Jade

by Jill Marie Landis

Jade had to congratulate Babs as she stood up to him, but Reggie would not be daunted. “Good grief! It’s enough we have to have her here. Now there’s a damned Chinaman running in and out and they’re discussing her father’s murder, no less! What next?”

  Jade glanced over at Chang and moved swiftly to halt any further humiliation by interrupting the Barretts and introducing the lieutenant.

  Reggie spared the man little more than a nod. Babs colored and tried to force a smile. Head high, Jade then led the lieutenant to the front door. Upon her return, she found that Reggie had disappeared upstairs without another word.

  “I’m sorry you had to hear that,” Babs said.

  Fatigue and worry did little to numb the embarrassment and anger Jade felt. “I’m just sorry the detective had to hear it. I know Reggie is entitled to his opinion, but I’m just as entitled to my own, and I can’t condone such open hostility toward a person merely because of the color of his skin. Reggie won’t have to put up with such an unwanted invasion of his privacy, because I’ll be leaving as soon as I can.”

  “Calm down, Jade. I absolutely refuse to let you leave before you have a decent place to stay. Reggie’s tantrums never last long.”

  Fatigue washed over Jade again in waves. Where could she go? The only other person she might appeal to was an old friend of her grandfather’s, who had often brought him art pieces from the Orient, but she had learned that morning when her own ship docked that Captain Emery Lennox’s vessel was not in port. She reached up and began to unpin her hair.

  “Now, what did the detective say?” Babs wanted to know.

  “I’ll tell you over a cup of tea in my room,” Jade promised. “Right now, I would just like to get out of all these clothes.” As she mounted the stairs she could not help but ask herself the same phrase that Reggie had voiced aloud. What next?

  CLOSETED IN JADE’S room once more, the two women shared a cup of bohea tea at a small table near the window.

  Babs spoke abruptly. “What you need to do is marry an extremely rich man.” As if the outcome was already settled, she sat back, folded her arms across her breasts, and waited for Jade’s reaction, which was immediate.

  “You can’t be serious!”

  Babs merely smiled.

  “You are.”

  “Of course.” Theatrically, Babs waved a hand in the air.

  “I won’t even think of it.”

  “There’s no other way, as far as I can see.”

  “Look again,” Jade said.

  “Why not marry some old man with money? Make him happy and he’ll pay off your debts. The collection will be saved and voila, your worries over.”

  Surprised by Babs’s callous attitude, Jade wondered if she had truly changed so much, or if she was just seeing her friend clearly for the first time.

  “You’ve become so calculating,” Jade said, thinking aloud.

  “Calculating, or realistic?”

  “I’ll find work,” Jade said hopefully.

  “At what? You have no skills worth selling except yourself.”

  “Babs!” Appalled, Jade flushed to the roots.

  “I mean it. So, you’ve studied Chinese art. What choice do you have? You might become a governess, but what woman in her right mind would want a temptation like you around?”

  “I’m hardly that,” Jade assured her.

  Babs grabbed her by the wrist and pulled Jade up and across the room until the two of them stood before the vanity mirror. “Look at yourself. You aren’t the gangly redhead that left here five years ago. Jade, you’re beautiful! You’ve filled out.” Babs pulled the back of the silk robe Jade had donned once again, until it became taut and molded itself against her ample breasts. “Your hair has gone to red-gold and your eyes . . . well, they’ve always been your best asset.” Babs let go of her and then walked away mumbling, “If you’d just wear some decent clothes.”

  Jade stroked the fine silk of her robe. It had grown thin in spots, as fragile as rice paper, but she loved it. “My clothes are fine.”

  Babs reached behind her and lifted the rumpled dress Jade had been wearing when she arrived that morning. “Fine for an old maid or a Chinese coolie. Silk pants and Mandarin jackets just aren’t the fashion these days.”

  “What do I care for fashion?”

  “Obviously nothing.”

  “Stop mumbling,” Jade warned. “Besides, I do own a few nice things.”

