Saturday, July 25
Nathan was seated at the Sitka Ice House windows, cooling off with an iced coffee when he caught sight of Martens’s distinctive tall frame passing by. He gulped down the rest of his drink, slipped out and fell into step behind him, hanging back and dodging carts and other pedestrians, staying out of sight. They were moving farther and farther away from the prosperous stores frequented by the middle class burghers, towards the scrappy docks.
Soon they were on a levee road on the north bank of the Sacramento River, and the crowds, which had made it easy to keep himself hidden, were thinning. It was a futile exercise anyway, he told himself. What did he hope to achieve with it? But while he was here…
He could hear faint sounds of Chinese music coming from a building that was part Chinese temple, part community hall. Attracted by the sound, he started down the alley and was surprised to see Martens ahead of him, slipping into the building through a side door.
From where Nathan stood, near the junction with I Street, he could see a large sign over the main entry in Chinese characters announcing the Canton Chinese Theater. Of course! Some of the girls at the Exchange had family who performed here, he recalled. He was about to follow Martens in when an iron-hard forearm locked around his throat, cutting off his breath. The cold steel of a pistol muzzle pressed against the side of his neck.
“Turn around very slowly, mate. Now. Yer coming with me.” The Sydney Duck from the Wells Fargo yard hissed his instructions into Nathan’s left ear, and he felt spittle land on the side of his face.
The sounds of people going about their normal business on I Street filtered down the alley; shop owners bustling to get goods unloaded and on their shelves before the close of business, a newspaper boy’s cry above the rumble of cartwheels on the hard-packed dirt road, “Sacramento Cour-ier… On sale now!”
He could smell dead fish and decaying water weed on the light breeze from the river. He turned cautiously under the pressure of his captor’s arm to face the slow moving water. The levee regularly flooded in heavy rains, but it offered a quick anonymous exit for anyone able to leave via the water.
Stupid to try anything smart here, he’s got it all over me. How am I ever going to get out of this one alive?
Nathan took a deep breath and started walking towards the river.
*****
Graysie stepped onto the boardwalk outside lawyer John Piedmont Fisher’s offices right next door to the courthouse and slowed to allow Alycia to catch her up. Eustace’s sister had insisted on accompanying Graysie to this appointment with the lawyer. In fact, she had arranged it.
There was no other way Fisher would have been likely to make himself available at short notice on a Saturday, Graysie thought. But if Mrs. Stockton spoke, the world obeyed. Fisher’s office was all dark wood and austerity, and the man’s demeanor reflected the same restraint.
Tall and thin, with faded blonde hair and skin mottled by faint freckles, his appearance showed evidence of too many hours spent at his desk, a model of rectitude. He appeared to have forgotten how to relax and breathe easy.
Quite the opposite of Eustace, Graysie imagined. Alycia took the lead, as usual. She had exchanged letters with Fisher and addressed him as if he was already a valued acquaintance.
“Mr. Fisher! So pleased to meet you at last. My brother’s death was distressing to us all, but it is reassuring to know his wishes are being impeccably executed. You have already met Miss Castellanos, I understand, one of Eustace’s beneficiaries?”
Fisher acknowledged Graysie with a nod. “Yes, we have met. How is it progressing, Miss Castellanos? Have you had a chance to read the legacy documents in their entirety?”
“The legacy documents? No… Should I have? I didn’t realize…” Graysie would have liked the floor to swallow her, she felt such a fool.
“When I saw you last you seemed overwhelmed by the death of your friend and the child’s arrival. It didn’t seem like an appropriate time to spell out certain conditions. And Eustace also left me with confidential instructions.”
She sat very still and concentrated on making sense of what the lawyer was saying. What is he getting at? Certain conditions? Confidential instructions? Like what? But before she had a chance to frame a sensible response, Alycia cut in.
“Mr. Fisher, I hope everything that needs to be said at this meeting can be said in front of both of us? There is nothing that is confidential to only Miss Castellanos or to myself—I mean that one may hear but not the other.
“As you are well aware, Miss Castellanos’s share is just a small part of my brother’s overall estate, and there are still some loose ends I need to attend to as the executor appointed on behalf of the family.”
Mr. Fisher steepled his fingers as he rested his elbows on his desk and considered. Right hand against his left—index against index, middle finger against middle finger… Graysie felt a strange calm descend as she watched his fingers play silent notes.
“Confidential? He has left some sensitive material with me, I grant you. But it probably impacts both of you in different but equal ways, so it is doubtless best if you hear me out together.”
At the word ‘sensitive’, Graysie sensed Alycia stiffening. The matriarch plunged in. “Sensitive material, Mr. Fisher? Can you explain further? I expect we may both be surprised to hear you use that term. I would have thought my brother’s life was pretty much an open book.”
Fisher cleared his throat. He was plainly getting uncomfortable. “Not quite as transparent as you might have assumed, Mrs. Stockton. We find in our profession it’s not so unusual for our clients to take secrets to the grave…”
He looked from Graysie to Alycia and then back to his hands, which he folded flat on the desk in front of him.
“Mr. Mountfort left two documents of a personal, confessional nature, with instructions they were only to be delivered to the named parties if those parties came forward and requested further information. If no one came forward within a year of his death, these documents were to be destroyed. If someone close did ask, I was to make them available.”
“Stop! Stop, please!” Graysie wrung her hands together. “This is all too much to take in. What are you talking about?”
