This Golden Land (55 page)

     Alice was standing near the entrance, chatting with friends, when she saw Hannah retrieve her cape and leave with Dr. Iverson. She watched the carriage drive off, then she turned her attention to the crowded lobby, where she saw Neal Scott at the far end, surrounded by well-wishers and people with questions about his pictures.

     Then he did a curious thing. Holding up his hand, he said something to Blanche, and left the group to stride to a plain door that led off one side of the hotel registration desk. A sign on the door said, "Private." Alice watched as Neal went in and emerged a moment later, returning to the table where the auction bids were being taken.

     Alice returned her attention to the plain door and gave it some thought. What was behind the door, and what had it to do with Mr. Scott?

     Excusing herself from her companions, she threaded her way through the crowd to the registration desk, with people congratulating her along the way. When she reached the door, she placed her hand on the doorknob and
looked around to make sure no one saw, then she quickly opened the door, slipped inside and closed it behind herself.

     A dimly lit supply room lay before her, with shelves stocked with boxed stationery and fresh linens, empty flower vases and clean spittoons. But in the center of the floor stood large wooden crates with FRAGILE stenciled on the sides, and a mound of straw packing in between. Alice heard rustling from behind tall cabinets, and then someone whistling. Footsteps sounded on the stone floor, and presently a man came from the back, carrying a ball of twine and a pair of scissors. He wore no jacket over his trousers, his shirtsleeves were rolled up, suspenders curving over his broad shoulders.

     He stopped short, the whistling silenced. "Hello!" he said with a smile.

     "Hello," Alice replied, her diamond tiara glinting in the light of the flickering oil lamps. She could not help staring at the handsome young man. The cleft in his chin and the cupid's-bow mouth brought to mind a portrait she had seen of the poet, Lord Byron. This young man was graced with the same long-lashed soulful eyes and luxuriant wavy hair.

     Alice glanced at the crates with
Neal Scott Photography
stenciled on the lids, and realized that they must be for transporting the framed photographs. "I am going to guess that you gave me a gift, sir," Alice said, feeling a strange fluttering in her stomach. "A framed watercolor."

     When he blushed, Alice thought: He does not know how beautiful he is. The term Black Irish came to mind, those dark-haired folk in a red-headed population who were said to be the descendants of survivors of the Spanish Armada.

     "Guilty of being your secret admirer," he said and extended his hand. "Fintan Rorke at your service."

     They shook hands, and Fintan held hers a moment longer than was necessary, black eyes delving hers.

     "You know, Mr. Scott's photographs are beautiful," Alice said. "And they deserve to be sold for a lot of money. But I secretly believe it is the frames that people are really paying so much for. You carved them, didn't you, Mr. Rorke? You carved the one that was brought to my dressing room a week ago. I am very pleased to meet you."

     "The pleasure is all mine," he said, and the small cluttered room
suddenly became intimate, personal. The breath caught in Alice's throat.

     "I wonder, Mr. Rorke," she said, "if you wouldn't think me too forward to invite you to come to the theater tomorrow night and be my guest backstage after the performance."

     Fintan couldn't take his eyes off this angelic vision he had fallen in love with during the very first performance he had attended, a month ago. He had come ahead to Melbourne to find a place for Neal to set up a studio, and one afternoon had decided to take in a show that everyone was talking about. It took only one song from this ethereal creature, and Fintan Rorke was in love. He had gone to every performance since, to sit in the dark and adore her. He had even been so bold as to send her a gift, anonymously, to let her know that her beauty inspired yet more beauty.

     "I shall be delighted and honored to accept your invitation, Miss Star."

     The door swung open and light poured in. "Alice, there you are!" Blanche said. "I've been looking all over for you. The Governor's wife would like to thank you personally for your performance tonight."

     "I'll be right there." She held out her hand. "Until tomorrow night, Mr. Rorke?"

     He clasped her hand and she felt strength in the fingers, felt his warmth permeate the fabric of her white glove. With dark eyes holding her captive, Fintan said in a low voice, "Tomorrow night, my dear Miss Star."

H
ANNAH WAS SUSPENDED IN GOLDEN LIGHT
. S
HE FLOATED
in the air, wondering how it was she could fly. And then she realized Neal was holding her, his strong arms around her as he held her tightly to him, his lips pressed against her neck.

     Radiant luminescence embraced them. Strange, towering trees surrounded them. In the silence, Hannah heard only the synchronous beating of their hearts. She felt Neal's bare skin beneath her hands. When had they removed their clothes? Her own skin burned with fire. Neal's kisses seared each spot they touched. When his mouth met hers, Hannah felt fireworks ignite within her. Her passion expanded to the sky. Sexual desire filled her with a delicious ache.

     "I love you, Hannah," Neal murmured as his hands explored her body.

     "Never let me go," she whispered as her flesh came alive beneath his touch. She closed her eyes. "Yes yes . . .
now. . ."

     Hannah's eyes snapped open. She stared up at the dark ceiling, wondering where the light had gone, where Neal had gone. And then she realized
she was alone in her bed, and that dawn had not yet broken. Her heart was racing and her night clothes clung to her damp skin. Some time during the night she had kicked the bedding to the floor. Her legs were bare. She had never felt so hot.

     Summer is coming, she told herself as she sat up and swung her feet over the side of the bed. She could barely breathe. There was no wind, no breeze. No way to cool off.

