Gold Fever (18 page)

I groaned. My son was spending far too much time with the Mounties as it was. Now he thought he was an important player in their investigation. If he kept this up, he'd never become the banker, industrialist or lawyer I had my hopes set on.

“How exciting,” Miss Witherspoon said, leading Angus back to their table. “I will accompany you after we've had our tea.”

“But, ma'am…”

“No ‘buts', young man. I am a writer, and this presents the perfect opportunity to get a peek at the grislier side of Klondike life.” She arranged her napkin on her lap.

Angus was mumbling something into his fish-paste sandwich as I left the tearoom.

I slipped my arm through Euila's as we walked towards the river and the Savoy. My memories of home were always painful, but none of it was Euila's fault.

We walked in silence for a few minutes. Women nodded at me in greeting and men touched their hats.

“You seem to know everyone in town, Fiona.”

“Pretty much. Tell me, Euila.” I pulled her out of the way in time to avoid a squealing dog that had just been kicked in its very visible ribs by a furious man. The man caught sight of me and tipped his hat. He was a regular at the Savoy and not nice to people either. I glared at him— he was a cheap regular—and he slunk away, no doubt to find another dog to kick.

I continued talking as if nothing had happened. “How is your father? Your brothers? Alistair?”

“Oh, Fiona,” Euila sighed. She dug in her reticule and pulled out the pink embroidered handkerchief. “Father died only a few months after you left. Mother is still living in the house, but…well…” “Yes,” I said, trying not to sound too terribly interested.

If the family were doing well, it was highly unlikely that the only daughter would be in the Yukon, wearing a dress two years out of date and carrying a stained handkerchief.

“I remember you never liked Alistair, Fiona, and you were entirely correct. I hate to talk ill of my own brother…”

“But…” “It was perfectly dreadful! Alistair did a terrible job of running the estate after Father's illness.” The dam of propriety and keeping a stiff upper lip and maintaining class distinction broke, and the story burst forth. Euila could barely talk fast enough.

Alistair had mismanaged the estate into the ground. To all who would listen, he blamed my father for ruining the hunting and fishing by being in the pay of poachers and running off when he was about to be apprehended. Shortly after my parents' supposed disappearance, Dougal, the eldest son, an officer in an Indian regiment, was killed, and when Sir William died, Alistair became the Ninth Earl. Once he owned the estates, and the town house in London, and the businesses his father and grandfather had built, Alistair's drinking and gambling and extravagance knew no bounds.

“The most dreadful people would come and stay for weeks on end,” Euila sobbed into her handkerchief. “Loud men and painted women of the most disreputable sort. I came across a couple doing…doing…what animals do…in the library. They weren't embarrassed in the least; they laughed at me, and the man asked if I wanted to join them. Oh, Fiona, they broke so many of Mother's lovely things and drove the best of the servants away. Alistair fired Miss Wheatley without a word to Mother or to me. One morning, she was just gone. After the library incident, Mother and I hid in our rooms whenever Alistair had people to visit.”

We reached the Savoy, but I kept on walking. I didn't want to miss the end of the story. Murray was standing outside having a cigarette, and he watched me pass with a look of confusion .

Euila's monologue faltered.

“And then…” I encouraged.

“Oh, Fiona, it was simply too dreadful for words. Richard and William and Ian and Percy and…the others…tried to stop him. But what could they do? Alistair owned the property; younger sons and daughters have no rights. Even my mother couldn't legally demand that Alistair's guests leave. It was all so dreadfully unfair. The boys tried to have Alistair declared unfit, but the judge who heard their case had recently spent a week hunting with him. He threw the case out.”

When we reached the bend in the street, where the Klondike River flows into the Yukon, I turned us around. Euila scarcely seemed to notice we'd changed direction.

