Fortune is a Woman (53 page)

Zocco was in his seventies now and was as brown and gnarled as an old oak tree. His children were grown and had children of their own, but he still worked a long day, supervising the stables and giving the ranch-hands a hard time if they failed to meet his standards of spit and polish. He still rode the perimeters of the ranch, mending fences and sleeping under the stars the way he had when he was a young man, and his arthritic hands still had the feather-light touch on the reins that they had when he taught Francie to ride as a child. His wife, Esmerelda, cooked for the employees who tended the vines as well as for the dozens of migrant Mexican workers who came each October to pick the grapes.

Hattie Jeremiah was big and beautiful, with skin like the smoothest, plumpest black grapes. A bundle of energy, she ran the main house with a glint in her eye that told she would stand for no nonsense, and a reluctant smile that told you, well, maybe she would.

She was waiting on the front porch as they drove down the long, winding blacktop road bordered with Francie's favorite golden poplars. "There you all are at last," she said grumpily, her arms folded across her ample chest. "I thought you was never gonna get here."

Lysandra jumped from the car almost before it had stopped and bounced up the steps into Hattie's arms for a kiss. "Guess what?" she confided, wriggling away like a slippery eel. "I don't have to go to school for three whole weeks."

"Is that so?" Hattie called after her as she leapt back down the steps and headed full speed for the stables. "Well then, young lady, you sure are just in time to help pick the grapes and do a little work for your keep."

Her eyes met Francie's as she walked toward her and a look of understanding and affection passed between them. "I'm sorry, Miss Francie," she said, tears spilling over her round cheeks. "I know it was expected, but knowing somebody's gonna die don't make it any easier to bear. I never knew a Chinese before but I had nothing but respect and admiration for the Mandarin." She sniffed back her tears and added, "And love, too, because he was the kindest, most honorable man I ever knew." She put her arms around Francie and held her close and then added, "Not that I've known any honorable men 'ceptin' the Mandarin anyways. All the others were just a bunch of bums, in my opinion."

Francie laughed. "Sometimes I think you might be right, Hattie," she agreed, remembering when a few years after Hattie had come to work at the ranch, she had suddenly disappeared, returning a year later with an infant in her arms and a disillusioned look in her eyes.

"I done wrong, Miss Francie," she had said bluntly. "Now I'm like you, with a kid on my hands and no man to be his father. I'd like my old job back if it's still goin', and I promise you this child ain't gonna disturb you none. He'll just be as quiet as a mouse."

Lai Tsin had been listening and he had told her that children were not a disturbance, they were a blessing, and he had built her a cottage where she could raise her boy. He had gone to the local elementary school and high school, and now Hattie's boy, Jefferson—named after Thomas Jefferson, the famous president—was a sophomore at the University of California, Berkeley, majoring in science. He planned to go on to medical school and Hattie said proudly he was the first member of her family even to finish high school, let alone college. She said most of 'em couldn't even read or write properly, and now she had a son who was gonna be a doctor. And she would have done anything for Francie Harrison and the Mandarin. Anything they asked.

"Miss Annie telephoned 'bout half an hour ago," she said as they walked into the house. They were followed by the houseboy, Fong Joe, carrying the luggage, and Lysandra's amah, Ah Sing, in her black smock and trousers carrying her bedmat, her padded quilt, her tea kettle, and her incense sticks. These she would use to light the little shrine to the kitchen god, which she always placed by the stove, even though Hattie grumbled about it.

"She said you didn't tell her you was comin' out here, but she somehow guessed and she said to call her back right away."

The lithe ginger cat, Mousie, was lying in the hall in a patch of sun and he waved his tail lazily at Francie as she passed by. An appetizing smell came from the kitchen. "Lysandra's favorite," Hattie explained, "honey-baked beans, fried chicken, and chocolate fudge pie."

Francie laughed as she walked down the hall. She had come home and she felt better already. The door to her room stood wide, the windows were flung open to catch the warmth of the sun and it smelled of fresh air and lavender-polished wood. The old armoire in the corner held the few clothes she needed: her riding britches and cambric shirts, a few warm sweaters, a fringed suede cowboy jacket, and the long, flowing Chinese silk robes she liked to wear in the evening.

