Courting Susannah

by Linda Lael Miller

  Susannah laughed and shut the door, pushing against a breeze sweeping uphill from the not-so-distant waters of the bay. “Quite frankly, I haven’t given a thought to supper, though I’m sure Maisie has. I’m delighted that you’re here.”

  Ethan came out of the study then, and Susannah’s heart practically turned over when she saw the way he looked at Ruby. Aubrey might not believe in love, but it was perfectly plain that his brother was of quite another opinion on the subject.

  Ruby crossed the entryway and stood looking up at Ethan, her expression as poignantly eloquent as his had been. Susannah felt a momentary sting of envy and glanced at Aubrey, only to find him watching her in a very thoughtful fashion.

  Despite the clouds of trouble that had gathered over them all, supper that night was a pleasant experience, spiced with laughter, good-natured political disagreements, and unspoken hopes. Maisie had cooked up a veritable feast, with help from Ellie, and there were no leftovers when the meal ended and the dishes were whisked away.

  “That was delicious,” Susannah told the two women as she entered the kitchen, pushing up the sleeves of her dress. She had left their guests in Aubrey’s charge, intending to help with the clearing up. “Thank you both.”

  Maisie accepted the compliment with a grunt, but there was something obstinate in her bearing. “You just run along and chat with your company, now,” she said.

  “Me and Ellie’ll take care of these dishes.”

  Susannah felt shut out, even though she knew the women wanted to do her a favor. She opened her mouth to protest, realized it would be hopeless, and then simply left the room.

  Ruby and John took their leave fairly early, and Ethan, who would be staying at the house for the time being, seemed at loose ends after that. He was pacing the front parlor when Aubrey levered himself out of his chair and announced that it was about time he went to bed.

  Susannah said good night to Ethan as she took her husband’s arm, and they climbed the stairs together. As she had suspected, it turned out that Aubrey was not nearly so tired as he’d made himself out to be.

  With the morning came Mr. Zacharias, money in hand, seeking yet another impromptu piano lesson. Susannah did not fail to notice that he lingered in the kitchen, drinking Maisie’s fresh-brewed coffee, afterward. Maisie, for her part, was friendly but not forward; after all, she and Mr. Zacharias had just discovered each other. Susannah left them alone and went upstairs to resume the job of going through Julia’s things.

  Aubrey had left the house directly after breakfast, taking Ethan with him, and Susannah had not seen either of them since. She hoped they were at the store or meeting with Mr. Hollister regarding Ethan’s defense, but she feared something quite different. Both of them believed Mrs. Parker had been murdered by her own hirelings, the same men who had attacked Aubrey in his office. Ethan had referred to them as wharf rats on more than one occasion, and of course the term indicated that they might be found in one of the iniquitous pits along Seattle’s busy waterfront. She wouldn’t put it past either her husband or her brother-in-law to go poking around down there, amongst people who would sooner slit the visitors’ throats than part with any information concerning the killing.

  She worked diligently, and Aubrey did not return, and finally there was nothing left but Julia’s diary and the letters. With Victoria napping in the next room, Susannah curled up on her and Aubrey’s bed and pondered the envelopes first.

  There were her own letters to Julia, tattered from much reading and bound together by a faded yellow ribbon. That simple show of caring on her friend’s part brought tears to Susannah’s eyes, and she blinked them back. She hadn’t dreamed, in those innocent days when she was writing to Julia from Nantucket, that they would never see each other again. She’d believed, in fact, that they would be old together, the two of them, looking back over long, productive lives, comparing notes and exchanging memories.

  Suddenly, Susannah couldn’t bear staying shut up inside that house for another moment. She got to her feet and went in search of Ellie, asking the other woman to look after Victoria while she was out. Then she put on Julia’s hooded cloak and set off down the hill, toward the heart of Seattle.

  Some of her notices offering piano lessons were still fluttering on poles and the sides of buildings, and Susannah felt a little sad when she saw them. That source of income was almost certain to dry up now that she was married to Aubrey, since most of her students had actually been suitors, not sincere lovers of music, and she regretted that. Not only would she be without funds of her own, but she was certain to miss teaching as well.