“So Ian and Henry and Graham and…the others have moved away to take jobs or join the army. Alistair can't sell the house, because it's entailed, but that's all we have left, the castle and the grounds that were the original estate. Alistair wanders the property cursing his fancy friends because none of them accept his invitations any more. They've all abandoned him now that most of our money is gone. He has a manservant he brought up from London who keeps him in whisky. Mother says that he, the manservant, stays because he is helping himself to the silver and the paintings and the old weapons. Things that belong to the estate that Alistair can't sell. They're hanging in the hall one day and gone the next. Of all the old servants, only Cook stayed to look after Mother. Alistair and his manservant leave Cook alone, because they need someone to feed them.”

“Is there nothing the family can do?” We passed the Savoy once again. Helen had to have cleaned the windows that morning; I could see inside. The front room was almost full.

Euila shrugged daintily. “I heard Ian telling Mother he had found a lawyer in Edinburgh who would take our case, but what good can he do? He can't recover what Alistair has lost. Naturally the boys won't tell me anything, except that any hope of a dowry, and a good marriage, is gone.”

“I am sorry, Euila.” I patted her hand uselessly as we reached Albert Street. In the west, dark clouds were gathering behind the hills on the other side of the river. A light rain is a delight; it settles the dust, washes some of the filth off the boardwalks, but a downpour also turns the streets into impassable rivers of muck. These clouds didn't look like they held anything light. I turned Euila again, and we headed back to the Savoy.

“Where is this establishment of yours, Fiona? You said it was close, but we seem to have been walking forever.” She touched her handkerchief to her eyes, but the tears had stopped. Euila had spent enough hours crying over the fate of her family; she was all cried out. I was delighted to hear that Alistair had earned something in the way of his just reward. Unfortunately, he'd taken the whole of Sir William's family down with him. “We're almost there, but first you must tell me how you ended up in the Klondike, of all places.”

“Percy moved to America, to San Francisco. He married a lady with some money and a father with a prosperous family business. So as my…prospects…in Scotland seem non-existent, Mother and some of the boys decided I would visit San Francisco for an extended stay.” Meaning until her brother found her a husband.

“I've been in America for almost a year, and what with this dreadful depression they're having, there haven't been many prospects. I don't get on at all with Elizabeth, Percy's wife. Percy decided it was time for me to return to Scotland, but then word arrived of the gold rush. He suggested I might want to visit the North while I'm here. His father-in-law owns a publishing company, and Miss Witherspoon had approached Mr. Featherstone, Percy's father-in-law, about travelling to the Klondike to write about it. Naturally, it wouldn't have been proper for Martha to travel unaccompanied, and she was having difficulty finding a suitable female companion. Percy decided I would enjoy travelling with her.”

Percy was obviously doing all the deciding. Poor Euila— unwanted, penniless, unskilled, trolling the Yukon in search of the only thing that could provide her with a decent future—a husband.

“Here we are,” I said cheerily. Euila looked at the Savoy. She didn't appear too disappointed—no reason she should be, as every establishment in Dawson looks much the same. An unpainted building hastily constructed of horizontal slabs of wood, much of it still green, a wide doorway, open in the nice weather, leading to a dark interior. A huge wooden sign hung above the door, stretching across the entire front of the building, on which the print was fancy script with the “S” and “y” all curly. Only last week Angus had painted a banner in giant capital letters drawn in his most careful schoolboy script, which proudly stated:
The finest, most modern establishment in
London, England, transported to Dawson.
Ray and a couple of the bartenders and croupiers had hung it across Front Street.

It didn't look like much—there are pubs in Whitechapel that look more presentable than my Savoy, but there are not many drinking establishments, anywhere on earth, making more money.

“Oh, Fiona,” Euila sighed, wringing her handkerchief in her gloved hands. “You own this…this wonderful place of business?” And to my surprise, she threw her arms around me.

“Well, yes,” I mumbled, trying to keep the dusty feathers on her hat out of my mouth. “My partner and I do.”

“I simply must have a look inside.” Without waiting for an invitation, Euila barged straight ahead.

The drinkers watched us enter. Ray raised an eyebrow at my companion. The rain clouds in the west had covered the morning's sun, and Helen was filling up the kerosene lamps dotting the room.

If Euila hadn't been properly raised by Miss Wheatley, no doubt her mouth would have been hanging open. Her eyes widened at the sight of the lewd pictures adorning the walls, then she noticed that everyone in the room, excepting Helen Saunderson, clearly a servant, was male. “Goodness, Fiona, are ladies permitted in here? I mean…the women in those paintings!”

