Louisa Rawlings (9 page)

She felt the old familiar pang. Why hadn’t she been born a son? His son Willoughby. Drew was Mother’s child. Even his middle name—Carruth—had been given out of pride. Her name had been given out of disappointment.

“I can do it, Daddy,” she said softly. “You’ll see. I’ve always been good with figures. You know that. I’ll be able to fill the clerk’s spot.”

He looked doubtful. It made her uneasy.

She smiled with a brightness she didn’t feel and tried to sound offhand. “If the sign is to read Bradford and Bradford someday, I should get to know the ropes. And soon.”

He sat down, grimacing, and rubbed his hand against his stomach. “Someday,” he said sourly. “But you’ll have to earn it first. If you can.”

She felt her control slipping. “I’m your daughter!” she said, rising to her feet and glaring at him. “If you can do it, why can’t I?”

His dark eyes flashed; he pounded the table with his fist so the dishes rattled. “Don’t you raise your voice to me, miss! I’m still your father, no matter how grown-up you get!”

She subsided into her chair, trembling. The last thing she’d wanted to do was make him angry. I’m sorry; I’m sorry, Daddy, she thought.

She was saved by the appearance of Keller with a decanter of port. Brian downed one glass quickly, rubbing again at his stomach, then poured another glass. He sipped slowly at it while the tension drained out of his face. He leaned forward to extinguish his cigar, and his front curl drooped again on his forehead. He let it stay. He stretched, took another sip of port, and smiled at Willough. “It’s a hard job, lass. I was fourteen when I started. Fourteen. Puking my way across the Atlantic on that foul boat to come to this land. But I was determined to make it. I wasn’t about to spend my life like my father in Scotland, grubbing a living out of a rocky soil that didn’t give a damn for a man.”

Willough gazed at him in adoration. She could almost see him as he must have been. Young and reckless. Bold and daring and handsome. “You started with the bloomery forge, didn’t you?”

He nodded. “Hot as hell it was, working day and night to pound that red-hot mass into good cash. But the ore was there, lying on the ground for the taking.” He made a fist, peering intently at the knotted muscles of his hand. “Seventeen years.
Seventeen
years
! To bend that land to my will. To show them that MacCurdy was a man to be reckoned with!” He laughed bitterly. “And then I built my house at MacCurdyville and went looking for a wife.”

“Oh, Daddy,” she said, near tears.

He waggled his finger at her. “No, lass. The Carruths were a classy lot, and don’t you forget it. I guess it’s what I wanted at the time. I was thirty-one, rich as the devil, and rough as they come. And your mother at eighteen was a beauty. I kept thinking of the old laird back home. Five daughters, he had. And they’d throw mud at me for sport. But they couldn’t hold a candle to your mother for class.”

“And you didn’t mind changing your name for her?”

He laughed. “It didn’t change
me
! Which fact your mother sometimes regretted, I think.”

Willough looked down at her hands. “I hate her,” she whispered.

“No, lass, you mustn’t. Pity her instead. With nothing but her tonic and her laudanum to keep her going.”

“And Arthur,” she said bitterly.

He stared at her for a minute, and then began to laugh. “Arthur? You don’t really think…a tumble in the hay with her skirts up…? My God, you do!”

“Daddy, please.” She put her hands to her burning cheeks.

“There’s nothing between them, Willough. There never has been. Not with a woman like your mother.” He laughed again. “My God, not with
any
man!”

“But…”

He shrugged his shoulders and reached for another cigar. “Oh, he was infatuated with her for years. I knew that. But it was harmless. I knew that too. And she seemed to enjoy his attentions. All his pretty ideas of romance.” He shook his head. “I never remembered to bring her flowers. Your mother always set great store by little things like that. But I think Arthur’s lost interest in the last few years.”

“Then why did you leave? I always thought it was because of Arthur.”

“I left because it just seemed better to move out. I couldn’t make her happy. And Arthur always kept her amused.” He exhaled a puff of blue smoke. “I like Arthur, by the way.”

