Chapter Five 1882. Sacramento and San Diego Eight Months Later
"Jarrod, I am mighty proud of the new agreement you made for dredging a canal for the Los Angeles river to Wilmore City on the Pacific. The Santa Fe railroad and Southern Pacific railroads have agreed to look at the area. I swear Jarrod you can get blood out of a turnip. I have never seen someone work as hard and as many hours as you, Barkley. I am glad you are considering thinking of keeping the job permanently. You are slick working both sides of the aisle. Both parties are eating out of your hand."
"Thanks, Henry. This state is in my blood. I haven't enjoyed something this much in years."
Jarrod went back down the corridor in the statehouse. He was humming to himself a tune from a play he had seen twice this month. He had been seeing a young widow, Senator Marsheton's niece. She had been married to a young lawyer and state senator for five years when he was killed in a horseback riding accident. Amy was college-educated and an astute political wife. She was beautiful, witty, and very independent. Very progressive and free thinker, a closet suffragette.
Jarrod and Amy spent time together after she put her widow's weeds in the closet. He had recently started to take her to restaurants and the theatre. She was a very good conversationalist and Jarrod appreciated her beauty and intelligence. They were very physically and mentally attracted. But honestly, Jarrod couldn't say in his head, he was in love. He knew he could love her.
They made the local social columns and it was shared in the state newspapers about Secretary of State Jarrod Barkley and Mrs. Amy Marsheton Pierce being seen about town. "The latest handsome couple in the Sacramento arena."
Jarrod had even taken her home to Stockton once to meet the family; they all loved her.
—&—
Liz and the children moved to San Diego near the marina. They took an old Spanish home and renovated it. It looked out on the Pacific and San Diego Bay.
Beaufort Shipping had opened two new offices here and north towards Los Angeles. John sent her South away from him in San Francisco after his father died. BlackJack died in his sleep and honestly few tears were shed by John or his young wife...
The office was staffed with long-term employees of the Admiral and they took better orders from her rather than the Jacksons.
John was also under pressure at the firm. He paid off his gambling debts and loans immediately after his father died. His stepmother found out and moved her lawyers in to assure the inheritance of her own sons, his half-brothers. A judge ruled in favor of her. His Father's will had left everything to him providing he had a male heir; if not his half-brothers would be recognized. She had control over them.
John was furious. He blamed Liz for his predicament. She hadn't conceived again since that fifth girl. Then when the French employees started refusing to comply with his new orders and pay, he sent her to quell them and she did it well.
Liz read about Jarrod's new lady friend and felt a great deal of sadness. "Of course, he should find happiness and I want him too but it breaks my heart."
Raising five daughters gave her a purpose to get through her days. Providing a better life for them became her goal. She had already done so with Adrienne and Isabella. Eugene had privately asked for her sister's hand in marriage. She had excitedly agreed.
—&—
John arrived by schooner from San Francisco to see his wife. His step-mother had put pressure on him to increase profits in the two new southern markets or she would go to the Board of Directors again for him to be replaced. His father had agreed it was wise too to have a leg-up in all possible ports the way the west was growing. He was dead and now John was having to answer to a woman.
The irony of it all. All of this would be prevented if that damn woman would give him a son.
The recession had hit shipping goods hard and all of the market profits had decreased. His extravagant spending of cash reserves and some unwise decisions were noticed by the stockholders. New markets cost money and It takes time to recoup. And all of it he blamed on Liz.
He swallowed his pride when Jarrod got the Secretary of State job. He asked him for a favor, for old times sake. "Beaufort-Jackson would be a perfect choice for the new Los Angeles harbor canal project. We can invest in the land and use Liz's connections to make a lot of money for Barkley Sierra and our company. Run it through your brother's wives and sister's names and I will run it through Liz—-no one is the wiser, the State wins and I win. If I can get back on solid footing in the company with my damned Stepmother…" Jarrod stopped him right there with cold, feeling eyes and knocked him across the room. How does that feel? And he left him nursing a bruise on his jaw on the ground.
Liz was home in the parlor with the children when John came in unannounced.
Nick and Katarina were visiting her. The Cattleman's convention had been held in town and they stayed over to make some vineyard and fruit contracts with Mexico. She had enjoyed watching Tab during the day with her girls while they spent some alone time in the fledgling city. Their six-month-old twin girls had come with their wet nurse/nanny.
