The Lady of Bolton Hill

Chapter 12





Clara scrutinized her father’s face as his gaze tracked across the lines she had written, awaiting the first glimmer of either endorsement or dissatisfaction to show on his stern, impassive face. Would there ever come a time when she could function without the approval of the Reverend Lloyd Endicott? No matter how angry she was with him, no matter how many years she had worked as a journalist, she still felt the pathetic need for his approval as he read the article she had written for The Christian Crusade. She brought her article here to his study and sat in the exact same spot on the sofa where she had waited for him to review her schoolwork.

Lloyd tossed her pages down on the table and removed his spectacles, his face still wearing that frustrating blank look that was impossible to read. “It’s a good article, Clara. Persuasive, articulate. A little strongly worded, perhaps.”

She raised her brows. “An article should be strongly worded.” Her editor in London had nothing but scorn for “namby-pamby” journalists who were afraid to take a position. Labor relations were on the verge of boiling over once again, and the public needed to be fully informed of the process by which wages were set and work conditions determined. Her access to Alfred Forsythe and Daniel Tremain had given her exclusive insight into two of the most important players in Baltimore.

“Let me rephrase this,” Lloyd said carefully. “I believe you are letting your personal disapproval for Daniel’s actions influence the tone of this article. It is as though you are using this article as an attempt to prompt him to change his ways, rather than inform the public about details relevant to the case.”

“Daniel is not the least bit reluctant to let his enmity toward Alfred Forsythe be public knowledge,” she said. “He is proud of his position. I don’t see how shining light on it is unfair.”

Her father picked up the pages again and scanned through her words. “What about this passage here? You write, ‘Mr. Tremain has withdrawn his company from consideration to become a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange, based solely on his refusal to license his technologies to any company who pays the qualifying fees.’ ” Lloyd looked up at Clara. He was no longer her father; he was the editor of a newspaper in which she hoped to publish. “Do you know this for a fact, Clara? Surely, there could be a multitude of reasons a man might wish to keep his company in private ownership.”

Clara shook her head. “I know it for a fact. He told me straight out that it was the restriction relating to Forsythe Industries that was the deal breaker. And I know he and his partner could use the money the public stock would bring them. They are both strapped for cash.” Lloyd continued to scan the pages, and the first hint of disapproval registered on his face.

Clara pulled down the pages and leaned forward to speak directly to Lloyd’s face. “Everything I wrote is true,” she said. “Every word of it can be verified. All my instincts are screaming at me that this is a fair evaluation of the state of affairs.”

“But how will Daniel respond to this? Your oldest friend in the world?”

Daniel had always been shockingly blunt with her and appreciated her forthright nature. “Daniel isn’t afraid of the truth. When I couldn’t write fast enough, he even slowed down to let me catch up. He knew I was interviewing him for an article and freely shared all this information. Of course he expects me to use it.”

Lloyd picked up the pages and turned them over and over. “You have years of experience as a journalist, and I’m willing to trust your judgment on this. It will appear in next week’s issue.”

Clara smiled. Next week she would begin to help heal this useless vendetta that had been destroying Daniel’s soul.





Clara pulled a slug from the stem of the clematis vine and dropped it into a can. The vines grew along the fence that bordered the back of her rented townhouse, and Clara wondered how such a delicate vine could support the profusion of violet blooms. She loved these early mornings when she could tend to the vines. Probably some sort of frustrated maternal urge, but it felt right to care for these vines that must have been growing along this fence for decades. Clara straightened the edge of her wide-brimmed straw hat to block the angle of the early morning sun, then turned her attention back to the curling vines climbing the fence.

She heard Daniel before she saw him. Booted feet were slicing through the tall grasses that grew in the side yard. She looked up from the vine and saw his face, white with anger, and his tall frame rigid with tension. Rolled in his hand was the just-released issue of The Christian Crusade. Daniel covered the expanse of the lawn in only a few strides, and the way he drew his arm back with the offending paper made Clara fear he was about to strike her with it. Instead, he threw the paper at her, its pages flying as it hit her dress and tumbled to the damp lawn.

She blanched, but was proud of the way she kept the tremor from her voice. “I see you’ve read the article.”

“Is that what you call it?” he bit out. “An article? I call it a stab in the throat.”

The fury in his eyes was like nothing she’d ever seen. This wasn’t the Daniel she knew; this was the face of unadulterated rage, and it frightened her. She adjusted the brim of her hat with trembling fingers, anything to give her a moment to gather her scattered thoughts. “I’m sorry you didn’t like it,” she stammered. She backed up a step, but the wall of clematis vines prevented her from putting much space between them. “When you’ve had a few moments to calm down, perhaps we can talk—”

“How dare you, Clara? How dare you attack everything I’ve ever worked for when you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth? Every tutor, every book, everything was handed to you, and now you’ve got the gall to attack what I have earned. Why did you do it, Clara? When you realized that you couldn’t be the next Chopin, did you decide to make a name for yourself by becoming the biggest muckraker in journalism?”

