Secrets of the Heart (31 page)

“I’ll get it, Mom, if you want me to,” said Caleb.

“Lets go to the door together.”

When she opened the door, Caleb said, “Oh, boy! Its Pastor and Mrs. Humbert!”

Kathleen smiled at the couple and welcomed them inside.

She took their coats and hats and said, “Come into the parlor. I’ve got a good fire going.”

Laurie set her soft eyes on Caleb and said, “I’ve sure missed you around our house, Caleb, and so has Mardy.”

“I’ve missed you, too. Is your baby at home with Miss Mardy?”

“Yes. Mardy’s going back home next month. Our house is going to seem empty without her.”

“I miss those Bible stories you used to read to me, too,” Caleb said.

Pastor Humbert twisted one end of his handlebar mustache, and with a twinkle in his eye, said, “I’m glad you liked those Bible stories, Caleb.” Then to Kathleen: “We just wanted to stop by and see if there’s anything we can do for you while Tom is out of town.”

“That’s very nice of you, Pastor. I appreciate it, but Caleb and I are doing fine.” She turned to Laurie. “Mrs. Humbert, I want you to know that I very much appreciate the way you took care of Caleb after Loretta died. Tom speaks often of your kindness.”

“Believe me, it was a pleasure. Caleb is a well-behaved, polite boy. I enjoyed his presence every minute he was in the house.”

The preacher adjusted his position on the love seat and said,
“Mrs. Harned, I had hoped you and Tom would come and visit us at church.”

Kathleen grinned sheepishly. “Well…maybe when Tom gets back. I’ll have to see if he wants to. If he does, we’ll come. I promise.”

T
HE
C
HICAGO POLICEMAN STOOD
in the lavishly decorated parlor of the Stallworth mansion, watching John and Maria as they sat distraught on one of the love seats. Alice Downing, her face deathly pale, sat across from them.

John put his arm around his wife. “We can’t give up hope, Maria,” he said, his voice strained. “They’ve got every available man on the force looking for Meggie right now. It won’t be dark for another two hours.”

“Daylight isn’t going to make any difference if Kathleen has come back and kidnapped her!” Maria said.

John could hear a note of hysteria in her voice. His wife was on the verge of collapse. “Now, dear, how could Kathleen have come into this house and taken Meggie? You know the doors are always locked. And we know we locked them before we left the house this afternoon. It’s as Alice said: Meggie let herself out while Alice was upstairs taking her bath.”

Sergeant Harrington adjusted his gun belt. “That’s what it has to be, Mrs. Stallworth. I checked the latch on the front door, and there’s no question in my mind that a four-year-old child could turn the dead bolt, flip the latch, and go outside. The little tyke must have decided to take a walk.”

Maria’s chin quivered as she looked up at the officer. “But Meggie couldn’t even get her fur-collared coat off the rack in her closet. She’s too short. You heard Alice; the coat’s missing. What else could have happened but that Kathleen somehow sneaked in here and took her away?”

“Well, if she did,” John said, “I’ll see that she rots in prison!”

The brass knocker at the front door rattled.

The sergeant headed for the door. “I’ll get it. It may be they’ve found her.”

Seconds later, two other uniformed men appeared with the sergeant, who was carrying Meggie.

“Oh, thank God!” Maria said.

John helped her to her feet. “Oh, Meggie, where have you been?” Maria continued. “Your grandpa and I have been worried sick, and so has Miss Alice! Where have you been?”

Meggie began to cry. “I was looking for my mommy.”

One of the other officers said, “Meggie was downtown at the intersection of Madison and Western, Mr. and Mrs. Stallworth. A clerk at one of the department stores was on his way home and found her crying. She told the man she was looking for her mommy, so he brought her to the station.”

“Madison and Western!” Alice said. “Mrs. Stallworth, that’s the intersection where Meggie saw Kathleen the day we met you at the store! Meggie and I have passed there dozens of times since, and she always looks at all the people.”

John turned to his granddaughter. “Meggie, how did you get downtown from here?”

