Kissing Comfort (16 page)

“You may put me down,” she said when they reached the sidewalk. “Tell him to put me down, Uncle Tuck.”

Tucker ignored her. He continued to wave his arm in a wide arc to summon their driver, who was waiting with the carriage down the street.

With no help likely to come from that quarter, Comfort applied to Newton. “Please, Uncle, explain to Mr. DeLong that I am fully prepared to stand on my own.”

Hovering close at Bode's shoulder, Newton heard her and nodded. “Comfort's prepared to stand on her own,” he said. “But if you put her down, I'll cut you off at your knees.”

“Uncle Newt!” Comfort felt Bode's silent laughter rumble in his chest. The threatening glare she gave him was ineffective because he refused to look at her.

Tucker trotted off to meet the carriage and hurry the driver along while Newton continued to hover. Bode repositioned himself to better secure Comfort, and she surrendered to the inevitable and slid her arms around his neck so he wouldn't drop her.

It wasn't until the carriage arrived and Tuck opened the door for them that Bode set Comfort on her feet. Newt lowered the carriage step, and Tucker reached out to take her hand. It was then that Bode eased away.

“I'd like to call on her tomorrow,” he said to Newt. “If I may?”

Preoccupied with getting Comfort safely in the carriage, Newt nodded. “Yes, of course. She'll be at home.”

“I'll be at the bank,” Comfort said before she realized that her answer made it seem as if she welcomed Bode's call.

Tucker pulled her the rest of the way into the carriage and poked his head out. “She'll be at home.” He gestured to Newt to get inside. “Thank you, Bode. Good night.”

Bode flipped up the step after Newt climbed in. He tapped the carriage to alert the driver that it was safe to leave, and then he stood at the edge of the sidewalk, watching the carriage until it turned the corner on Montgomery Street.

“Good night,” he said softly. Hunching his shoulders against the breeze coming up from the bay, he began walking home.

 

 

Comfort knew she could not hope to put off an inquiry until she arrived home. She was mildly surprised that the carriage made it as far as Montgomery Street before her uncles began to pepper her with questions.

Tucker leaned into the space that separated the bench seats and took Comfort's hands. He squeezed them lightly and regarded her calm, dark eyes. He still took peace where he could find it, and just now it was in the gentle tightening of her fingers in his.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She nodded. “Perfectly fine. It was unexpected, is all.”

Newton knuckled his chin, thoughtful. “For us, too. You've never fainted before. Why do you suppose you did?”

“I've been thinking about that,” she said. And she had. “I bent very quickly to pick up what the gentleman dropped.”

“You did,” said Tuck.

“And then I stood just as quickly.”

“True enough,” said Newt.

“So it was probably just that. The blood rushing in and out of my head.” When Tuck and Newt said nothing, she added, “It was overly warm in the lobby, I thought. And did you notice that every time a gentleman emerged from the cloakroom, a fog of smoke accompanied him? I suspect all of that contributed to my light-headedness.”

Tuck nodded once, released Comfort's hands, and sat back against the thickly stuffed leather seat. “That seems like a reasonable explanation. Newt? What do you think?”

“Except for leavin' out the part where she got a good look at that tin, it sounds about right.”

“That tin? What do you mean?”

Tuck and Newt exchanged vaguely troubled glances. “Dr. Eli Kennedy's Comfort Lozenges,” Tucker said.

Newt added, “The red-and-white tin.”

Comfort's eyes darted between them. “I don't understand.”

Tucker frowned. “The gentleman dropped a tin identical to the one you keep at your bedside.”

“No, he didn't,” she said. “He dropped a glove. I picked up his glove.”

“Comfort.” Newt said her name with a certain amount of reproof in his tone. “It wasn't a glove.”

“You and Uncle Tuck were standing behind me. I don't know how you saw anything, but please, ask Mr. DeLong. He was right there. He saw it all.” Comfort maintained a steady gaze. Clearly it wasn't what they expected to hear. If anything, they looked more troubled.