She hoped he could not see her trembling, but refused to break eye contact with him. “I didn’t write anything in that article that wasn’t common knowledge.”

Daniel nearly exploded, pushing away from the fence and stalking across the lawn. “You wrote about why we withdrew from the public offering! That was private information and you had no business publishing that!”


“But . . . but, Daniel, you told me all about it that day in your office. You knew I was there to interview you about your company. Did you think I would not use it?” she asked incredulously.

Daniel swallowed hard and for the first time she saw a flicker of uncertainty cross his face. “No, I didn’t know,” he said.

For all Daniel’s genius in the world of technical invention, he had always delegated the business side of affairs to his partner. Daniel remained relatively unsophisticated in the ways of business and journalistic ethics, and it had just gotten him into trouble. And it had been at her hands. Her father had been right; she had betrayed her best friend. She had not intended to, but it was how Daniel viewed her actions, and in truth, she had not been as careful as she should have been. She never considered Daniel’s na?veté in working with journalists.

“I treated that interview just like any of the dozens I have done over the years,” she said cautiously. “I think you treated it as a conversation between friends, but I saw it as a conversation for publication.” Daniel’s hard glare did not soften, but he did not deny her comment, either, and she knew her assessment was correct. Perhaps it was arrogant to believe she had the power to help mend the rift between Daniel and Forsythe, but the damage had been done, and the only way to make anything positive out of this debacle was to keep urging Daniel toward a just resolution of the issue.

“Daniel, you have been very forthright about your determination to ruin Forsythe. You have never failed at anything in your life, and I have every confidence that you will ultimately succeed in driving Forsythe Industries into the dust. Sooner or later you will shut his company down, just like you shut down his college.” It hurt to see Daniel’s smoldering anger directed straight at her, but Clara drew herself to full height and walked toward him, praying she would be capable of penetrating his animosity. “But while you are digging Forsythe’s grave,” she said quietly, “you may as well dig your own because you are destroying yourself.”

“I don’t care,” he said ruthlessly. “This is something that’s been driving me for years, and it feels right, Clara.”

“It feels right to allow Forsythe’s employees to scrape by on pitiful wages? It feels right to destroy a college Forsythe planned to build? Daniel, what kind of man are you?”

Daniel froze, and Clara’s heart nearly broke wide open when she saw the pain her questions caused him. “I’m the kind of man who has always trusted your judgment,” he finally said. “When you were hauled up on charges in England, I never doubted you or spilled poison about you in the press. I just shelled out whatever payment it took to get you the best lawyer in England to fight on your behalf.”

Clara’s eyes widened in astonishment and the breath left her body in a rush. Never had she tried to discover the anonymous benefactor who had arranged for Mr. Townsend’s staggering legal fees, and now that she saw the truth of the matter on Daniel’s face, she wanted to weep. “That was you?” she asked weakly.

“That was me.”

She held her hands outward, palms up in a mute appeal. “Daniel, I don’t know what to say . . . how to thank you . . .”

If anything, her words seemed to make him angrier. “I don’t want your thanks; I want your loyalty. I want to know how a woman I idolized more than the sun and the stars rolled together now thinks I am not worthy to be operating a business in this city.”

His face remained shuttered, and Clara scrambled to find some way to reach him before he ruined every bit of goodness in his soul. Nothing she said made a dent in his bitterness. The man who now showered fury down on her head was not the friend she had known all these years. The garden bench was just a few steps away, and she managed to reach it before the strength in her knees gave way. Daniel stood motionless; his face was carved in stone and he looked like a stranger. Daniel always seemed so strong and confident. Was that why she didn’t expect him to be damaged by her actions?

Rather than help mend the situation, her recklessness had thrown oil on the flames of his discontent. The realization left her drained and exhausted. “I wrote that article because I hoped you could see how you’re affecting yourself and thousands of innocent people.” She turned her tortured eyes to him. “I’m sorry for what I did, but I fear you are about to ruin any chance you and I might have for happiness, for a marriage. For children together. None of those things will ever be possible if you pursue this obscene need to punish Forsythe. When Jesus hung on the cross, He forgave the people who crucified Him.”

The moment she said the word Jesus, what little tolerance was left in Daniel evaporated. “No preaching, Clara,” he warned.

“I wanted to save you,” she said weakly.

“It didn’t work.”

He turned on his heel and left her sitting among her clematis vines.





