Chapter 21

 

Despite the sun beaming in through the bedroom window, it brought no comfort to the young woman suffering in her bed.  With eyes firmly shut against the light Peggy turned over in the bed and groaned.  She was aware that someone was gently helping her into a sitting position and she was able to recognise Hester  looking down anxiously at her while busying herself with tidying up the bed.   Close by was Hop Sing holding some thing very carefully in his hands for her to drink.

 

“Do you feel any better, Peggy?”  Hester was saying over and over as though the repetition of many words would improve the woman’s health by reducing her fever, the aches and pains, the cramps.

 

“A little, thank you….” Peggy narrowed her eyes against the light coming from the window, and accepted the cup from Hop Sing.  “What is it?”

 

“Very good for you…quinine…and herbs….”

 

She nodded, dear Hop Sing, so wise, so clever….she wondered how he had discerned that she had malaria.   She licked her lips, drank down the potion and handed the empty cup back “I got it when I was in Egypt.  Maurice had it as well…but I only get an attack every so often.   It won’t last more than a few days.”

 

“Are  you sure? “  Hester looked into the girls face and frowned,  then at Hop Sing who nodded,

 

“Miss Peggy not too ill…soon be much better.” he said very sensibly knowing how prone to flustering Hester could be.

 

“Very well then.  I’ll leave her to you, Hop Sing.  You always know what’s best.”

 

Hop Sing nodded, too true, he thought, and about time someone realised it.

 

Peggy closed her eyes and shivered  Her bones ached and her head pounded but she also felt very guilty knowing that she had disappointed Mary Ann,, had proven unreliable, and wondered if her new friend would have the courage to stand on the corner of C Street handing out invitations.  Even in her feverish state, Peggy very much doubted it.

 

“I made an arrangement with Mary Ann, to go into town today…” she murmured as she became aware of Hester leaving the room,  “Did she come for me?”

 

“Yes, she did.” Hester paused by the doorway and looked at the dishevelled young woman with some sympathy, for the angry young woman from the previous day was looking like a rumpled little girl, with the flush of fever on her cheeks and her eyes half closed with drowsiness.   “She said she would go in anyway and hope you are feeling better tomorrow.”

 

Peggy would have nodded if her head hadn’t been aching so much.  She leaned back into the pillows and shivered, groaned softly and tried to let the medication work its magic.

…………………

 

Mary Ann had been a little irritated when Peggy had not appeared as had been arranged and leaving her to drive into town on her own.   She had avoided driving in at the same time as Ann or Olivia as she didn’t want to draw attention to herself and have comments from Ann ruining her rather fragile self confidence.

 

Now the last of the posters had been put up and she stepped back and admired it before she turned to walk back to the buggy.    The invites were still in a package, but she had no intention of handing them out.  She had just seated herself and picked  up the reins when she heard laughter, men’s laughter, and turned to see what the joke was….then she wished she hadn’t as she saw her posters being pulled off the wall and screwed up, then tossed into a water trough.

 

Some saloon girls were lounging against the Sazarac, huddled together and watching her, then watching the men as another poster came down.  They were laughing together,  laughing at her,  making her feel a fool.

 

She could have cried had she not been so angry.

 

When she drove down C street, she noticed that some of the posters were still stuck  on the walls.  So a little spark of hope flared anew within her, and as she drove out of town she wondered what the results of the posters would bring about, and with a feeling of  renewed confidence that all would be well she flicked the reins to get the horses to return home just that much faster.

………………………

 

Mrs Garston stared at the poster and the colour mantled her cheeks like a purple haze covers the early morning skies.  Her daughter, Lucy, stood beside her reading each word with avid greediness and feeling a secret desire to laugh at her mother’s mounting fury.

 

When Mrs Garston snorted “Rubbish.  Utter total rubbish.” and reached out to tear the poster from the wall, Lucy put out a hand and gripped her by the wrist,

 

“No, Mother, just leave it.”

 

“What?” Mrs Garston turned the full force of her eyes onto her daughter, widening them so that Lucy could get the benefit of her anger “What are you saying, girl?”

 

“I said, leave it.” Lucy replied and turned away, moving in such a manner that her body pushed Mrs Garston away from the offending poster and like a little sheep dog she managed to edge her mother further along the sidewalk.

 

Mrs Garston shot a vengeful look at the poster as they walked on, and then turned to Lucy “You don’t – intend – to go to that meeting, do you?  Your father will be furious.  You know that, don’t you?”

 

“Father needn’t know if you don’t tell him.”  Lucy replied primly.

