“You are buying schoolbooks?” Roland’s brother stared at him from the other side of the store counter. “You? The man who has been saving every penny for that crazy dream of yours?”
“My dream is not crazy. The glassworks will save this town.”
“Maybe it doesn’t need saving,” Garrett grumbled. “Maybe it’s fine the way it is.”
“The timber won’t last forever.”
“Then we move on. Things change.”
“Since when did you start accepting change?”
“Since it was forced on me.” Garrett’s scowl made it perfectly clear that Roland was responsible for that forced change.
He was. But that was in the past. They had to move forward. “You might just pack up and leave, but I happen to believe in this town. With the right opportunities, it can boom.”
Garrett clearly didn’t share his belief. “That doesn’t explain why you’re buying primers.”
“Education is the foundation for the future. I want educated workers at my glassworks.” Roland was beginning to sound like Holmes, who had promised an answer a week ago. Still no word.
“Humph. Sounds to me like you’re sweet on the new teacher.”
Though Roland felt the blood rush to his face, he kept his composure. “Maybe I care about Isaac and Sadie.”
“Are you saying I don’t?” Garrett leaned over the counter, his hands curling into fists.
Roland tensed. It had always been like this between them. Even as boys, they’d battled over the smallest things. Who could throw the ball farther. Who got the best grade in arithmetic. Who got the most mashed potatoes at dinner. Everything had been a competition. Even Eva. Garrett always won the physical battles, while Roland bested his brother at anything that required wits. Except Eva.
Maybe it was time to stop competing.
That thought triggered the memory of Pearl’s triumphant win. He owed her, but he didn’t know how he was going to pay for the books. If he hadn’t suggested the competition... He grinned. Her delight was worth any cost. Hopefully Holmes would come through with the funding, and Roland wouldn’t have to delay the glassworks another year.
“I don’t need your help with my children.” Garrett slammed a fist down on the counter.
Roland jumped. “Fine. Pay for their books, but the other children will need primers, too.”
“How do you suddenly know so much about schooling? You were never interested before.”
“Pearl told me what each grade would need. Once we went over the likely students, it didn’t take long to come up with an order. It’ll go out on today’s mail boat.”
Garrett studied Roland as if inspecting an unusual insect.
Roland waited.
Garrett’s shoulders relaxed. “You called her Pearl.” He grinned. “Kind of wish you’d take one of those other ladies off my hands.”
Roland hadn’t failed to notice their devoted attention to the children. Every evening Isaac told them what Miss Fiona or Miss Amanda or Miss Louise had done for them over at the boardinghouse. “Hasn’t one struck your fancy yet?”
“I told you I’m not marrying.”
“Hmm.”
“Hmm, what?”
“Did you or did you not just tell me that change is inevitable?”
Garrett peered at him trying to figure out his angle. “Yes.”
“And you are perfectly capable of taking care of your children without any help whatsoever?”
Garrett wasn’t as quick-witted as Roland, but he figured out where this conversation was headed. “No, and that’s final. I will not marry some stranger just because my children want a new mother.”
“Don’t you think they deserve a mother?”
Garrett glared at him. “I think you deserve to have your head dunked in a horse trough.”
In an instant he was over the counter, but Roland was faster. Like boys, they raced through the store and out onto the boardwalk, laughing. There was nothing like a good wrestle to bring them together.
Roland stopped in his tracks, and Garrett crashed into him.
“Ladies.”
Garrett snatched his hat off his head. Roland straightened his coat.
Pearl and Amanda stood in front of them. The latter carried a package wrapped in brown paper and tied with a blue hair ribbon.
Amanda held it out. “For Sadie.”
“For her birthday,” Pearl added when her friend said nothing more.
Roland spotted his brother blinking back tears and staring at the ground. Garrett had a weak spot for his children, thus the new doll and child’s tea set Roland had ordered. Garrett had chosen to give her the doll while Roland would give the tea set. He puzzled how the ladies had managed to discover it was Sadie’s birthday this weekend until he recalled how much time the children spent with the Calloways. No doubt Mrs. Mabel Calloway spilled that little fact.
Regardless, Garrett still had not taken the gift.
Color dotted Amanda’s cheeks. “Please take it. I wanted her to have the dress in time for school. And I made a matching one for her doll.”
If that didn’t crack Garrett’s heart, nothing would. Still, the man didn’t budge.
