‘Come on then, this is the moment you’ve been waiting for,’ he exhorted, beckoning them towards the open doorway, ‘But not you,’ he nodded his head in the direction of Marietta. ‘You can stay here and look after the kiddie. And not you,’ his eyes had flicked towards Rosalind Nettlesham. ‘You shouldn’t be here at all. Your husband-to-be was supposed to meet you off the boat.’
Lettie rose from her seat near the window and crossed the room. Watching her, Lilli realised that out of all of them, she was the only one who had appreciated right from the outset what the realities of being a Peabody bride would be. And she was the only one of them still quite willing to fulfil her contract to the marriage bureau.
Susan rose clumsily to her feet and, taking Kate gently by the arm, began to walk with her towards the door.
Lilli stood up slowly. ‘I think you’ve made a mistake, Mr Nelson,’ she said through parched lips. ‘You only told Miss Rivere and Miss Nettlesham they were to remain behind. You should have also stipulated Miss Hobson and myself.’
Josh Nelson’s eyebrows rose towards his slickly oiled hairline. He knew darn well that one of the remaining girls was under the impression Coolidge was going to pay him off for her, because he’d attempted to do so at the dock and, having failed, had announced his intention of doing so over a bottle of bourbon at the Gold Nugget. He hadn’t, however, realised that Coolidge intended trying to pay him off for two more girls. And looking at the dumpy, blank-faced Miss Hobson he couldn’t even begin to believe it.
He opened his mouth to tell the young woman facing him so, and then checked himself. Her eyes had a captivating slant, as did the soft tilt of her brows, but there was nothing soft in her expression. Rather, there was a fierce intelligence that threatened trouble.
‘No doubt Lucky Jack is downstairs by now, ma’am. When we get downstairs and see him we can solve all your little problems.’
It was a blatant lie but he told it with practised ease.
‘And Edie?’ The words were like a whip-lash and they came from the saucy ginger-haired piece.
Presuming correctly that Edie was the dumpy, simple-looking girl he said smoothly, ‘If Mr Coolidge was going to come to some arrangement with me about Miss Hobson then no doubt he’ll do so at the same time he clarifies Miss Stullen’s situation.’
‘It isn’t Mr Coolidge who wishes to pay you off for Miss Hobson. It’s Miss Dufresne.’
Josh Nelson felt a shaft of relief. At least now he didn’t have to worry about Lucky Jack’s sanity.
‘The same thing applies ma’am,’ he said soothingly, knowing the sooner he separated the girl he was speaking to from the simple-looking girl, the better. ‘Now, ladies. If you’d just come with me …’
‘I don’t believe him,’ Marietta said tautly to Lilli. ‘I don’t believe either Lucky Jack or Kitty are in the building.’
Neither did Lilli. ‘Find them,’ she said, trying to keep the panic she was feeling out of her voice. ‘Find them and bring them here, Marietta. Quickly!’
Marietta turned to Edie, ‘Do you remember when I said there might come a time when I wouldn’t be able to be with you, Edie? Well, this is it. I want you to go with Susan and Lilli and Lettie and Kate. And there’s no need to get frightened. I’m going to come back for you and I’m not going to let anything horrid happen to you. I promise.’
With her little monkey face a mask of determination she pushed her way past Josh Nelson and ignoring his cries of protest, ran fleet-footedly down the stairs.
‘Stay with Miss Nettlesham,’ Lilli said to Lottie.
Lottie nodded, careful not to verbally make a promise she knew she was going to break.
Susan and Kate were already at the door. Feeling as if she were about to walk into the jaws of hell, Lilli took hold of Edie’s hand and crossed the room to join them.
Chapter Fourteen
Leo was having the time of his life. Gerry, in starched shirt and apron, a white waistcoat drawing attention to his flamboyant diamond stickpin, kept him regularly supplied with lemonade, introducing him to all and sundry as ‘Lucky Jack’s new sidekick’.
Gamblers and miners obligingly took him round the tables, educating him in the niceties of faro, poker, dice and roulette.
When his magic lady entered the saloon, escorted by a veritable platoon of men carrying her steamer trunks, a roar of welcome went up so deafening Leo thought it must have been heard in Skagway.
Kitty had dressed up for her return in a glorious hat fairly dripping willow plumes. The plumes tickled Leo’s nose as she chucked him under the chin and kissed his cheek.