 

“Well, Of course I’ll tell  him.  He’ll be worried about you, going to a meeting to discuss – that – “

 

“It isn’t too hard to say it, Mother, it’s a meeting to discuss the rights of women to vote, to have the same rights men have enjoyed for years….” Lucy tossed her head and her blonde curls swayed over her shoulders as she did so, “and I will be going.”

 

“Lucy,” Mrs Garston stood stock still in the middle of the road, “Lucy, I forbid it.”

 

Lucy only shook her head again,  and walked on, ignoring her mother’s demands of ‘Lucy,  come here.’  ‘Lucy, come back this instance.’

 

They returned home side by side, by the chill between them was a mile wide.

………………

 

Mary Ann was driving out of town and quite unaware of the fact that Adam and Ben had arrived and been ordering supplies and hardware while she had been busy posting up the information about her forth coming meeting.  She rode home feeling unsure as to how successful her attempts had been, but confident that she had, at least, done something.

 

Ben stood on the sidewalk and checked his list against the supplies that Adam was loading onto the back of the wagon.   He pushed his hat to the back of his head and watched as the last sack of flour was set down beside the last basket of potatoes.

 

“I think that’s all for now,” he said with some satisfaction.

 

Adam wiped his brow,  and wished, once again, that Hoss had been in town to help instead of his father who was actually no help at all.  He glanced over to the saloon, “How about a beer before we go home?  We’ve still got to check our  order for  the barbed wire and nails from Cavendish’ yet.”

 

“True enough, and a good idea.” Ben grinned and complacently turned to stroll across the road  with his son by his side, “Y’know, all those years you were at sea. .. I missed sharing a drink or two with you, Adam.”

 

“You did, huh?” Adam grinned and pushed open the doors for his father to enter first, the warmth and smoky atmosphere of the saloon enveloping them both as they stepped up to the counter.

 

The counter hand poured out the beers and pushed them over, Grant Tombs joined them and another beer was poured and pushed over to him.

 

“How are things, Grant?” Ben asked, “Settling in all right.”

 

“More than all right,” Grant said with a smile “I applied for several jobs this week and have to decide which of them I prefer to take.”

 

“I didn’t notice your application for cowhand with the Ponderosa?” Adam teased and winked over at Ben who smiled at the younger man who flushed a little,

 

“No, I’m not cut out to be a cowboy, Adam.”  Grant smiled slowly, “but the sheriff thinks I could be a pretty good deputy.”

 

Both Cartwrights nodded thoughtfully “What other job do you have to consider?” Ben asked while Adam gulped down beer as though he had not tasted the stuff for years.

 

“Mr Woods needed a clerk …he thought I would do well there, I thought so too…I think I may be a better lawyers clerk than a deputy.  Just that Mr Woods kind of terrifies me while Sheriff Carney makes me feel comfortable to be with if you know what I mean.”

 

Adam nodded and was about to speak when a voice boomed from the doorway “Cartwright!”

 

The three of them turned their heads and were immediately confronted with a red faced and obviously furious rancher who was waving what looked like a poster in a fist that was equal to the size of one of Hoss.’    Adam half rose in his seat, poised ready for trouble, while Ben stared at the rancher but forced what he hoped was a conciliatory smile to his lips.  Grant found it suddenly difficult to breathe.

 

“What’s the problem, friend?” Ben said in his most genial manner.

 

“Don’t call me friend…do you know what this is?  Do you?”  the rancher came up close, so close that his rather corpulent belly nudged the table “You should make sure your little girls on the Ponderosa have enough to do, instead of wasting their time on this kind of rubbish.”

 

He tossed the poster onto the table for their attention,  all three looked at it, but it was Adam who picked it up, smoothed it out and read the announcement concerning a meeting to be held regarding Emancipation for women.  The worrying – or rather – the most worrying matter on the poster were the names of the two women who would be chairing the meeting…Mrs Mary Ann Cartwright and Miss Margaret Dayton.

 

“You don’t have to attend.”  he murmured quietly as he put the poster down for his father to read.

 

“Attend?  You think I would attend a meeting like that…about that … if I even thought my wife and daughters were to attend it I’d beat ‘em black and blue!”

 

“Really?”  Adam drawled, and shook his head “It seems to me that attending this meeting would be the very best thing they could do then …” he quirked an eyebrow “And possibly do you some good as well.”

 

“WHAT?“ the other man stepped back,  and glared at Ben “You should keep your women busy, tell that boy of yours that his wife should have a few more kids tied to  her apron strings to keep her harnessed where she belongs…not interfering in other folks’ lives..and as for you…”

 

He swung towards Adam “You always did have too big a mouth and too big an opinion of yourself, Cartwright.”

