Rachel got to her feet, brushed off her skirt, and with one last longing gaze at the willow trees along the riverbank, turned and set off for home.
At last Mam’s cottage came into view. She walked straight past the front door and headed down the path toward the barn.
Now. It had to be done now, before her nerve failed her.
Once inside, Rachel pried up the loose board where Sophie’s Treasure Box lay hidden and reached a hand inside the alcove.
Nothing. She stretched her arm as far as it would reach, but her fingers grasped only dust and cobwebs. Had she pulled up the wrong board? She blinked, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dim light. But there was no mistake.
It was gone. Not just the two hundred pounds, wrapped in its burlap cocoon, but everything. The lace collar. The handkerchief doll. Colin’s picture. Everything that held Rachel’s memories. Cathleen had taken it all.
Even the Treasure Box itself.
Vita shielded her eyes as the scene on her computer screen shifted.
Bright afternoon sunlight glittered on the cresting waves. A pod of dolphins leaped playfully in the spray churned up by the prow of a massive Cunard liner with the name Carmania I on its side.
On the foredeck, two figures stood leaning over the rail off the port bow, laughing and pointing. A man and a woman.
She grabbed his hand. “See, here come two more! And a baby! A little dolphin family.”
But he wasn’t watching. His eyes were fixed on the horizon.
“Look.”
She followed his gaze and squinted. “What am I looking at?
A shadow? A cloud?”
“Can’t you see it? The island? The harbor? The statue with her hand raised up?”
“How absurd. You can’t see anything from here.”
He laughed. “Use your imagination, darling, not just your eyes. I see a new world and a new life.”
Gradually, as they watched, the smudge at the edge of the world took on clearer form, and she drew in a deep breath. “New York. At last. The Land of Opportunity.”
The man turned, and Vita caught her first glimpse of his face. Derrick Knight. “Since I was fourteen years old, I’ve been counting the days until this moment. Waiting for my new life to begin.”
Cathleen tossed her curls. “Don’t you mean our new life?”
“Of course,” he said absently, putting an arm around her waist and drawing her close. “Of course.”
By the time the ship entered the harbor and drew up even with the Statue of Liberty, Derrick and Cathleen, along with all the other passengers, had retrieved their belongings and come back up on deck. Now they stood pressed shoulder to shoulder along the rail—some of them cheering, some gaping in silent awe at their first glimpse of their new country.
Derrick filled his lungs with the clean, fresh air. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free—”
Cathleen turned up her nose as if she had caught a whiff of one of the passengers from steerage. “What on earth is that?”
“ A poem. By Emma Lazarus. It’s inscribed on a plaque in the base of the statue. I read about it.” He grinned down at her. “The wretched refuse of your teeming shores—”
“You and your poetry,” Cathleen scoffed. “Besides, I don’t like it one bit. Tired? Poor? Huddled masses? Wretched refuse? How insulting!”
“Send these, your homeless, tempest-tossed to me,” Derrick finished.
“I lift my lamp beside the golden door. ”
“Well, I suppose that part’s all right,” she conceded. “What happens now?”
“According to the officer I talked to yesterday, we’ll stop first at Hudson Pier. Doctors will come aboard and examine us to make sure we’re not sick, and then—”
“You mean they think we’re carrying some kind of disease? ”
Cathleen shuddered. “That’s absolutely ridiculous. This isn’t the Middle Ages—it’s 1921! And we’re perfectly respectable people.”
“Just be thankful we were able to travel second class. The riffraff below decks are taken to Ellis Island. I hear they stand in line for hours for their medical exams and processing. A great many of them end up being quarantined for months—if they don’t die first.”
“But we’ll be cleared to go ashore beforehand?” Cathleen persisted.
Derrick nodded. “And then we go through customs.”
“How long will that take?”
“I have no idea how long it will take, my dear,” he responded through gritted teeth. “Try to be patient, will you? You’ve got your whole life ahead of you.”
