Mercury's Rise (Silver Rush 04) Page 35

  Inez leaned forward. “Will it remain a clinic?”

  “No. I have my plans.” He leaned back, gazed up at the ceiling, and drew reflectively on his cigarette, sending the resultant plume skyward. “A billiard room for men and women and a bowling alley. The building will hold them both nicely, with room to spare. That’ll show the Cliff House and Manitou House that we’re still a serious competitor and not to be trifled with.”

  Over the following few days, the real story played out in communications between Doc Cramer in Leadville and the Stannerts in Manitou.

  Doc’s initial response to Mark’s urgent telegram arrived while Inez was being fussed over by Harmony and Aunt Agnes, who offered up endless glasses of mineral water and cups of mint tea in the women’s parlor room. Aunt Agnes kept saying, “I knew it! This barbaric place is full of barbarians. Shooting guns, as if this is some dreadful dime novel come to life. That poor nurse, Mrs. Crowson, was no doubt driven mad living in this wilderness, as any woman with normal sensibilities would be.”

  Harmony’s urgent hush to Agnes went unnoticed. Agnes continued, “Why you won’t come with us, Inez, I cannot understand. You are stubborn beyond belief. You could have been killed in the crossfire! If that so-called husband of yours cared about you at all he would have taken the money I offered.”

  Inez, who was refusing the mineral water, refusing the tea, refusing Harmony’s insistence that she “lie down” on the divan in the parlor, bolted upright away from Harmony’s gentle hands. “What? Aunt Agnes, what did you do?”

  Even Harmony looked aghast.

  The tumbler of mineral water in Aunt Agnes’ hand wavered. Then, she shot a hard defiant stare at Inez. “I offered Mr. Stannert money to let you go, to release you. A considerable sum, I’ll add. I told him I would take you back east, effect the divorce, and it needn’t concern him at all. He need not do anything, not show up, not place a motion, it would all be taken care of, none would be the wiser, and he’d be free. I even offered that we would arrange for him to see William, when the child was older. Although honestly, it isn’t as if he has provided for you and William in a manner befitting descendants of the Underwoods.”

  “Aunt Agnes, this is the last straw,” snapped Inez. “You have meddled in our affairs—mine, my husband’s, our son’s—and overstepped your bounds completely. I have met card sharps, buffalo hunters, confidence men, cyprians—”

  Harmony gasped and lay a hand across her bosom. Inez was surprised that Harmony even knew what the term meant.

  “—with more honor than you,” she finished.

  Mark picked that moment to knock on the women’s parlor door and venture into the female bastion, bearing Doc’s response to the urgent early morning telegram.

  From the way her husband and aunt eyed each other—with the thinnest of civilized veneers glossing mutual dislike—Inez surmised that Agnes had been telling the truth about her attempt to bribe Mark and his refusal to rise to the bait.

  With the briefest of bows to Agnes and a deeper, more respectful one to Harmony, Mark showed Inez the yellow sheet on which the telegraph operator had printed Doc’s reply: “The War and the ‘Franke’ brothers. Telegraphist incorrectly wrote ‘Franklin.’ VLF is Surgeon Victor Lewis Franke. SCF is Asst Surgeon Shelby Crowson Franke. Dr. Galloway killed in botched surgery. Why?”

  Inez promptly rose to her feet and clutched Mark’s arm as if he were her lifeline to sanity. She escaped the parlor and her aunt, only after repeated assurances to her frantic sister that she was, indeed, unharmed and merely needed to rest upstairs. Epperley stopped them both in the hallway, Zuckerman hot on his heels, and said in a low voice, “Please, do not say anything to anyone yet. I shall arrange for us to meet this evening and discuss this unfortunate turn of events. If you could stay mum until then, it would be much appreciated.”

  In the sitting room of their suite, Inez made a proper recovery with a cup of strong coffee laced with even stronger brandy. She and Mark then drafted another telegram to Doc with a short, circumspect explanation and more questions. Doc promptly sent back an equally short and opaque response.