  “All hopelessly out of date, I’ll bet. Did you buy any new gowns in Paris?”

  Jade thought of the simple life she had shared with the Reverend Bishop and his family in a modest section of the city. She pictured her dour gray wool skirts and much-worn blouses. “I didn’t need new clothes there.” She was thoughtful for a moment, before she said, “I could teach.”

  “Oh yes. And make barely enough money to feed yourself. And where do you intend to live? You’ll need an entire staff of workmen just to make the old adobe liveable.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Reggie was out that way hunting last year and told me the place had nearly fallen down.”

  Jade couldn’t hide her disappointment. Things were worse than she thought. “I was thinking of offering it to the bank. At least that way it would seem as if I’m trying to pay off the debt. Maybe then they would turn some of the oldest pieces over to me.”

  “Don’t you think that if they had wanted that crumbling old house that they would have suggested taking it over by now?”

  “But I haven’t even had time to correspond with them yet. I’ve only received the one letter.”

  Babs rolled her eyes toward the ceiling.

  Jade sighed as she rubbed her temples. Even the hot tea had not relieved her fatigue. “I won’t give in without a fight.” She wished she had the nerve to tell Babs that she would like some time alone, but she did not feel right about ejecting her hostess from her room.

  They remained still for a time, the only sound in the room the rhythmic tick of the standing clock in the hallway outside. The smell of Babs’s perfume mingled with the tang of the salt air that drifted in the open window.

  Babs pushed aside her cup and saucer, rested her elbows on the table, and stared at Jade. “I want you to think about my plan, Jade. Think hard and carefully.”

  Jade felt her heart harden as she looked over at Babs. “Don’t you think I’ve seen enough of marriage to know I don’t want any part of it for myself?”

  “You can’t compare every marriage to your parents’,” Babs said softly. “Look at Reggie and me.”

  “You’ve been in love with Reggie since you were twelve.” Fingering the hem of her robe, all the while ignoring Babs, Jade wished the answers to life and love were as easy for her as they had always been for Babs, but the only real affection she had ever known had come from her grandfather, her mother, and Babs. Her parents’ dismal marriage had been all too real—a nightmare instead of a dream.

  How many times had she watched her mother pace the floor, wringing her hands, praying that Francis Douglas would come home, and wondering aloud what mood he would be in when he finally arrived? And how many times had she and her mother cowered in fear in the pantry, or in Jade’s room, while he spent his drunken rage shattering dishes and glasses, cursing, and berating them at the same time?

  As if Babs sensed Jade was lost in the past, she asked softly, “Did your father ever beat you? I know how cruel he was, but did he ever physically hurt you?”

  Jade denied it with a quick shake of her head. “No. He never touched me, in love or in hate. At times he could be almost caring—almost. Then he would begin drinking and his mood would radically change. He was so volatile that whenever things did not go his way—and that was often—he would take his anger out on my mother and me.” She sighed and drew a length of hair over her sho
ulder. “My mother loved him more than life itself. She did anything he asked, and was always crying and pleading with him to stay with us whenever he threatened to leave. When I grew up it was so evident to me that he had only married her for her money that I realized my mother must have known it all along, too. But she didn’t even care.”

  Babs reached out and squeezed Jade’s hand. “I know how proud and stubborn you’ve had to become, but I know if you’ll only think about it, you’ll see that my plan is the only way, because to be blatantly honest—”

  “Which I know you will be,” Jade quipped.

  “—you’re already twenty-three. Soon you’ll be an old maid. You’ll just have to learn to use your charm to catch a man. A very rich man,” she amended.

  Abruptly, Jade stood up and walked away from Babs. “This is ridiculous.”

  “No, it’s not. You haven’t a choice if you intend to save that collection. I know everything about who’s doing what to whom in San Francisco, so it won’t take me long to come up with a list of eligible widowers.”

  “How can you sound so mercenary?”

  “I thought you’d do anything to save that junk.”