Mrs. Lorna Lancaster, born Lorna Tremain, had the exact shade of gray eyes as her brother, but that was where the resemblance ended. Lorna’s hair was a rich auburn she had twisted atop her head, and she wore a smartly embroidered peacock blue jacket and skirt. With a skirt so narrowly cut that she walked in delicate little steps, it was hard to envision Lorna growing up in the same squalid tenement alongside Daniel. Today, Lorna looked the picture of well-bred elegance as she sipped coffee at the Belgravia Coffee Shop in the historic section of Baltimore. The café had brick walls and ancient plank floors that leant itself to intimate conversations.

Clara was grateful Lorna had agreed to meet with her. After the publication of her article in last week’s edition of The Christian Crusade, she feared she might be persona non grata among the entire Tremain clan. She had not seen Daniel since he stormed out of her garden that awful morning, and he’d ignored the series of conciliatory messages she had sent him in the following days.

Lorna was nonchalant about the article. “Business as usual,” she said lightly. “Daniel has always carried on that relentless grudge against Alfred Forsythe. I lost interest years ago.”

As the oldest of Daniel’s sisters, Lorna was the person most likely to have insight into his character. For a man to be so brilliant, so talented, and yet suffer from such a profound lack of moral compass in his business operations was intolerable. It appeared everyone in Daniel’s company and family simply accepted his vendetta against Alfred Forsythe as naturally as the sun setting in the west. Clara could not simply overlook the effect Daniel’s anger had on his soul, and Lorna was her best shot at trying to unravel the complicated threads of Daniel’s life during the long years she had spent in England.

“Daniel was always outrageously protective,” Lorna said. “I knew we didn’t have much money when we were growing up, but he shielded us from that fact. We were never hungry and he always had something for us on Christmas morning. A hair ribbon or a bar of scented soap. The only time I realized how close to the edge we lived was one morning when I noticed the Ansonia clock was missing from the wall in the kitchen. I thought we had been robbed and told Daniel about it when he returned from work that night. The look that came over his face . . .” Lorna’s voice trailed off and her brow furrowed at the memory, but at last her voice continued. “He looked so ashamed. He had pawned the clock and hoped to earn it back before any of us noticed it missing. It was a valuable clock, and he never got it back, but a week later a new one was hanging in its place. It had a cheap oak frame and the hands were made of iron, but that clock means more to me than if it were made of solid gold. I still have it in my new home.”


The cloud that had crossed Lorna’s face cleared. “But enough of those dreary memories. Daniel always provided quite well for us. He made sure we went to school and studied hard. He sent us to church every Sunday. Our clothes were always clean—”

Clara’s eyes widened in astonishment. “Daniel took you to church?”

“Well, Daniel didn’t, but he made sure Mrs. Hershberger, who lived down the hall from us, came and took us with her to services each Sunday.”

Clara leaned forward, hope surging in her heart. This was the first she had heard that Daniel had any regard for religion whatsoever. “Why didn’t Daniel take you?”

“He was never particularly religious.”

“But he thought it was important for you to go.”

“Oh yes. He was adamant that we attend each week.” Lorna poured another cup of coffee, and offered some to Clara, who accepted in order to prolong their meeting. “I remember there was an Easter morning and I asked him to go with us,” Lorna said. “The choir always sang such lovely songs on Easter, and I thought that he would enjoy that. When he said no, I pressed him. I didn’t want him sitting alone in our apartment when I knew how much he loved music.” Lorna poured a bit of cream into her cup. “Anyway, he got very angry and told me never to pester him about it again. There were very few things that Daniel forbade us to discuss, but the way he shouted at me that morning made me afraid to ever bring it up again.”

“What else did he forbid you to speak of?” She ought to feel embarrassed asking a virtual stranger such intimate questions, but her journalistic instincts told her she was on the verge of something very important.

The sigh that came from Lorna was heavy with years of sorrow. She twirled a spoon in her coffee and her eyes grew distant. “Do you know how my mother died?” she finally asked.

Clara remembered that it had been Lorna who found her mother’s body hanging in their tiny kitchen. “Yes, I know,” she said softly.

“Daniel was horrified by what happened,” Lorna said. “It was even worse because he knew all of us had seen Mother dangling there before he could come home and get her down. As soon as my mother’s body was carried from the apartment, Daniel tried to close the door on what happened . . . pretend that we never saw her hanging there. It was as if he thought that by refusing to discuss it, we would forget.” Lorna idly stirred her coffee as she stared into the cup. “I suppose that was probably true for Katie. She was only three when it happened, and she didn’t really understand. But I remember.”

The wistful expression on Lorna’s face tugged at Clara’s heart. She knew what it was to lose a mother at a young age, but she could not pretend to know anything of the sorrow that must have surrounded Mrs. Tremain’s demise. She reached out and covered Lorna’s slim hand with her own, wishing there was something she could offer beyond mere sympathy.