The scene on the monitor faded to black and reappeared with Rachel seated before the hearth, staring into the fire. Flames licked the dry wood and sent sparks shooting up the blackened chimney.
“It’s gone,” she said through clenched teeth. “The money. The box.
Everything I worked for, dreamed of, cherished.”
The longer she sat there, the more enraged she grew, until her own soul blazed with a white-hot fury.
Rachel Woodlea had finally found her anger. And she wasn’t the only one.
“I’ve never been one to speak ill of my own children,” Mam said, slamming bowls onto the table and sending spoons clattering against the rough wood. “But if I ever get my hands on that eldest daughter of mine, I’ll teach her a lesson she’ll not soon forget.”
“Not if I get to her first.” The words came out quiet, controlled.
Mam turned and stared at her daughter. “Rachel—”
Rachel narrowed her eyes. “Don’t give me that reproving look of yours, Mam. I’ve taken Cathleen’s abuse for years. She had no call to throw herself at Derrick. And then, to steal not only my hard-earned wages, but Sophie’s Treasure Box?” She pounded a burning log with the poker until sparks shot out past the hearth and onto the floor. “I’ll find her, and I’ll get back what’s mine if it’s the last thing I do.” She stomped at the embers with a vengeance.
“America’s a big country,” Mam said. “Without the money, how can you possibly get passage? And even if you did, how would you locate her?”
“I don’t know.” Rachel let out a sigh. “I’ll work, I suppose, until I can save enough to pay my way. Mrs. Tyner will hire me at the dress shop. Perhaps Cathleen will write. Perhaps the government keeps records of immigrants. Perhaps—”
“I know where they’ve gone.”
Colin had been sitting at the table, quiet, unobtrusive. Now Rachel turned on him, reaching the table in two steps and leaning close in to his face.
“What did you say?”
“I said, I know where they’ve gone.”
“Cathleen’s gone to America, Colin—at least we’re almost certain she has.”
“No. Listen.” His face puckered up as if he were about to fly into a rage, and Rachel mollified her tone.
“All right.” She patted his hand. “We’re listening, Colin.”
“Well—” He took a deep breath. “Late one night, maybe two or three weeks before your—your wedding—”
Rachel pulled back as if she had been slapped. “What happened?” “I got up to go to the privy, and on my way there, I heard noises in the barn. A lamp was lit in there. I saw them—Cathleen and that man—”
“Derrick?”
“Him, yes. They were all tangled up together in the hay. He had his shirt off. They were laughing. He was telling her about his plan. He said he had a—a ‘contact,’ I think the word was, in a place called Chi—Chicago. A man named Ben something.”
Rachel held up a hand. “Could it have been a surname— Benedetti?”
Colin frowned. “Maybe. Something about a restaurant and work when he got there. Lots of money.”
“Precisely the same rubbish he fed me.”
Mam gripped Rachel’s arm. “You know who this Benedetti is?”
“Derrick mentioned him once, when he was initially trying to persuade me to go with him to America. I didn’t think mu
ch of it at the time. But if what Colin says is true—”
The lad pulled himself upright in as dignified a pose as an eleven-year-old could muster and crossed his arms defiantly. “I might sneak around a little, but I don’t lie.”
Mam came to the other side of the table and enveloped him in a hug, kissing him all over one cheek. “Colin, my precious boy!”
He swiped at his face. “You’re not mad at me for spying?”
“Not this time.” She held up a warning finger. “But I’d prefer you didn’t make a habit of it.”
Rachel peered at him. “Why didn’t you tell us before now?”
Colin leaned back and shrugged. “I know how to keep a secret.”
Rachel set her lips in a thin line. “Well,” she muttered grimly, “it seems the secret is out now.”
When the scene faded to black, Vita shut off the computer and slumped back in her chair. The image of Derrick and Cathleen laughing together on the deck of the ship haunted her, mocked her. How could they be so unfeeling, so callous? What kind of lover would do such a thing? What kind of sister?
