Hannah blushed, grateful for the darkness.
“Yeah, it was fantastic." She pulled the nightshirt over her head and found the hairbrush, pulling it through the disordered mess of her hair, wishing she could put her life in order with as little effort. Hers, and Logan’s as well.
"Mom?"
"Mhmm?
“I'm not going to marry Brad. I mean, even if we find a way back. I wouldn't be able to marry him."
"Oh, Hannah. Oh, that's wonderful news." Daisy sounded as if Hannah had just told her she’d won the lottery . .. did they have lotteries yet?
Daisy sat up, her voice filled with excitement. “I never thought you were suited. And I despised that mother of his. But most of all, you didn’t act as if you were in love, either of you. It worried me so." Daisy sighed, a deep, contented sigh.
“You and Logan are, though, aren’t you? I’ve known since the very beginning that you were right together.”
Hannah shook her head and rolled her eyes. Daisy surprised her now on a daily basis, but this next part was going to be difficult.
"We’re in love, Mom. And I want to be with him." How could she feel so blissful and so bashful all at the same time? Hannah wondered.
"Of course you do.”
"But we’re not talking about marriage here." She had to make this absolutely clear to Daisy.
"Well, you can be together without being married," her mother said in a complacent tone. "You young people didn’t invent sex, you know. Your father and I were together for three years before we got married. I never wanted to marry, you see. It wasn’t until you were on the way that he talked me into going to a justice of the peace.”
Hannah couldn’t believe her ears. "You lived together? I didn’t know that.”
Daisy’s voice was amused. “We didn’t live together, darling. It wasn’t done in those days. But we slept together. We were together in every way that mattered.”
It dawned on Hannah that her mother was a frankly sensual woman. “You never told me you were pregnant before you got married."
Daisy sighed. “I thought of telling you, but the time never seemed right somehow. You were so smart, darling, so much smarter than me, and even from the time you were little, you were so….so moral, so certain about what was right and wrong.” Daisy gave a sad little laugh. "I used to think I wasn’t really fit to be your mother, that you should have had someone much wiser and better than me. I felt so inadequate. I guess I was scared to let you know what I was really like, in case you gave up on me altogether."
Hannah was dumbstruck. She had intimidated Daisy?
“Oh, Mom. I always thought—I thought it was me, that I wasn’t pretty enough for you, that I was too big, too clumsy, that you'd have liked a daughter more like you—”
"Come over here." Daisy's voice was tear-choked, and when her arms closed around Hannah’s neck, both their cheeks were wet.
“You're so beautiful, my darling. How could you ever think that? What on earth did I do to make you feel that way?"
They cried, and mopped up each other’s tears, and something old and hurtful between them was healed by the salt. The gray morning light began to creep into the little bedroom, and at last they lay down to sleep for an hour, mindful of the work-filled day ahead.
Just before she slept, Hannah heard her mother say, "Coming here was the best thing we ever did."
Hannah thought it over, and in spite of everything, she decided Daisy was right.
The following Sunday, Hannah and Daisy and Elvira attended church services in the tiny schoolhouse. Attendance was small and predominantly female; Logan had advised Hannah that miners reserved Sundays for saloons, gambling, relaxation, drinking, and fornication.
It was the busiest day of the week at the Nugget, and also at the brothels.
Carefully dressed in their period costumes, which now included bonnets Hannah had bought them, the three women were invited to tea after the service with Prudence Heatherington, Mary Winnard, the blacksmith’s wife, and Rebecca Carroll, who was married to Doc Carroll.
Rebecca Carroll was a tall, attractive woman, very religious, with decided views.
“It’s appalling to me that Barkerville has twelve saloons and no church building," she stated. “I feel that if women weren’t in such a minority in this town, we could prevail upon the men to raise the funds and build one. A church would provide a center where women felt comfortable. There is no suitable meeting place for the respectable women in Barkerville."
Later that week, Hannah thought about Rebecca's remark, and also about the position women held generally in the Barkerville community. Her own experience with Slater, Logan’s comments about the courts being sympathetic to men, and the horrifying fact that women were considered the property of their husbands nagged at her.
What was needed in Barkerville, she concluded, wasn’t so much a place to meet, but a woman's group who got together and discussed the injustices of the system and used their brains to figure out ways to improve things.
The idea was exciting. She’d sponsored numerous groups in her work at the hospital, and she made up her mind to try to form one now. She decided to bounce the idea off Logan that night, after they’d made love.
Although she hadn’t formally moved into his bedroom, Hannah now spent most of her nights there. As if sleeping with him wasn’t enough, there was an added bonus; he was usually playing cards or working in the saloon long past midnight, and having his bedroom to herself for hours each evening was sheer luxury.
Hannah suspected that Daisy also enjoyed her newfound privacy.
Tonight he’d slid into bed beside her and kissed her awake, and now they lay depleted, her leg still draped over his hip. She pressed her nose against him, drawing in the intoxicating scent of his sweat-dampened skin, and she told him about the group she wanted to form, anticipating his support.
She was let down and keenly disappointed when it didn’t come.