Roland accepted the gift from Amanda and handed it to his brother, who still didn’t look at the woman who had gone to great lengths to make his daughter a present.
Roland cleared his throat and glared at Garrett before turning back to the ladies. “Since my brother appears to have lost his tongue, I will thank you for him, Miss Amanda.”
She blushed. “I hope the dress fits her.” Amanda bit her lip and held Roland’s gaze. “Let me know if it doesn’t.”
That’s when he noticed her eyes were an unusual shade of violet. Like Eva’s.
“Until later, then,” Pearl said.
Roland nodded. “Until later.”
Garrett dug into the sand with the toe of his boot.
Once the ladies were out of earshot, Roland turned on his brother. “Why were you so rude? Miss Amanda made your daughter a gift.”
Garrett’s jaw was set. “She’s not Eva.”
Roland shivered. His brother had seen it, too, but he couldn’t let something so insignificant stand in the way of a potential match. “Of course she isn’t. Any resemblance is no excuse for bad manners.”
“I’m not getting married, especially to someone who looks like Eva.”
That narrowed the field, but Roland couldn’t help wondering if his brother had thrown away the perfect match over something unimportant.
* * *
To Pearl, the two brothers looked like boys who’d been caught doing something they shouldn’t have. Garrett wouldn’t look them in the eye, even when Amanda had handed him the gift, and Roland kept mopping his neck and smiling too broadly to make up for his brother’s lack of gratitude.
“Sadie’s father doesn’t like me.” Amanda sighed once they’d headed back to the boardinghouse.
“I’m sure there’s another explanation. It looked to me like we interrupted a heated discussion.”
“Whatever about? Jake and I never quarreled, and we were children. They’re grown men.”
“You were five and six years old,” Pearl pointed out. “If you did quarrel, you were too young to remember it, especially after...”
“Especially after the accident. It’s all right. I can talk about it now.”
“I’m glad.” Pearl no longer had to pretend it didn’t happen, as if Amanda had ended up in the orphanage due to some huge mistake instead of the train accident that claimed her parents’ lives and sent her brother first to an uncle in Missouri and then, after he ran away, into thin air.
“Surely your brother would have returned to New York if he was looking for you.”
Amanda halted in front of the boardinghouse. “He must not have been able to, or he tried but I was already gone to the Chatsworths’.”
Pearl shook her head. They’d been over this part a dozen times. “He didn’t appear while I was still there. By then, a dozen years must have passed. He probably didn’t know where to look. When your uncle moved on, there wasn’t anyone left who knew where you were.”
“Uncle Griffin never knew where I was.”
“How can you be sure?” From what Pearl recalled, Amanda was only five at the time of the accident and seven when her grandmother passed from typhoid. Most children that age wouldn’t have any idea where to find family. “You said you never met your uncle.”
“He moved before Grandmother died.”
The how and when didn’t matter. Amanda was alone in the world except for a brother who might still be alive somewhere. She could cling to that hope, but not Pearl. Her parents would never come back for her.
“Perhaps it’s time to set the past aside and move forward with your life.” Pearl had voiced that opinion often enough, but since arriving in Singapore that path had never seemed clearer. “If Jake is still alive—”
“He is. I know it.”
“If he’s still living, you have no way to find him. He might live anywhere, even in the Western territories.”
“Or here.”
Pearl had never heard her friend sound so certain. “Why would you think that?”
“It’s as good a place as any, and Mrs. Calloway says there are at least two men named Jake who work upriver cutting down trees. She says they’re young enough to be my brother.” Amanda bit her lip. “Do you think Mr. Decker would take me upriver to search?”
If one of those men turned out to be Amanda’s brother, it would be an enormous coincidence. Pearl couldn’t dash her friend’s hopes, no matter how faint. So she smiled encouragingly. “I’m sure making that dress for his daughter helped soften his heart, though I must admit that he certainly isn’t very vocal about his feelings.”
“Not that Mr. Decker.” Amanda picked at the lace edging her sleeve. “The other one.”
“Roland?” It came out before she could stop herself.
“Why not? He is so kind and so thoughtful. And handsome.” Amanda giggled. “Don’t you think so? From the moment I first woke from that swoon and saw him bending over me, I couldn’t stop thinking of him. At first I thought you might have fancied him, but then you reminded me that you can’t marry and don’t want to marry. I do. And with Roland Decker, I wouldn’t face any competition.” She spun in a circle like a little girl, her arms held out. “I’m in love!”