 

Adam ducked in time to avoid the ham of a fist that came his way, and was able to get his own fist to connect with the man’s fat stomach, followed by a quick jab to the throat.  Grant kept his hands on his glass of beer as he watched the pleasant comradely atmosphere in the saloon suddenly erupt into mayhem.

 

It was, as Adam said some time later when drinking coffee in the sheriff’s office,  a little like the time when Thurber’s bull had been let loose  … he was nursing bruised knuckles and a swollen lip at the time, while Ben had a black eye and bruised cheekbone.  Once the fighting had got too bad Grant had wisely crawled between numerous feet and legs to get out of the saloon to locate the sheriff who brought the whole proceedings to an end by firing off his rifle.

 

Ben was not a happy man as he sat on the bench seat of the wagon beside his son, trundling their way back to the ranch.  The poster had been folded neatly away in his pocket and the person he blamed for the whole thing was — Peggy Dayton.

……………

 

Olivia was waiting outside the refuge and watched her children disengage from the gaggle of boys,  Nathaniel shouted out to them and waved,  he loved the days when they came into town and could take Sofia and Reuben home.   He waved to the boys and laughed as they waved back.   Sofia and Reuben sat behind Olivia with Nathaniel in between them, Olivia smiled “Were the boots all right? Did they fit?”

 

“Perfectly, Ma.” Reuben said, with a big contented smile.

 

Sofia said nothing but wiped at her cheek with her sleeve.  Jimmy Carstairs had actually, actually, kissed her on the cheek…he said it was because he was so happy with his new boots, but she had her own suspicions.

 

Chapter 22

 

It was a long ride to the Ponderosa from town and Adam was in no mood for it to seem longer by having to share the wagon with a man doing a good impression of Mount Versuvius when about to erupt. After a while he cleared his throat, ran his tongue over the edge of his teeth to make sure they were all still there and ventured to ask Ben if he were ‘All right?”

 

“All Right! What darn fool of a question is that?” Ben yelled getting that thickening in the back of his throat and making his words sound more unpleasant than he may have meant them to be, “Of course I’m not all right.”

 

“Well, you came out of the fight pretty well, Pa. And you held your own too, not many ..” Adam paused, realised he was venturing into a dangerous zone and sighed “I suppose it came as a bit of surprise then, this Meeting Mary Ann and Peggy have set up?”

 

“Of course it was a surprise! How is it that I knew nothing about it? Did anyone think to ask for my permission?” Ben swelled out his chest, pulled his hat angrily lower to shade his eyes “And don’t drive so fast, there’s a bend in the track …”

 

Adam negotiated the bend in the track with his usual skill, and glanced over at Ben, he could see that his father’s face was red, veins throbbed at his throat and temple just where his hairline ended and his hat cut across it like a scythe.

 

“What are you so angry about, Pa? That the Meeting is for emancipation of women and that they get the vote, or because they hadn’t asked your permission?”

 

“Are you trying to put me in my place, Adam?” Ben’s voice had lowered, it was sharper, clipped, as though anticipating opposition.

 

“I’m just asking a simple question.” Adam said with a sigh in his voice and a slight roll of his eyes.

 

“Does Joe know about this?” Ben tapped his pocket where the offending poster had been tucked, “Do you think he has any idea of what his wife is up to while he’s away?”

 

“I don’t know, Pa. But I do know that Mary Ann would not do anything without having discussed it with him…”

 

“And you think he would have agreed to this …this kind of thing?”

 

Adam cast another quick glance at his father from the corner of his eye, the red flush was fading now, but the anger in the dark eyes was still there, somewhat mollified, but not vanquished.

 

“If he had not agreed, then Mary Ann would not have gone ahead with it.”

 

“And you‘re quite sure of that, are you?” Ben’s upper lip curled into something akin to a sneer, and he shook his head “I’m not so sure. She’s always been on about women being equal to men, and now that Peggy’s here, stoking up the flames…”

 

“It wouldn’t have made any difference, Pa. Mary Ann would put Joe and family before Peggy and a cause, no matter how much she believes in it.”

 

He flicked the reins, just to let the horses know that although they were jogging along at a steady pace there was no need for them to come to a full stop. Ben was silent for a full five minutes,

 

“They should have discussed it with me…”

 

“Why?” Adam quirked his eyebrow, and shook his head, and putting on the silkiest voice he could continued “I know you are the Patriarch of the family, Pa, but Mary Ann and Joe have their own lives to run, they shouldn’t have to feel they need your permission for everything. They aren’t children, and …”

 

“I’m well aware of that, but when something is going to take place that has already wrecked one saloon then it is my business, and Joe and Mary Ann need to know that there are consequences to this action. Peggy needs to know that too, she….”