Unexpectedly, she felt herself blushing, remembering how Arthur had looked at her, kissed her on the cheek. She plucked at a piece of lint on her skirt. “I do too,” she said softly. How noble of Arthur, she thought. Worshiping her mother from afar. It seemed so courtly and chivalrous—to burn with an unrequited love and ask for nothing more.

She felt a surge of tenderness for Arthur. For his strength and purity. Perhaps she had misjudged him all these years.

“Arthur’s been very helpful this last year,” her father said. “Business has been booming. When I needed more woodland for charcoal—that big tract over near New Russia—I showed you on the map—Arthur was able to get a change in legislation up in Albany.”

“Through Mr. Tweed?”

Brian laughed. “No, thank God. When Tweed’s indictment came down there were a lot of men who were sorry for the deals they’d made! Arthur was a little more discreet on my behalf. He covered his tracks.” He stood up and looked out the window. “We should be reaching Crown Point soon. You’d better get set.”

“You…you haven’t forgotten about the clerk position…?”

Brian buttoned his frock coat. “We’ll see. Don’t you worry. I’ll have something for you to do.”

“I’d best get my hat and gloves.” Willough stood up and smoothed down the pearl-gray cashmere overskirt of her gown, fluffing out the large pouf in back, which had become creased from the hours of sitting on the train. There was nothing to be done about the pleats of her brown silk underskirt; they were quite crushed beyond repair. Perhaps Mrs. Walker would have someone at the rooming house who could press the skirt for her before she wore it again.

Brian scowled. “Is that all you have to wear?”

Willough looked down at her costume. She thought it a rather handsome dress herself. The snug gray bodice was trimmed with lapels and cuffs of the brown silk, and the fullness of the skirts, with their rather high bustle and pouf, accented the slimness of her waist. “It’s the very latest walking suit,” she said. “Don’t you like it?”

“Too plain. I want the world to know Brian Bradford’s women can dress well!”

She thought, I’ve disappointed him again. “It’s the best gown I’ve brought.”

He waved an impatient hand. “Well, fancy it up with something,” he muttered. “I ought to shop with you. I don’t like what you pick out. Not enough…frills, frou-frou…you know.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said quietly. She traversed the length of the parlor, nodding to Keller as she passed him working in the galley, pulled open the heavy door, and went into the narrow corridor that led to the bedrooms. The train rattled around a sharp curve; she steadied herself against a wall before opening the door to her bedroom.

Quickly she stripped off her basque jacket and threw it across the olive-green velvet of her coverlet, then turned about and ran a bit of water into the marble basin tucked into a corner of the room and connected to the water closet by shiny brass pipes. She splashed at her face and bosom, taking care to pull her corset cover low enough so it wouldn’t get wet. After she dried herself, she dabbed on a bit of cologne. She put on her jacket again, eying herself critically in the large mirror on the wall. Too plain, Daddy had said. She thought for a moment. She had a lavender silk sash that she’d packed to wear with the only evening gown she’d brought. Rummaging through her valise, she brought out the sash and tied it into a large bow; another quick search produced a cameo pin with which she attached the bow to the collar of her suit. Very fetching, she thought. It was a pity she wasn’t in Saratoga—she had several lavender silk flowers there with which she might have trimmed her hat. Well, the gray hat with its brown silk leaves would have to do. She anchored it firmly on her black hair and picked up her gloves. At the last moment she remembered a white batiste handkerchief with a delicate edging of lavender lace; she fetched it out and tucked it into the cuff of her jacket so the bright lace peeped out and echoed the color of her bow. She nodded in satisfaction at her reflection and went out to join her father.

The small public coach they boarded at Crown Point was a far cry from Daddy’s private car. Rickety and old, its green plush seats worn thin, it reeked of train smoke, stale food, and perspiration. But the track was narrow on this line, which serviced the mines and the ironworks in the region, hauling loads of pig iron and ore as often as miners and foundrymen. Too narrow for Daddy’s car, which had been sent back to Saratoga to be restocked and cleaned, awaiting its next summons to Crown Point.