“I walked, Grandpa.”

“But how could you possibly have found your way?”

“I know the streets to walk. Miss Alice and me have walked downtown lots of times.”

“That’s right, honey,” Alice said. “You know the way as well as I do.”

Meggie’s face pinched as she said to Maria, “I couldn’t find Mommy, Grandma. Please take me to where my mommy lives. I want to be with her.”

“Meggie, how did you get your coat off the rack in your closet?” John said.

The little girl blinked. “I dragged a chair into my room from
across the hall. I got up on the chair, took my coat down, then dragged the chair back across the hall.”

“Take her to her room and wash her face, Alice,” Maria commanded, suddenly feeling the need to sit down.

The policemen excused themselves.

When the Stallworths were alone, John said, “Maria, I don’t know how you could even
think
that Kathleen would come back here and try to kidnap Meggie.”

Her head came up and her eyes flashed anger. “I wouldn’t put anything past her, John. Something deep inside tells me she’s plotting and planning a way to get Meggie away from us.”

On Wednesday, January 30, Kathleen was sewing a new dress at the kitchen table when she heard the rattle of a wagon beside the house. She opened the back door and saw Tom pulling rein at the small barn out back. She grabbed up her shawl and dashed out to meet him.

“Hello, beautiful!” he called. “Want to hear some good news?”

Kathleen stepped off the porch as he climbed down from the wagon seat. She watched him reach into a coat pocket and hold up something that glittered in the sun.

“Tom! You made a strike!”

“Sure did, sweetheart! A big one!”

She ran to his open arms, and after they had kissed several times, he said, “Let’s go inside where it’s warm. I’ll unhitch the mules in a little while.”

At the kitchen table, Tom took both her hands and said, “Kathleen, I struck gold in a rich vein in the Virginia Mountains about twenty miles north of here. Took me a while, but I found a good one! And only being twenty miles away, I can come home every night!”

“Oh, darling,” she said, her eyes brimming with happy tears, “I’m so glad! So you staked your claim?”

“Sure did. Took care of it at the government office in Reno. I’ll
be going back to start digging hard in a couple of days. I want to take you and Caleb with me so you can see it.”

Kathleen wasn’t even aware of her words when she cried, “Thank God, Tom! Thank God!”

As the warm days of spring came to Nevada, the Harned Lode proved to be even richer than Tom had anticipated. In late February he started hiring a crew, and by the end of March his crew totaled a dozen men. The mine was doing so well he needed a foreman to oversee it. He offered the job to his good friend Hank Mitchell.

Hank could foresee the demonetization of silver because of rich gold veins being found all over the West, and he knew his job with Henry Comstock would be gone before long. Though Tom could not yet pay him what Comstock was paying him, Hank accepted the offer.

One warm afternoon in early April, Kathleen was setting a potted plant on the front porch of the house when she saw Caleb leave his school chums and run toward the house.

“Hi, Mom!” he said as he ran up the steps.

“Hi yourself, honey.” She gathered him close in a big hug and kissed the top of his head. “Caleb, you know what I saw a moment ago when you came into the yard?”

“Huh-uh.”

“The sun on your hair made it look like an angel’s halo.” She kissed the top of his head again. “You’re Mom’s little angel boy!”

Caleb looked up at her, stunned. “Mom…?”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“Did Dad tell you that’s what Mommy called me?”

Kathleen’s face went blank. “No. He never told me anything like that.”

“You didn’t know anything about it?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Well…Mommy told me about my hair looking like a halo in the sunshine, and she kissed my head and called me her little angel boy.”

“Oh, honey, I’m sorry. I had no idea. I didn’t mean to take your mothers place. Really, I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

Caleb shook his head, smiling. “Oh, no! Don’t be sorry.” He hugged her, then looked up into her eyes. “I
want
you to call me your little angel boy, ‘cause—”

“‘Cause why?” Kathleen said, running her fingers through his golden locks.

“‘Cause that means I can call you
Mommy.”

Kathleen stared at him in astonishment, unable to say a word.

