by Rebecca Tope
I liked him, too. He was respectful and unthreatening. He carried himself with dignity and saw behind a person’s prevarications. ‘Why me?’ I blurted. ‘I have not the brain nor the good grace to fulfil your needs.’
‘You take me seriously,’ he said simply.
That was true, up to a point. It also confronted my impression that he believed himself to be more respected than he truly was. I had never openly mocked him or made reference to his size, but it had always been part of my awareness of him. ‘That is not much,’ I said.
‘It is a great deal.’
‘Henry…I am sincerely flattered -
He made a brushing gesture. ‘Don’t say that. That’s what women say before they turn a proposal down.’
I laughed, in spite of myself. ‘Is it?’
‘I believe so. Besides, you cannot possibly mean it. How can a proposal from me be flattering?’
I almost told him that I would be flattered by a proposal from anyone. ‘It is something I had never thought of,’ I said. ‘Until this moment I had not fully understood that I have always believed myself destined never to marry.’
‘Nonsense,’ he dismissed. ‘No woman who comes on the Oregon trail can expect to remain unmarried. There are – what? – fifty men to every woman. Perhaps more.’
I thought of Fanny, with a heavy heart. ‘So says my sister,’ I nodded.
‘Never mind your sister. What of you, Miss Charity Collins? Will you be my wife?’
I surveyed the unworthy objections that flitted through my mind. I would always stand four or five inches taller than he, so that as a couple we would attract smiles and jibes everywhere we went. Henry would require a physical connection, and children, and I could not imagine reconciling myself to such a fate. If he became a banker, in a town, we might live in a fine town house with a lawn and flowers and tall trees at the back, where I had imagined something more rugged, with livestock to work with. I had found myself anticipating such chores as milking cows and tending newborn foals. I wanted to sow potatoes and beans, and stand on a windy vegetable plot surveying the results of my own labours.
‘I am too stunned to give you a quick reply,’ I said. ‘Could you give me a day to consider?’
He sighed miserably. ‘If you insist, but you have already undermined what scanty hope I clung to.’
‘What did you expect me to say?’ I was genuinely curious. ‘Did you believe me to be eagerly awaiting your declaration? Has this been a courtship in disguise, all these months?’
‘Not at all. At least, perhaps the idea blossomed gradually, and now the prospect of our separation shows me that I would miss you too severely to permit it to happen, if it can be avoided.’
‘Have you spoken to your parents about this?’
He shook his head.
‘What would they say – what will they say – when you tell them?’
He brightened. ‘I shall only tell them if you accept me. We can then confront them together, the decision firmly taken.’
My hesitation went all the way down to my bones. I had no clue as to what I ought to do. I had tried the test of envisaging a future with Henry, with inconclusive results. I delved inside myself for a scrap of understanding that could enlighten me, in vain. I took Henry’s lead and thought of how I might feel if I never saw him again. Not a flicker of helpful emotion was to be found. ‘I seem to be numb with the surprise,’ I said. ‘In no condition to make such a decision, in any case. Forgive me, Henry, but there is nothing I can say, one way or the other.’
He pouted childishly, which went a small way towards endearing him to me. The cool intellectual was also a boy at heart, lacking maturity and vulnerable to hurt. I supposed I might find a role as a shield for him, standing between him and the mocking world.
‘I promise to give you an answer by the end of tomorrow. We shall not separate until the decision is made for certain.’ It felt impossibly reckless to make such a promise. What, I asked myself in a panic, would have changed in the next twenty-four hours?
‘Forgive me,’ he said, looking all forlorn. ‘I acted on impulse – not a thing I do as a rule.’
I smiled, perhaps a trifle patronisingly. It was a new experience for me to be faced with a supplicant, and the power was giddying. I began to understand why women made so much of the fact of a proposal in itself. Henry had not knelt at my feet, as men in stories often did, but he may as well have done. Whatever might come next in the shape of real life, married or not, this moment was beginning to taste sweet. I felt important and desirable. ‘You flatter me,’ I said again. ‘And that is a good feeling.’