‘It hasn’t taken long for you to find where all the action in Dawson takes place,’ she said, amusement thick in her voice. ‘Is there any champagne in that lemonade and if not, why not? Gerry! A little champagne for my friend here. Not too much but enough to make him feel a part of things.’
‘Lucky Jack’s upstairs,’ Gerry said, topping up Leo’s glass with the Gold Nugget’s sixty dollars a quart best. ‘Seems like he’s all set to ship out for Nome.’
The radiance drained from Kitty’s peaches and cream complexion. ‘Is he?’ she said, such a queer note in her voice Leo wondered if she was perhaps not feeling very well. ‘Well I’m not, Gerry. My days of chasing rainbows are over.’
Abruptly she turned away from the mirror-backed bar and mounted the stairs, the heavy emerald silk of her travelling dress swirling around her ankles.
Leo was plunged into disappointment, but not for long. A man dressed in fringed buckskin, with black locks hanging to his shoulders, began telling him how, every evening at eight o’clock, he gave a shooting display, his pièce de résistance being to shoot glass balls from between the thumb and forefinger of his pretty blonde wife.
Leo was just about to ask him for a demonstration when Lord Lister entered the bar, his handsome face taut and strained. ‘A double shot of whiskey,’ he said peremptorily to Gerry and then, to Leo, ‘You shouldn’t be in here, y’know. You should be with your sister.’
Assuming, quite rightly, that Lord Lister was referring to Lilli and not Lottie, Leo said, ‘I can’t be with her. She’s with all the other Peabody brides and Mr Nelson has taken them to the Phoenix.’
Lord Lister knocked his whiskey back in two swift gulps. He had entered the Gold Nugget intent on becoming drunk in the shortest time possible and he wasn’t going to let even Leo stand in his way. Affianced! The words rang in his memory like thunderclaps. The quality that had first attracted him to Kate had been her shining, moral integrity. It had made a welcome change from the worldly sophistication he was accustomed to. And she hadn’t been shiningly moral after all. All the time she had been accepting his advances she had been affianced. Somewhere, here in Dawson, was the man she had been faithless to; the man she was still intent on marrying.
‘Peabody brides? What the devil are they?’ he asked, dragging his attention back to Leo.
Leo hesitated, not quite sure. Seeing his difficulty Gerry said, ‘Mail-order brides. Respectable women are in short supply in Dawson and women keen on getting hitched are shipped up here by the Peabody Marriage Bureau. There’s usually a fair old scramble when Nelson auctions’em off.’
Lord Lister set his empty glass down on the bar, too incredulous to ask for it to be refilled. Lilli Stullen a mail order bride! Lilli Stullen, a girl who could have her pick of men, being auctioned off as if she were a slave in a Turkish market-place! ‘I don’t believe it,’ he said flatly. ‘Why the devil would a girl like your sister become a mail-order bride?
Leo had listened in to enough conversations to have a very good idea. ‘My uncle didn’t like her and wouldn’t let her live with us anymore and so we ran away,’ he said succinctly, ‘Kate and Lettie ran away too.’
‘Kate?’ In a swift, disbelieving movement, Lord Lister sent his empty glass skidding across the polished surface of the bar.
Leo nodded. ‘Kate didn’t run away because of her uncle,’ he said, trying to remember all he had
overheard and not understood, ‘she ran away because of her brother. And it wasn’t because he didn’t like her. It was because he liked her too much and …’
‘Jesus God!’
Too late Leo remembered that Kate had told Lord Lister she was affianced, though just why she had told him such an untruth he wasn’t quite sure. One thing he was sure of, though, was that she hadn’t wanted to tell him such a lie. Telling it had made her ill.
‘And I suppose she thought you wouldn’t like her anymore if you knew and so she fibbed about having a fiancé and …’
Lord Lister was no longer listening to him. He was striding out of the saloon with the speed and urgency of a man bent on a life and death mission.
Seconds later, over and above the noisy shouting and laughter at the bar and the tables, voices could be heard in furious argument, one of them a woman’s.
‘There’s trouble afoot,’ Gerry said to Leo, his eyes flicking towards the top of the broad, central staircase. ‘Kitty’s reached the end of the line where moving on is concerned. And Lucky Jack’s going to be moving on until the Second Trump.’