 

“Pa, I doubt if Mary Ann realised there was going to be such a reaction, but she does have the right to make her own decisions.”

 

“Peggy’s influence..”

 

“Peggy may have influenced her, or she may not…. But it is something that Mary Ann has advocated for years, and you know that, after all, she’s often discussed it with you, hasn’t she?”

 

“And I’ve always told her that she should be grateful for what she has, stirring up trouble in town won’t get her or any woman the vote any time soon.”

 

Adam sighed again and flicked the reins once more hoping that the horses would break into a trot just to shorten the length of time he would have to share the wagon with Ben. He said nothing for a while and sensing that Ben was as volatile as ever he ventured along a different route,

 

“You know, Pa, Marie would have enjoyed all this…” he once against cast a sly glance over at his father, noticed Ben stiffen. “She would have admired Mary Ann for her determination to pursue this cause, and …”

 

“You mean your Ma?” Ben frowned, and stared down his nose at the track that he could see between the horses, a long dry road leading like a hard packed thread of ribbon into the boulders and scree ahead.

 

“Joe’s mother,” Adam replied automatically, and before Ben could start picking fault with that he continued “Marie often said that this was a man’s world, she would have backed Mary Ann all the way, would no doubt have been in town today putting up those poster right along with her.”

 

“Don’t be so ridiculous.”

 

“I’m not, I’m just stating the obvious. If you don’t want to see it then so be it, but Marie was a staunch -” he frowned, searching for the right word “she wanted women to have the rights men have, and I recall times when you said yourself that Mary Ann was the best type of wife Joe could have had because she was so like Marie…”

 

“Shut up rabbiting on so…” Ben snapped and turned aside, slightly, so that his back was partly turned upon his son.

 

“I’m just saying it as it is, Pa. I don’t want you going home and shouting the odds about something and making a fool of yourself.”

 

“Wh-a-a-t?” Ben spluttered and turned to glare at Adam who determinedly kept his eyes ahead of him, “When do I make a fool of myself?”

 

Adam said nothing, he let the horses run ahead, he could hear the thump thump of the sacks of flour and other items in the back of the wagon as they jostled one against the other, he hoped the potatoes hadn’t broken loose from the basket and bounced onto the track, he could imagine Hop Sing’s anger at finding a half empty container.

 

Ben recognised the stubborn look on his son’s face and sat back so that the hard rail of the bench seat bit into his spine. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was a reminder that this was time to think. He thought of Marie, his lovely flamboyant Creole wife, who had willingly given up life in New Orleans and settled on the Ponderosa to raise their family. They had had hopes of more children, perhaps daughters … how often had they planned names, and futures for all the children that were never to be. He knew Adam was right, he had always been glad to acknowledge the fact that Mary Ann was so like Marie, he had been – he was – proud of the fact that Joe had found a woman so like his own mother.

 

He stared down at the ground beneath their wagon, watched as it flashed beneath his eyes as the vehicle rolled along. This was all Ponderosa land now, Marie had never lived long enough to see how vast their empire had grown… never had all those children they had planned, and he sighed, a deep heart felt sigh that made the man seated beside him feel a pang of sympathy for him.

 

“So you think Marie would have been there pasting those posters up alongside Mary Ann, huh?” he growled, his voice steadier now, his pride stamped down a little.

 

“After she had discussed it with you, of course.” Adam replied with a slight smile on his lips, after all, it pained him even doing that, a split lip, swollen as it was, made even a grin difficult.

 

“Don’t be sarcastic, boy.” Ben murmured and relapsed into silence.

 

Some moments slipped away and miles were eaten up as the horses trotted at a good pace now, a steady one that kept potatoes and other things upright at the back of the wagon.

 

“Hester’s going to cluck like a mother hen when she see’s the state of us….” Ben suddenly said with a slight chuckle in his voice.

 

“Huh, Olivia will have my hide ..” Adam replied and was grateful for small mercies, Ben had calmed down enough to be rational upon his return home, the women had no need to fear a Cartwright explosion of wrath…he released his breath and decided the next hour or so would be quite interesting, he’d stay awhile and enjoy the fun.

………………

Mary Ann sat on the big settee beside Hester with Constance on her knee, and listened as her sister-in-law told her about how unwell Peggy had been, and wondered anxiously if Malaria was contagious. Hester was explaining how people caught the illness and that no one was in any danger of catching it from the patient who was upstairs sweating it out of her system when the sound of the wagon could be heard.

 

“Grandpa!” Hannah shouted and abandoned her play to run to the door and pull it open, followed by Daniel and Hope. Erik was fast asleep oblivious to anything.