Well, it would be only an hour’s ride to MacCurdyville. While her father dozed in the seat beside her, Willough stared curiously out of the window. It had been years since she’d been to the ironworks. Her only memory was a vague recollection of the glow of the furnaces at night—the sense of awe and mystery and romance, knowing that somewhere beneath those flames which mounted to the heavens was the raw ore that was magically being converted into iron.

It was a beautiful day. As the small train chugged out of Crown Point, Willough admired the view from the window, the way the evergreens stood out darkly against the clear blue of the sky. The trees here—farther north—were taller than in Saratoga; taller, darker, more mysterious. She felt a sense of serenity that was surprising. Drew had often spoken of the awesome beauty of the North Woods, had tried to persuade her to venture beyond the manicured prettiness of Saratoga; for the first time she began to understand what he had been talking about.

It might be nice, she thought, to run among those trees, to tear off her clothes and her constraints, to lie down in those tantalizing green meadows she glimpsed so briefly as the train hurtled along.

Then she frowned. Here and there she began to see bare patches, large tracts where the forests had been cut, acres of nothing but jagged stumps. The grassy meadows, unsheltered from the sun, had already begun to turn brown, though it was only the beginning of June. After a while there were no trees at all, only the ravaged landscape, naked and ugly.

She’d never thought of it before: The lumber had to come from someplace. She’d spent the spring at the sawmill with Daddy. But that was at the town of Glens Falls. The logs had simply been there. Hundreds of thousands of them, floating on the Hudson River. Branded with the markings of a hundred different mill owners. She’d never stopped to think of the living forests that supplied those mills. It really was quite awful, what was happening to the forests.

No. She shook off the unwelcome thoughts. The land had to be bent to a man’s will. That’s what Daddy said.

Brian Bradford stirred and sat up, leaning forward to peer out the window. He pulled his gold watch from his waistcoat and snapped open the case. “We should get there right on time.”

“Will Mr. Murphy, your clerk, meet us at the station?”

Brian snorted. “Not likely! He’ll be packing right about now. I told Mr. Clegg to sack him today. I’m fed up with his spendthrift ways. I didn’t break my back building up this business for some Paddy to throw my money away with both hands!”

Willough held her breath, scarcely daring to hope. “Today? Did you mean it for me? As a surprise?”

“A surprise?” Brian frowned.

“Was it in your mind to let me take over as clerk…with Mr. Clegg’s help? Was that why you let Mr. Murphy go today?”

He grimaced in disgust. “You as clerk? Are you daft? You’re just a girl!”

“But…but you promised…”

“Don’t tell me what I did,” he snapped. “It’s my business, and don’t you forget it! You’re my daughter. You’ll be my partner someday. But I’ll not put you in as clerk until you’re ready.”

She stared at her gloved hands, fighting back the angry tears. “And who’s to be clerk?” she asked.

“One of my founders. Nat Stanton. Been with me four years now. He’s a hard worker…with a head on his shoulders. He can do a man’s job.”

A
man’s
job. Willough stared sightlessly out the window while the words tore at her insides.

Brian patted her knee. “Come now, lass,” he said gruffly. “Don’t look so down at the mouth. You can work under Stanton and learn the ropes from him.”

She felt betrayed. How could Daddy do this to her? “And I’m to take orders from a founder?” she asked bitterly.

The train screeched to a stop. Brian lumbered to his feet, his face purpling in indignation. “Take orders? No, by God! You’re a Bradford! And my daughter. I don’t expect him to forget that. And you damn well better not either! You can learn from the man, but I expect you to put him in his place if he gets out of line!”

She stepped off the train, feeling numb. She scarcely noticed the conductor handing down their baggage; or Mr. Murphy on the platform nodding icily to her father as he boarded the train; or the whistle and chug of the engine as it continued its journey. She didn’t recognize the old man who met them with the small carriage; at her father’s introduction, she greeted him mechanically and clambered aboard.

Nothing mattered.
A man’s job
. Daddy still wanted a son. She felt herself burning with anger. Whoever this Stanton was, she hated him already. She’d have to work twice as hard to earn the right to wrest the job from him. It would be a fight to the death—with no quarter given—but she’d win. She’d show them all, including that upstart Stanton!