"Chelsea Quinn Yarbro - Madelaine 2 - In the Face of Death" - читать интересную книгу автора (Yarbro Chelsea Quinn)

CHELSEA QUINN YARBRO, of Berkeley, California, is an award-winning fantasist
perhaps best known for The Saint-Germain Chronicles and other vampire tales, one of which,
"Advocates," was co-winner of the prestigious World Horror Award for Best Novelette. "In the
Face of Death," tangentially linked to the Saint-Germain series, describes a plausible "period-
piece" affair between a fascinating vampire and William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891), a West
Coast banker who became one of the Civil War's most important Union generals, second only in
importance to U. S. Grant. Sherman's military genius was surpassed by his hatred of war; his
alleged penchant for bloodiness was a reputation reportedly engineered by his enemies in the
South and North. According to Ms. Yarbro, Sherman's family was indeed absent from the scene
during the period in which her story takes place.

I know of no courage greaterтАж than the courage to love in the face of death.
-WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN TO QUEEN VICTORIA

FROM THE JOURNAL of Madelaine de Montalia
San Francisco, 18 May,
At last! And only four days later than anticipated when we left the mountains. Had I been
willing to travel on the river from Sacramento, we would have arrived on the date anticipatedтАж
My native earth should be in one of the warehouses, waiting for me, which is just as well, as 1
have got down to less than a single chest of it.
My escorts brought me to a very proper boarding-house on Sacramento Street, and have
gone on themselves to find suitable lodgings. A Mrs. Imogene Mullinton, a very respectable
widow from Vermont, owns this place and takes only reputable single women. She has given me a
suite of three rooms at the top of the house, her best, and for it I am to pay $75 a month, or any
fraction of a month, a very high price for such accommodations, but I have discovered that
everything in San Francisco is expensive. The suite will do until I can arrange to rent a house for
three or four monthsтАж
Tomorrow I will have to pay off my escorts, which will require a trip to the bank to
establish my credit here, and to begin making my acquaintance with the city. Doubtless the
excellent Mrs. Mullinton can direct me to Lucas and Turner; the documents from their Saint
Louis offices should be sufficient bona fides to satisfy them.
At the corner of Jackson and Montgomery, the new Lucas and Turner building was one of
the most impressive in the burgeoning city; located near the shore of the bay and the many long
wharves that bristled far out into the water, the bank was well situated to sense the thriving
financial pulse of San Francisco.
Madelaine, wearing the one good morning dress she had left from her long travels,
stepped out of the hackney cab and made her way through the jostling crowds on the wooden
sidewalk to the bank itself. As she stepped inside, she felt both relief and regret at once again
being back in the world of commerce, progress, and good society. Holding her valise firmly, she
avoided the tellers' cages and instead approached the nearest of the desks, saying, "Pardon me,
but will you be kind enough to direct me to the senior orncer of the bank."
The man at the desk looked up sharply. "Have you an appointment, ma'am?" he asked,
noticing her French accent with faint disapproval, and showing a lack of interest that Made-laine
disliked, though she concealed it well enough. He was hardly more than twenty-two or -three and
sported a dashing mustache at variance with his sober garments.
"No, I am just arrived in San Francisco," she said, and opened her valise, taking out a
sheaf of documents, her manner determined; she did not want to deal with so officious an
underling as this fellow. "I am Madelaine de Montalia. As you can see from this-" she offered
him one of the folded sheets of paper "-I have a considerable sum on deposit with your Saint
Louis bank and I require the attention of your senior officer at his earliest convenience."