, where she had left it, and the counter indicated that there were still three plates inside.

In the hallway, she was waylaid by a frowning Juniper. “Ain’t you goin’ to hear the preachin’, girl?”

It was almost ten minutes before less managed to escape Juniper and rush down the stairs with her camera. On the porch, she stopped cold, for Joel’s wagon was in the road, hitched and ready to roll. The peddler was bent over, checking the harness.

Somehow, Tess got to the gate; she didn’t remember walking there. Clutching her camera close, she asked, “You’re leaving?” How was it that she could feel such despair when his going away was what she wanted most?

He straightened, fixed his hat in place with one hand, lifted his eyes so that he was looking past Tess, to the roof or the skies or maybe the mountains. “Yes and no,” he answered.

“What do you mean, ‘yes and no’?” Tess demanded. “You’re either leaving or you’re not!”

“I’m going back to my campsite, by the stream,” he replied patiently. “That will be better for all concerned, I think.”

Tess managed to shrug. “Whatever you say.”

“Are you still going to take my picture?”

“If you want me to,” she said. Let him think she didn’t care, one way or the other.

“I want you to,” came the gentle answer, and then
Joel Shiloh took up a pose beside his peddler’s wagon, his gilt-scripted name clearly in view, his hat at a jaunty angle, his lips curved in an almost imperceptible smile.

Tess took careful aim, glad that she could look down through the little window in the top of her camera instead of directly into Joel Shiloh’s knowing blue eyes. She took a picture, removed the photographic plate, and took another, just to be on the safe side.

“Now let me take your picture,” Joel said, striding toward her and helping himself to the camera.

Tess’s throat was constricted, and her eyes were burning a little. She tucked the two plates she’d used into the pocket of her skirt. “Why?” she asked lamely, full of despair because he was going away.

He laughed and plopped his silly bowler hat onto her head, spoiling her carefully upswept and very adult hairdo. “Why not?” he countered.

Tess went to stand beside the wagon, as he had, posing as he had. He laughed again and took the picture, then surrendered the camera to its owner and reclaimed his hat.

They stood still on the sidewalk for some moments, Sunday coming alive, in all its blue-gold April glory, all around them. In the distance, church bells chimed, and the sound broke the spell, causing Joel Shiloh to stiffen and look patently restless.

“That actor—” he began, but his words fell away. He let out a long breath. “I’ll be where I was yesterday,” he finally said. “If you need me, I’ll be there.”

Tess could only nod. There would only be five miles between them, not five hundred. Why did she feel so bereft and broken? She should be happy to be rid of Joel Shiloh, troublesome character that he was.

To her surprise and, if his expression could be believed, to his own, Joel bent and kissed her forehead. And then he was gone, bolting up into the wagon seat, driving off. His voice floated back to her on the April breeze, singing a bawdy song.

Half laughing and half crying, Tess went inside the house, climbed the stairs to her room, and closed the door. She put her camera in its place on the bureau, sat down on her bed, and covered her face with both hands.

At noon, she went downstairs to join Derora, Mr. Waltam, and the other boarders for lunch. All except Mr. Wilcox had been to church and were respectably circumspect. Tess was grateful for that, because the last thing she wanted to do was make conversation.

Among other things, Derora Beauchamp prided herself on her modern, forthright opinions and her knowledge of current affairs. For this reason, she took weekly newspapers from Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco, reserving Sunday afternoon for the pleasant task of reading each tabloid from beginning to end.

Today, however, she was somewhat distracted. Roderick had gone back to the ship, to rest up, he said, for tonight’s performance.

Settling back into the rumpled satin pillows, Derora allowed herself a contented smile. After last night, she could believe that the dear lad needed a rest. She needed one herself.

But good habits are nothing if they are not studiously maintained, she reflected, opening the first newspaper that came to hand,
The Seattle Times
, with a determined flip of the pages.

The advertisement was there, as always. Until now, Derora had always skimmed it to see if any changes had been made and then gone on.