There was a pine dresser, a comfortable old chair, and a faded blue braid rug. The old carved oak bed that had been her mother's was spread with a patchwork quilt stitched by Zocco's wife twenty-five years ago. It had been her mother's room, and her own son and daughter had been born there and every time she walked through its door it brought back memories. Some wonderful, some terrible. But that was the way her life had always been.

***

Buck woke late the morning after Harry's dinner party. He glanced irritably at his watch. It was ten-thirty and he'd hardly slept, he'd tossed and turned, checking his watch every hour until five when at last his weary eyes had closed and he had dozed off. He had been thinking of Francie; he hadn't seen her in over seven years, but he'd noticed the light in the windows of her house last night and had read the news of the Mandarin's death in the papers. He knew how much she cared about him and he couldn't get the thought of her, alone in her big house, out of his mind.

He thought of the years that had passed, Francie leading her own very private life and him leading his very public one. The truth was that he no longer had a private life. He and Maryanne kept up the pretense "for the children's sake," she'd told him earnestly, but the children were Brattles and cool as their mother. They went to the "right" schools and made the "right" friends and went to all the "right" parties, and they respected their father from a distance.

He wondered again why Maryanne had insisted they go to Harry's dinner last night. "His name still counts for a lot in San Francisco," she had replied imperturbably when he'd asked her. "He can still be a lot of help to you, Buck."

"I can't see exactly why I need Harry Harrison's help," he'd replied dryly.

She had patted her immaculate hair and said, "Just trust me, Buck. Don't I always know best?" And she had smiled that cool superior Brattle smile that annoyed him so intensely.

He climbed tiredly out of bed. He called room service and asked them to send coffee and the morning papers, then he stepped into the shower and turned the water to cold. The icy jets snapped him awake and he toweled briskly dry, threw on the terrycloth robe and walked through to the sitting room just as the coffee arrived. He poured himself a cup and glanced at the
Examiner. THE
RICHEST LITTLE GIRL IN THE WORLD was the headline over the top of a photograph of a child in a summer-print dress:

"Seven-year-old Lysandra Lai Tsin inherits a million-dollar empire from the man she called her grandfather, the Mandarin Lai Tsin. Her famous mother is, of course, Francesca Harrison, whom the child resembles strongly."

There was a lot more about Francie and the Mandarin and her past, but Buck wasn't reading it. He looked at the picture of Lysandra and he thought of Francie and the seven years that had passed since she had sent him away, and he knew he was looking at his daughter.

The cup of coffee lay forgotten on the table; he put his head in his hands and groaned aloud, "Oh, Francie,
why
didn't you tell me? Why?" He thought of all she must have gone through, bringing up the child alone and the scandal she had faced, and then he thought of Maryanne, sleeping the sleep of the righteous in the room next to his. He looked at his watch: it was seven o'clock, still early, but he couldn't wait. He picked up the phone and called Annie Aysgarth.

She answered promptly. "Buck," she said with surprise. "Is something wrong? Do you have a complaint?"

"I've seen the morning papers," he said abruptly.

Annie said, "Then you've beaten me to it, love. I've not had time yet. What's in there that's so important?"

"A photograph of seven-year-old Lysandra Lai Tsin."

There was a little silence and then Annie said in a quiet voice, "I see."

He could almost hear her thinking and then she said, "Give me five minutes; then come and have breakfast with me, up here in the penthouse."

Annie had been up since six, she had already bathed and dressed and dealt with the morning's mail, the day's menus, the chef, the staff complaints, and her general inspection. Now she powdered her nose in front of the silver dressing-table mirror that once belonged to the wife of an eighteenth-century grandee and for the first time since she had owned it she didn't marvel that she, Annie Aysgarth from Montgomery Street, owned such a beautiful, expensive object, because right now she was wondering what she was going to tell Buck about Francie.

The bell rang, and taking a deep breath she went to answer it. As she let him in she thought that like good port, Buck got better with years. But she also noticed he looked too lean, his thick dark hair was streaked with gray, there were tired lines imprinted on his handsome face and a weary look in his steady brown eyes.

