8
“SIR! SIR!”
Henry had barely climbed out of his carriage before a scrawny youth stepped in his way on the bank steps. He waved an envelope in Henry’s face so fiercely that Henry raised the handle of his walking stick to put some distance between himself and the offending item.
“What is it, young man?”
“You’re Mr. Hawkins, ain’t ya?”
“I am.”
“Then this is for you.” He slapped the envelope to Henry’s chest.
To prevent it from flying in the wind, Henry grabbed the item as the boy raced off down the street. “Wait just a minute!”
But the youth had already gone too far and obviously had no interest in answering Henry’s call. Henry found that odd; most boys who delivered notes—even those who’d been paid on the front end—expected a tip upon delivery.
Henry slipped the envelope into his pocket with an undeniable sense of foreboding. He wished he’d had the quickness to grab the boy by the collar and demand to know who’d hired him for the delivery.
Once inside the privacy of his office, before even hanging up his hat or putting aside his walking stick or removing his gloves, Henry pulled out the note he wished to ignore.
He should light a match to it without opening it.
Instead, he tore open the envelope, and a small piece of familiar onionskin floated out. On one side were scrawled the words:
False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
Henry crumpled both the paper and the envelope, wishing once again he’d detained that boy. He must find out where these intolerable notes originated.
Dessa held the note in her hand, her heart dancing, fingers trembling. A prospect!
The note wasn’t signed, but it had a clear purpose. A purpose Dessa was only too eager to fulfill. She glanced at the watch she wore like an adornment every day. Eleven o’clock. She had enough time to finish the embroidery on a handkerchief, then hire a hack to take her to City Park, where she was to meet by two o’clock the woman who’d authored the note.
Dessa was used to seeing women from various parlor houses and brothels paraded through the city in open carriages—it was a form of advertising that Denver’s growing, more respectable population might resent but had no recourse against. And City Park, set beyond Denver’s limits—and therefore beyond its jurisdiction—was a natural magnet for anyone who wanted to leave behind the city’s noise and stench of smelters’ coal smoke along with its laws and judgments.
Yet as she left the hired cab at the park gate, she wasn’t sure what to look for. The note said only to identify the author by a red flower on her hat. It didn’t name the person as someone from the sporting end of town, a maid who might be in trouble, or even the daughter of one of the donor families Dessa had met in the last two years. Manner of dress could be quite different depending on one’s station.
Dessa paid the driver, instructed him to wait, then clutched her handbag and set off along the open, grassy parkland.
There weren’t many amenities to this park, though officials promised a future in which patrons would visit a water garden, monuments, and a variety of trees and flowers. So far, though, the park boasted little more than squatters and surrounding farmland.
But Dessa wasn’t alone as she paced herself to stroll as if she were only taking in the fresh country air. Though she saw few families, there were a number of adults—both men and women—taking advantage of a view of the mountains on the horizon that Dessa never tired of.
She saw no one wearing a red flower, on her hat or otherwise. Dessa walked along, wishing the note’s author had been more specific. The parkland was fairly extensive. Suppose Dessa had come to the wrong end? She had no choice but to keep looking.
A breeze cooled the air today, but under the warmth of the sun Dessa was comfortable. She occasionally stopped, looking before and behind, breathing deeply. Whenever a new carriage came along, Dessa would stop and wait. Either someone rode off or new visitors emerged. None of them wearing a red flower.
A half hour passed, and Dessa considered returning to the hired hack and going back to the city. If the girl was serious about meeting Dessa, she would make another attempt. If only Dessa knew where she could contact the girl; she wasn’t the least bit afraid of going to her rather than meeting in a public place.
Still, she walked a bit longer, surveying the area, occasionally turning her gaze westward toward the mountains. A squall erupted in the sky but too far off to pose Dessa any threat. She watched the rain paint vertical gray stripes on the horizon.
Once she saw a man who, from a distance, looked like Mr. Hawkins, but she quickly dismissed the thought. Even if it were he, torn away from his beloved bank, she hardly wanted to acknowledge him. He wouldn’t welcome her anyway. She wished thoughts of him didn’t haunt her, but if she imagined seeing him at every turn, she couldn’t deny the fact that he remained on her mind.
At last, convinced whoever had sent the note was indeed not coming, Dessa returned to the carriage that had waited all this time—for an extra charge. She couldn’t afford to wait longer.
The ride back to the city seemed quicker than the journey out to the parkland. An hour wasted, when there was so much to do at the house. Dessa alone couldn’t produce enough textile goods to cover the loan. But she wouldn’t have help until she reached the women that so far seemed bent on avoiding her.
Dessa’s footsteps on the front stairs to the porch were far slower and heavier than they had been earlier at the prospect of meeting with her first potential client. Have I misunderstood, Lord? What am I not seeing? What have I done wrong?
Thoughts of Mr. Hawkins’s judgment made her steps nearly unbearable.
The door was, as usual, left unlocked. It was said that these few square blocks near the tracks were the only ones in the city where the few upstanding citizens left needed to lock their doors. Dessa refused to do so. If someone was so desperate as to break into her home, a home that offered little as far as earthly possessions, then they were in far greater need than she.
After removing her gloves, hanging her hat on the hook, and wishing once again she could afford a small table for such things as gloves and pocketbooks and handbags, she stuffed the gloves inside the hat, laid the handbag on the dining room table, then headed to the kitchen. Although Dessa enjoyed cooking, she had little desire to prepare anything for herself. A cheese and tomato sandwich would do for dinner.
But at the kitchen threshold, all thoughts of food disappeared. Dessa wasn’t alone.