“In any event, Daniel started making good money after he filed his first patent. Two years after Mother died he rented a house for us, one that had a bathroom with running water in it and a front yard. We felt like it was a castle. He bought houses for both Rachel and me when we got married, and I expect he plans to do the same for Katie, although I gather ready cash is a bit tight for him these days.”

The unspoken thought hung in the air. If Daniel allowed his company to become public, he would become one of the wealthiest men in the country. As it was, he was scrambling to ensure his sisters maintained the lifestyle which he had been able to provide for them.

The bell above the entrance rang as a man, out of breath and sweating, burst inside. “Trouble brewing down on McNeill Street,” he said.

The proprietor standing behind the service bar tossed his towel down. “Not again,” he growled.

Clara gritted her teeth, but sent a reassuring squeeze through Lorna’s hand. “None of the recent demonstrations have been violent,” she said. Lorna had heard all the details of the day three weeks ago when her sister had been trapped by the riot downtown. In the past week there had been daily demonstrations that marked a souring of relations between the railroad workers and corporate owners. And much of that hostility had been directed straight at Daniel. “Nevertheless, we should probably move on,” Lorna said.





The carriage Clara took home dropped her off two blocks from her rented townhouse, where she was dismayed to see an overturned fruit cart and the awning over a fish market that had been pulled down. Had her article played any role in igniting this riot? Words were powerful weapons, and her article had launched a potent broadside at the two industrialists who employed so many of Baltimore’s workers. She nearly staggered under the thought that she might have played a part in this. Her articles were intended to spark dialogue, not vandalism!

Clara saw a woman scrambling to retrieve fruit that had rolled into the street while her small son trailed behind her, holding a basket. The anxiety on the little boy’s face made Clara’s mouth thin in anger. She was just about to join the boy in gathering fruit when she saw her father walking toward her.

“My heavens, what happened to your forehead?” she gasped.

Lloyd held a handkerchief spotted with blood to his temple. “Caught a bit of flying apple with my face,” he said with remarkable good humor. “If you had been here ten minutes ago, you would have seen far more excitement. I had forgotten how hard young boys can hurl projectiles.”

Clara was flabbergasted. “They threw apples at an old man?”

Lloyd winced. “Nothing hurt quite as much as that statement, Clara. Now show me to this townhouse you and Clyde are renting.”

Clara grasped her father’s arm and walked with him the two blocks to her townhouse. He seemed steady on his feet, thank goodness, but there was something particularly terrible about seeing an elderly man with blood on his face. Once inside, she sat him down at the kitchen table, fetched some water, and dabbed at the cut on his forehead as gently as she could. It was a tiny scratch, but she remembered Clyde saying that head wounds always bled more profusely.

“I wish Clyde were here; he would know what to do,” she said as she pressed the cloth to his head and applied pressure.

“You are doing perfectly well. Besides, it was not Clyde I came to see.”

She suspected as much and sank into a chair opposite him. Her father had not been seriously hurt—it was only the slightest cut—yet the thin sheen of perspiration on his skin and the shakiness in his frame alerted her to the fact that the incident had been stressful on the old man. Seeing her father in such a condition rattled her, and she imagined how terrible she would feel if he had been seriously hurt and she was allowing this ridiculous rift to languish between them.

“What did you come to see me about?” she asked.

Lloyd pressed the towel to his forehead and the glint of humor came back to his eyes. “I heard there was rioting in this part of town, and I was rushing to your rescue, my dear.”

Clara’s heart turned over. “Oh, Father, truly there was no need . . .”

“I can see that now, but one of the quirks about parenthood is that the impulse to protect a child can’t be suppressed, even after the child is completely grown. And daughters are especially likely to fuel this quirk.” The smile he sent her held a world of sadness behind it, and she knew exactly what he was thinking. No matter how wrongheaded she believed him to be, there was no question in her mind that her father believed he had been acting in her best interest by separating her from Daniel all those years ago.


She leaned back in her chair and fixed him with a quizzical stare. “Isn’t it odd that I have been nagging Daniel about his inability to forgive those who have sinned against him, while at the same time I took myself off to the other side of Baltimore rather than confronting my own issues with forgiveness?”

“I am not foolish enough to risk commenting on Daniel Tremain’s qualities or shortcomings at this particular juncture. As to the second part of your question, I would more than welcome your returning home to bat about issues of forgiveness with you at greater length.”

It was likely to be the only apology she would ever get from her father. But what had she expected? Lloyd Endicott was not a man who would reverse his convictions and come racing across town just because she had left his house in a snit. And what if he had been killed today? What if instead of an apple, it had been a rock that had struck him and sent him crashing to the ground? She would never forgive herself if her father had died while she had made no effort to mend the rift between them. Daniel would never get an apology from Alfred Forsythe, and she would never get one from her father. They both had to accept that.

She covered his hand with hers. “I’ll be happy to come back home,” she said.