The Rich Shall Inherit (8 page)

A woman had her own weapons of revenge, Margaret had thought icily as she walked back across the room and lay down again beside her husband. And as she had watched the first light of dawn streak through the gap in the gold velvet curtains, she had known she would use them.

From then on Jeb spent most of his time away from home. Margaret didn’t know where he went, or with whom, and she never asked.
But when he was home, he never let a day go by without claiming his rights as a husband.

As the years passed, Rosalia Konstant wondered how Margaret put up with things the way they were between her and Jeb. “He’s here one day and gone the next,” she said angrily to Nik, “back to his real life—gambling and running around with fancy women in San Francisco.”

Nik shrugged. “He married Margaret for the wrong reasons,” he said, “and when he didn’t get the child he wanted, he lost interest, the way he always does.”

To make up for Jeb’s long absences, he and Rosalia went out of their way to be kind to Margaret, but their home was always filled with noisy, cheerful Abrego relatives and it only seemed to make the contrast with Margaret’s big lonely house worse. They watched her withdraw more and more into herself, filling in her days by creating a beautiful garden.

Tall locust trees now provided shade in the middle of her spacious lawns, and the drive to both the Mallory and the Konstant houses was lined with beautiful young poplars that were a marvel of delicate greenness in the summer and a brassy gold in the autumn. Each year, at the first snap of cold they shed every leaf in a single shudder, leaving the trees mere black naked skeletons amid their fallen golden glory.

But what Margaret loved more than the bright-blossomed hibiscus, or the graceful oleanders and the enormous heavy-scented English roses, were the poppies. Every summer, the field behind the house changed from a bright spring green to a mass of silvery leaves, and then into a sea of trembling scarlet blooms. It was like a billowing red carpet with here and there a patch of deep blue cornflowers for accent. She would sit alone on her verandah on the long summer evenings, just drinking in their transient beauty—for they lasted only a few days before the wind snatched their petals and scattered them, like confetti, over the hill.

Rosalia hardly dared tell Margaret when, in November 1879; she knew that she was pregnant again. Greg was already almost seven years old and she and Nik had prayed so long for a second baby, she was just bubbling with happiness. But when she finally did tell Margaret, she was stunned by her reply.

“As a matter of fact,” Margaret said, casting her eyes down and blushing modestly, “Jeb and I are going to have a baby too—and about the same time as yours.”

Things were different after that. Jeb sent crateloads of nursery furniture from smart San Francisco emporiums, along with an
enormous rocking horse and toys of every description. He came home more frequently, and they noticed how considerate he was to Margaret, treating her tenderly, although he never kissed her or made any gesture of affection. And when Jeb was away, Margaret would chatter on about him and the baby; it was always “Jeb this” and “Jeb that” … as though they were quite a normal married couple.

Rosalia’s daughter was born on the first of June, 1880. It was an easy birth and the baby had white-blond hair and eyes even bluer than her father’s. She was baptized Angel in remembrance of the Russian town of Archangel, where Nik had been born; and Irina after his mother and Ampara for Rosalia’s mother … Angel Irina Ampara Konstant.

When Margaret went into labor two weeks later, Jeb was as nervous as a cat. It was a humid June day and the sun boiled a dark, sullen red in the leaden sky as he paced the verandah, wincing as Margaret’s helpless screams split the stormy stillness. He raged angrily at the doctor for letting her suffer and yelled at the midwife to hurry things up, terrified his son might be damaged by such a difficult birth. He sweated and stormed and prayed until, after eighteen hours of labor, the child was born. “A beautiful little girl,” the doctor told him wearily. “You’re a lucky man, Mr. Mallory, your wife had a very difficult time.”

Without a word to Margaret, Jeb stalked across the bedroom and looked at the child in the crib. His hands were clenched into tight fists as he stared at the red crumpled creature he had been so sure would be a son … why, he’d even chosen the names—James Rogan Fitzgerald Mallory, after his grandfather, his father, and his mother….

Silently, he walked over to the bed and kissed his wife on the cheek. But Margaret read the bitter disappointment in his eyes and knew that to him, she was a failure.

“You will be all right,” he said stiffly, “Dr. Svensen assured me. Are you in pain, or uncomfortable?”