Mr. Fisher regarded her gravely for a long minute and re-steepled his fingers. “What I have to tell you will be a shock, Miss Castellanos.” He paused and nodded courteously in Alycia’s direction. “Mrs. Stockton. I think it is best if I hand over Mr. Mountfort’s documents for you to read for yourselves.”
Fisher began rustling through a folder on his desk and drew out two documents that appeared to have been written on the same expensive cream parchment writing paper. He placed them on the desk in front of him and protectively drew his hands along the sides of the paper, tracing the pages silently.
The rigid line of his shoulders fell forward a fraction.
“In effect, Miss Castellanos, he wanted to make a clean breast of a very turbulent period in his youth relating to his relationship with your mother, Elanora Grayson Castellanos. Events occurred which cast a cloud over the rest of his life, and I believe he wished to clear his conscience before he died.”
Graysie and Alycia stared at each other; neither spoke. Alycia’s normally acute gaze had a glassy sheen. Graysie felt light-headed. The lawyer stood up and walked around his desk to place one of the parchment documents in Alycia’s hand. The other he offered to Graysie. Her fingers were so stiff from clutching the solid arm of her chair, she fumbled to take it.
It was addressed to Miss Grayson Mountfort Castellanos. Her cheeks felt warm, and her fingers tingled. As she unfolded the page, she smelt a faint whiff of masculine cologne. How she wished Eustace was here to tell her in person whatever it was he thought she needed to know. She smoothed the paper and began to read.
My dear Miss Mountfort Castellanos,
As you are reading this letter prepared after many years of heart searching, I can only assume my solicitor Mr. Fisher is satisfied my conditions for its release have been met—namely that you sought further information about me and the bequest I made to you within twelve months of my death.
I would never have been in a position to disclose the information following here if your mother Elanora had not died so prematurely and tragically, as I would have felt that it was not mine to make known.
However, with Elanora now long gone, I have convinced myself the needs of the living should take precedence over the vanished desires of the dead. What is it our dear Lord says in Luke? “Why do you look for the living amongst the dead?” You, my dear Graysie, are our living legacy. Your mother and I are no longer here to love and to fear, and I feel it is incumbent on me to make you aware of just what a remarkable birthright you carry.
Your mother and I were very young, very foolish, very much in love, and certain we would be together forever when we celebrated New Year’s Eve 1848 in the most intimate way a man and woman can. We had no notion our lives would be unhinged by my mother’s unexpected death on New Year’s Day.
Our lives were ripped apart forever by my father’s insistence that, with her gone, I take over the family business in the West Indies. Within a few days of my mother’s funeral I was on a boat to Kingstown, shell-shocked and feeling like I was walking underwater. He would not countenance the idea of me marrying at that time. Apart from anything else, the family was in mourning.
I had no idea I had left your mother in an appallingly exposed situation, with no one to appeal to. She married within a few months of my departure and you were born a very short time after that. She was shunned by her family, and it is one of the great griefs of my life that, because she died so young, she never had the chance to properly reconcile with them.
I have watched your life from afar these many years and have felt ashamed I was not able to step in and ease the hard times you have faced, the disruption of your life after your mother’s death, and the loss of family that was never restored in her absence. Elanora was never replaced in my life, and I understand she was never to be adequately replaced in yours either.
I have been in awe of the resilience and courage you have displayed as you have grown. I have come to wonder not just at your strength but your blossoming as a gifted artist. I have had the pleasure of sitting in your audience on more than one occasion, basking not only in the beauty, so like your mother’s, that you radiate at every turn, but also the poise and talent that you display on stage.
It’s been a lifelong sorrow that I have not been able to make myself known to you for what I am—your father.
Graysie had to stop reading. Her eyes were blurred with tears. Her heart felt huge and was blocking her throat so she struggled to swallow.
This can’t be happening. The man I thought was my father all these years was a shadow? I have another father? She sat for several minutes staring at the page without reading a word. When her pulse had returned to a steady calm, she resumed.
My decision to leave you the Ophir as an inheritance was made after long reflection. I have not been able to ease your path while I have lived, but perhaps I can help a little when I am no longer there.
I want you to know that, as the daughter of Eustace Mountfort and Elanora Travers, you were intended for the fullest of life and love that any loving parent wishes to bestow on their child, and your forbears on both sides are amongst the most noble and upright people you could hope to know. It is the tragedy of all of our lives that our good intentions did not prevail and, in one way or another, they brought disaster for us both. I do not want your legacy to be tainted by our lack of wisdom.
I have good evidence that, with sound management, the Ophir will provide a handsome income for you for many years to come. I regret I will not be there to see it happen and that I have had to leave you in this exposed situation, but I have faith that when my sister Alycia realizes the true situation you will be able to call on very sound support from my family. At least I pray this will be so.
I am forever, your loving father, Eustace Reverdy Mountfort.
Graysie hesitated from her reading and squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again, the room hadn’t changed. The shelves of ancient leather bound legal tomes, some dusty from disuse, hadn’t moved. Alycia was sitting in an unnaturally still pose, still reading. Graysie could only guess at what he’d told her.
The older woman seemed unaware of the tears that were trickling slowly down her face as she read on, deeply absorbed in the letter’s contents. Then, perhaps becoming aware of Graysie’s gaze on her, she glanced up quickly and shot her a wan smile.
“More bad news to come, I’m afraid. My brother was a lot more foolish than I ever realized.”