Susanna’s Choice, page 26
Margaret stared at Rab’s back until he turned and came back to her. She had never seen such an expression of pain on any man’s face as she saw on his.
“Rab. Rab, who was that woman?”
“It is the woman I love.”
Margaret forced a laugh. “Oh, don’t be silly. You may have had some dalliance with her, but surely you are experienced enough to know the difference between that and love.”
“What are you doing here, Margaret? Why did you come?”
“Why, darling, I had to come. David sent Lila a telegram, telling her that an attempt had been made on your life. I couldn’t remain in San Francisco knowing that you were in danger.”
“Didn’t he also say that the man who had made the attempt was in jail?”
“Yes, but there could be others. Anyway, I know that your business here is over and you were about to come home, so I just made the decision to come back with you. We have much to talk about.”
“Yes, we do.” The expression on Rab’s face told her that he didn’t mean plans for the wedding.
Rab walked away, and as he passed David, David said, “I’m sorry, Rab. I had no idea. I’m sorry.”
Rab put his hand on David’s shoulder and squeezed it lightly.
Later, much later that day, Mary Beth knocked on the door. “Susanna? Susanna, it’s me, Mary Beth.”
Susanna opened the door just far enough for Mary Beth to see her red-rimmed eyes. She was holding a tear-soaked handkerchief. “Is it him again?”
“Yes. This is the third time he’s been here.”
“I don’t want to see him. And tell him, please, don’t come back again.”
“Are you sure that’s what you want?”
Susanna closed the door without answering.
Mary Beth went back down the stairs and saw Rab pacing back and forth by the front door. He looked up, his face in agony.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Trudeau, but she doesn’t want to talk to you.”
“She’s got to talk to me. She has to let me explain. She has the wrong idea.”
“Did she see a woman kiss you and discuss plans for your wedding?”
“Yes.”
“Then, how does she have the wrong idea?”
“She did see a woman kiss me, and she did hear her say wedding. But that’s where she has it wrong, because I have no intention of marrying that woman.”
“But you are engaged to her?”
“I was. I won’t be engaged any longer. I am going to break it off. I don’t love Margaret, I am in love with Susanna.”
“You’re going to break it off?”
“Yes.”
“So now Susanna must not only deal with a broken heart, she also must deal with breaking up your engagement.”
“I—listen, she doesn’t understand, you don’t understand. I don’t love Margaret, I never did.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Trudeau, but I think perhaps you should leave now. As I told you, Susanna doesn’t want to see you, and all of your explanations to me do no good at all.”
Rab nodded. “I understand. Thank you, Mary Beth, for your trouble. Please, do one more thing for me. Please tell Susanna that no matter what she thinks, I love her.”
“Good-bye, Mr. Trudeau.”
Rab checked out of the McAuliffe House, then went over to the International. He saw David in the lobby.
“Did you see her?” David asked.
Rab shook his head. “She won’t see me.” He noticed David’s luggage on the floor beside him.
“You’re going back to San Francisco?”
“Margaret and I have tickets on tonight’s train. I’m sorry we didn’t go back yesterday, before all this happened.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It’s all my fault,” David said. “I let Lila push you into this. I knew you didn’t want to get married, but I didn’t say anything.”
“Don’t blame yourself, David. I knew it, too, and I didn’t say a word.” Rab sighed. “But I’m going to now. Regardless of what happens between Susanna and me, I have no intention of ever marrying Margaret.”
“When are you going to tell her?”
“I think she probably has a pretty good idea now. But I’ll be taking the train back with you.”
“What about your horse?”
“I’ve already made arrangements for Rebel. He’ll be coming on the next train.”
Only three people were in the depot for the late train: Rab, David, and Margaret. David, wanting to give Rab and Margaret an opportunity to talk, moved down to the far end of the waiting room.
“I’m not angry with you, darling,” Margaret said. “I know how men are. I know that men have—let us say—needs. You have been here for a long time. It’s only natural for you to find someone to take care of those needs. Once we get back to San Francisco, and you are mingling with your own kind again, instead of the—the type of people you find here, why I’m sure everything will work out just fine.”
Rab looked at Margaret, but didn’t answer her.
“Oh, and just wait until you see what the caterer has planned. Caviar and cream cheese, green salad, cream of red-bell-pepper soup, then lemon sorbet before the main course. It’s going to be veal scaloppini with small red potatoes, carved in the shape of mushrooms, and the groom’s cake will be chocolate cake with raspberry sauce.”
The building began to shake then. “Oh, here’s our train,” Margaret said brightly, either unaware or uncaring of Rab’s feelings. “I’m so excited. We have so much to do when we get back to San Francisco. I can hardly wait.”
Annie Biggs had accompanied Roland Montgomery to the depot. Montgomery, a lawyer from Denver, had been Annie’s client earlier in the evening, and he had asked her to come see him off, promising that the carriage he had hired would take her back.
They were standing alongside the carriage as the train arrived.
“Well, my dear,” Montgomery said, reaching out to take Annie’s hand in his. He raised it to his lips and kissed it. “As usual, you have made my visit to this otherwise dull and dreary city most enjoyable.”