Liz had said, "the more the merrier when Katarina wrote about coming." She was lonely for adult companionship.
She had written: Frank Kimball of National City founded the San Diego County Fair a year ago. He wanted to make the county an agricultural center. Kimball had been testing fruit trees here since 1869.
Nick wanted to meet with him and asked Katarina to attend too with her knowledge of the blending house.
Daisy had announced when they arrived, "Sophie and May are just what Uncle Nick prayed for. He told me so and Jesus gave him two!"
The adults all smiled at the child but the pain of her innocent statement was like a knife to their hearts knowing how the conversation had happened.
Nick went over and hugged the five little girls ranging now 2-10 years old, "And never let anyone tell you differently. Girls are pretty much more special than any of us men."
Liz and Katarina got tears in their eyes. Katarina reached out and squeezed Liz's hand. She was thankful for the gesture.
Katarina had thanked God many times for the progressive thinking of Victoria Barkley raising sons that respected women and making sure Audra married the same kind of man.
"Liz, where are you?" he bellowed as he dropped his luggage at the door. She called Bettina and Lucinda in to watch the children and young Tab. The twins were napping with their nanny. He smelled of liquor and old sweat from the ship.
"Who is here? You trying to foust some foundling on me since you can't provide me with a son?
"Shut up. It's Tab Barkley; his parents are visiting the area and staying here. Can I get the servants to fix you a bath and a bed?"
He grabbed her by the arm and dragged her upstairs. Lucinda looked like she wanted to intervene but Liz shook her head, "No, there was no need for anyone else to get hurt."
"This is for Jarrod Barkley" as he slapped her the first time.
Nick and Katarina returned to the hacienda after supper to find the house quiet and the children all asleep. Katarina went to check on Tab. Bettina and Lucinda had told the couple how hard the children played and they bathed them and put them to bed.
"And Mr. John arrived this afternoon."
Nick felt his temper rise. From what Jarrod had told them to Violet's birth to Daisy's innocent heart that day in the wagon—-Nick hated the man he had never met along with the rest of his brothers.
Jarrod confided one night while playing pool, "I don't know how I ever thought I called him a friend."
"War makes strange companions, Jarrod," Heath added.
Nick and Katarina entered the kitchen for a snack to take up to their rooms. The kitchen was in a separate building to the stucco home tied by a tiled walkway.
They opened the door to find Bettina tending bruises on Liz. There were clearly defined finger marks on her neck and arms before she quickly pulled her robe around her and looked away.
Nick asked her in a whisper, "John?"
She didn't answer but Bettina nodded, "Can you leave?"
He and Katarina backed out of the room and walked in the dark for a few silent minutes. Katarina broke down sobbing. "I know it's perfectly legal but it's despicable."
"There is nothing lower than a man who beats up a woman, Katarina. NOTHING!" in the quietest angry voice she had ever heard. It chilled her.
"Could she come to the ranch with us?"
"Of course, sugar but she won't. Jarrod says John would get custody of the children and she won't leave them."
John left a message the next morning that the Barkleys had overstayed their welcome. Nick and Katarina quickly packed up. Nick offered again "for her and the children to come with them."
She declined, "It would make things worse and he will take my girls away so I could never see them again. I would rather die."
The girls came downstairs and clung to Nick. True male affection is what they craved.
They left to the disappointed sounds of "We love you Uncle Nick", "Bye Tab, Sophie, and May"," Aunt Katarina, thank you for our new books and hair ribbons". "We love you."
Nick was thinking long and hard about this: Whether he should tell Jarrod or not. What could he really do? Politicians can't afford a scandal and he would want to help. He would talk to Heath and Eugene since they were the family of Liz now. He just wanted to break the man's neck with his bare hands. And he knew Jarrod well enough to know he would take action. He recognized the unrequited feelings of his brother.
Senator and Mrs. Peter Marsheton announce the engagement of their niece Mrs. Amy Marsheton Pierce of Sacramento to California's Secretary of State Jarrod Thomas Barkley of Stockton.
Mrs. Elizabeth Rose-Marie Beaufort Jackson proudly announces the engagement of her sister, Adrienne Marie Jeanne Beaufort, daughter of the late Admiral Jean and Marie de Beaufort of LeHavre France TO Mr. Eugene Victor Barkley of Stockton, California, son of Mrs. Victoria Barkley and the late Thomas Barkley.