“It
was
a tin,” Tuck said.

Comfort didn't know what to say. “I believe you think so, and even if it's true, I don't understand why you think it's significant. I've seen tins like it before. You know I have. Many times. I've never fainted.”

Newt pursed his lips and wiggled them back and forth as he considered her answer. “I don't know, Comfort. I can't explain that myself, but it seems like something about it is significant. I saw what Tuck saw. You dropped like a stone.”

“You dropped the tin first,” said Tuck. “Do you remember that?”

“I remember dropping the glove. It slipped right out of my fingers.”

Tuck frowned. “I don't understand this.” He looked at Newt. “You understand it?”

“Nope. Not a thing.”

Their genuine concern was more troubling to Comfort than her fainting had been. She tried to think of something that would ease their minds, but short of admitting that she'd picked up a tin, nothing came to her. It was tempting to retract her story and tell them what they seemed to want to hear, but the thought of lying, even with good intention, settled uncomfortably in her belly.

Comfort chose to stare out the carriage window instead, thus avoiding the worried expressions they wore all the way home.

 

 

Waking parched, Comfort reached for the carafe of water on her nightstand and poured a glass. The first one hardly quenched her, and she poured a second. By the time she satisfied her thirst, she had all but drained the carafe.

She'd made the decision the night before that she wasn't going to argue with Newt and Tuck about going to the bank. Not distressing them further influenced her decision, but it didn't explain it in its entirety. There were things Comfort wanted to learn for herself, and to make certain she could do it, she had to reach Beau DeLong before her uncles.

Since they expected her to remain at home, she thought it was safe to assume they would open the bank and visit the exchange before going to the Black Crowne Shipping Office. More immediately concerning was the likelihood that Suey Tsin would follow her if she got wind of what was being planned.

To allay her maid's tendency to be suspicious of any change in the routine, Comfort followed what had been established as normal for those infrequent occasions that she was feeling under the weather. That meant she didn't bathe or dress her hair and was uncharacteristically snappish each time Suey Tsin crept into the room to check on her.

On the third such inspection, Comfort played possum and garnered herself enough time to wash at the sink, plait her hair, and manage the strings that flattened the front of her simplest day dress. She chose a large straw hat trimmed with a black grosgrain bow that sat on her head like a mushroom cap. To make it plainer, she snipped off the ribbon streamer and removed the tiny tuft of field flowers that decorated the top. Instead of a jacket, she selected a thin brushed cotton shawl that had only a few hand-painted red poppies on it to recommend it as fashionable. She left her parasols in the stand. An elaborately decorated parasol was just the sort of accessory that would draw the notice of someone who coveted the money or status it would bring.

She timed her exit to coincide with the household help gathering in the kitchen for breakfast and their daily meeting and had no difficulty walking out the front door. When Suey Tsin realized she was gone, the maid would assume she'd sneaked off to work. Comfort hardly felt a twinge of guilt for her deception.

Black Crowne Shipping occupied a building set a block back from the wharf and south of Pacific Street. Unlike the warehouse, which abutted the lawless frontier known as the Barbary Coast, the shipping office where business was regularly conducted had not yet been swallowed up by the vice and violence of that district. It was, however, close enough to give a woman on her own reason to worry. Comfort clearly remembered Mr. Tweedy's reluctance to venture through the area and knew his concerns were not without foundation. She also recalled what she'd told him to ease his fears.

The Coast
was
quiet, at least relatively so this early in the morning, but in a few hours it would be a hive of activity. That was no different than it had been when she was younger and new to the city, although no one had yet called it the Barbary Coast. She'd known it by the name “Sydney Town,” and for a brief period of time, it had been home.

