Daughter of Fortune (17 page)

“Is California very big?” Eliza asked, trying not to let her voice reveal her heart's anxiety.

“Bring me a map and I'll show you. It's much larger than Chile.”

“And how do you get to where the gold is?”

“They say there's gold everywhere.”

“But say, for example, you wanted to find someone in California. . . .”

“That would be very difficult,” the captain answered, studying Eliza's expression with curiosity.

“Are you going there on your next trip, Uncle?”

“I have a tempting offer that I think I will accept. Some Chilean investors want to establish a regular cargo and passenger service to California. They need a captain for their steamship.”

“Then we shall see you more often, John!” Rose exclaimed.

“You do not have any experience on steamships,” Jeremy noted.

“Maybe not, but I know the sea better than anyone.”

On the night of the appointed Friday, Eliza waited for the house to quiet down before going to the little shed in the farthest patio to meet Mama Fresia. She got out of bed and went downstairs barefoot, wearing only a cotton nightgown. She had no idea what nostrum she was going to be given, but she was sure it would be far from delightful. In her experience all medicines were unpleasant, but her mamacita's were foul. “Don't you worry,
niña
, I'm going to give you enough liquor that when you wake up you won't remember any pain. One thing, though,” she had told her. “We will need a lot of rags to catch the blood.” Eliza had often made that same trip through the dark house to meet her lover, so she did not have to feel her way, but that night she went very slowly, dragging her feet, hoping for one of those Chilean earthquakes capable of flattening everything to give her a good excuse not to meet Mama Fresia. Her feet were icy and a shiver ran down her back. She didn't know if it was cold, fear of what was going to happen, or the last nudge of her conscience. From her first suspicion that she was pregnant she had heard a voice calling her. It was the voice of the baby in her womb, crying out for its right to live, she was sure. She tried not to hear it, and not to think; she was trapped and as soon as she began to show there would be no hope or forgiveness for her. No one would be able to understand her fall; there was no way to recover her lost honor. Neither prayers nor Mama Fresia's candles could prevent her disgrace. Her lover wasn't going to turn around in midtrip and hurry back to marry her before you could see she was pregnant. It was already too late for that. She was terrified at the thought of ending up like Joaquín's mother, branded with a shameful stigma, shunned by her family and living in poverty and loneliness with an illegitimate child; she couldn't bear rejection, she would rather die once and for all. And she might die that very night at the hands of the good woman who had brought her up and loved her more than anyone in this world.

The family started to go to bed early, but the captain and Miss Rose stayed locked up in her little sewing room, whispering for hours. Every voyage John Sommers brought books to his sister and as he left carried mysterious packets that Eliza suspected contained things Miss Rose had written. She had seen her carefully wrapping up the notebooks, the ones she spent leisurely afternoons filling with cramped writing. Out of respect, or some strange reluctance, no one mentioned them, just as no one said anything about the muted water-colors she painted. Writing and painting were treated like minor aberrations, nothing to be truly ashamed of, but nothing to boast about, either. Eliza's culinary skills were received with the same indifference by the Sommers, who tasted the dishes in silence and changed the subject if visitors commented on them. On the other hand, they offered undeserved applause when it came to her valiant efforts at the piano, even if barely good enough to stumble along accompanying a singer. All her life Eliza had seen Miss Rose writing and had never asked about it, just as she had never heard whether Jeremy and John themselves did. She was curious to know why her uncle was so furtive when he carried Miss Rose's notebooks away, but without anyone's stating it she knew that this was one of the fundamental secrets upon which the family's equilibrium depended, and to violate it would be to bring down with one puff the house of cards they lived in. For a long while now Jeremy and Rose had been asleep in their rooms, and her uncle John had gone out on horseback after his long talk with his sister. Knowing the captain's habits, the girl could imagine him carousing with some of his flighty women friends, the ones who said hello in the street when Miss Rose wasn't with them. She supposed that he danced and drank, but as she had barely heard whispers about prostitutes, the idea of anything more sordid never occurred to her. The possibility of doing for money or sport what she had done with Joaquín Andieta for love never entered her mind. According to her calculations, her uncle would not be home until early the next morning, which is why she nearly jumped out of her skin when, as she reached the ground floor, someone grabbed her arm in the dark. She felt the warmth of a large body against hers, a breath of liquor and tobacco in her face, and immediately identified her uncle. She tried to slip loose as she struggled to slap together some story about why she was there in her nightgown at that hour, but the captain marched her to the library dimly lit by moonbeams falling through the window. He sat her down in Jeremy's English leather armchair while he looked for matches to light the lamp.

“All right, Eliza, now you're going to tell me what the hell's going on,” he ordered in a tone he had never used with her.

In a flash of lucidity, Eliza knew that the captain would not be her ally, as she had hoped. The tolerance he liked to boast of would not be forthcoming in this instance; if the good name of the family was in question, his loyalty would be with his brother and sister. Mute, the girl held his eyes, defying him.

“Rose tells me that you've fallen in love with some fellow or other who is clearly on his uppers, is that right?”

“I saw him twice, Uncle John. And that was months ago. I don't even know his name.”

“But you haven't forgotten him, have you? First love is like smallpox, it leaves its scars. Were you alone with him?”

“No.”

“I don't believe you. You think I'm a fool? Anyone can see how you've changed, Eliza.”

“I don't feel well, Uncle. I ate some green fruit and my stomach's upset, that's all. I was just on my way to the privy.”

“You have the eyes of a bitch in heat!”

“What a terrible thing to say, Uncle.”