But this time the thing took up a half-page—they had to be rich, those Corbins—and a sketch was included. Derora sat up straight, her mouth dropping open, just for a moment, in surprise. The peddler—this sketch was of the peddler, Joel Shiloh!

“No,” said Derora, in disbelief, even as she studied the drawing. Same strong jawline and square chin, same direct gaze and straight nose. The hair was shorter—

The bold-faced print above the likeness drew Derora’s attention, she read it with a rising sense of excitement.

Have You Seen This Man? Five Thousand Dollar Reward Willingly Paid. Contact Adam Corbin Port Hastings, Washington.

“Port Hastings,” Derora repeated to herself, and then she studied the sketch again.
Was
this a picture of the peddler who called himself Joel Shiloh or wasn’t it? The resemblance was striking, but it could be only that, a resemblance.

She got her spectacles out of the drawer in her bedside table and put them on. “My goodness,” she muttered, staring at the drawing in the newspaper and thinking of the places five thousand dollars could take her, all of them far from plodding Simpkinsville, thank you very much. “If you’re not Mr. Joel Shiloh, you certainly should be,” she told the newsprint image.

Derora closed the newspaper and folded it neatly. Then she removed her spectacles and hid them away again, in the depths of the drawer. Contact Adam Corbin, in Port Hastings, the advertisement had said. But how? It was Sunday and the telegraph office would be closed ….

She rose from the bed, dressed, and groomed her hair. Andrew McMichaels, the telegraph operator at Western Union, was a friend of hers. Surely she could prevail upon him to send a wire; this was an emergency situation, after all.

What if she were wrong, though? What if Joel Shiloh were not the person this Adam Corbin man was seeking?

Derora unfolded the newspaper again, turned to the advertisement, and studied it. Then, on a hunch, she searched through the Portland paper, too. The advertisement was there, but it gave no further information, for it was an exact duplicate. In
The San Francisco Chronicle
, however, she found a slight variation in copy. The blurb above the sketch read:

Missing. Keith Corbin. Likeness Below.

And under the image—Lord, but he did look like Joel Shiloh—was the same offer of a reward.

Derora sat down at her dressing table, staring at her own image in the mirror but not seeing it. Five thousand dollars, she thought. Five thousand beautiful dollars.

The decision was made. She would wire Port Hastings, that very night. If she was wrong, if this peddler was not Keith Corbin, well, anyone could make a
mistake. She would have lost nothing but the cost of sending a single wire. Time was of the essence—how long would it be before someone else noticed the similarities between the drawing and Joel Shiloh? Suppose someone beat her to that reward?

Yes, indeed, time was of the essence.

Chapter Four

E
MMA LOOKED VERY PLEASED
. “T
ESS
, P
APA HAS ALREADY
developed your photographs,” she said, scurrying along beside her friend as she wheeled her bicycle into the little stable behind Derora’s house. “I have them right here, in my bag!”

Tess leaned the bicycle against an inside wall and tossed her head, so that her hair flew back over her shoulders. After eating lunch, she had taken the photographic plates to Mr. Hamilton, Emma’s father, and ’ asked him to process them. Then, because she couldn’t bear to sit still, she had pedaled off into the countryside. Knowing where Joel Shiloh was camped, she had, of course, ridden in quite the opposite direction.

“Let’s see them,” she said casually, walking back out of the rarely used stable—Derora did not own a horse or carriage—and into the late afternoon sunshine.

Emma was eager to hand the four-by-five-inch photographs over and obviously disappointed in the idle manner in which Tess flipped through them. There was a lilac bush, just blooming. There was a riverboat, passing blurrily by on the Columbia. There was Mrs. Swendhagen’s hopelessly ugly baby. There was Tess, herself, standing in front of the peddler’s wagon, his hat on her head, an idiotic smile on her lips.

And there was Joel. Only one of the two plates she had used had turned out, but the likeness was a good one, clear and fairly pulsing with the distinct personality of that difficult, audacious, and completely wonderful man.