Margaret shook her head, closing her eyes, fighting back the tears. “I got this for you, a present …” he said, thrusting a sapphire brooch at her, “for the birth ….” Abruptly he walked back to the crib. The baby looked quite anonymous to him; she might have been anybody’s child. He felt nothing—no emotion, no bonding with the tiny creature he had created.

The storm broke suddenly, and as thunder pealed across the mountains he stared blankly out of the window.

The rain fell in a torrent, turning the bright hill of poppies into a rippling scarlet and a silver stream. “We must give her a name,” Margaret said tiredly.

Jeb shrugged, his eyes on the hill. “Call her Poppy,” he said carelessly as he headed for the door. At dawn he left for San Francisco without saying good-bye.

A few days later Margaret lay on a chaise longue on the verandah with her baby in the crib beside her. Nik and Rosalia had been to see her, and though she’d made excuses for Jeb, she could tell they hadn’t believed her. “I know he wanted a boy,” Rosalia had whispered before she left, “are you sure he is happy—that everything is all right?”

“He adores the child,” she’d lied, “why, he even decided her name.”

“But why no family names, no remembrances?” Rosalia had asked, puzzled.

Margaret managed a smile. “You know Jeb, he’s a man of the moment—he named her for the field of California poppies out there.”

Though the doctors had warned her she shouldn’t yet be out of bed, she felt much stronger and with a sudden longing to feel the sun warm on her skin, she picked up her baby and walked slowly across the smooth lawns to the foot of the hill.

Poppy lay quietly in her arms, gazing around her with wide, all-seeing bright blue eyes as Margaret waded knee-deep through the blossoms. With a feeling of pity she knelt among the flowers, holding out her child so that she might see them. “Look, little one,” she murmured, “just look at the beauty of these California flowers—and know why your father named you for them. See how the petals dance on the breeze—like a host of scarlet butterflies.” She held the child forward so that she might peer into the wondrous purple-black heart of the delicate flower. “Always remember this, my little one, your father named you for their beauty.”

Lifting her head, she searched the land around her—all of it and beyond was owned by her husband and his partner. “And this will be yours, too, someday—all this wonderful, rich land,” she murmured, but the baby was still staring wide-eyed at the flowers, seeming absorbed in the colors and the scent.

1880, CALIFORNIA

Rosalia glanced sadly over her shoulder as she drove away from the Mallory House. The shades were drawn and the glittering windowpanes reflected only a blankness. There were no dogs lying lazily on the porch, no cats playing by the kitchen door, no mares with their foals grazing in the paddock as there were at her own home. And there was no baby lying in her bassinet taking the afternoon sun.

Whenever she visited Margaret, the drawing room would be neat and shiny, the heavy gold brocade curtains hanging half closed in pristine folds. There were never any books or journals scattered about and no children’s toys littered the beautiful Turkish rug. The plump, overstuffed sofas bore no imprint where someone might recently have sat, and there was not even the sound of a buzzing fly.

It looked empty, Rosalia thought with a shudder, like a house no one had lived in for years. She flicked her little silver-handled whip, urging the horse into a trot, eager to leave it, and Margaret, behind.

Heaven knew, she’d tried her best to penetrate the defensive shell that Margaret had drawn around her, but she firmly refused to acknowledge the fact that Jeb had left her. He hadn’t been home since Poppy was born six months ago, and yet she still talked about him as though he might return home tomorrow or next week, playing out the charade that everything was quite normal. “Jeb just felt the need to travel for a while,” she’d said, fending off Rosalia’s well-meaning queries as to his whereabouts. “He’s always been a traveling sort of man.” And she had poured
tea from the heavy silver pot into fragile china cups as calmly as if she believed her own words.

Nik had told her this morning that Jeb’s house on Russian Hill in San Francisco was still shuttered and that only the caretaker remained in residence in the basement. He’d also said that the lawyers had received a telegraph from Monte Carlo in France, commanding them to deposit a further substantial sum into Mrs. Mallory’s household account. So at least Jeb was not neglecting his
financial
responsibilities.

Today Rosalia had deliberately asked Margaret if she’d had any news of Jeb, wondering if she would mention the money.

