Read Online Gold Fever by Vicki Delany - Free Book Online Page B

high-paying. “I’m late enough for work, I might as well walk all the way up to Mrs. Bradshaw’s,” I said with a heroic sigh.
    â€œGood idea,” Mrs. Mann said, as if she hadn’t thought of it herself.
    * * *
    Seventh Avenue at Harper Street was uphill all the way. Grumbling, I made a quick detour and stopped at the Savoy to collect Helen Saunderson, who could ferry the precious soap back to Mrs. Mann.
    â€œHeard ye had a wee bit of excitement down at Bowery Street this morning, Fee,” Ray said as I waited for Helen to hang her apron in the storage room-cum-kitchen which served as her domain. “Saved a lass from drowning by jumping into the river all by yourself.”
    â€œOh, shut up,” I said. Helen wanted to hear the whole story, so I related it to
    her as we walked. I kept to the truth and put that way, it did sound rather boring compared to the tales that were flying around town.
    It was past midday, and once we got away from the teeming waterfront, the streets were almost empty. All the respectable folks were at work, the layabouts snoring it off somewhere, the whores taking a well-deserved nap, the gamblers and drinkers back in the bars.
    Helen huffed and twitched and cleared her throat, until I finally said, “Do you have something you want to say to me?”
    â€œNot my place to be telling you what to do in your own place, Mrs. Mac,” she said, with a nervous cough, “but I think maybe you don’t know, being a foreigner and all...”
    â€œKnow what?” “That woman you’ve got living upstairs. It ain’t proper.” “She’s behaving perfectly respectably, Helen,” I said.
    â€œYou may rest assured I wouldn’t stand for anything illegal or immoral going on up there.”
    â€œI don’t mean that. Mrs. Mac, you gotta know she’s an Indian. Ain’t proper to have Indians living with white people. Men start hearing you’ve got an Indian in the Savoy, they’ll stop coming.”
    I doubted very much that anyone drinking in the bar, dancing with a percentage girl, or dropping a thousand dollars in the gambling room would care if a tribe of Hottentots took residence on the second floor of the Savoy. I was about to tell Helen so when she carried on.
    â€œI’m sorry, Mrs. Mac, but long as she’s there, I won’t be able to bring my girls ’round to help with the upstairs cleaning.” Helen had four children, the eldest the same age as Angus. “I can’t have my children wondering if it’s proper to have them living amongst us. Send her back where she came from. It’s for her own good, mind. They’re not happy living with us, you know.”
    That gave me pause. I didn’t care one whit whether Helen cleaned the upstairs rooms herself or if her daughters helped her. I paid the same regardless. But if Helen thought that way, what about the other supposedly respectable townspeople? I didn’t need anyone asking questions about the type of establishment I kept.
    â€œIsn’t that Miss Irene up ahead?” Helen said, glad of the chance to change the subject. She opened her mouth to trill a greeting.
    I clamped my arm on hers. “I don’t think she wants to be disturbed.”
    It was Irene all right, standing under an illiterate sign advertising a “Dresmakers” shop. Her back was to us, but I could tell by the set of her neck and the rigidity of her spine that a friendly interruption would not be welcome. She faced an older woman whom I did not know. The other woman wore a stiff homespun dress, an unadorned straw hat, and no jewellery. She was older than Irene, very thin, with plain no-nonsense features. Her eyes filled with emotion as she put her hands on Irene’s shoulders. She was so short, she had to almost stand on her toes to reach. Her sixth sense, if it were that, caught me watching, and she looked up. Her face was set in hard,