  “Within reason.”

  “Can you think of any other way?” Babs asked.

  The answer came in a tight whisper. “There’s still time.”

  “You’re right of course, but honestly, Jade, it’s the only way if you insist on recouping your grandfather’s collection of Chinese hodgepodge. Lord knows why you even care.”

  “You’re mumbling again. Besides, it’s a valuable collection of artifacts, not hodgepodge, which by rights belongs to me. My grandfather’s dream was to see that collection housed in a museum where everyone would benefit from it and learn about the Chinese.”

  “Who cares about the Chinese anyway?”

  “I still refuse to let the Hibernia Bank sell even one piece of grandfather’s things in order to pay my father’s debts.”

  Babs ignored her sharp tone and prattled on. “What’s wrong with marrying someone for money?”

  “Please, Babs. Stop it.”

  “It would be simple.” With a snap of her fingers, Babs stood up and began to pace around Jade, who sat resting her head in her hands. “A most excellent catch passed away a month ago. Jason Terrell Harrington, Junior. He owned a monstrous new mansion across from the Stanford’s on Nob Hill. Died without an heir, or so everyone thought, but it seems he had a son no one even remembered. The news came as quite a shock, stirred up rumors for weeks.”

  “Babs, I’m really tired, do you think—”

  Babs lowered her voice and leaned close as she passed Jade again. “Her mother actually divorced Harrington and took the boy away over twenty-five years ago. Seems he grew up on some cattle ranch in Arizona or Mexico or some such dusty place. I can’t recall which. He’s nearly thirty now. Exactly thirty, I think, and fresh off the farm. He didn’t even want to come to settle the estate—just asked his father’s attorney to send him his money. Can you imagine? Here he has inherited a fortune, a mansion, and guaranteed standing among some of the richest people in the world, and he doesn’t want any part of it. He should be in San Francisco by now.”

  Jade knew that there was no stopping Babs now. “I had forgotten how thorough the rumor mongers were in this place.”

  “Harrington’s lawyer is Matt Van Buren. Matt’s a member of Reggie’s club.”

  Babs’s eyes took on a faraway look and she stood lost in thought, tapping her index fingernail on her front tooth.

  Jade’s worry deepened. “I know that look. What are you thinking?”

  “I think it’s time to go shopping,” Babs said.

  Jade yawned. “I’d much rather take a nap.”

  “You can’t wear my clothes forever. Come on now, put on the pink stripe that Doreen brought in. The color will cheer you. We’ll go shopping a while, not long I promise, then you can rest. The fresh air will revive you.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Babs walked back over to Jade and stood, hands on hips, staring down at her. “I’ll send Doreen in to help you.” When Jade was about to protest again she added, “And I won’t take no for an answer.”

  SHADOWS BLURRED reality as they so often did whenever he was dreaming of the past. In the strange way of all dreamers, Jason was both observer and participant. He saw himself as a youth of fifteen, smooth-skinned and lanky, strolling along the stream that crossed the homestead near Athens, Georgia, where he had lived with his mother and her maiden aunt.

  His childhood sweetheart, Nettie Parsons, walked beside him, her fingers resting lightly, properly, against the crook of his arm. She appeared as radiant as always, her blond hair parted and coiled into perfect ringlets that bobbed with every dainty step she took as they ambled along. The spring day of his dream was a warm, sunny one. Bird song surrounded them and the world seemed reborn. Nettie’s gown was of a bygone era, a hoop-skirted confection covered with hand-painted roses. The blushing pink satin highlighted the roseate glow of her complexion. His dream was complete in every detail, down to the hint of jasmine that always scented the air about her.

  J.T.’s heart contracted just as it had when the dream had been a reality. He knew what he was about to say to her, and willed himself to stop. But the Jason in the dream failed to obey his command, and the scene was played out just as it had been fifteen years before.

  “I’ll be leaving soon, Nettie,” he said.

