Pilfered Promises

by M. Louisa Locke

  “Darling, what is it? And can it wait until I change? It started to rain on my way home, and the cars were so crowded I had to stand on the open platform, so I’m soaked.”

  Annie opened her mouth to protest then laughed at herself. “Of course it can wait.” She gave him a kiss, feeling his cheek cold against her lips. “Let me get your slippers and robe, and shall I ring for Kathleen to bring you up something to eat?”

  “I ran into her in the downstairs hallway, so she’s already working on that.”

  “Good. Did you hear anything from Judge Simmons about how he was going to rule?”

  Nate’s divorce case had concluded Tuesday, after two days of closing arguments by him and the opposing counsel, Knudson. Now it was up to the judge to decide whether or not to grant Mrs. Inglenook a divorce, and perhaps, as important, whether or not to grant her custody of her children and require her husband to provide both alimony and child support.

  “Yes, he sent word for us to be in court next Monday morning at eight.”

  Nate hung his suit coat up over the back of a chair and slipped off his shoes, pulling on his dressing gown and sliding his feet into a disreputable pair of slippers that Annie only tolerated because she knew that his mother had ordered an identical pair to give to him for Christmas.

  He came over to where she stood and said, “Sweetheart, you look even more tired than I feel. Have you eaten?” He took a strand of her hair and tried to tuck it back into the braided knot at the back of her head.

  “Yes, I did eat; you can ask Kathleen. And I even took a nap…well, I fell asleep in my chair, which is why my hair is a mess. And just because you are such a mother-hen, I will eat all of the shortbread cookies that Bea will no doubt send up with your supper. Jamie spent the evening helping her decorate this batch.”

  “Oh, no you won’t. That must be Kathleen. Come on in,” Nate said, going over to open the door to let the young maid enter the room with a laden tray.

  Annie watched him repress his natural desire to take the tray from her. He’d not grown up as she had with servants, and the domestics his old boardinghouse keeper employed didn’t have Beatrice and Kathleen’s standards about not letting the boarders lift a finger. As a result, they both got quite agitated when he didn’t let them do what they called their “duty.” Like handling the heavy serving trays.

  She also watched with amusement as Kathleen grabbed his wet coat and muddy shoes and took them with her when she left. Nate still marveled every morning when his suits and shoes magically appeared in his wardrobe, all pressed and polished and ready to wear.

  As Nate put mustard on the thick slab of beef on his plate, he said, “All right. I will eat; you talk.”

  “Well, it all started this morning after you left for work. After I got out of my meeting with my only client for the day, Kathleen told me that a Miss Spencer was waiting for me in the formal parlor.”

  “The woman who is renting Mrs. Fournier’s shop?”

  “Yes. At first I thought she just wanted to thank me for writing to tell her that you would recommend to whomever the court awarded guardianship over Emmaline and her inheritance that they renew the contract for the shop for at least one more year, under the existing terms.”

  “But she wasn’t pleased with that?”

  “Oh, no, that’s not it; she was effusive in her thanks. But she came to see me because she wanted my advice about what to do with something she found in the bottom of the sewing box Marie used when she was at the shop.”

  “A sewing box?”

  “You know, your mother has one. The large wooden box by her chair in the parlor that has needles, pins and pin cushions, and spools of thread. In fact, Miss Spencer brought the box with her, thinking that Emmaline might want it for her own.”

  “And that’s what brought her all the way over here?”

  “Of course not. Nate, stop interrupting me and listen. Miss Spencer was looking for a particular pair of scissors that Marie had, and she discovered that the whole bottom of the box, under the top tray, was filled with letters. Love letters to Marie from a man named Phillip, last initial D. A man who, until right before Thanksgiving, thought he was going to marry her at the first of the year.”

  “You weren’t teasing me about eating up the cookies,” Nate complained, watching his wife snag the last of the sugar-dusted snowmen.