“It is always nice to spend some time with you, Roland.” Annie gave him a broad smile. It wasn’t hard to smile at him; he was thoughtful and not demanding, often taking her to dinner before business. And he paid well.
“You will spend some time with me when next I return?”
“You can count on it,” Annie said.
She remained by the carriage as he walked toward the train so she could give him a final wave.
That was when she saw Rab Trudeau walking toward the train with a beautiful and elegantly dressed woman. From the way she was clinging to him, this did not appear to be a casual encounter. Annie watched as they boarded. Then through the windows into the lit car, she saw them taking the same seat.
Annie couldn’t help but feel angry and a little betrayed. She had liked Trudeau, had liked the way he treated her at the dance. She had thought that he would be Susanna’s way out of the marriage that Kirkland was forcing upon her.
Annie turned back toward the carriage, then climbed in unassisted while the driver remained on his seat.
“Back to the hotel, miss?” the driver asked.
“No. To Chaney House.”
21
Shortly after Margaret left, there was a light knock on the door; then it opened slightly, and David stuck his head in.
“Rab?”
“Yes, come on in.” Rab pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk and took out a bottle of brandy and two glasses. “Have a drink with me?”
“I don’t know.” David looked at Rab with a worried expression.
Rab chuckled, poured two fingers into each glass, then stood up and walked back to the sink, where he emptied the rest of the liquor.
“Don’t worry, David. I’m not going to lose myself in a bottle.”
“I wasn’t really worried.”
“Really?”
David smiled. “Well, not too much.” He held the glass out toward Rab, and Rab returned the salute.
David drank the liquor, then set the empty glass down. “I saw Margaret leave.” The expression on his face put forth the unasked question.
“Yes, Margaret. We have come to an agreement.” Rab glanced at the open book of bank drafts.
“I see,” David said with an understanding nod. “Oh, Lila sends her love, and her apology, and begs your forgiveness.”
“What? Lila is apologizing to me? Shouldn’t that be the other way around? I know that I upset her when I broke off the engagement.”
“I think she finally understands how it was, how you felt trapped into the marriage. She said, and these are her exact words, ‘Thank God he didn’t go through with it.’ ”
“You are married to a fine woman, David.”
“I think so. So, now the question is, when are you going back?”
“I don’t know. I think Susanna might need a little time.”
“Don’t give her too much time. Something like this needs to be perfectly balanced.”
“I know. And right now I feel like a tightrope walker wearing a blindfold.”
It was three full days before Susanna left her room. She didn’t eat a bite the first day; the second day Mary Beth brought her a biscuit and a cup of hot tea and talked her into taking that. On the third day Annie brought her a bowl of soup.
Finally, on the fourth day, Susanna came downstairs. Annie and Mary Beth were playing a game of whist in the parlor.
Mary Beth saw her first. “Susanna. Oh, I’m so glad you came down. Are you hungry? Can I get you something to eat?”
“I’ll wait until Harriet serves lunch.”
“I guess you know you are a heroine,” Annie said. “The Enterprise ran a story. Loudin and the North Star owners are all in jail.”
“Poor Mr. Loudin,” Susanna said. “I can’t help but feel sorry for him.”
“Well, I would say he isn’t worth feeling sorry for,” Annie said, “but at least if you are feeling sorry for him, maybe you will quit feeling sorry for yourself.”
“Oh, Annie,” Susanna said. “You remember, I asked you once how do you know if you are in love? Once I fell in love with Rab, I didn’t have to question it. I just knew that it was so.”
“That’s too bad. I’m afraid Mr. Trudeau turned out to be a scoundrel after all,” Annie said.
“He came here to see you several times before he left,” Mary Beth said. “He told me to tell you that he loved you. He said that he didn’t love that woman, that he had never loved her, and he wasn’t going to marry her.”
“That may be so,” Annie said. “But I saw the way that woman was hanging on him when they got on the train.”
“What are you going to do now?” Mary Beth asked.
“I don’t have any choice. I’m going to ask Mr. Kirkland if I can work for him.”
“You could always try to get on at the Enterprise, ” Annie suggested. “Mr. Elliott went there.”
Susanna shook her head. “No. I know you won’t understand this—I’m not sure that I do. But, after all this, I really don’t care to work at a newspaper again.”
“Are you feeling any better, Susanna?” Mary Beth asked.
“I don’t know if I will ever feel any better.”
“Honey, you aren’t the first woman who has had to deal with a broken heart,” Annie said. “And it is for sure and certain that you won’t be the last.”
“Oh.” Mary Beth walked over to the hall table and picked up a packet of papers. “You have a letter, and three telegrams.”
“I don’t even want to see them,” Susanna said, waving them away.
Mary Beth put them back on the table. “I’ll just leave them here.”
On the fifth day Susanna went to work for Gus Kirkland, though it was hardly worth it, for the amount of money he was paying her barely allowed her to stay at the lodging house.
