The Klondike Mysteries 4-Book Bundle. Vicki Delany

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СКАЧАТЬ that I have forgotten something. Something important. I’m perfectly fine, thank you, Constable.”

      “Can I escort you back to your lodgings, Mrs. MacGillivray?” His innocent brown eyes overflowed with concern. I looked at the fort. In the centre of the large square, the Union Jack fluttered proudly in the stiff breeze.

      Groups of men passed us, coming and going. Every one of them looked at me.

      “Mrs. MacGillivray?” the boy said. “Can I fetch someone to assist you?”

      Sergeant Lancaster was crossing the parade ground. He hadn’t seen me.

      I ducked behind a patch of thin, ill-nourished shrub.

      “Thank you, Constable. If it’s not out of your way, you may walk me home.” I peeked out from the shrubbery. Lancaster had taken a right turn and was walking away from me. I straightened up and slipped my arm through the young man’s. He blushed to the very roots of his hair.

      “What is your name?” I asked.

      “Reginald McAllen, Mrs. MacGillivray, ma’am.”

      “Do you know my son Angus, Constable McAllen?”

      “Yes, ma’am. He hangs around the fort sometimes, usually tagging after Constable Sterling. If I may be so bold as to say so, Mrs. MacGillivray, that’s a mighty fine hat you’re wearing. Don’t see hats of that quality in Dawson much.”

      I tossed him my warmest smile and opened my mouth to invite him to drop into the Savoy and enjoy a drink on the house.

      “My ma used to have a hat like that. Goat ate the feather. She wasn’t half mad.”

      I withdrew the unspoken invitation. “Well, here we are. This is my residence. Thank you, Constable McAllen.” I freed my hand from his arm.

      He touched his hat. Two of his fellow Mounties strolled by. They stared at McAllen, and one of them pursed his lips in a silent whistle of astonishment.

      I started up the path. “Constable McAllen?”

      “Yes, ma’am.”

      “You’re a credit to your mother. You may tell her I said so.” This time even the edges of his ears turned pink. I couldn’t begin to imagine him confronting any member of the criminal classes.

      Mrs. Mann stood at the sink, washing up the dishes. Mr. Mann had left for work, for which I was most grateful. No doubt he would blame me for everything, and I wasn’t in the mood to find myself under the force of his wrath.

      I hung my hat on the hook by the door and sank into a chair.

      Mrs. Mann wiped her hands on her apron. “Gone?”

      “Gone. When I get my hands around his scrawny neck…” She poured a cup of coffee and placed it in front of me.

      “This policeman? He’s a good man?”

      “Yes, I think so.”

      “Then Angus will be back in a day or so, and very pleased with his adventures and very proud of himself. And very surprised that he has caused you pain. And then very sorry.”

      I looked at her. “How can you be so sure?”

      “I have a brother. We were five good girls and one wild boy in my family. He drove my mother to dis… dis… worrying, that boy did.”

      I filled in the word she was searching for, “To distraction,” and sipped my coffee.

      “Distraction. Ready for breakfast?”

      “Might as well. I’ll never get back to sleep. Is Mr. Mann terribly angry at Angus?”

      She busied herself with the bag of oatmeal, a pail of water and a pot.

      “Yes,” she said. “But he was boy also. He’ll forgive.”

      Of course Angus would be forgiven. A tongue lashing, followed by a hearty pat on the back, and the incident would never be mentioned again. But if he were a girl, things would be different. As a child, I’d received some education beside the Earl’s daughter. Euila’s governess drove it into our heads every single day that one tiny slip, one scarcely considered indiscretion, was enough to ruin a lady’s reputation for life. And then we would die—poor, abandoned, lonely, dependent on the charity of distant relations. Unmarriageable. When she said so, she always looked at me out of the corner of her eye with a smirk, silently telling me that my reputation, unlike Euila’s, was worth nothing. And wasn’t that the truth: if I had guarded my reputation, I might very well be washing some man’s underwear or birthing my twelfth child this very minute.

      “I don’t think Angus likes working at the store.”

      “No.” Mrs. Mann handed me a steaming bowl of oatmeal.

      The fresh milk was finished. I poured a generous serving of canned.

      “Angus wants to be a mounted policeman,” she said, passing the sugar bowl. “Boys have their dreams.”

      “That they do.” I stirred sugar into my oatmeal.

      “He took food. A tin of biscuits, some bread, cheese.”

      “I’m sorry. I’ll pay you for it.”

      “He took no more than he’d eat if he was here. Less.”

      “Mrs. Mann, do you think that hat makes me look old? Like someone’s mother? A man’s mother, I mean, not a boy’s?”

      She sat opposite me with her own mug of coffee and addressed me by my Christian name for the first time.

      “Fiona, God chose not to bless me with children. But if I had a fine son like Angus, I’d be so proud, I’d not worry about my hat.”

      Chapter Thirty-Three

      “Take a good look, Angus,” Constable Richard Sterling said. “In all the rest of your long life, you’ll never see the likes of this again.”

      Millie whimpered. Man, boy and dog walked down into the valley.

      Only fifteen miles lay between Dawson and the start of the gold fields. But it was slow going; the trail was scarcely a trail at all, just a path hacked out of the wilderness, scarred by the footsteps of hundreds, thousands, of men and women, animals and equipment. Underfoot, every patch of vegetation had long ago been crushed into mud. But on the hillsides rising sharply above the trail, white and yellow and purple flowers covered the ground in a gentle mist. Higher up, the tips of the mountains and the bottoms of ravines that the sun never reached were covered with dirty grey snow.

      Millie’s tail was beginning to droop, and the straps of Angus’s pack dug into his shoulders like the fingers of an angry housemaster when at last they reached sight of the town at the joining of the Bonanza and Eldorado creeks, the place the miners called Grand Forks.

      The hillsides were bare of trees, except for a few lonely growths high up. There was scarcely a blade of grass to be seen. СКАЧАТЬ