Gold Fever by Vicki Delany Read Free Book Online Page A

sold an old sourdough a pair of almost-white longjohns, and bowed slightly. “Ladies, I help?”
    â€œI am sure you can, sir.” The woman’s accent was middleclass English, and Angus imagined she might have been the sort of formidable governess his schoolmates told stories about. “I arrived in Dawson this very morning and am scouting out the town, as you might say. I am,” she announced after a heavy pause, “a writer.”
    Unimpressed, Mr. Mann said, “Yous wanting to buys or sells?”
    â€œMy dear man, I want to observe. You go about your business,” she flicked her fingers at him, “and pretend we are not here.”
    Mr. Mann shrugged and tucked the coin he’d received for the underwear into the cash box.
    â€œDo you work here, young man?” the governess asked Angus.
    He was somewhat ashamed to admit it but could think of no way to avoid the question. “Yes, ma’am.”
    She carried a large straw bag, and from its depths she whipped out a small notebook and the stub of a pencil. Angus took a step back. An outside reporter had caused his mother a good deal of trouble recently, and Angus knew things about his mother’s friend, the American newspaperman Mr. Donohue, that he could never tell her. He was not in the frame of mind to be friendly to newsmen—or women for that matter.
    â€œI am Miss Witherspoon, and this is my companion, Miss Forester. Your name is?”
    â€œAngus, you left before Mrs. Mann finished the baking.” Angus’s mother bustled into the shop, looking like a pearl lost in a barnyard. She wore a light green day dress with a touch of lace the colour of sea froth circling the hem. Her straw hat was trimmed with matching ribbons, and sapphire teardrop earrings peeked out from beneath the brim.
    She nodded to the two women. “Good morning. Don’t let me interrupt your business, Angus. I’ll put your treat here behind the counter, shall I? Mr. Mann, I’ve brought biscuits for you as well.”
    Mr. Mann grunted and tried not to look pleased.
    â€œAre these real gold pans?” While the older woman had been introducing herself, her companion had been poking about the goods with an air of mild disinterest. She spoke for the first time as she pulled the top pan off the pile and turned it over. It was brand-new, never used, as shiny as the day it was made. It had been purchased by some low-level bank clerk, diary farmer, or unemployed labourer who hadn’t the slightest idea what real gold prospecting involved. And once he arrived in Dawson, discovered he had no desire to find out.
    â€œIndeed they are,” Angus said, trying to look like a man of business and wishing his mother would leave. Constable Sterling’s mother didn’t follow him on his rounds.
    â€œDid you bring these things all this way?” the lady asked. “It must have been quite a feat.”
    â€œGee, Ma, uh, Mother, Miss Forester sounds exactly like you,” Angus said. “The same accent, I mean. Maybe you’re from the same town back in Scotland. Where did you grow up, Miss Forester? My mother is from Skye. That’s an island.”
    Miss Forester looked up from the gold pans. Fiona was staring at her quite strangely. Miss Witherspoon glanced from one woman to the other.
    â€œForester?” Fiona said. “Euila?”
    â€œThat is my name. Do I know you, madam?”
    â€œI think you might. I’m Mrs…Miss…Mac…I’m Fiona.”
    â€œFiona.” Miss Forester exhaled the word in a long sigh. “Fiona. Good heavens…” She crumbled to the street in a dainty, although scrawny, heap.

Chapter Five
    I might have joined her in the dust of Bowery Street myself had I not been concerned for the condition of dress and hat. Euila Forester. I wouldn’t have recognized her at all, had not Angus pointed out the similarity of our accents then called her by her surname.