Poppy: Bride of Alaska (American Mail-Order Bride 49) (9 page)

“So you stayed in touch with him over the years?” Poppy asked.
 

Matthew was still too stunned to ask questions. Thank goodness she tagged along.

“Oh,
da.
Caleb invite me to invest with him. I no have much money then, but I send him everything. Over many investments and many years, we make good money.”

“Did you live here all that time?”

Vinchenko shrugged noncommittally.
 

“Yes and no, pretty lady. My brother own dis store since Sitka was Russian territory. When America took over, we did not leave with our Russian brothers and sisters. Became American citizens. He stayed, married Tlingit. I…roamed. Saw world with money made with Caleb. But I always come home.”

“If you were such close friends with my father, then why did he say you embezzled all our money?”
 

He couldn’t stand beating around the bush any longer. He needed answers. Vinchenko’s lips drew into a grim frown.
 

“Hard to tell your son you did bad thing. He knew I never speak to him again. Easy to blame me.”

“Why?” Poppy asked. “Why would you never speak to him again?”

The man sniffled, as if he were holding back tears. This dug into Matthew’s soul more than any words ever could. His father had done something so egregious, so terrible, that it made a fierce Russian cry. Matthew almost didn’t want to hear the answer but his legs didn’t seem inclined to obey his brain’s command to walk out of the room.

“Our last investment. We always decide together. If one of us no like investment, we look for different one. But Caleb desperate. He start gambling again. Lost all his money, except investment fund.”

The air nearly shimmered with tension. His parents had always been devout Methodists, and wouldn’t allow so much as a pair of dice in their home. To hear that his father was a degenerate gambler flipped Matthew’s world upside down.

“It was solid investment, he tell me. Sure thing. But it smell funny to me, so I say
‘Nyet,
find something else.’ Then my brother die, and I must return from traveling California to take over store and raise Alexander.”

At Poppy’s muffled gasp, Vinchenko smiled, patting her knee.
 

“Very sad, but my brother was much older. He had good life. Three pretty wives. Last one, young Tlingit, died in childbirth. Yury raise boy well, as you see.”

He waved a hand in the direction his nephew had run, his smile broadening with love.
 

“Was last I hear from Caleb for one year. Then letter come dis summer. He say he invested anyway and lost all. But I smart, too. Put away much of my earnings, only spending on travel. Caleb know this. Tells me about his trouble. Can you believe, he ask for more money? I wrote back on that same letter, telling him…well, I cannot say in front of pretty lady. So, you see? Easy to blame me.”

Everything he said rang true. That itch of unease he’d always felt over his father’s story, the details that never added up — they were warning bells that he’d ignored, blind to his own father’s true nature.

The ball of hate Matthew had been carrying in his stomach switched directions like a weathervane, spinning around toward Boston. How many years had he spent trying to earn his father’s admiration? All his life, really. This quest for justice had been yet another attempt. What a cruel irony that, in finding Vinchenko, any scrap of respect he had for his father was destroyed.

* ~ * ~ *

Mr. Vinchenko poured Matthew another vodka and gave Poppy a questioning look. She shook her head. Her father’s alcohol-fueled rages made her wary of the stuff, but she hadn’t wanted to insult the man by refusing his first offering. Her Slavic neighbors had taught her many things about their culture, including never to refuse someone’s first offer of vodka, even if it was just a tiny splash barely big enough for a child to swallow.

Matthew’s hand shook as he accepted the drink, but this time he didn’t cough when he shot it back.
 

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Vinchenko,” he finally said, his voice strained but strong as he stood.
 

“Vladimir, Matthew. You know me for long time. Please come see me again. You, too, pretty lady.”

“Please, call me Poppy.”
 

“
Spasibo,
Poopy.”

Despite her concern for Matthew, she couldn’t help laughing at how he mangled her name.
 

“You’re welcome, Vladimir.”

Outside, a light snow drifted down from quickly darkening skies. It couldn’t be any later than three, yet twilight was approaching. Poppy pulled her new coat tight under her chin, glancing up at Matthew as they returned to the carriage.
 