 

Mary Ann sighed, she had felt trepidation ever since returning to the Ponderosa ranch and discovering that Ben and Adam had gone into town, they had been a mere half hour behind her departure. She had a nightmare vision of Ben going round town ripping down all the posters, and Adam going to deQuille and tearing a strip off him for printing them.

 

When Ben and Adam entered the house ..Hope in Ben’s arms with her stick thin arms wrapped around his neck like a boa constrictor cuddling a pig for its dinner…Mary Ann waited for the verbal explosion that was sure to come. She kept her eyes fixed on the coffee pot that Hop Sing had only just placed on the low table.

 

“Ben? Adam?” Hester’s voice, anxious, concerned and then Hannah’s voice chirping up with “Oh no, poor Grandpa…poor Uncle Adam…”

 

“What happened? Sit down, have some coffee….do you need a cold compress? That eye looks so sore? Adam… oh dear, you didn’t lose any teeth did you?”

 

Mary Ann looked at the two men and blinked fast, this could only mean further trouble, unless of course it had nothing to do with the posters, nothing to do with her at all. Her own guilty conscience pricked at her again, there could have been no other reason for the sorry state of them that she could see…Ben would explode any time now.

 

He placed Hope down and patted Hester on the cheek assuring her that he was all right, there was nothing to worry about, just a slight misunderstanding in town. Adam rolled his eyes and shrugged, kissed Hester and then swung Hannah up in the air and settled her onto his lap as he took a chair opposite Mary Ann,

 

“Been to town then, Mary Ann?” he said while he allowed Hannah to pat his face gently in sympathy for his bruises and swollen lip.

 

“Yes…well…you know that, don’t you?” her eyes swivelled to Ben who was sitting down in the other chair, and leaning forwards in order to pour coffee into one of the unused cups.

 

“We do,” Ben said immediately, and pulled out the poster from his pocket.

 

He smoothed it out and turned it to wards her so that Hester could read what was written along with her. Then he picked up his cup and saucer and sipped the coffee,

 

“I’m afraid, Mary Ann, there has been rather a mixed reception in town to your poster. Actually, we didn’t meet anyone there in favour of the meeting at all.”

 

Adam pursed his lips as best he could, he looked at his sister in law and felt sympathy for her, but then realised that Ben was really being very chivalrous in his handling of the situation and waited to see what would happen next. Hester poured him some coffee and handed over the cup and saucer which he accepted once Hannah had slid off his knee and rejoined her sister and cousin for more play.

 

“I think, my dear, it may be wise if you cancelled this meeting of yours….I don’t think you will get a very pleasant audience.” Ben looked at both women thoughtfully, unsure of how Hester viewed the matter of votes for women, and unsure of how Mary Ann would view the thought of cancellation of the meeting.

 

Adam cleared his throat, considering how conciliatory his father was being he felt he should show him some solidarity,

 

“Nate thinks there could be an all out riot … if you intend to hold it, then he’ll have to deputise half the town to give you protection. The problem is that most of the townsmen wouldn’t want to be deputised to protect anyone who was going to cause – er – disruption on the domestic front.”

 

“Not to mention the trouble in town with those who just like causing trouble without having a reason for doing so.” Ben added.

 

The two men sipped their coffee and looked at the two women who stared blankly at them. Hester shook her head “It’s too bad, it’s bullying.”

 

Mary Ann looked gratefully at her sister in law, surprised at getting such support knowing that Hester had no interest whatsoever in The Cause. She then looked at Adam “What happened in town? What caused the fight?”

 

“This did…” Ben tapped the poster with his forefinger, he was quite admiring himself for his self restraint, “A homesteader came wading in shouting the odds, and the next thing …throwing punches. There was – quite a fight – we only came out of it alive because Grant went to get Nate.”

 

Hester put her hand to her throat in dismay, Mary Ann’s eyes filled with tears, and she blinked to hold them back as she stammered how sorry she was, if she had realised then she would have been more careful, more cautious.

 

“It was Peggy’s idea really, wasn’t it?” Hester said looking at Mary Ann prompting her to defend herself but Mary Ann shook her head, and said it hadn’t been, it was solely her idea and Joe had said it would be alright, he hadn’t minded.

 

Ben frowned, it rather annoyed him that his son had been so amenable to such an important issue, he looked at Mary Ann with some temper flushing his face, “You should bear in mind, Mary Ann, that you don’t live in the same conditions as many women in town. The homesteader who tried to pull us to pieces threatened to do the same to his wife if she were to attend this meeting…. And a lot of women live under that same threat.”