Then she remembered Gordon leaving her for Mary Kate.
But when Gordon walked away, all Vita had to do was raise the walls, shut the gate, and clamp the padlock in place. The solitary life was not, perhaps, the ideal, but it suited her. It made her feel safe. In a closed garden nothing could hurt her. No one could violate her own safe haven.
She swiveled around and peered into the hedge outside her window. Late afternoon was surrendering to dusk, and the little brown sparrow, blissfully unaware that anyone was watching, had curled itself into its newly built nest and settled in for the night.
Vita resisted the impulse to pound on the glass and startle the bird out of its complacency. Frightening the poor beast wouldn’t accomplish anything, and in truth, the sparrow wasn’t the real object of Vita’s frustration.
What she really wanted to do was reach into the computer and shake some sense into Rachel Woodlea. Yes, Rachel had finally connected with the power of her anger, but she was about to use it in the wrong way entirely. Going after Derrick and Cathleen would accomplish nothing. She ought to leave them to whatever fate awaited them in Chicago and get on with her own life. To shore up her walls, protect herself—not go off on a harebrained chase across the ocean and make herself even more vulnerable.
In vain Vita wished for some way to communicate with Rachel, to make her understand that the world was a cruel and hazardous place, and the sooner she learned to protect herself, the better. There were no safe havens in this life, no place where prying eyes and predators could not reach. Not for the sparrow, not for Rachel Woodlea.
Vita resisted the thought even as the words formed unbidden in her mind: Not even for Vita Kirk.
But of course that wasn’t true. Vita knew, from years of experience, that she could find a place of safety—in solitude.
If only you could build your nest high enough, far enough away . . .
12
GUARDIAN ANGELS
Of necessity, Vita spent the following morning in town, shopping for provisions to replenish her empty larder. No matter how compelling the Treasure Box story might be, she still had to eat. The leftovers were gone, as well as the last of the frozen dinners. One pathetic freezer-burnt toaster waffle and the makings for a mustard sandwich wouldn’t go very far.
By eleven-fifteen, her cart was loaded with enough food for a month—staples such as bread, milk, cheese, and eggs, as well as chicken, pasta, ground chuck and garlic spaghetti sauce, assorted vegetables, and a half-gallon of chocolate chunk ice cream. She chose the shortest line, then stood glancing at her watch every ten seconds and tapping her foot as the old woman in front of her painstakingly unloaded her groceries onto the conveyer belt.
“Excuse me, dear,” the woman told the cashier in a thin, wav-ery voice. “That broccoli was supposed to be ninety-nine cents, not a dollar twenty-nine.”
The teenage cashier, who wore two gold eyebrow piercings and a tattoo bracelet, flipped a switch on the pole over the register. The light overhead began to flicker on and off. “Come on, come on,” Vita muttered under her breath.
“Price check on line two,” the cashier announced into the microphone, then waited, snapping her gum, for a manager to appear.
Finally a man in a white shirt and tie ambled over. “What’s the problem?”
“Broccoli scans at one twenty-nine, but the lady says it’s suppose to be ninety-nine.”
The manager turned away and came back a few minutes later with a heavyset woman wearing a produce apron. “She’s right,” the woman said. “It’s on special today for ninety-nine.”
It took another five minutes for the lethargic teenager to cancel the sale and reenter the broccoli at the right price. “That’ll be forty-three fifty.”
The old woman’s face crumpled, and she sent an apologetic glance in Vita’s direction. Her face was webbed with wrinkles, and her eyes a pale, weak gray-green. “I only have”—she re-counted her food stamps—“thirty-eight dollars. We’ll have to see what I can put back. Maybe the rice—I still have a little bit at home— it’s two-seventy. And the peanut butter—I’ll go back and get a smaller jar.”
Vita caught the cashier’s eye. “Look, can you just ring me up while she’s exchanging that stuff? I’m kind of in a hurry.”
The teenager shook her head. “No can do. Gotta finish this order before I can close the register.”