Then Lizzie was there, searching out her pups which had remained close to our feet. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked us, aware of something in the air, but unsure of what it was.
‘Talking,’ I said, and with a last smile at Henry, I helped gather up the babies and Lizzie and I returned to our tent.
13th October
Today we finished our long journey. Five months and one week, traversing two thousand miles, without any violent loss of life or serious confrontations. The transition from constant movement to a stationary life will doubtless come easily to us, since we must build a home for ourselves and acquire stock. We have been speaking together of all the long miles that lie behind us, recounting tales of river crossings and huge herds of buffalo. We have a craving for green vegetables and fruit. Mr Franklin says his first act will be to plant an apple orchard. My father says he will establish a workshop for the production of harness, saddles and pony traps.
All the families in our party have their own plans. Mr Franklin is to establish a butchery business along with his orchard, making clumsy jokes about pork and apple sauce; Mr Bricewood favours horse breeding and livery as a good profession in this new country. All the men speak of the boundless opportunities open to us all, serving such a variety of needs entailed by a young city, just establishing itself. There is much thankfulness, on every side. We all feel quite blessed.
I had been aiming for a serious tone in this final entry to my journal, while avoiding too many generalisations. The insertion of the word clumsy was unkind, but true. The mustachioed man had become impossibly trying with his repetitions and almost crazy excitement at having his ambitions within his grasp. The feeling of anticlimax that lurked on the fringes was not to be mentioned – especially as it appeared to afflict the women more than the men. I heard my mother speaking of the future in terms of much the same daily routines. ‘Feeding the family, mending their clothes, worrying about their future lives,’ she complained to my father. ‘I cannot see that anything has really changed.’
‘Mending clothes!’ he chided her. ‘Not a bit of it. There’ll be a housemaid for that sort of thing, my lady. And a kitchen maid for the cooking.’
‘And where, pray, are we to find such helpmeets? The girls who have travelled with us are all too well born for such work. They will have enough to do amongst their own families until they find husbands.’
‘Then Nam shall do the cooking and Lizzie the mending,’ he laughed. ‘While the older ones find themselves a husband, and sharp about it.’ Then he frowned. ‘And would you call Ellie Fields “well born”? There are several like her, fit quite obviously for domestic service.’
Poor Ellie, I thought.
My own would-be husband had followed me all day with his eyes, as he walked beside his oxen and was teased by his small sisters. The final six miles into the Willamette Valley was accomplished in a morning, the pace uncomfortably brisk. There was singing and shouting, and a degree of hat throwing and other jollity. I swung between a range of thoughts and emotions. Partly I was irritated by Henry’s interruption of what would otherwise have been a day of unalloyed celebration. Partly I was glad to have a distraction in the coming days, which threatened to be as mundane as my mother expected.
And then there was my sister Fanny.
Fanny alone would have occupied most of my thoughts, the way she was behaving. She danced a
long on carefree toes, laughing at nothing and swinging any small child she could grab up into the air. Henry’s sisters and the smaller Franklins suffered the indignity without protest, glad to be included in the hilarity, but unsure as to its cause.
‘Whatever is the girl thinking?’ wondered my mother.
I would have been sorely tempted to explain, if I had not had my own preoccupations. Fanny had obviously not spoken of her intentions to our parents, even in the vaguest terms. There was no sign of anxiety on their faces when they looked at her. Quite what they believed to be the case between Fanny and Abel was unclear. There was little sign of disappointment, but neither did they ever refer to an eventual marriage. Something must have been said outside my hearing, that had soothed any worries and removed any hint of censure. Even after so much time, this continued to confuse me.
‘She is doubtless eager to start her new life,’ I said, thereby only barely resisting temptation.
‘Has she spoken of it to you?’ My mother seemed only faintly interested.