 

Mary Ann said nothing, she bowed her head and whispered “It isn’t fair….”

 

Adam heard his father say words he had heard so often before “Since when had life been fair?”

 

In the bed upstairs Peggy was unaware of the conversation in the big room beneath hers, she was only aware of feeling too hot, sticky and sick, aching in every bone and wishing that the window was open so that there could be at least some breeze drifting into the room.

 

She was dreaming of pyramids, and remembering how Rachel Willoughby had told her about Adam Abdullah Karim and how she had fallen in love with this handsome Arab in his flowing robes and dark brown eyes. In her dream this same man was striding towards her with his lean body dressed in the traditional djubbeh, the long wide sleeved down that reach to his feet, and upon his head was the large square of black cloth, the kufiva kept in place with a circlet of camel hair called the ‘iqal. She knew that Maurice was standing beside her now, and talking but it was feverish talk, nothing that mattered because she was watching this man remove his face covering, and knowing that she would recognise him and feel safe …and she did, in her dream she felt her heart pounding beneath her ribs and she reached out a hand which he took in his own.

 

“Adam? Take me home …”

 

He smiled then, kissed her fingers just as she had seen him kiss her mother’s all those long years ago when she watched them from the window of the ranch house…and then, in her dream, she was that little girl again, looking down at a man dressed in black talking to a blonde woman, only the woman wasn’t her mother, Laura, it was someone else, it was Olivia.

 

Chapter 23

 

The music from the little music box tinkled it’s way downstairs and followed Olivia as she went into the big room and sat down beside her husband. Now that the children were in bed she could turn her attention to him and listen more attentively to what really happened in town that day.

 

It had not been easy to talk with the children around and Reuben had wanted to tell his Pa all about Jimmy and the boots, and Sofia wanted to add her protests to the fact that Jimmy had actually kissed her ..yeugh..and Nathaniel wanted to sit on his lap and hug him tight and say “Oh dear, oh dear…”

 

Now the boys were sleeping and only Sofia lay in drowsy half sleep as the music tinkled its tune. They knew that once the music stopped she would be asleep too, it would have wound its way to a full stop without her needing to turn the key for more.

 

Drinks were already on the low table and a small fire glimmered in the grate. She took her seat beside him and leaned her head upon his shoulder, “Tell me what happened and why?”

 

Her voice was a soft murmur but he could feel the slight movement of her body against his as she spoke. He told her what happened and why, just as she requested and then made her laugh about the conversation he had had with Ben on the way home.

 

“Of course, he blames Peggy.” Adam said and leaned forward to pick up his glass, a good malt whiskey, he savoured the smell and it reminded him of the peat fires he had shared once with his crew when marooned on some Scottish island.

 

“Oh – because of her talk about rights for women?” her brow creased and her eyes darkened. “Well, it isn’t just talk with Peggy, is it?”

 

Adam glanced at her, noting the matter of fact tone in her voice, unusual for her. He put the glass down “Don’t you like Peggy?”

 

It would have surprised him, should she have said that she did not like the young woman. He had assumed that whom he liked and approved of, would be accepted by her without question. Now he felt guilty, and a little irritated at himself. He looked at her face and could see from the shadows that passed over her features that she was wrestling with words, wondering how to say the right thing, wanting to say the honest thing but not offending him by what was said.

 

“She’s – complicated.” Olivia said and bowed her head as though that was adequate, enough and no more needed to be said.

 

“What do you mean, complicated?” he leaned towards her, and raised her face to look into his, his finger beneath her chin as though she were Sofia and needed to explain some excuse she had just made to him.

 

Olivia felt trapped now, and entwined her fingers nervously. There were so many feelings trapped inside her head that she had difficulty in finding words for them all, or setting them out in the right order. No one realised really just how hard these conversations could be, communication that could turn to confrontation, mild amusement turning to blind anger. She looked up at him,

 

“I can’t put it into words very well, Adam.”

 

“Are you jealous of her?”

 

She thought about that, and immediately said “What reason do I have to be jealous of her?”

 

He smiled then, leaned forward and kissed her lips, she could taste the whiskey and looked into the dark eyes. “You have no reason to be jealous of Peggy…”

 

“There are reasons – not just the obvious one that you may be thinking of, darling.” she touched his face, poor mouth, so swollen, his kiss had been so tender because it was painful, she understood that.