  Later that day, a knock on the Stannerts’ hotel door provided a break in the flurry of telegrams back and forth to Leadville. Inez opened the door to find Susan Carothers and Mrs. Pace, accompanied by a distinguished man with intense blue eyes, along with the Pace children and their nanny. “We have come to say good-bye,” said Mrs. Pace, lifting her mourning veil. “It will be a relief to head back to our home, now that my husband’s brother has arrived.” She introduced Eric Pace to Inez and Mark. He shook hands solemnly all around. Mathilda piped up, “Uncle Eric is going to be like our father now.” Inez noted the blush that climbed his face and the glance he sent toward Mrs. Pace as she scolded Mathilda. Maybe, Inez thought, the future would prove the child right, after the proper amount of time had passed.

  They offered to wait outside the door so Susan could have a few private words with Inez. Mark excused himself to his bedroom, leaving the two friends alone.

  Susan clutched Inez’s hand. “This is short notice, but when Kirsten offered that I could share their carriage to the train station in Colorado Springs, I decided to accept. I need to return to Leadville and my studio. It’s just too hard to stay here, I keep thinking of Robert.” She opened her tote, pulled out a cabinet card, and handed it to Inez. It was one of Mrs. Galbreaith’s images of Robert Calder, standing in the narrows of Williams Canyon, cocky smile on his face, arms folded. Even on paper, he radiated life and vitality.

  “I understand,” said Inez. “He was a good man. He worked hard to find the truth, and I believe he cared quite a bit for you.” She handed the card back to her friend.

  Susan took the card, tucked it carefully away, and rose. “Didn’t someone once say work is the best medicine for troubled souls? I have plenty to do, and am anxious to get started.” She leaned forward and brushed Inez’s cheek with her lips. “Thank you so much for asking me to come to Manitou with you. Despite all the heartaches, I’m glad I came. I would have never met Robert, if not for you.”

  Inez held her hand a moment longer. “I’ll see you back in Leadville, Susan. We shall have tea and talk. But not mint tea,” she added quickly.

  A few days later, after a third unsatisfactory round of telegrams, Inez and Mark finally received a letter from Doc. He laid out his story with a preponderance of ink blots and enthusiasm that Inez suspected was due to an overabundant late-night consumption of liquor for nonmedicinal purposes.

  Doc began with “I did not know the Franke brothers personally. But the unfolding of events and theories that I provide to you in this letter came from men who knew the surgeons in question. Medical men who labored in the hospital tents alongside me, men I will forever vouchsafe as honest and reliable as any I’ve known throughout my life.”

  He then launched into an explanation that had Inez exclaiming with force and Mark shaking his head. The Franke brothers had enlisted together and, at their request, were assigned to the same unit. “As it was explained to me later, they always operated together,” Doc said. “It was assumed by those in the medical fraternity that they were brothers trained at the same school, practiced together. They were extremely private and not given to talking about themselves or their past. For a long time, it was believed that Victor Franke was the brilliant physician. He handled the worst of cases with apparent ease and skill. Little did we know that it wasn’t the brilliance of the surgeon, but the assistant surgeon, that was responsible for the heroic medical deeds. Since the two of them always worked together, they managed to keep the fiction going for quite a while.”

  The subterfuge unraveled when Victor Franke was called in to perform a standard amputation on colleague Dr. Galloway. Shelby Franke was not there to attend, so an impartial assistant surgeon stepped in and witnessed the carnage unfold on the operating table. According to everything the assistant said later, the operation should have been a simple matter, but Victor Franke botched it horribly
.

  The assistant surgeon realized too late that the so-called brilliant Dr. Franke was standing motionless, bone saw in hand, blood draining from his face, as his patient expired. The assistant physician jumped in and tried and save Galloway, but Galloway died on the operating table.

  “It was a horrible outcome. Still, there was nothing to be done. We were in the middle of a war, after all. Men died and were dying all around us, every minute of the day and night. But the assistant surgeon spoke to his colleagues, and Victor Franke’s light was dimmed. Instead of admitting his mistake and his ineptitude, squaring up, picking up the pieces and marching on, Franke said nothing. He and his brother disappeared soon after—deserters, which branded them yet again, most finally. I have not heard of the pair of them until now, hence my astonishment upon receiving your initial telegram. I look forward with great interest to hearing what brought their names to your attention in Manitou, when you return.”