“All right, then.” Vita opened her purse and pulled out a five dollar bill and two quarters. “Here you go.” She extended the money in the old woman’s direction. “This’ll make up the difference.”
The elderly woman recoiled. “I couldn’t possibly. It’s very generous of you, I’m sure, but taking charity is completely out of the question. Now if you’ll pardon me, I’ll be right back.”
She squeezed past Vita and made her way slowly down aisle six, carrying the peanut butter in one trembling hand.
The courthouse clock had already struck noon by the time Vita got home, and the round cardboard carton of ice cream was beginning to feel squishy. She put away the groceries, folded and stored the paper grocery bags in the pantry, then threw together a sandwich of cold cuts and cheese and hurried into her office.
Why she was feeling so impatient, Vita could not imagine. By now she was fairly confident that Rachel or Cathleen—or some other new twist in the story—would be waiting for her whenever she got around to turning her computer on. Still, she felt driven by a sense of urgency, as if her presence as an observer mattered in a way she could not fully comprehend.
The sparrow had temporarily vacated the hedge, and for a moment Vita felt a sense of melancholy as she gazed at the forlorn empty nest. But when the computer booted up, revealing the night sky with its scattering of stars, she turned her attention away from the empty nest, back to the Treasure Box program.
From her research for a book she had written two years ago, Vita could easily identify the scene in front of her: Chicago, early 1920s. The city street, flanked on both sides by high buildings, was clogged with traffic. Streetcars rattled along on their tracks.
Horse-drawn carriages weaved in and out, attempting to avoid the newer, noisier automobiles. A large mason’s truck, loaded with bricks, blocked the intersection, and two mounted policemen drew their horses closer and attempted to give the driver directions.
Her view zoomed in on a bright yellow awning midway down the block, with black letters that read Benedetti’s. In front of the door stood a man and a woman in intense conversation.
“Are you certain this is the right place?” Cathleen asked for the third time, staring up at the tall buildings that surrounded them.
“I told you already. This is it. And stop gaping.” He closed his eyes and shook his head, then curbed his exasperation and pointed at the canvas awning. “Read the sign, for heaven’s sake. Benedetti’s. The proprietor’s name is Angelo Benedetti, and he’s expecting us.”
A car backfired behind them, and Cathleen jumped. “This place is awful, Derrick—so many people, so much noise! No trees, no birds. And the buildings—you can barely see the sky.”
“Right,” he snapped sarcastically. “You’ve always been such a nature lover.” He grabbed her arm and squeezed it. “I didn’t force you to come with me, Cathleen. But this is what you said you wanted, so get used to it. Else get on the boat and go home.”
Just as Derrick put his hand to the door, an ancient white-haired woman approached him. A beggar, apparently, in dirty tattered clothes and a moth-eaten shawl. Her face was a road map of wrinkles, and she gazed at them with watery eyes an odd shade of greenish-gray.
“Spare a bit of change for an old woman down on her luck?” she pleaded, holding out a battered tin cup toward Derrick.
He frowned. “Everybody’s down on their luck. You can’t expect people to—”
“Have a heart, Derrick,” Cathleen interrupted. “Can’t we afford to give her something? Just a little—”
He pulled her aside. “When we left England, we had two hundred pounds,” he whispered between gritted teeth. “That’s one thousand American dollars. The passage cost us nearly half of that, plus the train fare to Chicago, and food, and what we’ve laid out to rent a flat. We’ve less than three hundred dollars left, and no idea how long that will last us. And you expect me to go giving our hard-earned money away to some vagrant?”
Cathleen glared at him. “If I recall correctly, it wasn’t your hard-earned money.”
“And if I recall correctly,” he countered, “it wasn’t yours, either.
You want to go back to England and be hanged as a thief?”
She was about to respond when the door to Benedetti’s opened and a dark-haired man stepped outside.
“Grace! What I told to you about panhandling in front of my place of business? Accenda!
The Treasure Box Page 9