‘A little.’
‘I confess I cannot fully comprehend what she has in mind. A boudoir, she calls it, with all the latest East Coast fashions and comforts. She believes she can make a good living from it, and far be it from me or your father to prevent her.’
‘Mother! Have you no idea what it is she proposes?’
‘Some idea, Charity, yes.’ There was a warning flash in her eyes. ‘And I wish her well. Your father says this is a land of opportunity, where every person should make the best they can of their talents. Fanny has always understood how best to please.’
My heart was pounding. I felt as if I was witnessing my parents throwing my sister to a den of ravenous lions. It was impossible that they had taken from Fanny’s talk the same impressions that I had done. It could only be that it was I who was mistaken. And yet, I had witnessed something unambiguous and unforgettable, where they had not. ‘You have no fears for her immortal soul?’ I said, my voice harsh.
‘Charity, Charity,’ she sighed. ‘What a fool you can be at times. Such a conventional girl you are.’
A few months earlier, I would have said my mother was the most conventional person alive. Now it seemed I had got her wrong. She was flouting all the essential rules of parenthood, as was my father. The ground shook beneath my feet, as it had done where Fanny was concerned ever since Independence Rock. From some illogical need for security, I blurted out, ‘Well, I have had a proposal of marriage!’
Her interest was satisfactorily hooked. ‘From whom?’ she demanded.
‘Henry Bricewood.’
‘When’
‘Yester eve.’
‘And what did you reply?’
‘I said I would consider, and tell him my reply today.’
‘And what will you tell him?’
‘I cannot say.’ My flicker of defiance fizzled away. ‘It is such a big decision.’
At least she did not laugh, but it was plain she was exerting considerable self-control, as she took a deep breath – and then another.
‘Well, I dare say he will make his way well enough,’ she said. Her indifference was more wounding that outright resistance would have been. Enthusiasm, of course, was more than I could possibly have hoped for. And yet Henry had been consistently pleasant to my family throughout the journey, showing himself to be intelligent, willing and good-hearted.
‘Do you not like him?’ I challenged.
‘Charity – he is hardly bigger than a dwarf. Have you no self-respect?’ It was said impatiently, as if I were being deliberately obtuse, in a tone I had come to expect from people more mature than myself. Indeed, my mother seemed to be stuck in it that day, where I was concerned.
‘But you would not oppose my marrying him?’
‘You are twenty years old. At your age I was on the way with my second child.’
And Hope Gordon was widowed with a young son; almost every woman in the train had landed a husband by the time she was eighteen. ‘Yes, Mother, I know,’ I said, feeling my failure acutely. ‘You are telling me that the identity of such a husband is of secondary importance to the mere fact of his existence?’
‘You have begun to speak like him already. Take him, girl, and be thankful. I can see no serious impediment.’
‘I will, then,’ I said. ‘You have helped me to decide, for which I am grateful.’
I had never regarded myself as a romantic. I had not read girlish stories since I was eleven, nor woven fantasies about a future garlanded with flowers provided by a devoted spouse. But I had a nagging sense that this reluctant decision as to my future was deficient in many ways. I ought at least to feel contented and right. Instead I was nervous and almost sad. The idea that I was losing something hovered just below the surface.
The whole wagon train was in a state of increasing chaos as buildings, fences, roads and livestock all came into view, spread in a wide arc ahead of us. Trees had been felled over a large area, making way for paddocks containing horses ands cattle. Wooden shacks with painted signs above the door announced offices, grocery stores, a mail room and a government post. Every family meeting the undemanding criteria set by the authorities would be granted a square mile of land and the right to build a home. Questions over water, accessibility, finances all had to be addressed to the appropriate office, and a flood of men, most of them holding sheets of paper, swirled between the various buildings, while women and children held back, as if afraid of the sudden massive change to their routines.