  Chapter Forty-six

  Inez finished reading Doc’s opus in the sitting room of their suite and lowered the last sheet of onionskin paper carefully atop the others. Mark sat opposite her, reading the Colorado Springs’ Gazette, cigar balanced between two fingers. “All this time,” she said, “Mrs. Crowson was angling to return to her glory days, with her brother as her puppet. But why would she think he would agree to return to being a physician? He demurred to me time and time again that he had absolutely no interest in medicine.”

  “Doesn’t mean he couldn’t have been persuaded by her, when all is said and done,” Mark observed. “Maybe he was even willing to go along with it, up to a point. Until the end. Who knows? All we know is what we heard, not what passed between them. Like a con game, if you’re bein’ taken by experts, you’ll never know.” He returned to his paper.

  “Maybe.” Inez tapped a finger on Doc’s letter. “It obviously all went wrong when she left him to cope on his own, so she was no doubt setting it up so that wouldn’t happen again.”

  With a sigh, Mark set his paper aside. “Darlin’, she didn’t need him. If she was even half as good as Doc and the folks around here say, she could have been brilliant on her own. Even Leadville has its lady doctor, Dr. Mary Barker Bates.”

  “Maybe it was her brother’s idea that she not step forward as a physician, thus drawing attention to herself and to him. Too, it is not an easy life for a woman to openly take on a man’s role.” Inez thought briefly about her own experience and struggles of running the saloon during Mark’s long absence.

  A knock on the door interrupted her musings. Mark opened the door to reveal Lily on the other side, eyes downcast.

  Inez sat up straighter. “Is William awake and ready for the afternoon?”

  It had become a routine for the Stannerts to take William out after his afternoon rest. Inez was simultaneously heartened by his increasing acceptance of them—at least, he no longer cried at great length when separated from Lily and the DuChamps—but also discouraged by what she viewed as her own incompetence as a mother. When witnessing Harmony’s gentle and loving interactions with William, Inez had to fight to keep the green stab of jealousy from developing into a mortal wound.

  “No’m.” Lily kept her eyes downcast. Inez realized she was dressed in a long cloak, ready to go outside. “Missus and I are going out for a walk. The mister wants to talk to you, ma’am. He said he’d wake Wilkie for you, if he is still asleep when you’re done.”

  Inez looked at Mark. “Are you coming?”

  Mark picked up his paper and rustled the papers. “Sounds like the invitation is just for you, Mrs. Stannert.”

  She and Lily left Mark with his paper and cigar, and started down the hall. Inez followed a few steps behind Lily, wondering what Jonathon DuChamps could possibly want to talk to her in private about. Her gaze sharpened as something about Lily—her slight stature, the billowing of her lightweight summer cloak, the way she glided with small determined steps—put Inez in mind of a ghost floating down the hall. That observation brought back a most unwelcome memory.

  Inez stopped by the tall niche holding the statue of Hermes at the top of the stairs, and spoke sharply. “Lily!”

  William’s young nanny started and turned. Her gaze involuntarily shifted to the statue, then back to Inez. For a moment, Lily looked wild-eyed, like some small animal, trapped in a corner and blinded by a sudden light. Her hands, which had been folded before her, separated, and twisted into the dark fabric of her summer cloak. It was as if she held to the cloth to keep those hands from flying out and forward in an involuntary push. A savage, desperate push that would send an unaware adversary plunging down the stairs. A push to save the family she loved more than anything else on earth.

  Inez had seen all she needed to see.

  Arms folded, she walked slowly forward. “So, it was you that night.”

  Lily retreated a single step. “I’m sorry, ma’am.” The words were barely a whisper. “I just wanted Wilkie to stay with us. I just wanted him to be happy.”

  Inez stopped her words with a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll say no more, not to anyone. I understand you did this through love, no matter how misguided it was. My only request in exchange for my silence is that you continue to love and take care of William for as long as he stays with you and my sister, whether that be a week, a month, or a year. That when the time comes to say good-bye, you find a way to hold it in your heart that it is for the best. I and Mr. Stannert will not do anything that isn’t in the best interests of our son. Do you understand?”

  Lily nodded. She wouldn’t look at Inez, but Inez saw a tear slide down her cheek, past the shadow of the hood.

  Lily and Inez continued toward the DuChamps’ rooms. Just short of Harmony and Jonathan’s suite, a door flew open. “Inez Marie, I must talk with you.” It was, of course, Aunt Agnes.