  She strolled past the store, certain now that Aubrey was not there, and headed toward the waterfront. She could not have explained why the place drew her, but it did, almost irresistibly. Maybe it had all along.

  There were ships riding the tide in Elliott Bay, and several were tied up at the various wharves. Giant stevedores, mostly Germans and Scandinavians by their accents, worked alongside impossibly small Chinamen, loading and unloading crates and boxes and baggage of all sorts. Susannah garnered a few looks as she picked her way through the sawdust that served as fill dirt, but she ignored them.

  Mashers and rascals, she had read in various periodicals, were best dealt with in just such a fashion. If one paid them any mind at all, they would merely be encouraged in their vices.

  She did not see Aubrey, but then, she wasn’t looking for him; indeed, he was the last person she wanted to encounter at the moment. Somewhere between the house and the docks, she had decided that the waterfront had important secrets to share, if she would only pay attention. Ethan had had that damning confrontation with Delphinia here, aboard the steamer Olympia, and whoever had killed the other woman had thrown her body into these same busy waters. The truth, Susannah knew, was here—somewhere.

  The place was loud and foul-smelling, a noxious conflagration of odors including rotted fish, sewage, low tide, and sour sweat, and Susannah held a handkerchief to her nose as she pressed on. She did not know what she was looking for, nor was she under the delusion that she could solve the crime on her own and vindicate her brother-in-law, but she was impelled to proceed nonetheless.

  A stench of swear words swirled overhead like a flock of birds as the workmen shouted to one another, but she took no offense, knowing the oaths and curses were not directed at her. She had walked for some distance when she heard shouting up ahead and peered around a huge stack of crates to see Ethan standing with his feet apart and his hands clenched into fists. A Chinaman railed at him.

  “White devil!” the smaller man screamed. “Woman spoiler!” A stream of sulphurous abuse followed, accusations so impossibly vicious that Susannah felt as though she’d been eavesdropping at the keyhole of hell.

  Ethan did not move, and Susannah knew for certain then, if she had ever truly doubted it, that he had had no part in Mrs. Parker’s death, nor had he earned the bullet he’d taken from that woman’s derringer for allegedly trying to force himself upon her. Had he done those things, it would have been impossible for him to endure such insults, especially in public, while still holding his temper in check.

  A bearded man in a sweat-drenched shirt ceased his dockside labors long enough to take in the scene and demand, “You gonna take that kinda sewer slop, Fairgrieve? I say you ought to drown the little bastard.”

  This opinion brought a round of cheers from onlookers, and Susannah was frightened by the blithe hatred of the crowd. They were hoping for violence.

  “Everybody stay back,” Ethan said in a clear voice. “This is between Su Wong and me.”

  The Chinaman spat out Aubrey’s name and something about a bank draft.

  Susannah was disturbed by the reference, but she had no opportunity to pursue the matter. The Chinaman continued to berate Ethan, spewing his native dialect, broken here and there by fractured English, in shrill, birdlike squawks. She lost track of the content, but Su Wong’s tone of voice was eloquence itself.

  Ethan clos
ed his eyes for a moment, held up his hands, palms up. “Enough,” he said quietly.

  It was then that Susannah realized the angry man was probably Su Lin’s father, brother, or uncle. She could not judge Su Wong’s age by looking at him; he might have been seventeen or fifty. He wore the standard black silk shirt and pants, and a coarse, thin braid dangled far down his back.

  Just as Susannah stepped out from behind the crates, the Chinaman shrieked something vehement, again in his own language, then covered his face with both hands and turned away from Ethan, wailing in furious sorrow. The sound stabbed at the pit of Susannah’s stomach, and Ethan moved to touch the man’s thin shoulder in what appeared to be sympathy, then thought better of the idea and withdrew. It was then that he noticed Susannah.

  “Good Lord,” he said. Striding toward her, he took her by the elbow. “What are you doing here?”