"If there were more married women in this town and they banded together, you might have some luck getting things changed because those women would prevail on their husbands," he pointed out. “But the greatest majority of the women here are dance-hall girls and prostitutes. They make their money off men and they’re not going to support any newfangled ideas that might affect their income.”
Hannah moved her nose and her leg and flopped over to her side of the bed.
“For heaven’s sake, Logan, you’re the one who told me how unfairly women are treated by the courts. And the women who end up in court most often are the prostitutes. I'd think they’d be the first to want equal justice.”
“If you're going to form a group and encourage the prostitutes to attend, you won’t get any of the respectable women," he said reasonably enough.
“Well, I’m going to try it anyway. I’ll put notices up in the post office and the stores.”
Now she hated having to ask what she’d thought would be a given. “Can we meet in the kitchen downstairs?”
He was silent for a long while. Finally, grudgingly, he said, "I suppose you can. But I don't think this is a good idea, Hannah.”
For the rest of that night they lay side by side instead of wrapped in each other's arms.
Hannah drew up posters the following night after work. Elvira was in the habit of coming for a visit in the evening, and she was surprisingly helpful.
"There's a real need for basic education amongst the dancehall girls. I've already seen two botched abortions at the hospital. And Doc says the working girls and also some of the wives get beaten up regularly, but nothing’s done about it.”
The problem was in knowing what to put on the posters that wouldn't alienate either the married women or the prostitutes.
They finally settled on a simple notice that read, "Woman’s Meeting, female issues of every sort to be discussed. All women welcome. 8 P.M. Wednesday, August 5, kitchen of Nugget Saloon.”
The first meeting was a disappointment, because the only other wome
n who turned up besides Hannah, Elvira, and Daisy were Mary Winnard, Rebecca Carroll, Prudence, and a dance-hall girl from Frenchie’s who insisted her full name was Gentle Annie.
When she walked in, Mary Winnard and Prudence walked out, but to Hannah's surprise, Rebecca stayed.
Hannah outlined what she felt a woman’s organization might provide in terms of personal support, education, and eventual change in the community.
Rebecca insisted they should begin by raising money for a church. Elvira said they should do something about the sewage that was being dumped in the creek, not to mention the men spitting on the street, and Gentle Annie said absolutely nothing after stating her name.
Daisy served sweet buns and coffee cake. Hannah suggested they meet every Wednesday, and everyone agreed.
It was a beginning.
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter Nineteen
The long August days scorched by with no respite from the heat.
Residents said it was the worst dry spell they’d ever seen, and the water level in William’s Creek dropped alarmingly.
Daisy served ingenious salads at room temperature and bemoaned the lack of a refrigerator. She bought bread from the bakery so she didn't have to use the stove all day, and Logan hired a crotchety older man called Zeb to help her.
Within a day, it was obvious that Zeb worshipped Daisy, and from then on they worked flawlessly together.
The men she cooked for also worshipped her; they brought her wildflowers, fish they’d caught, venison steaks, and every sort of wild berry, and they laughed uproariously when Klaus, particularly foul-tempered in the heat, singled out someone's ankles as a special target for his sharp teeth.
Daisy averaged three proposals a week, and miraculously, she put on weight and lost the transparent fragility that had so worried Hannah.
On August ninth, Daisy learned that her great-grandfather was dead.
Ezekial Shaw had fallen down the fifty-foot shaft of his mine and broken his neck. His partner brought his body into Barkerville for burial, and instead of the meeting with Ezekial she'd so anticipated, Daisy attended his funeral.
There were only a handful of mourners. Because there was no church, the coffin was simply carried to the small cemetery up on the hill above Barkerville.
It was an open field studded with stumps and crabgrass. The ceremony was short and poignant, conducted by Reverend Reynard. He spoke of Ezekial’s wife and his children, a daughter and a son, left behind in England when Ezekial came to the goldfields to make their fortune.
What shocked Hannah most was learning that Ezekial was only thirty-six years old. She’d somehow had it in her head that he’d be an old man. She and Daisy joined in the hymn and laid wildflowers on his rough wooden coffin.
Afterwards, Hannah walked around the cemetery, reading the inscriptions on the wooden markers. Most of them were young men like Ezekial. The average age was thirty-two.
They’d come from all over the world—Ireland, Scotland, Italy.
They’d dreamed of getting rich by finding gold, and some of them probably had; Ezekial must have made a fortune, because the money had passed down through several generations to Daisy.
But they’d paid with their young lives. Had it been worth it? Hannah wondered. Did Ezekial’s wife, off in England raising her children alone, think the loss of her husband was fair exchange for gold?
Hannah looked over at Logan, and she knew that all the gold in Barkerville wouldn’t make up for one of the nights they spent together.
She paused at a well-tended gravesite surrounded by a little picket fence. There were three small wooden markers, and bouquets of dried wildflowers on each grave. BABY ELEANOR CARROLL, AGED FIVE DAYS. BABY FRANCES CARROLL, AGED ONE DAY. BABY MYLES CARROLL, STILLBORN.
Hannah read the poignant record of Rebecca’s heartbreak, and her eyes filled. Three babies, and not one had lived. It gave her a new understanding of Rebecca and her single-minded crusade for a church in Barkerville.
