71 Love Comes West Read online

  There was, as her father had anticipated, no difficulty in their taking her and the camels back to Algiers.

  Hassam told them that they would be paid when they arrived and, when they reached the busy harbour town, Hassam obtained what Roberta knew was a good price for the sale of the camels.

  He, of course, took a percentage for himself, but that was the way in Arab countries and she knew that he would not cheat her.

  She was generous with the payments she made to all the men and especially to Hassam.

  She could afford to because she found that her father had deposited a considerable sum of money in the Bank in Algiers as well as the papers he had spoken to her about.

  Among them she found a copy of his will in which he had left her everything he possessed.

  This was, of course, only his own private money, because the bulk of the fortune that went with the title, like the house and the estates, now belonged to the new Earl of Wentworth.

  This was the Earl’s nephew, the son of his younger brother who he had never been very friendly with when he was alive and the new Earl was one of the relatives who had disapproved very volubly of his raffish behaviour.

  To know that he was now living in what had always been her home made Roberta more determined than ever that she would not return to England and her grandmother, but would do as her father suggested and find her Aunt Margaret.

  It was, however, difficult to realise that she had only herself to rely on and, after what had been nearly three years with her father, she found it hard to make her own decisions.

  Yet just as she had reasoned out to herself that Gracie must go with her to Paris, so she knew now that it would be a mistake to cross the Atlantic without a chaperone.

  Her father had sent Gracie back from Paris with a sum of money that made her old eyes shine and, what was more important, a letter to his Solicitors to say that she was to be given one of the cottages in the village where she had been born.

  It was difficult for Gracie to express the happiness this gave her.

  “There’s no one in the whole world like his Lordship!” she said to Roberta. “Whatever they says about him, I know, and you mark my words, he’ll get his reward in Heaven!”

  “I hope so,” Roberta replied finding it hard not to laugh.

  “You look after him, my Lady,” Gracie went on almost fiercely. “He needs someone now your poor mother’s dead, God rest her soul, and them other women as runs after him and flatters him, they’ve only got their eyes on his pockets, you can be sure of that!”

  When Gracie had gone, Roberta told her father what she had said and they laughed over it together.

  At the same time, strange though it might seem, Roberta knew that the women who loved her father were not particularly avaricious where money was concerned.

  They loved him as a man and were frantically jealous even of his daughter if she took up too much of his attention. But they were not the traditionally greedy courtesans who had caused such a sensation during the Second Empire in Paris.

  In fact, when Roberta thought of it, she realised that the women her father loved were always in their way ladies and some sort of substitute for the loss of her mother.

  Francine was different.

  She was very proud of her Royal blood and although her behaviour and temperamental storms would have undoubtedly shocked the Countess, she was always very conscious of her consequence.

  She was also fastidious enough to do nothing in any way to offend what the Earl considered good taste in a woman.

  In fact, Roberta grew very fond of Francine and cried bitterly when she died.

  It seemed impossible that anybody so vivacious, so filled with what the French call ‘joie de vivre’ should have gone and left nothing behind but the memory of her laughter.

  ‘Papa would have felt very lonely without her if he had not become ill himself,’ Roberta reflected.

  It was no consolation, however, to know that he had gone too and now she was alone.

  She booked a passage on a French ship to cross to Europe that was not very comfortable or clean, but she had spent most of the journey in her cabin.

  When she arrived at Marseilles, she asked to be taken to the best hotel.

  She was well aware that she might have had difficulty as a single woman in booking a room if they had not been impressed by her title.

  When she had deposited her trunk, which had been left for safety at the Bank in Algiers, she had asked for a carriage to take her to the Shipping Office.

  On the way she thought over her situation very carefully and remembered that once Francine had said,

  “The French are snobs. Whenever I am in France, I never forget to use the name I am entitled to use as my mother’s daughter, whatever my father’s shortcomings.”

  Accordingly, having asked to see the Manager of the Shipping Office, Roberta enquired in her excellent Parisian French about ships sailing for America.

  “I am Lady Roberta Worth,” she said, “and am unfortunately travelling alone as my father, the Earl of Wentworth, has just died in Africa. I should be grateful if you could inform me if there is a respectable couple taking the same journey who would be kind enough to chaperone me during the voyage. I would, of course, be willing to pay for their services in protecting me.”

  The Manager, who had been, she thought, slightly offhand when she had first appeared, immediately became far more respectful.

  He discovered that an English Clergyman, the Reverend Canon Bridges and his wife would be aboard and he was confident that, if he spoke to them, they would be pleased to look after her.

  Roberta left him to make the arrangements and, having learnt that the ship, which was one of the largest of the French Liners on the Atlantic route, would be leaving in two days’ time, went back to the hotel to prepare herself for the voyage.

  She had drawn a considerable sum of money from the Bank in Algiers and she had learnt from Francine how important it was when they were travelling to keep any money they possessed in a safe place.