  Susannah shrugged free and patted her hair with both hands in order to stall for time. Then she let out a long breath and met her brother-in-law’s gaze. He reminded her a lot, in those moments, of Aubrey, for all their differences, physical and otherwise. “I don’t know,” she replied, and she was telling the God’s truth.

  Su Wong had vanished into the throng of workers on the dock, and the spectators were minding their own business again. Ethan seemed to notice none of this; all his attention was fixed on Susannah. He took a new grip on her arm, and, though it wasn’t painful, it was tight as a manacle.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said, and dragged her among boxes and barrels, wheelbarrows and waiting travelers, toward the street. In one direction was the notorious Skid Road, a long, muddy track, once used to slide timber down from the hills to the waterfront. Now, it was lined with brothels, gaming rooms, and saloons, and Maisie had told Susannah it was the only part of town with a worse reputation than Water Street’s.

  “That man—” she began.

  “Su Lin’s father,” Ethan replied, dragging her behind him, never looking back. “He blames me for bringing dishonor on his family. Do you realize that if Aubrey sees you down here, he’ll have me horsewhipped and lock you up in the attic for a year or two?”

  They crossed Water Street, Susannah hurrying to keep up. “Ethan,” she gasped, “will you stop, please, before my lungs burst?”

  He came to a swift halt, and his blue eyes were snapping as he looked down at her. He cocked his thumb toward the bay. “This isn’t Nantucket, Mrs. Fairgrieve,” he said. “Half those men are cutthroats, and the other half think any unescorted woman who crosses their path can be had for two bits and a shot of whiskey.”

  Susannah was at the end of her patience. She put her hands on her hips and tapped one foot on the frostslickened boards of the sidewalk. “I am well aware that this isn’t Nantucket, thank you. About that man—”

  “What man?”

  “Mr. Su.”

  Ethan looked sick, weary to the very center of his soul. “I told you. Su Lin was his daughter. I wanted to marry her, and he wanted her to take a Chinese husband. Recently, Su received word from the man he’d chosen—Su Lin was carrying a child. She tried to—to do something about it—on the ship, and died in the process.” He put out a hand, braced himself against the brick wall of a building. He breathed deeply for several moments and swallowed. “Are you happy now, or would you like to go out into the country someplace and put a hand into a few snake dens or maybe bait a bull?”

  Susannah was shaken, not only by the loud and dangerous encounter on the waterfront but by the implications of what Ethan had just said. Su Lin, the woman he had loved, was dead, and she had perished in an attempt to eliminate a child that was almost certainly his. It was all too overwhelming, too personal to address, particularly in the street.

  She spotted Aubrey just then, on foot and coming toward them like a storm made flesh, and felt a sort of rueful gratitude. “I don’t think that will be necessary,” she replied. “My baiting a bull, I mean.”

  Ethan followed her gaze and muttered something under his breath. Some of his color was coming back, but he was still leaning against the wall. He would be a long time getting over what he’d learned that day, though she wouldn’t have been surprised if he never mentioned it again.

  Susannah shivered as another cold wind ruffled the water and then rolled over her like an intangible wave.

  “I won’t ask what you’re doing here,” Aubrey said, looking at Susannah, “since it’s obvious. You’re looking for trouble, as usual, and my guess is, you found some.”

  Susannah glanced at Ethan, hoping for a word of support, but he was stubbornly silent, his lips pressed together into a thin line. He thrust a hand through his hair and glared at Aubrey, as though all the sorrows of the world were his fault.

  Aubrey, meanwhile, shifted his attention from his wife to his brother. “You promised to leave this alone,” he said, and Susannah knew he was referring to the inquiry into Mrs. Parker’s death. They were on a public street, and passersby nodded in greeting or tipped their hats, their glances avid and curious.

  Susannah took Aubrey’s arm, then Ethan’s. Their breaths made vapor in the cold. “If we must discuss this further,” she said, “might we at least do so in private?”

  Five minutes later, they were in Aubrey’s office over the store. He sat on the edge of his desk, arms folded, while Susannah took a nearby chair and Ethan stood at the window overlooking the street. It wasn’t hard to guess what he was thinking about.