Maybe having a place of worship would have been a comfort to her, and to Doc Carroll.
The funeral lingered in Hannah’s mind afterwards, and somehow the tragedy of Ezekial's death made the time she and Logan spent together more meaningful.
They made frequent midnight trips out to the lake. He said no more about the women's meetings or the fact that they were still so poorly attended.
She gave up trying to find out about his mysterious business. She developed the knack of living one day at a time, and when the familiar cold terror came over her at the thought of losing him, leaving him, living a life without him, she shoved it into a container in her mind and locked the lid.
They had now, and she vowed to make the most of it.
They talked about the world she’d been born into. She described cars, computers, vacuum cleaners, television. She showed him her cell phone, and he asked if he could dismantle it. Of course she agreed—what use was the thing here?
He was fascinated by her depictions of airplanes, space travel, UFO’s. Her recall of history was sketchy at best, but she filled in the major events of the next hundred and fifty years.
Logan couldn’t believe that the world could possibly be embroiled in so many wars. They talked of events in the very near future, particularly the Barkerville fire, which Logan now believed was inevitable.
He made a point of mentioning the possibility of fire to the businessmen of the town when they gathered for their monthly meeting in the Nugget saloon at lunchtime. He pointed out that there were no fire lanes, no barrels of available water, and no insurance.
They laughed and jibed him for being a worrier, and assured him that the town was built of wood different from other wood and wouldn’t burn, a claim so preposterous that he lost his temper and called them windbags and idiots.
Insulted, they moved their monthly meetings to the Eldorado.
One sweltering Friday afternoon in mid-August, Hannah was cleaning the window at the front of Pandola’s when a middle-aged man with a Vandyke beard rode slowly past on a beautiful chestnut horse.
He looked at Hannah, nodded politely, and tipped his tall hat. There was a regal air about him.
She smiled and waved her cloth, wondering who he was. He looked both handsome and distinguished.
Two miners were just coming out of the store, and they doffed their hats politely to the horseman.
"Judge Begbie’s back early this year.”
"Thingsll quiet down now," the other one replied. "Ain’t nobody wants ta stand in front a' Begbie. Don’t call him the Hangin’ Judge fer nothin’.”
Hannah shivered and blamed it on the heat.
An hour later, Pandola said to Hannah, “Miss Gilmore, you watcha the store. I’ll be back three, maybe three-thirty."
"Sure, Mr. Pandola.” Hannah grinned at her employer, knowing he’d be gone until five. She wondered if the day would ever come when he'd call her by her first name and allow her to do the same with him, but she doubted it. She’d been working at Pandola’s over a month now.
During that time, she'd asked on several occasions that he call her Hannah, and he’d reacted as if she’d suggested they fornicate in the back room on top of the flour sacks.
He'd seemingly come to trust and rely on her as an employee, though; for the past two weeks, he'd fallen into the habit of leaving her to run the store by herself while he paid an extended visit to the Nugget saloon each day.
Logan had confided that Pandola was doing his best to court Daisy.
Hannah had asked her mother what was going on, and Daisy blushed and said that Joe was a nice man but not her type.
"Lead him on just a little, okay, Mom? It's so relaxing at the store when he's not there."
Mother and daughter had fallen into a fit of the giggles.
Hannah smiled at the memory. She and Daisy were close in a way they'd never been before, and Hannah loved it. She mopped at her forehead with a cotton handkerchief and unfastened still another button on the high-necked blouse s
he wore.
The days were unbearably hot, and they seemed to be getting even hotter. People grumbled about the weather much the way they had back in her own time; the only thing missing was the tendency to blame the searing heat on the greenhouse effect.
It was noon, and the store was empty. She got out her cheese sandwich and the bottle of tea she’d brought for lunch, and drew a high stool up to the counter. The tea was as warm as the air, but at least it was wet. She sipped it while she ate, smothering a yawn between bites.
Lordie, she was tired. She and Logan had gone to the lake the night before, and she'd only managed a few hours' sleep before it was time to get up for work. She wondered if he was as sleepy today as she.
He'd been up this morning before her, standing in the kitchen in his shirtsleeves peeling an apple. He fed Hannah bites of the tart fruit and kissed her senseless before she tore herself away and hurried off to work.
She stared down at the wooden counter, imagining Joe Pandola's shock if she used one of the small knives they sold to carve "Hannah loves Logan" into its smooth surface. It was nothing less than the truth, she mused as she set the rest of the sandwich aside, propped her elbow on the counter, and rested her head on her hand.
She grinned, remembering the title of a movie she'd watched in what she now thought of as her former life. Truly, Madly, Deeply. The words had seemed melodramatic to her when she watched the movie, but they made perfect sense now.
They described exactly the way she felt about Logan.
A thrill shot through her when she remembered details of the night before. They swam, they talked, but mostly they made love, and Hannah privately wondered if she was turning into a sex junkie.
"Hard night, dearie?" The raspy, knowing female voice close to her ear made Hannah jump, and she almost toppled off the stool.
The voluptuous black-haired woman on the other side of the counter laughed, but the laughter didn’t reach as far as her eyes.
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