  It was Francine who had taught her how to sew banknotes of large denominations into the hem of her skirt and to make herself a light lawn waistband that could be worn next to her skin where other money could be kept safely.

  “It may seem strange,” she had said. “At the same time, in Africa, anything lying about disappears mysteriously and once it has gone there is no chance of ever seeing it again.”

  Roberta had listened, even though the necessity for concealing money did not concern her when her father paid for everything.

  Now she was on her own, she knew that she would be very stupid if she did not heed Francine’s advice.

  She therefore carried her money when she was crossing the Mediterranean round her waist and, as it was somewhat bulky, she transferred the larger notes into the hem of the skirts she was most likely to wear when she was at sea and also when she reached America.

  When she joined the ship early in the morning, she was reassured to learn that Canon and Mrs. Bridges would be only too delighted to look after ‘Lady Roberta Worth’.

  The Canon was an elderly, genial, if rather pompous man who had been making a tour of the Protestant Churches in France on behalf of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

  He and his wife were now going on to America where they were to meet the leaders of the Episcopal Church and they were both looking forward to the experience.

  “I never thought we would go anywhere further from our house in Canterbury than the English seaside,” Mrs. Bridges told Roberta, “but it is God’s will that we should travel, and it has been an experience I shall always remember.”

  She was a kindly woman who thought the sun rose and set on her husband’s wishes and was so narrow in her outlook that she eyed everything French with suspicion including the food.

  Roberta, who had grown used to the best French cooking with her father, found that the food on board imaginative and, at the beginning of the voyage, excellent.
/>   The last days before they reached New Orleans the menu became somewhat monotonous, but still was served with a flair which only a French chef could achieve.

  The sea was very rough through the Bay of Biscay before they reached Cherbourg, where they called before setting off across the Atlantic.

  Then they moved into smoother waters and Roberta was aware that, had she not been safely under the wing of the Canon and his wife, she might have had trouble with some of the Frenchmen aboard, most of whom were going to America for commercial reasons.

  She knew from the look in their eyes that they found her attractive, but she was wise enough not to wander about the deck alone and to refuse to dance in the evenings owing to the fact that she was in mourning.

  She knew that Mrs. Bridges approved of her behaviour, although she obviously thought it strange that Roberta should be travelling so far on her own.

  “I hope somebody will be meeting you, Lady Roberta, when we dock at New Orleans,” she said.

  Because Roberta thought it a mistake to say that nobody had any idea that she was coming, she only smiled and replied evasively,

  “I hope so, but my aunt lives in California, which is a long way from the Mississippi.”

  “Of course, I know very little about America,” Mrs. Bridges added, “and the Canon and I are rather nervous of what we shall find there, especially in places where there might be hostile Indians.”

  “I am sure it is quite safe and that your people will look after you,” Roberta said consolingly.

  She wished that she could say the same to herself.

  She had, in fact, written to her aunt and posted the letter from Marseilles, telling her that her father was dead and that she was coming out to visit her.

  She had the feeling that the letter might arrive after she did or even by a strange coincidence might be travelling with the mail on the very ship she was now in.

  ‘If Aunt Margaret will not help me,’ she told herself, ‘then I shall just have to go home again.’

  At the same time the idea of facing the anger of her grandmother at her running away and hearing the same old denunciation of her father repeated and repeated, made her feel that any other existence would be preferable, however strange it might be.

  As she did not know very much about America, nor had she been, as it happened in the past, particularly interested in it, New Orleans was a revelation.

  She had not known what to expect, but certainly not to find that it was to all intents and purposes another Paris on the other side of the world.

  It was very hot for April, but after the winds and cold nights on the Atlantic Roberta felt as if the sunshine and the redolence of the City warmed her heart.

  The first thing she noticed was the scent of coffee that pervaded the heavy air and was wafted from the great wharves and roasting ovens.

  This seemed a part of Paris, like the houses themselves with their shutters and their balconies.

  Then there were the strange smells from the Mississippi of river ships and crayfish, of sugar, spices, bananas, rum and sawdust.

  It seemed the right background for the flower-filled gardens, of black men sweating on the levees, for rich food swimming in butter, cream and wine, and the music of surging voices, soft, deep and resonant which were to be heard from dawn until dusk.

  To Roberta it was all an enchantment after the barren desert and so colourful that she felt she could never stop looking around her, finding everywhere scenes that any artist would be thrilled to paint.

  ‘What a pity that Aunt Margaret does not live in New Orleans,’ she told herself.

  She knew she had fallen in love with what seemed to her to be an enchanted City.

  The food in the hotel was delicious, but she longed to eat at one of the restaurants in the old town, which the waiters told her provided as good, if not better, dishes than anything to be found in Paris.

  When she went to the fish market, she could quite believe it.

  There she saw soft-shell crabs, crayfish, delicate little shrimps like tiny pink petals, trout, lobsters and oysters fresh from the sea.