I too held back. Henry was nowhere to be seen. There had been heavy rain overnight and the ground was turning to mud under so many feet and wheels. The train had been expected for a week and preparations for us had been made to an impressive degree, but still the soft valley soil could not withstand such an onslaught. It felt irrelevant to be worrying about a proposal of marriage when so much business was being conducted that would decree how and where all these hundreds of people would live, perhaps for the remainder of their lives. But then I reminded myself that precisely these matters would be decided by my reply to Henry, and that it was actually entirely fitting that it should be made on this important day.
Eventually, late in the afternoon, I found him. His small stature had made him harder to see than another man would have been, and in fact it was Mr Fields I detected first. As I automatically moved towards him, I saw that Henry was at his side. Ellie and her brother were also there, and it came to me that the little family was attempting to arrange a funeral for their wife and mother. The burial was badly overdue and any further loss of time would be to step over into the realm of shame and disgust.
Both men looked at me, and my heart gave a rushing sensation as if it were being swept down a cascading river. Ellie ran towards me and grabbed my hand.
Henry, with a little frown, reached out his own hand as if to brush away the child from a place that was rightfully his. I remained frozen in place, powerless to influence the unspoken contest.
‘Have you a reply for me?’ he asked softly. But not softly enough. Not only Ellie, but her father, heard him.
I tried to nod. I wanted to say the words and get it done with. But my attention was fixed on the tableau created by the two men, and the stark differences between them. Not only the discrepancy in their height, but the way they both looked at me. Each one had removed his hat at my approach, in a synchronised move that was almost amusing. Henry was defensive, possessive, urgent. Mr Fields was alarmed, afraid, disbelieving. The similarity all lay in the fact that everything depended on me, for them both. Every atom of their attention was directed at me and what I might say next.
And Ellie, too. She pressed her thin little body against mine and clung to my hand.
‘Henry…’ I managed, aware that my duty to him was foremost. My mother had accused me of a lack of self-respect, but she was wrong. It was deeply important to me that I should not wound Henry Bricewood. How I might manage that, while at the same time following what I had suddenly perceived as m
y destiny, was far from clear.
‘Come and walk with me,’ he urged. Again he gestured towards Ellie, plainly telling her to go away. I found myself tightening my hold on her, until I was clinging as desperately as she was.
‘Henry…Mr Bricewood,’ I tried again, thinking foolishly that I ought not to use his Christian name to his face at such a moment. ‘I cannot. I believed I could. I was searching for you to agree to your proposal. Perhaps if I had found you an hour earlier, it would have been different.’ I looked at Mr Fields, who was waiting with a quiet dignity as if perfectly reading my mind. ‘But I have remembered things I should never have forgotten. I am not the right mate for you, not at all. You would be unhappy with me and I would not have that on my conscience. Forgive me, please. But my answer can only be a refusal.’
Henry’s embarrassment at having his rejection overheard by another man was perhaps the saving of him. He flushed red and replaced his hat. ‘I thank you,’ he said stiffly. ‘It seems that destiny is against us. An hour ago I was with my father, learning details of a substantial acreage a few miles to the south-west, well supplied with water, and with a track already running within half a mile of the site designated for the erection of a house. I could not say for certain that I would shortly be a married man, but I was told that if I did possess a wife, I might have a similar homestead to myself, for a very low price.’
‘But you said you were to be a banker, living in town.’
My protest proved to be another saving grace. ‘Working, not living,’ he corrected me. ‘But it matters not, now. I shall remain with my family for the foreseeable future.’
‘Then may God bless you,’ I said, meaning it in all sincerity.
Henry had not grasped the full meaning of the words I used for my refusal. He did not suspect that my remark about remembering and forgetting centred upon the other man standing there, and his little step-daughter. Mr Fields himself appeared not to detect any particular import, either, and of course when I gathered my wits I understood that he could scarcely be expected to interpret it as a proposal of marriage. Ellie, however, was quicker.