  Actually, he couldn’t be more pleased to see her with such a good appetite. He had started to worry about how she wasn’t bouncing back from the cold she’d come down with after Thanksgiving. That she’d taken on too much trying to juggle her normal work as an accountant and financial advisor, the investigations at the Silver Strike, and the extra duties that the holidays seemed to require.

  But she’d handled difficult responsibilities before and was generally sensible about getting help and taking care of herself. That was what he would tell his mother if she asked him about Annie’s health, which would be a veiled question about why she wasn’t pregnant yet. As if there was something they could do to make that happen, besides letting nature take its course.

  “No, I wasn’t teasing, but I will ring to ask Kathleen to bring you some more cookies if you will just let me tell you what I have discovered from the letters. It took me all day to figure everything out, because there are over forty of them, covering a period of ten years. At first they were sporadic. But in the past two years, they came about two to three times a month.”

  “Can you tell who he is and where he lives?”

  “She didn’t keep the envelopes. Except for the very last one, which was posted from Oakland two days before Thanksgiving. But the letters often refer to where the man was when he wrote them. And these references are what led me to the conclusion that this Phillip works for the Central Pacific Railroad. I couldn’t tell from the letters what exact job he has, although he seems very proud of his position with the CP, as he refers to it, so it might be he’s either an engineer or a conductor.”

  Annie went on to tell him how the letters mentioned different railroad stations between Oakland and Ogden, Utah––the eastern terminus for the Central Pacific. And how the round trip between the two cities seemed to take him five days, with less than a twenty-four hour layover in Oakland each trip.

  “However, about once a month his layover comes over a Saturday night, and in the past two years he routinely planned to meet her late at night at the Green Street dress shop,” Annie said. “I know that Saturday evenings Marie often stayed at the shop after it closed. And Miss Birdsoll did mention to me that about once a month Marie asked either her or the Villeneuves to keep Emmaline overnight. Said Marie told them she was going across the Bay to visit an old friend…but…”

  “Well, now it looks like the old friend was visiting her. But just the past two years?”

  “Yes. The letters did confirm that there was no Captain Fournier, but there definitely was some man who’d given her the money for the shop. I assume the one Emmaline called ‘uncle.’ And the letters indicate this Phillip started meeting her at the shop around ’78, which is when Miss Spencer thought the man died. I assume Marie didn’t feel safe meeting Phillip at the shop until then.”

  “How long had this relationship with Phillip gone on? You said ten years?”

  “The first letter wasn’t dated, but it mentioned that he’d known her back in Natchez and how pleased he’d been to run into her on Market Street. How he hoped she wasn’t angry when he found out her address.”

  “And was she angry?”

  “Yes, I think she must have been, because the next letter mentions that it has been months since they last met and that he understood why her grandmother was against them renewing their friendship.” Annie took up a letter and quoted from it saying, “He wrote, ‘Tell her I promise never to do anything that would reveal your secret or endanger your position with your patron.’”

  “Ah, the mystery man. Does he ever give him a name?”

  “No, unfortunately, just calls him your pa
tron or just him in the letters.’”

  “Well, that’s not very helpful. What about this Phillip? Did you ever get a full last name?”

  “No, he just signed his letters Phillip D. But the important thing is that the third letter mentions ‘the glorious night’ they spent together and his hope they will be able to meet again the next time he is in the city. And there is a date on this letter, November 1869.”

  “Annie, this means this Phillip could be Emmaline’s father.” Nate wasn’t sure whether he was pleased by the idea the child wasn’t necessarily an orphan or sad that this would prove once and for all that she was illegitimate.

  “Yes,” Annie said. “But the letters suggest that when she discovered she was pregnant, she broke things off with Phillip. At least there are no more letters until the winter of 1870, when he writes that he has just learned that she now owns a dress shop on Green Street, her grandmother has died, and she has a daughter.”

  “Ah, that last piece of information must have been a surprise. Does he ask her outright if the child is his?”