His coat flapped open, snowflakes speckling his clothes. He seemed oblivious to the cold. Not hard to understand why. In just a few minutes, his world had shifted on its axis, turning him from a wealthy doctor who would have his fortune back within days to a well-educated pauper stuck in a place he didn’t want to be.

“I know how you’re feeling, Matthew,” she said as he jiggled the reins to get the horses moving, ignoring her comment. He didn’t turn the carriage around to go back to the school. Instead he carried on down the road in the direction of the wharf.

“I really do. I know you feel like you’re dirt poor but you don’t really have any idea what that means. I do. I came from less than nothing and I clawed my way out of it, working fourteen-hour days from the age of fifteen. By some miracle, I managed to advance to lead seamstress. I shared an apartment that was more luxurious than any of my tenement neighbors could ever imagine, though I suppose you would have thought it unfit for animals.”

He shot a glance at her before returning his gaze to the street in front of them. On the left, packed along the shoreline, sat the homes of the Rancherie. Hardly a soul could be seen outside, but smoke billowed from most of the chimneys.
 

“See those houses, Matthew? When I was a child, I would have thought I’d died and gone to heaven if we lived in such a spacious home. When the mill burned down, I lost everything. I had to move back to my parents’ one-room flat, with no hope for ever getting out again. So trust me, I know what it’s like to lose everything. But then I replied to your letter and my whole world changed…for the better, in case you were wondering.”

Not so much as a smile from him. They rode in silence until they reached the wharf, where Matthew pulled the horses to a stop. Men trudged up and down the dock, putting away the day’s fishing gear, but no steamer bobbed merrily in the bay. There wouldn’t be another for a month
.
 

Her fingers burned with the cold but she didn’t want to disturb Matthew’s thoughts. He’d learned a great deal of ugly information about his family today, and the least she could do was give him time to think.

“What am I supposed to do now?” he mumbled to himself, vapor rising from his lips. “I thought I’d be on the next ship out of here, but I don’t have enough money to buy a pair of gloves, much less a steamer ticket. And even if I did, where would I go? Home? I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive my father for what he’s done. Anyone I counted as a friend six months ago has all but cast me aside already. What am I supposed to do?”

He wasn’t really asking her opinion, merely voicing his own fractured thoughts, but she answered anyway.
 

“You do what you have to do, Matthew. Right now, that means turning this rig around and returning to the school before dark falls completely. We’ll figure out the rest later.”

He tipped his head in her direction, catching her gaze. She would give anything to erase the pain of betrayal she saw there.
 

“We?”

“We’re in this together now, I suppose. You know my secrets, I know yours. We can’t hurt each other anymore, so we might as well help each other.”

“You mean like…friends?”

Poppy shrugged as if she didn’t care, but the word tasted like warm chocolate on her tongue.
 

“Friends.”

One month later.

“Charlie, it’s your turn.” Poppy held out a piece of chalk to a Tlingit boy of about eight in the front row.
 

The boy, one of the two sour-faced children she’d seen on her first day in Sitka, sat with crossed arms and wore a frightful scowl, as usual.
 

“Name not ‘Charlie’.”

Poppy sighed. Over the last month, she’d discovered that teaching really wasn’t all that hard, especially since the school provided a very strict curriculum to follow, but handling stubborn children had become exhausting. Most had warmed to her very quickly — even if they mostly called her ‘missy’ instead of ‘Mrs. Turner’ — but a few seemed to go out of their way to be defiant

‘Charlie’ was the hardest nut to crack, by far. He insisted on using his Tlingit name, and refused to participate in class unless he was allowed to use it. Poppy thought that was quite reasonable, but Mrs. Austin was just as insistent that all children be given American names.
 

“We want them to have the best opportunities available to them when they’re grown,” she’d told Poppy on her first day teaching. “How many Presidents do you know with the name Skookumchuck or whatever nonsense they come up with?”