“Tess?” Emma whispered. “Is something wrong?”

Tess could not raise her head, but she did manage to shake it. “No. No, nothing is wrong.”

Emma was instantly mollified, for once. “I’ve got a surprise for you, Tess,” she said, with proper mystery and relish. “Guess what it is!”

Tess tucked the photographs carefully into her skirt pocket and lifted her head, meeting Emma’s eyes, praying that her friend would not notice the shimmering mist in her own. “You know I hate to guess,” she answered. “Tell me!”

Emma beamed. “Tickets! Tess, I have tickets to the show on the riverboat—Mr. Roderick Waltam gave them to me himself!” She paused, considering, her eyes shining. “I think he likes me,” she added, at last, in a shy voice.

Tess linked her arm through Emma’s and ushered her
toward the kitchen door, failing to mention that Mr. Roderick Waltam had spent the night with Derora.

“Let’s have some teacakes—there are some left from last night, I thi’nk. When is this show, anyway?”

“Why, it’s tonight!” cried Emma, all ashiver at the very prospect. “It’s going to be spectacular, Tess! You will go with me, won’t you? Please?”

For once, Juniper was not in the kitchen. Tess put on a pot of coffee and, as Emma settled herself at the round table with its checkered cloth, took the remaining teacakes from a tin box on the counter. “Of course I will. What kind of show is it, Emma? A play? A musical review?”

Emma reddened a little and lowered her voice to a confidential whisper. “It’s burlesque,” she admitted. “I told Mama and Papa it was a rendition of
Macbeth
—I do hope neither of them see the bills the company has been posting around town.”

Standing at the stove, Tess looked at her friend and shook her head. “Emma Hamilton, you amaze me sometimes. Lying to your mother and father! It’s a wonder you haven’t been sent off to boarding school long before this.”

Emma shifted in her chair, her plump little body stiff with determined defiance. “Are you going with me or not?” she demanded.

Tess retorted with a question of her own. “Don’t people take their clothes off in burlesque?”

“I don’t know,” Emma answered, with a converse sort of certainty, “but I surely intend to find out.”

“Your parents will be furious!”

Emma shrugged. “For an hour, a day, a week. But
I’ll remember seeing a show on a real riverboat all my life! No matter what they do to me, it’ll be worth it!”

The coffee came to a boil, and Tess reached for a potholder before grasping the handle, filling a cup for Emma and one for herself. In a way, she agreed with her friend—interesting experiences were rare enough in Simpkinsville, and something as wondrous as a professional burlesque show would probably be well worth the average punishment.

“I told Mama I’d be spending the night here,” Emma imparted, as she was about to leave. “That’s all right, isn’t it?”

Tess nodded. Derora would not care, as long as she was up and about her chores first thing the next morning. Her only reservation was that Roderick might spend the night again and shatter the romantic fancies Emma was no doubt entertaining.

“I’ll bring my things over after supper, then,” Emma said, again speaking in a conspiratorial whisper. “The show begins at eight.”

“Eight,” confirmed Tess, hiding a smile. When the door closed behind her friend, she immediately plunged a hand into her pocket and drew out the photographs. Laying the one of Joel Shiloh on the table before her, she cupped her chin in her hands and tried to will herself into it. She would travel with him, as his wife, selling medicines from door to door, farm to farm, lumbercamp to lumbercamp. They would have a cabin for winter, a cabin with gingham curtains at the windows. And perhaps a plump baby would play on the hearth ….

“You’re as bad as Emma,” Tess scolded herself
aloud, putting the photograph back into her pocket and standing up. Full of silly dreams, that’s what she was. And the reality was that Joel Shiloh would go away and she would stay here, dusting and cooking and changing bed linens. Occasionally she would hear a lecture. She would take her photographs and ride her bicycle—dear Lord, she would go mad if she couldn’t do those things—and eventually she would be married, probably to an ordinary, hardworking man like Mr. Wilcox, the boarder who worked in the sawmill.