“I'm sorry, child. Don't you see that I love you very much and I'm worried about you? I can't allow you to ruin your life. Rose and I have worked out an excellent plan. Would you like to go to England? I can arrange for the two of you to sail within the month; that will give you time to buy what you need for the voyage.”

“England?”

“You will travel in first class, like queens, and once in London you will stay in a charming hotel a few blocks from Buckingham Palace.”

Eliza understood that her uncle and aunt had arranged her future. The last thing she wanted was to go off in the opposite direction from Joaquín, putting two oceans between them.

“Thank you, Uncle. I would love to know England,” she said with all the sweetness she could muster.

The captain poured himself one brandy after another, lighted his pipe, and spent two solid hours telling Eliza about the advantages of life in London, where a young lady like her could mix in the best society, go to balls, attend the theater and concerts, buy beautiful dresses, and make a good marriage. She was at an age to do that. And wouldn't she like to go to Paris and Italy, too? No one should die without seeing Venice and Florence. He would personally see that she got everything she wanted, hadn't he always done that? The world is filled with handsome, interesting men of good standing; she would find that out for herself as soon as she got out of the godforsaken port she was buried in. Valparaíso was no place for a girl as pretty and well educated as she. It wasn't her fault that she fell in love with the first male to cross her path; she had been locked up all her life. And about that boy, what was his name? Someone who worked for Jeremy, wasn't he? She would soon forget him. Love, he assured her, inexorably burns itself out, or with distance is pulled up by the roots. No one could give her better advice than he could; whatever else, he was an expert on distance and love turned to ash.

“I do not know what you are talking about, Uncle. Based on one glass of orange juice, Miss Rose has invented a novel about my being in love. This person came to deliver some crates, I offered him some juice, he took it, and then he left. That's all. Nothing happened, and I have never seen him again.”

“If it is as you say, you are fortunate. That's one fantasy you won't have to eradicate.”

John Sommers continued drinking and talking till early dawn, while Eliza, curled up in the English leather chair, fell asleep thinking that her prayers had been heard in heaven after all. It wasn't a timely earthquake that had saved her from Mama Fresia's terrible ministrations but her uncle. In the hut in the patio, the Indian waited the whole night long.

S
aturday afternoon John Sommers invited his sister Rose to visit the ship owned by the Rodríguez de Santa Cruz brothers. If everything worked out in the current negotiations, he would be captaining it, at last fulfilling his dream of sailing with steam. Later Paulina received them in the salon of the Hotel Inglés, where she was staying. She had traveled from the north to set the ball rolling on her project, seeing that her husband had been in California for several months. They took advantage of the constant stream of ships coming and going to communicate via a vigorous correspondence in which declarations of love were interwoven with business plans. Paulina had incorporated John Sommers into their enterprise solely on intuition. She remembered vaguely that he was the brother of Jeremy and Rose Sommers, some people from the English colony her father had invited to the hacienda once or twice, but she had seen him only once and hadn't exchanged more than a few courteous words with him. Their one connection was their shared friendship with Jacob Todd, but in recent weeks she had made inquiries and was very satisfied with what she had heard. The captain had a solid reputation among seafaring men and in commercial accounting offices. He was a man whose experience and word could be trusted, which was more than you could say for many in these mad times when anyone could rent a ship, form a company of adventurers, and set sail. In general they were flim-flam men and their ships were lucky to stay afloat, but that mattered little or not at all since as soon as they reached California the associations evaporated, the ships were abandoned, and everyone shot off in search of gold. Paulina, however, had a long-term vision. To begin with, she was not obliged to respect the whims of strangers, because her only partners were her husband and her brother-in-law, and besides, the major part of the capital was hers, so she was free to make her own decisions. Her ship—which she christened the
Fortuna
—even though rather small and a veteran of seven years at sea, was in impeccable condition. Paulina was prepared to pay the crew well to keep them from deserting to the gold frenzy, but she also assumed that without the iron hand of a good captain no salary was big enough to maintain discipline on board. It was her husband and brother-in-law's plan to export mining tools, lumber, work clothing, domestic utensils, dried beef, grains, beans, and other non-perishable produce, but as soon as she set foot in Valparaíso she realized that this plan had occurred to a number of others and the competition would be ferocious. She took a good look around and saw the riot of vegetables and fruits of that generous summer. There was more than could be sold. Vegetables were growing in every patio and trees were bowed beneath the weight of their fruit; few people were inclined to pay for what they could have for free. She thought about her father's estate, where summer's bounty rotted on the ground because no one had enough interest to pick it up. If they could get it to California it would be more valuable than gold itself, she thought. Fresh produce, Chilean wine, medicines, eggs, good clothing, musical instruments, and—why not—theater extravaganzas, operettas, music hall performances. Hundreds of immigrants were streaming into San Francisco every day. For the moment they were mainly adventurers and outlaws, but soon settlers would be coming from the other side of the United States: honest farmers, lawyers, doctors, teachers, all kinds of decent people ready to build a life with their families. Where there are women, there is civilization, and when that time comes in San Francisco my ship will be there with all the necessities, she decided.

Paulina received Captain John Sommers and his sister, Rose, at tea time, when the heat of midday was waning and a fresh breeze was blowing from the sea. She was overdressed in comparison with the sober port society, head to toe butter-colored mousseline and lace, with a cluster of curls over each ear and more jewelry than was acceptable at that hour of the day. Her two-year-old son was kicking in the arms of a uniformed nursemaid and a woolly little dog at her feet gobbled the bits of cake she placed in its mouth. The first half hour was taken up with introductions, drinking tea, and remembering Jacob Todd.