  He watched her lips pout as she began to protest, her languid southern drawl as melodic as he remembered it. “You just can’t leave me, Jason. Tell your mama you’ll do no such thing, now, you hear? I can’t live without you.”

  She paused along the bank of the stream, concentrating on the water lapping against the sandy creek bottom. He reached out to touch her shoulder. He would tell her that he would not go to New Mexico Territory with his mother, that he would stay in Georgia until she turned sixteen and her father gave them permission to marry.

  If he left her behind, he knew what would happen. There were better prospects, wealthy plantation owners’ sons who could give her everything her heart desired. But none could love her more.

  Fifteen years ago, he had left her. Now, his dream was giving him a chance to stay.

  But the past continued to unfold without alteration. When Nettie felt his touch, she turned to him just as she had so long ago, her eyes luminous with unshed tears. His own heart was near to breaking.

  “In a year or two I’ll send for you, Nettie. We’ll get married just like we’ve planned, I promise.”

  She sniffed and accepted the handkerchief he handed her. “You been promising to marry me since we were seven years old, J.T. I just don’t know how you can go off now and leave me this way.”

  “Mama needs me more than you do right now, Nettie. She’s sold the place and is dead set against anything but moving to my uncle’s ranch. There’s nothing to be done for it. As soon as I see mama safe and settled there, I’ll come back for you. How’s that?” He reached out and wiped away one of her stray tears.

  She sniffed again, and then, with her customary resiliency, Nettie brightened and smiled, her sadness behind her for the time being. “I guess so, Jason, but I want you to remember that you’ll be takin’ my little bitty ol’ heart along with you. So be careful with it, will you now, honey?”

  As the vision faded, Jason tried to recapture his dream, but when he reached out to Nettie, he jerked himself awake. When he woke up to find his hat pulled low over his eyes, he reached up and pushed it to the crown of his head, then sat up and looked around. The last thing he remembered was walking into the master suite, dropping his things in the corner of the expansive room, and then stretching out on the sleigh bed that dominated the center of the room.

  J.T. stretched, then swung his feet over the edge o
f the bed. While he rubbed his hand across the stubble that shaded the lower half of his face, his stomach rumbled. He ambled out of the room and down the hall, unable to shake the remnants of the dream.

  What would Nettie think of this place? he wondered. Despite the years that had passed, despite the impossibility of the notion, he could imagine the perfect hostess Nettie Parsons would make as mistress of Harrington House. The place would be a fitting background to her beauty. As he descended the wide, curved stairs and assessed the fine workmanship in the graceful curve of the handrail, he silently admitted to himself that Nettie still inhabited a special place in his heart, and always would. To him she represented all that was the ideal of southern womanhood—purity, regal grace, loyalty.

  It was Nettie’s own unbending convictions that had forced the permanent rift between them. That, and his own beliefs. Shortly after he and his mother moved to New Mexico, the War Between the States had erupted. Although he had been raised in Georgia, J.T., like his Uncle Cash, had refused to take sides. But his decision not to fight had cost him Nettie, for she had expected him to return to Georgia and join the Confederate Army. When J.T. refused, after trying to explain to her that he did not believe in fighting against his own countrymen—no matter what their beliefs—and that Cash needed him on the ranch, she wrote back to tell him that under no condition could she continue to love a man who would not fight to defend the Confederacy.

  He had written to her after that, but his letters had returned unopened. As demanding as the ranch was, he had little time to waste writing letters that would only be returned, and so soon he stopped writing at all. There had been a girlfriend or two, young women he’d met in Taos, ranchers’ daughters he’d danced with at gatherings, whores he’d paid for in Santa Fe, but there had never been anyone in his life he had loved as much as he had Nettie. After fifteen years, he doubted there ever would be.

  J.T. paused in the foyer. The entry way reminded him of the vestibule of a church with its high, vaulted ceiling and double doors. He stood for a moment with his hands jammed into his pockets, studied the two long panels of stained glass that bordered the front doors, shook his head, and then headed for the kitchen again.