At a nearby table a faro player was saying loudly in disgust, ‘Well, that’s the way I made it, and that’s the way it’s gone, so what the hell!’
And then, simultaneously, Marietta hurtled through the Gold Nugget’s swing doors and Kitty began to storm down the stairs.
‘Josh Nelson’s intent on auctioning Edie!’ Marietta said urgently, panting for breath. ‘If you don’t come quickly, Miss Dufresne, Edie’s going to find herself married to The Pig!’
‘Oh no she isn’t,’ Kitty said grim-faced, not pausing in momentum as she reached the bottom of the stairs and began to walk quickly towards Marietta. ‘I’ve just about had enough of the male sex for one day and The Pig is one member of it who’s not going to get things his own way!’
Lottie was almost as out-of-breath as Marietta. Within seconds of Lilli being herded with Kate and Susan and Edie and Lettie downstairs to the Phoenix’s dance-floor, she had left Miss Nettlesham and run out of the building. She had to find Ringan. Ringan would know what to do. He always knew what to do. The problem was, where to find him?
Front Street was thick with men and the vast majority of them seemed to be heading towards the Phoenix. She began to run down the boardwalk in the direction of the river. Ringan would probably have rented a room at one of the hotels. On her way to the Phoenix she had seen several, The Fairview, The Palace, The Majestic.
The din from the saloons rattled up and down the thoroughfare. On an open platform two young girls, little older than herself, were singing ‘A Bird in a Gilded Cage’to the accompaniment of a wheezing portable organ played by a big beefy woman with a pompadour hairstyle. From a restaurant there came the improbable sound of a string orchestra playing Cavalleria Rusticana. Everywhere there was a sea of signs proclaiming, ‘Gold! Gold! Gold dust bought and sold … Jewelry … Fine diamond work … Watches … Tintypes … Cigars … Souvenirs and fine native gold …’
And then, just as she was about to race inside The Fairview, she saw him. He was striding down the boardwalk on the opposite side of the wide, busy street, head and shoulders above the mass of men swarming around him, his thick shock of red hair as fiery as a beacon.
‘Ringan!’ she shouted, her voice breaking on a sob of relief as she sprinted across the street towards him, dodging through the crowds, avoiding a horse and trap by inches. ‘Ringan!’
He was heading in the direction she was coming from but the instant he heard her voice he halted, scanning the street for a sight of her.
She burst from the throng on the street and leapt up on to the broadwalk.
‘Oh, Ringan! Please come quickly! Lucky Jack hasn’t paid Mr Nelson off for Lilli and Mr Nelsn is going to auction her as a Peabody bride!’
The dance hall at the Phoenix was full of smoke, men, noise and laughter. On a rickety stage five upright chairs were positioned and Josh Nelson led his unwilling flock towards them. A huge roar went up from the male audience as he did so. Lilli flinched. This was worse than anything she had ever imagined. It was unspeakable. Vile beyond description.
Edie’s hand gripped hers tightly, ‘I want Marietta,’ she whimpered. ‘I want Mr Saskatchewan Stan.’
Vainly Lilli’s eye scanned the sea of faces for a glimpse of Marietta or Kitty or Lucky Jack. Instead she saw The Pig. He was in the forefront of the men standing ten and twelve deep on the sawdust-covered dance-floor. Her heart contracted. What was about to happen was so monstrous she couldn’t even begin to imagine how she had ever thought it could possibly be otherwise. And Lucky Jack could have saved her from it. He had promised to save her from it. And he had reneged on his promise. He had let her down in the most gross, unforgivable way possible.
Bitterly she wondered if he had done so because a card game had prior claim on his attention. Whatever the reason, whatever his eventual excuse, she would never again think of him as being her Fate, her Destiny. However scintillating his vivid charm, he had none of the qualities that really mattered. He wasn’t dependable. And as Kitty Dufresne had so perceptively pointed out, if being kind clashed with his own needs and pleasures, he wasn’t even kind.
‘Come on gentlemen! This is it! This is the moment you’ve been waiting for! Which of these lovely-looking ladies are you going to take to Nome as your bride?’
‘Not the one in the middle!’ some wit called out coarsely, referring to Susan.
There was a gale of laughter.
Lilli couldn’t bear to look across and witness Susan’s suffering. Rage was licking through her. Rage so hot she thought it was going to consume her.