  ‘If only Papa was here! How much he would enjoy it!’ Roberta thought.

  She knew, however, that it was wrong to linger and she must go on with her journey.

  The letter from her aunt which she had found in Algiers had been written from Blue River, which she found, when she pored over a map aboard the French liner, was a village some thirty or forty miles South of San Francisco.

  The distance between New Orleans and California had frightened her, but she had learned that there were railways now all over America.

  The Purser, who was very anxious to be friendly, told her that the Union Pacific Railway would carry her from where they docked across Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and into California.

  “You will be comfortable, Lady Roberta,” he told her “and quite safe.”

  “Do you mean from Indians?” Roberta asked, feeling that there might be a tremor in her voice such as there had been in Mrs. Bridge’s.

  “From Indians and also from rival train gangs who used to fight with each other ferociously.”

  “It must have been very frightening for the passengers!”

  “It was,” the Purser agreed, “but now all that is over and I assure you that everybody keeps in their proper place and you can sleep without hearing a pistol shot.”

  He laughed as if it was a joke and offered to lend Roberta some books.

  She read of how the rivalry between the great railway owners like Commodore Vanderbilt, David Drew and George Low had often involved fierce battles in which a number of men had been wounded and even killed.

  After she had lingered for a while in New Orleans, she was well aware that as an unmarried woman some people eyed her with suspicion and she knew that her father and certainly her mother would have said that she was too young and far too pretty to be on her own.

  She therefore set off on what she knew would be a very long and tiring journey to find her aunt.

  ‘One day I will come back,’ she promised, as she had her last glimpse of New Orleans and said goodbye to the Mississippi River.

  It seemed to her to have a romance all of its own.

  Then, as she consulted her map, she found that she was in the State of Louisiana and after that Texas.

  After two or three days of watching the country out of the window and feeling the continuous vibration and noise of the wheels, Roberta began to feel that she was moving in a ‘No Man’s Land’ between two points on the map and in consequence had lost her own identity.

  She ate, she slept, she was looked after by a black attendant who treated her as if she was a small child who should be travelling with a Nanny.

  She occasionally talked to the other travellers, who were mostly elderly, and she was thankful to say not particularly interested in her as a young woman.

  As a safeguard, she travelled First Class and she had an idea that things were very different in other parts of the train.

  She noticed when they stopped at the stations that many of the passengers were tall and handsome with great white sombreros on their heads and pistols on their hips hanging from belts heavy with silver nail heads that proclaimed they came from Texas.

  They were certainly very impressive, but she had the feeling when she climbed back into her First Class compartment further down the train that it was a good thing she was inaccessible.

  There was one man she noticed in particular at every stop. She was not certain if he was a Texan, but he was as tall as they were and just as well proportioned.

  He was extremely good looking which in him seemed fundamental rather than superficial and in some subtle way he was different from the others.

  His face was bronzed from the sun, his clothes were casual and there was something which made her feel conscious of him even at a distance.

  At every station he walked up and down alone and appeared to be deep in thought, but his body was liss
om and attractive and he stood out on the platform filled with men.

  She wondered if he would be surprised if she spoke to him and then was shocked that she should even have thoughts of doing anything so unconventional and so imprudent.

  Then at last, when Roberta felt as if she had been travelling for at least a year, they reached California.

  Her book on the building of the railways had told her that the great state was seven hundred and seventy miles long and about two hundred and fifty miles wide and was the world’s greatest vineyard, orchard and granary.

  She had also read of the ‘Gold Rush’, which had taken place in 1849 and the mineral wealth of silver, platinum and plutonium that could be found in this wonderful land where everything ‘turned to gold’.

  ‘How wise Aunt Margaret was to come here,’ she mused.

  Because she had been so busy travelling, Roberta had given very little time to concentrating on her aunt and what she remembered of her.

  All she could recall was hearing her talked about rather derisively.

  Contrary to the family’s expectations Lady Margaret had refused to accept any of the eligible young Englishmen who had proposed to her when she had made her debut.

  Riding and country pursuits had filled her life completely.

  As her father, the Earl, was easy-going and had no wish to force his daughter to take a husband until she wished to do so, he had ignored his wife’s constant cry that Margaret had to get married.

  He let her enjoy herself at home, finding her company in the hunting field very much to his liking.

  The Countess with her other children growing up and getting married was beginning to believe that Margaret was born to become an ‘old maid’, when unexpectedly she fell in love.

  Once a year her father and mother entertained the Vicars and Rectors of the Churches to which the Earl, as Patron of the living, appointed the incumbent.

  It was an event that nobody looked forward to, least of all the guests.

  The Countess complained that their out of date evening clothes smelt of mothballs, and the Earl said their wives were so shy and awkward that it was impossible to extract one word out of them.

  One year the Vicar of their own village asked if he might bring with him an American preacher who was staying with him as his guest.