“Can I call you Mommy?”

“Oh, Caleb,” she said, taking him into her arms. “You’ve made me so happy! I still wouldn’t ever try to take your real mommy’s place, but it means more to me than I can ever tell you that you want to call me your mommy!”

For the rest of the day, Kathleen rejoiced in her heart that she had gained Caleb’s full trust and love. The knowledge made her miss Meggie even more.

That evening after Kathleen had tucked Caleb into bed and kissed him good-night, she joined Tom at the kitchen table where he was going over his mine records with pencil in hand.

“Darling,” she said, “we’ve never really talked about how much we’ve made since you opened the mine.”

“We’ve done quite well, considering all the expenses. You know, the payroll, the continual need to buy new equipment, royalties to the government…that sort of thing.”

“So how much have we profited after paying for all those things?”

“Up to now, we’ve netted about twenty thousand. I’ve been putting most of it in the bank. The way it’s going, we’ll do a whole lot better than that in the days to come.”

Kathleen nodded. “So how soon would I be able to have my share of the profits?”

Tom laid down his pencil. “Kathleen,” he said in a loving tone, “isn’t it about time you told your husband what it is you need this money for, and how much it has to be?”

She felt a tingle at the back of her neck and licked her lips nervously. “I can’t tell you yet what it’s for, but it has to be at least $30,000.”

Tom’s eyebrows arched. “Thirty thousand? Well, that
is
substantial. But I don’t understand. I’m your husband. We shouldn’t have secrets from each other. Why can’t you tell me what this is all about?”

Kathleen flushed. “I…I just can’t.”

There was a slight edge to Tom’s voice when he said, “Who do you owe, Kathleen? And for what? I’m your husband, and I have a right to know!”

“I don’t owe
anybody
, Tom! Why can’t you trust me? You agreed at the very beginning that if I gave you my five-hundred-dollar nest egg to help stake the claim, I would get my share if the mine paid off. You just said that since we opened the mine we’ve netted $20,000. Shouldn’t $10,000 of that be mine? And you just said we would do better in the days to come. So it shouldn’t be too awfully long till I could have an additional $20,000.”

“Kathleen, it’s not the
amount of
money I’m concerned about, it’s
why you
need it!”

“I can’t tell you! Don’t you understand? I—”

“Mommy, what’s the matter?” came a small voice at the kitchen door. “Dad, why are you arguing with Mommy?”

“And why aren’t you asleep, son?”

“I was. But I heard you and Mommy arguing. Please don’t argue. I want you to love each other.”

Kathleen went to the boy and wrapped her arms around him. “I’m sorry, Caleb. The argument was my fault.”

Tom came over and laid his hand on Caleb’s shoulder. “No, son, it wasn’t her fault. It was mine. I let my temper get the best of me.”

“But what are you arguing about, Dad? Don’t you love each other anymore?”

“Just some things about money, and we shouldn’t have argued about them. And yes, we still love each other. Your mom and I—wait a minute! Did I hear you call her Mommy?”

“Uh-huh. That’s what I call her now, ‘cause she called me her little angel boy.”

Tom looked at Kathleen, who still held the boy close. “You called him your little angel boy?”

“Yes. I had no idea Loretta called him that. I saw the sun make a halo on his head today, and I called him my little angel boy. That was when he said he wanted to call me Mommy.”

When Caleb was back in bed, and Tom and Kathleen were back in the kitchen, he took her in his arms and said, “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

“I’m sorry, too,” she said, caressing his cheek. “I love you, darling. I…I just have to ask you to trust me about this money thing right now. Someday—and I hope it’s soon—when I have the amount I need, I can tell you all about it. Then you’ll understand.”

Tom nodded. “All right. I’ll trust you on it.”

Kathleen raised up on tiptoe and kissed him. “Thank you.”

As time passed the Harned Lode continued to produce more gold, and the personal finances of the mine’s owners increased. Kathleen watched the bank accounts grow, and she knew the day was coming closer when she could return to Chicago.