“In Dawson, ma'am,” Ray said, wiping his hands on his bartender's apron prior to offering a handshake, “ladies do almost anything they like.”

After a moment of hesitation, Euila extended her gloved fingers.

“This is Ray Walker, my business partner,” I said.

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Walker,” Euila said in her daughter-of-the-Earl-meeting-the-help voice.

“Ray, this is Miss Forester. We were friends as children.”

“I coulda guessed that. She talks like ye, Fee. Although without the London tinge and the bit of roughness around the edges.”

“Really, Ray, I have no roughness around any edges.”

A sudden roar came from the gambling rooms. Followed by the sound of glass breaking, furniture flying, men shouting, and Jake bellowing.

Without excusing himself, Ray bolted for the back room, a rotten floorboard groaning as he stepped on it. Someday, someone will fall into the foundations. Under her pink hat, Euila had turned an alarming shade of greenish-white.

“Then again,” I said, “perhaps the Savoy isn't always the best place for a lady.” I waved Helen over and asked her to escort Euila back to her hotel. Euila politely muttered her goodbyes and ran for the street almost as fast as Ray had run to break up the fight in the gambling rooms.

“On your way back, Helen,” I called, “can you stop at the café and purchase a bowl of their chicken soup. A very large bowl.” Not even four o'clock, and it had already been one hell of a day. I imagined the shocked look on Miss Wheatley's face at my choice of words. “Hell of a day,” I said out loud.

Thunder cracked across the river.

“Sure will be, Mrs. Fiona, when that rain hits,” one of the customers said.

Ray and Jake emerged from the back, each with a firm grip on one of two gamblers who were so busy screaming at each other they didn't appear to notice they were being evicted.

“Hell of a day,” I said to Ray as he returned to the bar. He attempted to straighten his perpetually crooked tie. “I'll be upstairs.”

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get much peace and quiet while waiting for my soup. I had scarcely seated myself and opened the accounts book—the rows of numbers swam behind my tired eyes—when a soft knock sounded on the door. Irene's voice said, “Mrs. MacGillivray? Mr. Walker said we could come up.”

“Come in,” I called. Whatever Irene wanted with me in the middle of the afternoon, it couldn't be good.

Irene's clothes were generally on the cheap side— cheap in appearance and cheap in cost—but lately she'd been dressing a good deal better. The dress she wore today was a striking midnight blue, with a row of appliquéd lace flowers at the level of her knees and again at the top of the bodice. The bodice itself was fashionably pouched, and the waistband thin and pointed at the front, which showed off her lush hourglass figure to perfection. The dress was perhaps too fancy for afternoon wear, but I doubted that Irene cared about the intricacies of the appropriate use of women's fashion. I wondered if she'd be willing to surrender the name of her new dressmaker. She was flushed a deep red, and her chest moved rapidly. She twisted her hands together and glanced over her shoulder as she stepped into the room.

A woman stood behind her. This was no dance hall girl. She wore a plain homespun dress in shades of mud brown and a perfectly hideous yellow, the whole effect looking like Front Street after a heavy rain and the passage of a pack of undisciplined dogs. Her hair was pulled tightly into a knot behind her head, and an ugly straw hat with a flat top and a wide brim was perched on top of it all.

It was the woman I'd seen the other day, about to be kissed by Irene.

She settled, without being asked, into the visitor's chair. Irene shut the door with her foot and remained standing. My office is completely utilitarian—it is where I conduct business (and count all my lovely money) and nothing else. There were no pictures on the wall, just a single small mirror behind the door so that I could check my hair before going downstairs; the cheap wall boards were unpainted, and the rug served only to keep splinters out of my stockings if I happened to discard my shoes at the end of a long day. It does have one rather rickety couch, the springs of which are always threatening to make good their escape, for those occasions when I need a quick nap and don't want to take the time to go home. The same couch on which Graham Donohue has, so far unsuccessfully, attempted to help me “relax”.