  “Yes. But this is where it is frustrating that we only have his side of the correspondence. As far as I can tell, she told him he wasn’t the father, but it doesn’t sound like he completely believed her. A number of times over the years he writes that he doesn’t care if he or the other man was Emmaline’s father. All that matters to him is that the girl is Marie’s daughter.”

  “Sounds to me like a man who is protesting too much.”

  “I agree, and I suppose it is possible that she really didn’t know which man was Emmaline’s father. But she lets Phillip continue to write to her, saves his letters, which appear to have been read over and over, and it seems that every couple of months they find some way to meet. Usually during the afternoon in a hotel near the railway yards in Oakland. He seems particularly bitter when months go by and she can’t manage to see him. Comments about not being able to give her the things her patron gives her, because all he has is his love for her.”

  Nate couldn’t imagine sharing Annie with a rival. He had a hard enough time accepting that another man, her dead husband, ever shared her bed, seen her beautiful body in the firelight, and worse, hit her and brought her such misery…

  “Nate, whatever are you thinking, darling? You sort of growled,” Annie said, her brow furrowed.

  Nate flushed, and he stammered out, “I’m sorry…it’s that it struck me…I wouldn’t just be bitter; I would be confoundedly angry. At my rival, sure, but maybe even angrier with the woman I loved. Knowing she chose that man over me.”

  Annie leaned across the table and touched his cheek gently. “I know. And yet most of the time he simply sounds resigned. He writes that he doesn’t blame her and understands that she is doing what she believes she must for the sake of her daughter.”

  “Do the letters confirm Miss Spencer’s belief that this patron died sometime in ’77?”

  “Yes, because Phillip immediately asks her to marry him, writing that she’d promised him that if she were ever free that she would do so. Although, as your sister pointed out, we are assuming this man died. He could have just left Marie.”

  “But in either case, it looks like she went back on her promise.”

  “It’s not clear that she says no to marriage, more like, ‘not yet.’ At least that is what his side of the correspondence suggests. The discovery that his rival had saddled her with a loan that could lose her the shop is the major reason she then gives for saying she can’t marry him right away.”

  “And he can’t help out financially?”

  “Not enough. He says he is saving up. I don’t know what men who work for the Central Pacific make. It was my impression that being an engineer could be pretty lucrative, but he could have a lesser role on the train. I don’t know, maybe baggage handler. And who knows, this Phillip could have a whole other family he is supporting at one of the other railroad stops.”

  Nate laughed, thinking about Annie’s comment weeks ago that the supposed Captain Fournier could have another family in a different port. “I am certainly glad I am not a traveling man. Clearly you would be constantly worrying I was cheating on you,” he said. “And you did say the letters definitively proved there was never a Captain Fournier?”

  Annie plucked a letter off the pile, saying, “Pretty much. In this very first letter he wrote to her, he mentions the name Fournier and says, ‘I see you took your grandfather’s last name.’ And he also references a secret in connection with that name, writing, ‘I wish you didn’t have to live a lie.’”

  “So you think the lie is that she wasn’t married, which confirms that Emmaline was illegitimate.”

  “I guess, although I wonder if Marie herself might have been illegitimate because when she discovers she might lose her shop to the bank, Phillip asked her why she didn’t contact ‘the old ladies and ask for their help.’ He writes, ‘Surely they would want to help one of their own.’ And then in the next letter he writes about Marie’s promise to her grandmother not to let anyone know ‘the secret of who she is.’”

  “So there might be other relatives around, like these old ladies or their children, even if this Phillip isn’t Emmaline’s father?” Nate had spent a good deal of time when he first worked in his uncle’s law firm tracking down heirs, so he was already thinking about how he might figure out who these ‘old ladies’ might be.