He kissed her cheek and she said bluntly, "You look as though you need a good breakfast, Buck Wingate. Doesn't that wife of yours feed you anymore?"

He shrugged and took a seat opposite her at the heavy glass-topped table, watching as she poured orange juice from a big crystal jug.

He said, "Lysandra Lai Tsin is my daughter, isn't she?"

Annie looked at him. "You're putting me in a very difficult position, Buck."

"It's all right, you don't have to answer. I know it's true. Just tell me
why
Francie didn't want me to know. I would have looked after them, cared for them. Francie was everything to me." His eyes searched hers, and he added softly, "She still is."

Annie looked at him and she saw an unhappy man; she thought of Francie and Lysandra, and then she thought of Maryanne Brattle Wingate and weighed the balance. She had always been a woman who spoke her mind and now she didn't hesitate. She told Buck the story of Maryanne's visit to Francie, that Francie had not wanted him to give up his career for her, and that she would never have used the fact that she was having his child as emotional blackmail. "Francie's not like that," she said fiercely, "she's an honest woman." She didn't add "unlike Maryanne," but he knew she was thinking it.

"She set you free," Annie said simply, "no strings and no ties. Free to do whatever you wanted. To fulfill your political destiny."

She filled the coffee cups, watching sympathetically; she could almost read the thoughts rushing through his head and she wasn't the least bit surprised when he finally said, "I must see her, Annie."

She nodded, "She's gone to the ranch with Lysandra. They left early, they should be there by now." She gulped down her coffee and stood up. "There's a phone on the desk. I must be on my way to see what my staff are up to." She smiled at him and said, "For what it's worth, I told her she was a bloody fool to send you away." Then she hurried from the room, leaving him alone.

Francie's number at the ranch was imprinted on his memory and he dialed it, hearing it ring and imagining her running to answer it, the way she always did.

"Hello," the voice on the other end almost sang the greeting, but it wasn't Francie's.

"Hello," he replied cautiously. "Is Miss Harrison there?"

"Sure, I'll just call her...."

There was a clatter as Lysandra dropped the receiver onto the table and he heard her shouting, "Mom... it's for you," and distantly a voice saying, "Who is it?"

"Some man," Lysandra called, and he smiled at the irony; he was her father and yet to her he was just "some man" on the phone for her mom.

"Hello?"

His heart jumped and his pulses raced in the same old way as he said, "Francie, it's Buck."

Francie leaned against the wall for support, closing her eyes. She was swept back in time, all that existed at that moment was Buck's voice on the end of a telephone wire. She said, "You don't need to say your name, I would have known."

"It's been so long," he said quietly.

She sank onto the little rush-bottomed chair by the table. "Why are you calling me, Buck? It's against our rules."

"Your
rules, Francie. Not mine." She was silent and he said quickly, "I spoke with Annie, she said I should call you. I'm here now, in her apartment. I saw Lysandra's photograph in the
Examiner
this morning.
My daughter's
photograph."

Francie sighed. "Did Annie tell you?"

"She didn't have to. I knew."

"She's a lovely girl," Francie said, pressing a hand to her chest, trying to quiet her racing heart, "she knows nothing about—about us, and I don't want her to."

He heard the dismissal in her voice and he said urgently, "Francie, we must talk. Please, there are things we must discuss. I must see you."

She thought of all the years that had passed, and of how much she loved Lysandra, and how much she still loved Buck and she didn't think she could bear to see him, even though he surely had a right. Now that he knew about his daughter.

"Francie, I have to leave tomorrow morning. I have meetings here all day, I'll cancel them and come out to the ranch—"

"No."
She didn't want him to meet Lysandra, it would be too painful to see them together. "I don't want you to cancel anything for my sake. I'll come back to San Francisco. I'll be there by this evening. Where shall I meet you?"

He thought quickly. "Come to Aysgarth's, to Annie's penthouse at eight. And Francie... thank you."

She put down the phone with trembling hands. Lysandra stared curiously at her. "Who was it, Mommy?" she asked. "Was it someone nasty? You look so upset."