It wasn’t hard to catch on to the work; she had done it before, as Kirkland had employed Jesse, Alice, and Susanna while they were growing up. Employed wasn’t quite the word for it, because then she had worked for him without pay. He had not singled her out, though, because at the time Jesse and Alice had also worked for free.
When she returned to work, she was surprised to see that Jesse was there as well.
“I don’t have any choice,” Jesse told her. “I lost all my money in bad investments.”
“Oh, Jesse, I told you not to invest in North Star.”
“It wasn’t just North Star. I was speculating in all of them and none too wisely. I should have listened to you.”
Susanna did the work almost by rote, never smiling, not even at the customers. Because neither Gus nor Minnie knew about her affair with Rab, they attributed her melancholy to her having been fired from the newspaper, and Gus expressed some reservations about letting her work because he felt that she might be running customers away.
She had told no one in the family the real reason for her depression, but she knew she was going to have to tell Jesse. It took her a while to summon the courage, but after she had been there a week, she followed Jesse down to the stockroom when he went to take an inventory of men’s boots.
The stockroom was under the store in the back, and because it was dug into the side of the mountain, it almost gave the illusion of being a cave. It was dark and dreary, and neither Susanna nor Alice had ever been comfortable going there alone.
“Jesse?”
“What are you doing down here? I thought you didn’t like this place.”
“I wanted to ask you something. But I wanted to ask it in private.”
Jesse looked around the stockroom and smiled. “You can’t get much more private than this.”
“I want to ask you to marry me.”
“What?” Jesse replied with a gasp. “You want me to marry you?” He was shocked by her proposal.
“Yes. Mr. Kirkland has asked me to marry you, and I agreed.”
“Oh, I see.” Jesse stared at her for a moment. “And that’s it? The only reason you want to marry me is just because Pop asked you to?”
“Not entirely.” Susanna took a deep breath. “There is another reason.”
“Oh?”
“You know the man that was here for a while, the one everybody thought was a detective?”
“Yeah, Rab Trudeau. Turns out he owns the Silver Falcon,” Jesse said, thinking he was giving her new information.
“Yes.”
“What about him?”
Tears began to slide down Susanna’s cheeks. “I—I may be carrying his baby.”
Jesse stared at her for a long moment, not in condemnation, nor anger, nor even jealousy. She actually thought that she saw compassion in his expression.
“Do you love him, Susanna?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“Do you love him?”
“I—I thought I did. That was before I learned what a scoundrel he is.”
“So he has gone back to San Francisco without so much as another word, has he?”
“Yes. I mean no. He has sent a letter every day. And I’ve received at least a dozen telegrams from him.”
“What does he have to say?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t read any of them.”
“Why not?”
“There is another woman, a woman he is engaged to. She came here to see him.”
Jesse took a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. “Wipe your tears, little one.”
“Thank you.” She took the handkerchief and held it to her eyes.
“Do you love me, Susanna?”
“I have always loved you, Jesse. But—”
“I know. I’ve always loved you, too, in the same way. I’ve always considered you a sister no matter what Pop and Mom said. But if you need me to marry you, I will. And if you are carrying another man’s baby, we’ll keep it our secret.”
“Oh, Jesse,” she said, the tears springing anew. She embraced Jesse, who pulled her to him.
She felt an overwhelming warmth of love for him—sisterly love.
“Let’s tell no one until after it’s over.”
“Not even Pop and Mom? Not even Alice?”
“Nobody.”
“We’ll have to have a witness.”
“I’ll ask Annie to be our witness.”
Jesse chuckled. “Annie. Yeah, I like that.”
“Honey, are you sure this is what you want to do?” Annie asked when Susanna told her what she had planned.
“I’m positive.”
“I don’t know, I think you should think about this for a while.”
“I thought you were the one who was so down on Rab. You saw him at the depot with that woman.”
“Yes. But I’ve also read his telegrams.” She held her hand out before Susanna could say anything. “I know, I know, it’s not right to read other people’s mail or their telegrams. But I believe he really loves you, Susanna. You should at least hear him out.”
“It’s too late for that. I have asked Jesse to marry me and he has agreed. And Jesse knows all about Rab. Now, will you be my witness or not?”
“Of course I will. If that’s really what you want.”
“It’s what I want.”
“You’re going to marry Jesse?” Mary Beth asked.
“Mary Beth! You were listening?” Annie challenged.
“Yes, I’m sorry. Susanna, you are making a big mistake.”
“It’s my mistake to make.”
The train was less than five miles from Virginia City, but it had slowed considerably as it started climbing the steep grade that ended on Mount Davidson.
Rab was sitting next to the window looking down at the side of the track. It seemed to him that they were going so slowly that he could see each small ballast pebble as they passed. He found himself, almost involuntarily, pushing against the seat in front of him as if in that way he could help the train up the grade.
He got up from his seat and walked up to the vestibule in the front of the car; then, holding on to the assist rail, he leaned out to look forward along the side of the train. He could see each car all the way up to the engine, and as the track made a curve to the right, he could see the big driver wheels wreathed in steam from the drive cylinder, and he could hear the chugging sound rolling back to him. He had to fight against the urge to leap down from the train and start running.