  Annie said, “Maybe. Although it wasn’t clear if these women live in San Francisco. But if they do, they could be part of the French community here. Phillip wrote a couple of times about ‘your grand-mère,” as if that is how Marie referred to her grandmother. This would also explain why she had Madam Villeneuve teach Emmaline French. And of course both Marie and Emmaline sound like French names.”

  “Villeneuve never mentioned anything about her having French relatives? Oh, that’s right. That is where the family secret would come in. Maybe the family didn’t admit the relationship.”

  “But they might if they discovered there was an inheritance and that the child is orphaned. And you know, Nate, Madam Villeneuve is so set on adopting Emmaline that she might have pressured her husband not to reveal the information that the girl has living relatives.”

  Nate gave his wife’s hand a squeeze, saying, “But at least we now know more than we did. That Fournier is in fact her family name, that she definitely lived in Natchez, and that she was most probably the mistress of a man who lived in San Francisco and may have died in ’77. No wonder you were excited to tell me. What a good day’s work you have put in.”

  Annie’s voice rose in excitement. “Nate, the Moffets mentioned that they thought there was a woman in Natchez who had Fournier as her maiden name. I think they said she came from New Orleans. So she might not be from a recent French emigre family but one with roots in Louisiana from last century.”

  “That would be a good place to start, see if there are any families in San Francisco from New Orleans. And if not, the Moffets might know who we could write to in Natchez. The old ladies or other relatives might very well be still living there.”

  Annie smiled at him. “Excellent. I just know you will be able to find out the truth about Marie and her family. And maybe even figure out if this Phillip might be Emmaline’s father. I guess I just want the girl to have choices. Her mother worked so hard to provide for her future, sacrificed so much. I feel like we should do everything to ensure that future is the best possible for the girl.”

  Nate looked into the depths of his wife’s brown eyes, shining brightly with the fierce dedication she brought to every endeavor, and he felt nothing but pride. Even though she’d just handed him what would no doubt be a long and time-consuming task.

  But then he remembered what she’d said when she’d first told him about the letters, and he said, “Darling, much as I commend your commitment to finding family for Emmaline, don’t we first need to figure out who killed her mother and make sure that she isn’t in danger herself?”

  Her expres
sion darkened. “Yes, and whether or not Phillip is her father. What I can’t be sure of is whether he could be her mother’s murderer. About six months ago, it looked like Marie finally agreed to marry him. He speaks about their plans but isn’t specific in the letters, although I got the impression that he might have convinced her to leave San Francisco.”

  “Does he say where they would live?”

  “Not exactly, but he suggests that he wouldn’t have any trouble getting a position with the Union Pacific, so it sounds like the plan would take them much further east.”

  “What about the shop?” Nate asked.

  “I don’t know. But it was about six months ago that she mentioned the possibility of Miss Spencer developing her own line of clothing for the store. Maybe Marie’s plan was once she paid off the loan to just have the shop be a steady source of rental income, not to be involved in designing for it anymore. So she wouldn’t have to live in the city.”

  “But didn’t you say that Miss Spencer said that about a month ago Marie started to back off from that idea?”

  “Yes, and the letters from Phillip in October of this year kept asking her what was wrong. That he almost had all the money saved up to pay off the loan, so why wouldn’t she set the date for their marriage?”

  “Sounds like she was getting cold feet to me.”

  “Yes, and he even accuses her of finding someone at the Silver Strike with more money. Then he takes this back and says that he knows he is asking her to give up a lot to marry him, that she is only looking out for her daughter, but that ‘no one would ever love and cherish Emmaline’ the way he would.”

  “Do you think he means Robbie Livingston?”

  “Or Adolphe Villeneuve,” she replied. “It occurred to me that if Monsieur wanted Marie to be his mistress, he might promise to adopt Emmaline, which was one way to secure the girl’s future.”

  “But would Marie do that? Give her child away? It is one thing for the Villeneuves to adopt her now that she’s an orphan, but while her mother is still alive? And what a cruel thing to do to his wife.”