  Aubrey poured brandy for himself and his brother and produced a mild blackberry cordial for Susannah. She normally did not indulge in spirits, but she was still freezing from her impulsive trek to the waterfront, and poor Su Lin and her child were very much on her mind. Too, now that she was well away from the docks, she was beginning to imagine some of the singular calamities that might have befallen her there.

  “Hollister swears the police are questioning every man on the shoreline,” Aubrey said, speaking to Ethan’s back. “For the time being, brother, that has to be enough.”

  Ethan turned. “My life is at stake here,” he said. “I’m not going to stand by and wait for Hollister or anybody else to solve the problem.” His face contorted. “Su Lin is dead,” he rasped.

  Aubrey and Susannah exchanged glances, but neither one spoke.

  Ethan sought and held his brother’s gaze. His anger and pain were palpable. “It’s my fault. If I’d married her—”

  Susannah set her glass on Aubrey’s desk, not trusting herself to hold it steady. Aubrey did not look away from Ethan’s face; his shoulders were straight, and he held his head up.

  “You can’t change the past. Sometimes you just have to walk away from it.”

  Ethan’s smile was terrible to see. “Ironic advice, coming from you,” he said.

  The silence that followed was lengthy and palpable.

  “I’m sorry,” Aubrey told his brother. “About Su Lin, I mean.”

  Ethan’s gaze flickered in Susannah’s direction as he’d just remembered her presence; she grasped the arms of her chair, her way of saying she wasn’t going anywhere. He turned back to the matter at hand.

  “There’s more.”

  Aubrey poured himself another splash of brandy and sipped from it. Susannah’s heart beat faster.

  “Yes,” Aubrey said, and waited.

  “You gave her money. You paid her off.”

  Aubrey shook his head. “No,” he said.

  “The draft was drawn on one of your bank accounts,”

  Ethan said. Another dreadful pause ensued. “Why?” the younger brother ground out, agonized. Then he slammed both fists down on the surface of Aubrey’s desk. “Tell me why!”

  The atmosphere in the office seemed charged; Susannah didn’t dare move or speak.

  “I told you,” Aubrey said. “I didn’t go near Su Lin.”

  Ethan leaned forward. “Did you tell her she would bring disgrace on the Fairgrieves, Aubrey? Did you tell her that her children—my children—would be outcasts?”r />
  Aubrey’s jawline clamped down hard. Susannah could see that his control was stretched to its limits.

  She closed her eyes, awaiting the explosion, but it didn’t come. When she looked again, Aubrey and Ethan were still well apart, taking each other’s measure.

  “You bastard,” Ethan said at long last.

  Aubrey ran the tip of his tongue along the inside of his lower lip, a gesture that Susannah recognized as an effort to hold on to his temper. “Think what you like,” he replied.

  “I need a drink,” Ethan said. Then he turned, without another word, and walked out of the office, slamming the door behind him.

  “How could you, Aubrey?” Susannah asked.

  He heaved a sigh. “Not you, too.”

  “You had no right, interfering like that.”

  “Thank you for your faith in my word, Mrs. Fairgrieve.”

  “There was mention of a bank draft,” Susannah said stubbornly. “I was there, if you will recall.”

  “I can’t explain that,” Aubrey said. “You’ll just have to trust me.” He sighed, staring off into space. “I won’t deny that I was afraid for both of them,” he confided. “Ethan was eighteen years old at the time, and he thought he could hold off a world full of bigots. Su Lin was sheltered, innocent. The two of them would have suffered beyond anything they could have imagined.”

  Susannah held her tongue. She had begun to believe Aubrey, even in the face of evidence to the contrary, and she could not bring herself to admit as much.

  Aubrey lowered himself into his desk chair—a place, she reasoned, where his authority was absolute. He looked pale and gaunt sitting there but in no way diminished. He was without question the strongest person she had ever known, and yet he had been very nearly destroyed by a single, feckless woman. A sobering measure, that, of his attachment to Julia.

  He sat back and gazed up at the ceiling. “Oh, yes,” he agreed, having taken the time to absorb her statement regarding Su Lin’s tragic death. “She suffered.”