There were mostly tents then. And shanties. Rough wooden pallets in the open air were what passed for boardinghouse accommodations, and the men who paid for the privilege of sleeping there were glad to be off the ground. After a hard rain, the mud was so deep in the streets it could suck in a horse. Sometimes it trapped a rider as well. Miners lived hand to pan and hand to mouth. All of them had dreams of the rich strike that would take them home on a golden ship. The ones who became successful, though, were hardly ever the ones panning the streams and digging out ore. Those that realized wealth got there by recognizing other opportunities and making the miners pay.

It wasn't much of an exaggeration that a man with three shovels, a couple of pickaxes, and a pound of nails could sell it all off and make enough money to open a hardware store. An enterprising merchant from Pennsylvania brought enough flour, salt, and bacon grease with him to start a cookery and, later, a dry goods emporium. There were men who sold rivets to repair dungarees, and who understood eventually that there was even more money in making and selling the denim trousers. And so it went for the men who had entrepreneurial skills, although perhaps no one was as committed to the success of their endeavors as the gamblers and whoremongers.

Newt Prescott and Tucker Jones came to banking the way a bear comes to be trapped in a pit. They fell into it on their way to somewhere else. Unlike the bear, they didn't try to get out. Once they understood their good fortune, they worked hard to make certain they'd earned it.

Comfort knew that Newt and Tuck believed it was her presence that was responsible for the trust other miners showed them. Children were so rarely seen that miners occasionally offered her uncles money just to ruffle her hair. They'd offer more to hear her laugh.

Newt swore they never took so much as a mote of gold dust in response to these offers. Tuck said it was because she would have bitten off the fingers of a man who dared touch her hair, and she laughed so infrequently that they would have been taking the money with no hope of keeping it.

What really seemed to engage the miners' trust was how close Comfort stayed to her uncles and how much regard they showed for her welfare. The first miner who asked them to hold his small bag of gold because he feared being rolled and robbed on his way to his claim discovered they could be counted on to return what they'd been given and a little something else besides.

While the miner worked his claim, Comfort accompanied Newt into town, where he bought three pounds of nails. She helped him sell the nails in smaller quantities, sometimes one at time, and when they returned to the mining camp, they had parlayed the miners' trust into gold and interest and a modest profit for themselves.

That was the beginning. After that, Comfort assisted Newt every time he went into town. She stood at his side and helped him hawk whatever he decided to purchase that day. Sometimes it was apples or eggs they got from a farmer before he could bring them to market. They sold wheat flour and salt pork, tea and coffee, and occasionally loaves of stale bread and slices of cheese. Whether they sold the wares on muddy corners or went from tent to shanty to tent again, at the end of the day they had gold to show for it.

Tuck accompanied them, but he didn't have the temperament for selling. His role was to follow them around and protect their investment. Neither he nor Newt considered that it was the gold.

Eventually they earned enough to set up a storefront, where they lent money for very little interest and offered to manage accounts for a small return to their customers. They lifted their first safe from an abandoned ship in the harbor, and it was good enough to survive the fire that leveled the town a few years later. They rebuilt, this time with a grander vision in mind, and began to make real investments in property, the Pacific trade, and the mining companies that were moving in. In 1859, when the Comstock Lode was discovered on the eastern slope of the Sierras in Nevada, they were among the backers of the quartz mills and mining machinery that eventually opened up the greatest veins of gold and silver anyone had ever seen.

Jones and Prescott became millionaires.

They never got entirely used to it, but occasionally they enjoyed trying. They built a house on Nob Hill as grand as any that existed at the time. Newt wrote to each of his four sisters back in New York and asked for their advice about books for his new home, especially those suitable for the edification and proper deportment of the odd little girl, now fourteen, whom he and Tucker wished to raise as a lady. And, he wrote on, recommendations for two old soldiers who were now required to stand toe to toe with society's best-heeled mavens and industrialists would also be welcomed. His sisters were helpful in all aspects of the venture, and he purchased over two hundred books to begin their library. Tucker put in a conservatory, not so much because he was interested in rare or beautiful plants, but because he wanted a room that opened to the sky.