Poppy understood the reasoning, but it still didn’t settle well with her. How would Mrs. Austin like it if she was told her name was suddenly no good and she would now be known as Popcorn Cocoa Cup? She’d probably be just as stubborn as little ‘Charlie’.
 

Despite her supervisor’s stern warnings that these children would run roughshod all over her if she didn’t follow every rule to the letter, Poppy had been accepted by them with open arms — especially when she started giving them hugs every morning when they filtered into her small classroom. Yet another thing that Mrs. Austin disapproved of.
 

At night, when he was readying his sleeping palette they hid under the bed, Matthew would warn her to watch her step because they couldn’t risk being kicked out of the school.
 

“The only way I’ll ever get out of this miserable shanty town is this job, so please don’t ruffle too many feathers,” he’d sniped.
 

But she’d already broken one rule — probably more — so what was the harm in defying another? If Matthew didn’t want to stay in this beautiful place, that was his problem. Kneeling in front of the boy she knew as Charlie, she looked deep into his coal black eyes.
 

“Okay, what’s your name?”

“Kalemste.” He puffed out his chest with pride and took on a haughty expression.

“Please, say it again slowly so I can learn it.”

His expression was wary, but he repeated his name more slowly. Poppy gave him a wink and handed him the chalk.

“Kalemste, it’s your turn.”

He blinked up at her in surprise, then snatched the chalk from her hand and ran up to the blackboard, but not before she caught his smile — the first she’d ever seen from him. He worked out one of the math problems she’d written, then turned to the class with a grin.

“Very good, Kalemste, you may take your seat. Who’s next?”

Every hand in the room shot up. Trying not to laugh at their unexpected enthusiasm, she called on ‘Mary’ next. The little girl, also around eight but so slight she looked no more than six, approached Poppy with a shy smile.

“My name is Tonkva, missy.”
 

And so went the rest of the day, children volunteering to work a problem and Poppy learning their Tlingit names. It took a little practice, and more than a few reminders, but by the time the bell chimed to call everyone to their afternoon chores, Poppy had a firm handle on everyone’s real names.
 

As they all bundled up in the coats, mittens and hats. All except one, that is.
 

“Kalemste, where’s your hat? You can’t go out there without it. It’s snowing.”

The boy wouldn’t meet her gaze but hung back as his classmates filtered out, casting quick glances his way. Something was going on, and she was the only one who didn’t know. That was about to change.

“Kalemste, please come here.”

The boy approached, his round face cast down, staring at his feet as he shuffled over to her. Kneeling down again, she tucked a finger under his chin and lifted it till he had no choice but to meet her gaze. Once again, he looked at her with wary, untrusting eyes that broke her heart.

“Can you tell me where your hat is? Please don’t lie.”

His coal black eyes narrowed to slits.
 

“I no lie. Never. That why I no like ‘Charlie’. That lie.”

What a smart little boy.
 

“You’re right, Kalemste. That is a lie, isn’t it? So tell me what happened to your hat.”

He glanced to the left, then took a deep breath.
 

“I give to brother.”

How puzzling. All students received the same set of clothes when they were enrolled in the school.
 

“What happened to your brother’s hat?”

“He no have one. He at Rancherie. He need. I give.” Kalemste squared his shoulders defiantly, expecting punishment for his admission of helping his brother.
 

Poppy’s heart pinched that he thought she would punish him for such a thing. If there was anyone who knew what it was like to be bitterly cold, it was her. One particularly fierce winter, her father had thrown a liquor bottle at her mother but missed and broke a pane in their sole window. Ma tried everything to patch it up but nothing could stop the biting wind that blew that winter. What she wouldn’t have given for a nice wool hat.

“That was very kind of you, Kalemste, but you know you’re not supposed to leave the grounds, right?”

He just shrugged and looked away, no doubt expecting a beating, or at least a scolding. Poppy didn’t have the heart to do anything but feel sorry for the boy who was forbidden from seeing his family. As poor and ‘uncivilized’ as they were, they were still his family.