     Going to the window, she parted the drapes and looked out at a street that never really slept. It was dark out, yet horses clip-clopped by, men loitered beneath glowing street lights. Loud voices rose nearby on the humid air. Hannah looked at the clock over her fireplace, on the mantelpiece where Hygeia stood in an eternal pose. It was five a.m.

     She had never known such physical desire.

     He is engaged to be married.

     Donning her robe, Hannah lit a lamp on her desk and put a tea kettle on to boil. While her apartment, on the floor above her office, had a full kitchen, she didn't want to disturb Mrs. Sparrow, who occupied a room at the end of the hall, so Hannah occasionally made tea in her bedroom using a spirit lamp. As she scooped tea leaves into a ceramic pot, she thought about her dream. It had been astonishingly real, causing emotions and feelings that she had buried when she had mentally laid Neal to rest, to flare up brighter and hotter than before.

     He had come back into her life only to be leaving it.

     Neal had wanted to see her first thing this morning. Hannah was thankful she had a legitimate excuse to put off their reunion. Every Wednesday, she and Blanche helped with the distribution of donated clothing to the poor at the Quaker Meeting Hall on Russell Street. The busy task would keep her occupied until noon, keep her thoughts focused on the needs of others instead of her own anguish.

     How was she going to survive in the same city as Neal, knowing he was with that other woman, loving that other woman, sleeping with her, giving himself to her? Hannah's throat was so tight with pain, she could barely swallow her tea.

     She forced herself to focus on other matters, particularly the baffling
case of Nellie Turner. Last night, after the gala at Addison's Hotel, Hannah had gone to the hospital with Dr. Iverson to find that Nellie's condition had worsened. And now two more maternity patients burned with the fever.

     How was the contagion being spread? Where had it originated in the first place?

     The tea was hot and sweet as it went down her throat. She closed her eyes. When was Neal's wedding date?

     Blanche Sinclair lived in the northern suburb of Carlton, on Drummond Street, a broad avenue lined with European elms, where Melbourne's moneyed families of lawyers, doctors, men in government lived. A quiet, elegant neighborhood of polished brass plaques, butlers in white gloves, and rear entrances for deliveries. Her fourteen-room mansion was surrounded by perfect lawns and flower beds, and in the rear, a carriage house with stables for the horses.

     It was a short ride from her mansion to the Quaker meeting house, and she was accompanied by a maid who cradled a bundle of used clothing in her lap. Out of deference to her Quaker friends, Blanche wore a plain gray gown without ruffled sleeves or lace and a modest cap covering her thick red-brown hair. Upon arriving, she sent her driver away with instructions to return at noon, and began supervising the unloading of sacks of donated clothing that had been brought to the rear of the meeting house by wagons and carriages.

     As she worked, Blanche could not stop re-living the events of the night before—Marcus arriving at the ball, making her hopes soar, only to treat her coolly and focus his attention on Hannah. At the time, Blanche had been hurt. Now she was angry.

     Although she knew how much Marcus's hospital meant to him, and that he had been counting on her to organize the charity tour to raise funds, it seemed to her now an overreaction on his part when she declined the project. Overnight, they had gone from being warm and close friends to coldly polite strangers.

     No matter, she thought now as she swallowed back her emotions and directed her energy toward organizing the volunteers inside the hall. Clocks cannot be turned back, nor the past recaptured and mistakes avoided. What's done is done.

     Although the doors of a Quaker meeting house are never locked, the large crowd gathering on the sidewalk called for members of the congregation to keep the doors closed and ask people to wait patiently and in an orderly line. Hannah was allowed through, and once inside, as she removed her bonnet, she surveyed the temporary tables heaped with the donations of generous citizens. She saw Blanche giving instructions to the other ladies: "Shoes and boots on this table, please Myrtle. Skirts and bodices here. Winifred, please fold those shirts into neat stacks."

     When she saw Hannah, Blanche set down the box of handkerchiefs she had been carrying and hurried toward her friend with outstretched hands. "Hannah! There you are! You poor dear! I was so dismayed when I read your letter. Are you all right?"

     Among the morning's messages and calling cards and post that had arrived at Blanche's residence was a note from Hannah containing the astonishing news that the American photographer at last night's event was the man Hannah had been in love with and had thought dead the past few years.

     "I shall be all right," Hannah said as she removed her gloves and bonnet.

     "Why don't you go and see him right now? I can handle this."

     But Hannah wasn't ready. Part of her was eager to run to Neal, to fly into arms and drink in his warmth and strength, to dispel once and for all his "death." But a greater part of her was afraid. She was not ready to hear about the fiancée. "There is a large crowd this morning," she said. The numbers of poor and needy in Melbourne were growing alarmingly as immigrants continued to pour into the city in answer to the call of gold.

     "Do you want to talk about it?" Blanche said quietly, out of the hearing of the other ladies.

     "Thank you, Blanche," Hannah said with a grateful smile. "But I would rather not."

     As Hannah went to a tall, podium-desk where a ledger lay open, with a quill in an inkwell, Blanche recalled the way Marcus had looked at her the
night before. Blanche had felt a stab of jealousy at the time, and she tried not to be jealous now. After all, Hannah was not interested in Marcus, and was in fact wrestling with her own demons—discovering that the man she so desperately loved and thought lost forever was not only alive but marrying someone else!