‘I think this lovely lady should be the first to start the ball rolling,’ Josh Nelson announced, stationing himself behind Kate’s chair. ‘Now, gentlemen! You couldn’t ask for a fairer bride than Miss Kate Salway! What about a thousand dollar bid for a start?’
‘What about ten thousand dollars?’ a clipped, cut-glass English accent suggested tightly.
Uproar broke out as the crowd made way for Lord Lister. In cream silk shirt and khaki flannels, looking as different from the other men in the dance-hall as if he came from another planet, Lord Lister vaulted on to the platform.
‘Ten thousand?’ Josh Nelson repeated, not knowing whether to be pleased at the unusually high bid or angry that, as it was unlikely to be topped, there was no entertainment mileage in it. ‘Gold or cash?’
‘Cash,’ Lord Lister said tersely.
‘Then unless there’s a raise on ten thousand I guess we’re one down and four to go,’ Josh Nelson announced to his barracking audience.
There was no raise on ten thousand dollars. Lord Lister bent solicitously over Kate. ‘Kate?’ he said gently. ‘Kate? It’s me, Perry.’
Dazedly she stared up at him, her face blank.
‘It’s me, Kate,’ he said again, realising how deep her mental withdrawal had become. ‘I love you, Kate. We’re going to be married. We’re going to be together for always.’
Her eyes opened wide, understanding beginning to dawn. ‘Perry?’ she said uncertainly, ‘Perry? Is it really you? Have you really come to take me away?’
‘Yes, my darling,’ he said thickly, ‘And you’re never going to be on your own again, not for as long as I live.’
She gave a little cry, her hands fluttering from her lap, sliding up and around his neck. Tenderly he lifted her up in his arms and her head fell against his shoulder. Watching, tears glittering on her lashes, Lilli doubted if Kate would remember a single moment of the last hideous hours.
‘Three cheers for the happy couple!’ Josh Nelson exhorted and then, as the cheers willingly rang out, he stationed himself behind Edie’s chair.
Even before he had opened his mouth The Pig was swaggering forward, thumbs tucked down the broad leather belt at his waist.
‘Five hundred dollars,’ he shouted aggressively.
‘Six hundred,’ someone else shouted.
‘Sev
en hundred.’
It was The Pig again. He had walked forward from the crowd and there was now no way Edie could remain ignorant of his presence.
‘Seven hundred and fifty,’ a third voice chimed in.
Josh Nelson grinned. Simple looking girls were always popular and this one, in her childish, too-tight dress, had the advantage of being as pleasingly plump as a partridge.
‘Eight hundred,’ The Pig bellowed, clambering up on to the platform.
Edie clutched even tighter hold of Lilli’s hand. ‘Don’t let him frighten me!’ she begged. ‘Oh, where is Marietta, Lilli? Where is Mr Saskatchewan Stan?
Lilli didn’t know. What she did know, though, was that she wasn’t going to allow the present obscenity to continue. Dragging her hand from Edie’s she sprang to her feet.
‘Stop this!’ she said in raging tones to Josh Nelson. ‘Miss Hobson is little more than a child and she isn’t here willingly! She was sent here against her will!’
‘Makes no difference,’ Josh Nelson said, enjoying the interruption because he knew his audience were enjoying it. ‘A little unwillingness can be right pleasing, can’t it boys? Do I have any bids on eight hundred? No? Then the little lady here is going, going gone for eight hundred dollars!’
The money was peanuts but he didn’t care. It covered the cost of her passage and left enough over to split nicely between himself and Mrs Peabody. And it brought crowds into the Phoenix. Crowds who would still be there, drinking and gambling, at five and six in the morning.
‘Lilli!’ Edie screamed as The Pig lunged towards her.
‘Nelson!’ Kitty shouted, men parting before her like the Red Sea.
‘Edie!’ Saskatchewan Stan bawled, his roly-poly figure hurtling across the sawdust-covered floor in front of the makeshift stage.
As dozens of pairs of willing hands lifted Kitty on to the right hand of the stage, Saskatchewan Stan scrambled up onto the left hand of it.
The din from the audience was deafening. Kitty was one of the most popular figures in Dawson and what the hell she was doing in a dance-hall rival to her own, no-one could begin to figure out.
Forget-Me-Not Bride Page 24