Pearl felt ill. She had said all that and the part about not being able to marry was true, but that was almost two weeks ago. So much had changed. That silly painting competition and the way he’d tried to steal a kiss from her, for one. His promise to walk with her on the shore was another. She turned away so Amanda didn’t see her dismay.
“That is all right, isn’t it?” Amanda touched her arm. “You seem upset.”
“No. Not at all. I simply forgot that I, uh, had business. I’d intended to ask at the store when I might expect the primers. Tell Mrs. Calloway I might be a few minutes late for supper.”
Before Amanda could stop her, Pearl took off at a brisk walk.
* * *
Roland headed back to the store after a long walk on the dunes to settle himself from a tense midday encounter with his brother. The whole weekend had been a disaster. The happiness of Sadie’s birthday crumbled when she adored Roland’s tea set and rejected Garrett’s gift of a new rag doll. When Garrett tried to take away her old doll, Sadie had insisted that Miss Amanda would fix it. The pretty new matching dresses only confirmed that the brunette had more than enough skills to complete the task. Garrett had taken out his frustrations on Roland, and Monday hadn’t brought any letup. Roland had to get away to clear his temper before returning to the store.
The walk, and the thought of spotting Pearl again, had done him good.
“Crate from Chicago for you,” Charlie called out as he wheeled the handcart to the rear of the mercantile. “Came in on the mail boat.”
“The mail boat’s here?” Roland darted for the back entrance and the order he needed to send out on that boat. He couldn’t face Pearl’s wrath if her primers didn’t arrive in short order, and the next mail boat wouldn’t arrive for at least a week.
“It’s come and gone.”
Roland halted with his hand on the door handle. Missed the boat again. Pearl would not be pleased, but there wasn’t much he could do about it now. Best get to work. Miffed at himself, he pulled open the door.
“Don’t you wanna look in the crate?” Charlie asked.
Roland blew out his breath. It was probably something he’d ordered ages ago or something Stockton had had shipped up from the emporium, thinking it would sell well here. He headed back and noticed that “Holmes Enterprises” was stenciled on the side of the crate.
What would Holmes have sent him in a crate? Roland was waiting for a letter, not something big enough to require a crate.
“Fetch a crowbar,” he told Charlie. “Let’s find out.”
The boy took off at lightning speed and returned almost as quickly. His eyes sparkled. No doubt he dreamed of baseball bats or some new contraption. Charlie had always been fascinated with machinery. It was a wonder Roland had been able to talk him in to working at the store rather than the mill, but he couldn’t stand the idea of risking the fatherless boy’s life. His ma depended on him. So Roland had made up a position in the store and paid Charlie the same wage he would have gotten at the mill. Stockton wouldn’t like it, but then Stockton wasn’t paying the wage. Roland was.
“Hurry, hurry,” Charlie said, hovering over the crate.
Roland had to put his weight into prying off the lid. At last it came free. Charlie was ready to dive into the straw, but Roland held him back. “Maybe it’s one of those mannequins that ladies use when putting together their dresses.”
As expected, Charlie’s nose wrinkled before he found a reason to counter that speculation. “Nope. It’s too heavy for that. It’s gotta be a machine.”
“A sewing machine, perhaps.”
“It’d better not be.”
Roland had to chuckle at the dismay painted across the lad’s face. “Go ahead. Pull off the straw, and let’s see what we have.”
It didn’t take Charlie long. First he pulled out a sheet of paper and handed it to Roland. Then he came up with a book.
“It’s schoolbooks.” The lad tossed the book back in the crate. “Lousy old schoolbooks.”
Roland looked closer. “Primers.” Not sparkling-new but in good condition. “Holmes kept his promise.” That was a good sign if the man decided to invest. He hadn’t given Roland an answer before heading home, saying he needed to check some figures and mull it over. Maybe this sheet of paper was his answer. Or an invoice.
Roland unfolded the paper. It looked like an invoice except the detail noted used primers and the cost was zero. What a relief! He wouldn’t have to spend money he didn’t have, and Pearl could start school with books. At the bottom of the invoice, Holmes had scrawled a note. Roland stared at the illegible handwriting. He turned it this way and that. It couldn’t say what he thought it said. It made no sense. But he couldn’t decipher any other meaning.
If Roland wanted Holmes to invest, he first needed to find a church building in Singapore.