“Why, yes, of course. I almost forgot. I had such a nice letter from him, quite a long letter—from Monte Carlo in France. It sounds most exciting there.” Margaret’s voice had risen to a nervous pitch and she was so obviously lying that Rosalia had felt sorry for her. “Jeb is such a good letter writer, he has quite a way with words, you know. I almost felt I was there with him.”

“He’ll have seen no more of the sights than you or I,” she’d retorted vehemently. “Gambling! That’s what Jeb will be doing in Monte Carlo!”

Margaret’s chin had tilted proudly. “Maybe,” she had said softly, “but he still takes good care of me.”

Rosalia’s big brown eyes had filled with compassion. Margaret looked so tired and worn. Her rich red hair had lost its luster and her skin was translucently pale. She looked like a woman who didn’t sleep nights, a woman who tossed and turned, tortured by her memories. And yet there was a look of shrewd patience in her eyes that somehow gave Rosalia the impression that she might also be a woman waiting for vengeance.

If it wasn’t for the child, she knew she couldn’t have forced herself to keep up her weekly visits. Margaret never seemed pleased to see her and it would have been so much easier just to let it slide, but as Jeb’s friend and partner, Nik felt responsible for her and the child. And even though Margaret might be repressing her hate for the father, there was no mistaking she loved her daughter.

Rosalia thought that although Poppy couldn’t strictly be called a beauty like her daughter, Angel, she had her own pixieish charm. She had a shock of red hair and her father’s eyes, bright blue and alert and with a charming upward tilt at the corners. Still, it was one thing for Margaret to pretend that nothing was wrong and choose to live the life of a recluse, but quite another
to submit her child to such loneliness. Why, she wouldn’t even let Poppy come to visit with Angel.

The sandy lane dropped from the brow of the hill and the shining red-tiled roofs of her own charming hacienda came into view. Sensing home, the pony pulled on the shafts, eager for the treat of oats he knew awaited him and Rosalia’s spirits lifted, too, as she thought of her family and the love and security of her own home. Leaving the Mallory House was like being released from prison, she thought guiltily, because no matter how hard she tried, she still couldn’t find it in her heart to
love
Margaret.

The unseasonal warm weather persisted into December, bringing with it a plague of flies that swarmed around the cattle and the horses, and found their way in the house, buzzing around the kitchen despite the bright Mexican bead door-curtain that rattled in the dry, gusty wind. For the first time Rosalia was glad that young Greg had been sent away to the academy at San Mateo; he was well out of this dusty, disease-carrying heat. She kept Angel in the nursery, away from the hot wind and the marauding flies, and she neglected her usual visits to the Mallory House.

A few weeks later, the Mallorys’ old Indian arrived on their doorstep at dawn. He lived in the original adobe house on the Rancho Santa Vittoria and had been Jeb’s cook and caretaker from the very beginning. He had walked the fifteen miles barefoot with his old striped serape wrapped around his face to keep out the dust. The Konstants’ housekeeper, Inez, was already in the kitchen tending the massive iron stove, and she stared at him contemptuously when he demanded she wake the Señor and Señora Konstant.

“The Señor is already up on the high pasture,” she said, affronted by his cheek at asking such a thing, “and the Señora needs her rest.”

“Wake your mistress.”
The Indian’s faded eyes gleamed maniacally as he stepped closer to her.

Fat old Inez backed away nervously. “I wake the Señora now,” she gasped, racing for the stairs as fast as her plump thighs would allow.

Rosalia sat bolt upright as Inez shook her. “Is it the baby?” she cried, leaping from the bed and rushing to the door. “Has something happened?”

“No, no, Señor, is not the baby. Is the Mallorys’ old Indian. He is here, in the kitchen. He says he must see you. I didn’t know
what to do.” She twisted her hands nervously into her clean white apron, looking near to tears.

Pulling on a robe, Rosalia ran down the stairs to the kitchen. “What is it?” she demanded anxiously.

“Missus got sick two days ago,” the Indian told her gravely. “She said she all right but I have seen this sickness before. Mr. Jeb’s child should not be there. It is dangerous.”

Rosalia’s face paled. “How sick is Mrs. Mallory?”

“The sickness got worse quickly. Missus die last night. But Mr. Jeb’s child will not die. I have brought her to you.”