  Inez pursed her lips in annoyance. “Aunt Agnes, I’m on my way to see Jonathan.”

  “This will take but a moment.” Agnes clutched her arm and drew her inside, telling Lily, “Go tell Mr. DuChamps that she will be there directly.” Agnes closed the door in Lily’s dumbfounded face.

  Inez sighed, leaned her back against the door and crossed her arms. “What is this all about?”

  Agnes, garbed in her pre-Raphaelite costume, bustled to the windows facing the second-story veranda and drew the shades down, casting the room into secluded gloom. “I wanted to talk with you alone, away from prying ears and eyes.” She turned and faced Inez, her loose gown swirling about her like an eddy in a stream. For a moment, looking into her aunt’s calculating eyes, Inez was put in mind of the Greek goddess Athena, weaving her plots and stratagems.

  “We have unfinished business,” her aunt continued. “Goodness, stand up straight, Inez, and uncross your arms. You are slouching like a hooligan.”

  Inez didn’t alter her stance. “Say what you want to say. I need to talk to Jonathan, and then Mr. Stannert and I are taking William out for his afternoon constitutional.”

  “As to William,” Agnes paused by the corner table and picked something up. “This involves him.”

  Inez straightened up. “What does?”

  Agnes floated toward her, holding out the paper for Inez to read. It was a railway ticket from Colorado Springs, heading east. Inez stared at it, then at Aunt Agnes, not quite believing what she was seeing.

  “This is your chance to come home with us,” Agnes said, “with William, your sister, your family.” She held the ticket up, face-level. “This is my gift to you: your freedom. Come home, and we’ll straighten out the business of your marriage, so you need never worry about him bothering you again. You will never want, you will never need, you can spend all your time with your son and your true family. We only want what’s best for you, Inez.”

  Agnes scrutinized her as if she were dissecting every flicker of emotion that crossed Inez’s face. “All is forgiven. Your parents are expecting you. All you need to do is come to the station the morning we leave. You needn’t tell your husband any
thing. You needn’t even bring any clothes. Everything will be provided. You can walk away from this,” she waved the ticket summarily at the curtained window, which shut out the foothills of Pike’s Peak and the dusty trails, rivers, and rocks of the Manitou area and Colorado’s high country beyond, “as if it were a bad dream.”

  Inez closed her eyes against Agnes’ determined gaze and imagined, in a tumbling rush, what it would be like, should she say yes. It would be simple, as Aunt Agnes said. Show up at the station, board the east-bound train. This time, she would be holding her son; she would not have to give him up to anyone. There would be no need to look back, only look into his eyes and see her future there. She would return to New York, to her mother and her father. Agnes said they had forgiven her, and Inez knew that what Aunt Agnes wanted, she got. Her aunt had somehow finagled forgiveness from her iron-willed father, and her mother would be waiting with open arms, Inez knew this to be true. She would simply place her marital trials and tribulations into the competent hands of the Underwoods’ family lawyers, and she would never need to think on it again. Never think on Mark, on Leadville, on Reverend Sands, the saloon, any of it. It would all be as a dream.

  Life would settle back into the comfort and cocoon of family wealth and privilege, accompanied, of course, by the expectations that such a life extracts. And everything, everything, would be taken care of.

  She opened her eyes onto Aunt Agnes’ expectant face. “Are you finished?” Inez asked.

  “Yes. Except to say, this is your one chance. Should you decline, you will never hear from me again. I shall not be able to broker another agreement between you and your father, so you will remain an outcast, left to your own devices to handle your own problems and messes.”

  Inez plucked the ticket from Agnes’ hand, examined it, then set it down on the table by the door. “I have been handling my own messes, as you call them, for over a decade now. I can take care of myself, Aunt Agnes. This is my home, here in the West. As for William, he is my son, and he will return to me some day. Blood calls blood and, I will never, ever turn my back on him.” Inez’s hand settled on the doorknob. “No more than I would turn my back on you or any other of my family, should you be in need or should you come here to visit me. I have, you see, forgiven you all. Now, I must go meet with Jonathan.” Inez bent over and kissed Agnes’ smooth cheek. “I know you do this through love, however misguided, and I thank you for it.”