whether they were hostile or friendly, she had learned to observe the slightest shrug, the curve of a lip, the smallest move of hip or hand. She had quickly picked up the general nervousness of the men to whom she was introduced and she had felt sorry for them. In return, she had tried to show herself as a confident, capable person, and she felt that some of them had liked her.
Only Mr Benjamin Al-Khoury had failed to turn up.
According to Mr Bobsworth, the bookkeeper and forwarding clerk, he was in Manchester and would return in a few days’ time. ‘Life has been very hectic for Mr Benjamin since Mr James passed away, him being Assistant Manager to Mr James, like. Everything fell on him.’ Mr Bobsworth heaved a sigh deep enough to make every inch of his five feet quiver.
She had nodded, and remarked that Uncle James’s death must have been a shock to everyone.
‘Indeed, yes, Miss Harding.’ His eyes blinked behind his small, gold-rimmed spectacles, and then he said, ‘I should tell you, Ma’am, that Mr Benjamin asked me to convey his regrets to you at not being here today; he’s investigating the unexpected refusal of a customer to renew his contract with us – in the cotton trade, they are.’
‘I see,’ she had replied noncommittally, and Mr Bobsworth had begun to worry that young Benji had offended the lady deeply by his absence.
Now, seated in her stuffy bedroom, she made a face as she recalled the conversation.
If, as she suspected, Mr Benjamin Al-Khoury was her illegitimate cousin, a product of Uncle James’s love affair with an English woman, about which she had heard vaguely as a young girl when she was living in Chicago, he was probably suffering from an acute bout of jealousy because she had inherited his father’s business.
She was fairly sure that, if he had been a legitimate child, he could have claimed, in law, at least a part of his father’s Estate, no matter what his parent’s Will had said about leaving all his property to his brother, Charles, her own father. Mr Benson had, however, assured her that there were no other claimants to the Estate, and she presumed that Mr Benson knew his law.
It was possible, of course, that Benjamin Al-Khoury was some very distant relative, whose parents had also managed to survive the massacre of Christians in 1860.
With a wry smile at the foibles of his own youth, Mr Benson had explained to her that, when he was first setting up his law practice and was badly in need of every penny he could earn, her Uncle James had consulted him about the exact meaning of a contract he was about to sign. Afterwards, in pursuit of a small additional fee, he had inquired if Uncle James had a Will and, since he had not, he had been persuaded to make one.
At that time, Uncle James had had no one else to whom to leave his modest possessions, so, at the age of twenty-three, he had left everything to his brother, Charles, in Chicago. And now, as the residual legatee of her father’s and her mother’s own Wills, Wallace Helena found herself inheriting a well-run soap manufactory.
‘Why didn’t Uncle James make a more recent Will?’ she had asked Mr Benson.
‘Dear lady, I do not know. I did mention the matter to him once or twice; but he was a tremendously busy man – and, like all of us, he did not anticipate dying at forty-nine.’ He had smiled indulgently at her. ‘Do you have a Will, Miss Harding?’
‘No, I don’t,’ she had admitted, a note of surprise in her voice; she had never thought of dying herself, despite the hazards she faced daily in her life as a settler. Mr Benson’s question had made her suddenly aware of the problems Joe Black might face if, indeed, she did die. She smiled a little impishly at the lawyer, and then said gravely, ‘I’ll attend to it.’
She reverted to the matter of her uncle’s Will. ‘Perhaps Uncle James really didn’t have anyone else to leave his money to, except Papa – or me?’ In view of her surmises about Benjamin Al-Khoury, the question was a loaded one, and she watched carefully for her lawyer’s reaction.
Mr Benson was not to be drawn, however, and he answered her noncommittally, ‘Possibly not.’ She was left to puzzle about her Uncle James’s private life.
Now, as she took up her pen and dipped it into the ink, preparatory to continuing her letter to Joe Black, she decided philosophically that she would deal with Mr Benjamin whenever he decided to turn up.
She wrote in English, a language she had learned in Chicago and from her stepfather, Tom Harding: ‘Dear Joe, how I wish you were with me! I need your brains – and I need your love to sustain me.’
Should she tell this man, whom she loved with a passion and depth which sometimes frightened her, how nervous she felt?
No. He would only worry, and worry never solved anything.
With deliberate cheerfulness, she continued, ‘Thanks to Messrs Cunard, I arrived safely in Liverpool yesterday morning. At Montreal, Mr Nasrullah, Grandpapa Al-Khoury’s friend – a very old man – saw me and my baggage safely transferred to the ship, as we arranged. He was worried that I was travelling steerage, alone; but everyone was very friendly to me, though it was not very comfortable. I gave Mr Nasrullah a hasty note to post to you, and I hope you received it safely. Now that the railway line has reached Calgary, it should make a vast difference to the speed with which we can send and receive letters, even from as far north as Edmonton. (I wonder if Edmonton and St Albert will ever be served by a railway line?)
‘My dearest, it was good of you to accompany me in the stage all the way down to Calgary, to see me onto the train. I shall never forget the wonderful night we spent in that dreadfully noisy hotel! How I miss you now!
‘When the train moved out and your dear figure receded into the distance, I wished I had never set out on such a wild adventure – and yet the English lawyers sounded so eager to sell Uncle’s business that I smelled a rat; as I said to you, the works could be more valuable than they would have me know. Could the lawyers make a gain by selling to someone with whom they had made a private agreement?
‘Today, I did a fairly thorough inspection of the plant. I have not yet seen the company’s books, nor do I know enough to say how well it is doing. I am, however, uneasy that Mr Benjamin Al-Khoury, the Assistant Manager, was not here to greet me; I felt snubbed!
‘He was left nothing in Uncle James’s Will, and I suspect that he is his illegitimate son. No matter which side of the blanket he was born on, however, I am excited at the thought that I may actually have a blood relative. You know how shorn I feel because I have no family – and, without your support, I am sure I would have given up on life long ago – bless you, my dearest one.
‘I must bear in mind, though, that this man may be very jealous that I, and not he, now own the Lady Lavender.
‘Mr Benson, the lawyer, has found me two rooms near the works, in the house of Mrs Hughes, a widow – the address is at the top of this letter. The rooms are clean and her cooking is good, though I am feeling the sudden change in diet.
‘I wish you were with me. The city is very lively. I confess that I doubt if you would enjoy the noise and confusion – or the heavy smoke in the air – near the works, the filth of it is overwhelming.
‘The products of the soapery put our home-made efforts to shame. They are sweet-smelling tablets, light brown or blue-grey in colour. To scent them, they use lavender oil, caraway or cinnamon. They have, also, a fuller’s earth soap for very delicate skins. They do make plain bars of soap for laundry and for