 

“Well, that’s good, I’m glad that you aren’t jealous because you think she may have the wrong feelings for me, because she hasn’t…”

 

She frowned at that, in a way he had referred to what had been a lingering shadow, an apprehension on her part of an implied threat from Peggy. Was he aware of it and yet not, something in his mind denying something that he sensed…or was it true? She sighed and held his hand in hers, “Adam, you know how solitary my life has been…how life was on the Double D during my childhood and adolescence. That time with the Bannock was the only time my brothers and I had child companions to play with, had association of any kind really. We were isolated because of my father’s – stubborn pride. I had no friends, and I suppose it was some kind of miracle that I actually met Robert, and that he loved me enough to take me away from there and marry me.”

 

He nodded, trying to read into her words the things she was not saying…about the effects of being so isolated, of having to be careful of what she said, how she said it because of old man Dent. He squeezed her fingers hoping she knew that he understood, or at least, hoped he did.

 

“Even when I was married to Robert I made few friends, he was busy, and so clever that work kept him from home and so, to some extent, I allowed his family to – well – I suppose to replace my father by ruling my life, does that make sense to you?”

 

She frowned, eager for him to understand, implying it was important that he did, and he nodded “Olivia, it would be an easy thing to have done, they were strong personalities, hard business people in a very sophisticated world. You’re a reasonable and sensitive woman, I can imagine that when you were married to Robert you were like a child lost .”

 

She smiled then, grateful that he understood and she nodded “I did feel that way, and I was very grateful to Robert because he was so patient with me. As you may recall we were self taught to some extent, but Robert taught me so much more, his library was extensive and he encouraged me to read, to develop and grow educationally. He was – different from his family in lots of ways. *Abigail understood of course, she had once been much like me and of course, you know all about what her life must have been like …”

 

“How does this relate to Peggy though?” his brow creased and he stroked her face, gently with his poor bruised knuckles, following the line of her cheekbones to her jaw and then her chin.

 

“Peggy’s so experienced in life, so clever….intelligent….she has done things in her life not many women have, and she is so young.”

 

“That’s to be admired though, isn’t it?”

 

Did she sense a slight defensiveness in his voice, but then she knew that he was always prepared to see the other side of the coin, a way to alleviate her anxieties by seeing the good. She nodded, “Yes, and I do admire her. I even envy her, going on ‘digs’ as she call’s them, working alongside men as though they were her equals and perhaps even, of less worth than her.”

 

“She intimidates you, is that it?” he frowned more deeply now, and sighed, picked up his glass to sip more whiskey, it numbed the pain in his mouth a little.

 

“I suppose so. She’s very strong minded, isn’t she? And she’s so angry, one can feel it boiling inside her, so much anger…”

 

“Yes, I can sense that, in fact I think she has always had that within her.” and he told her about his conversation with Peggy on that long ride home, trying in some clumsy way to represent the younger woman as the defenceless, hurt, pained child that had remained within the intelligent woman, was still there, locked away but trying desperately to get out.

 

He stopped at the sadness in her face, the darkness of her eyes and she sighed and turned away “It seems to me, Adam, that there are too many people in this world who have been hurt, injured…as children … and grow up lashing out or crushed under the weight of those tender but brutal years.”

 

He leaned forward again, and once more stroked her face, then her hair “Darling, sweet Livvy, I love you…I wish with all my heart I could convince you that you are the most precious being in my life. You do believe me, don’t you?”

 

She nodded, and wished she could tell him more about her fears, of her insecurities, and lack of self confidence. Had she acted so well the part of a calm, composed woman in control of her situation that it had fooled, not only him, but herself as well?

 

“Peggy isn’t like Laura, is she?” she leaned her head upon his shoulder and groped for his hand. From upstairs there was silence, Sofia was asleep and both of them had a fleeting thought, a hope, that she would sleep through the night now. No more nightmares.

 

“No, she is more like her father.” Adam frowned, but then Frank had always been angry too, frustrated at being saddled with an inept childish bride. He dropped a kiss upon her brow, “She Isn’t like Laura, not that I have noticed anyway.”

 

She hesitated before speaking next, and then said very quietly “Did you love Laura very much?”

 

Adam was too honest a man to prevaricate, and perhaps he sensed that the answer was important to her, without hesitation he replied “I thought at one time that I did…I remember Pa saying that I shouldn’t rush into things with her, that perhaps the idea of having a wife and daughter was what I loved, and he was right in a way, not entirely, because I did care for Laura, genuinely cared. She was – in a way – lost, and I wanted to protect her, guide her along to safe harbour …if you know what I mean… but I knew a long time before Will, well, a while before then, that I didn’t love her as a woman should be loved, in the way I love you. Yes, she needed a strong man, but somehow I seemed to annoy her more than encourage her, and I realised that with Frank out of her way, she was really quite a strong woman, a stubborn one too. She didn’t need my protection. “

 

“I find it strange to look at Peggy and think of her as having had the chance of being what Sofia is …your step.daughter…”

 

He smiled, painful though it was, “There is a difference, sweet heart. Peggy would always have been my step-daughter, Laura would have made sure I knew that, but Sofia is my little girl, my daughter…and I thank you for her.” and he leaned down to kiss her again “Ouch.”

…………………….

 

Mary Ann had returned to her home and wished with all her heart that Joe had been there to welcome her with his smiles, good humour and teasing. The house felt emptier than ever with his absence and although she tried to involve herself in her children’s play she felt miserable.

 

In a way the situation with the posters had made her feel humiliated. It was the first grand gesture of independence she had ever made and it was crushed down, and Ben for all his pleasantness had made her feel that she had gone against Cartwright honour in going ahead without his knowledge.

 

She wondered if he would have forbidden her to go ahead, and if he had done so, what would she have done? She cuddled Constance and put her to bed, tucked her in and looked down at her, stroked the plump cheeks and smiled when the infant smiled back up at her,

 

“I only want you to have a better world, my pet, the chance to be more than I was …”

 

Constance blew bubbles and chattered, grabbing at her mother’s curls and laughing at Mary Ann’s attempts to pull free. But it was true, Mary Ann thought, she did want her little girl to have the same kind of education as Daniel would have because by rights, as a boy, it would be so easy. There would be college … the doors of which would stand open for a boy like Daniel but remain closed for a girl like Constance. And if a girl could squeeze through those ‘hallowed portals’ as Peggy had done, what kind of life would that mean for her? She didn’t want Constance to have to fight every inch of the way for any Degrees that would provide her with a career.

 

She sat back and frowned, stroked the chubby dimpled fingers that reached out for her….but what if Constance did not want a career? What if she and millions of little girls would grow up wanting what their mothers had now…a home, a husband to love and be loved by, and children …security and love. What if after the struggle to get the vote nothing changed anyway? What if, should they get the vote the people they voted into power said that women could become soldiers, seamen, explorers…fight battles, be killed, become killers…what if, what if …the words pounded in her brain and she gripped her child’s hand so tight as the thoughts overwhelmed her that Constance whimpered.

 

She walked over to the window where not so very long ago she had looked down in a snowstorm waiting for Joe to come home and her labour had started with Daniel. Had Bridie not been there, she would have been all alone…

 

Women had done alright all these years really, hadn’t they? They had achieved wonders in their own fields, and wasn’t it true that there were things that men would never do efficiently, not like a woman could…

 

Her head was aching, and once assured that Constance was asleep she made her way to the bedroom where Daniel waited for her to tell him a story. But he was too drowsy now, he wanted to sleep, he kissed her, hugged her and leaned his curly head against her shoulder and she stroked him gently, thought of the empty bed in the other room, wondered how Joe was and wished once again that he was home. She so needed to talk to him…about everything.

 

Chapter 24

 

“Will you be going to the party on Saturday?”

 

Mary Ann poured out lemonade into a glass and leaned back into her chair while she waited  for her companion to answer.   It was a pleasantly warm day and they were seated in the garden at the back of the house where the view of the river was the most splendid.  Daniel and Constance were playing  together, quite happily, and for a moment she watched them, Daniel so careful with his little sister, showing her how to build the bricks higher and higher.  She had almost forgotten her question when Peggy answered,   “I don’t think so.”

 

She turned her attention to the other woman now and sipped her lemonade, and then reached out to push the plate of little cakes towards Peggy.  “Why not?  I thought you had a beau, someone to take you…”

 

Peggy shook her head,  so Hester had told Mary Ann all about Abel Greigson’s visit, ah well, she supposed that was what sisters, even if only by law, would do.  After all what else was there to talk about?  She sighed and shook her head again,

 

“No,  I really am not interested in getting to know Mr Greigson .  “

 

Mary Ann shrugged, it hardly mattered to her, she had other things on her mind after all, and she sighed “What about the meeting the following week?  Are  you still wanting to  go and expound on the importance of the vote for women?”

 

“Of course.”    Peggy was not sure what to make of the question, or rather, the way it had been asked.   She glanced at Mary Ann and watched as the other woman smiled at her children, her mind obviously more occupied by their play than on such an important issue as the vote.   “I thought you were interested, Mary Ann.”

 

“I am.”   Mary Ann replied with a distracted air, and a little laugh when the bricks fell down and Constance began to cry, she leaned forward and stretched out her hands to gather her little chick into a hug and then place her on her knee,  “I just wasn’t sure you would be well enough to go,  after all you have been quite unwell.”

 

Peggy shrugged “You didn’t seem to think I was so unwell as to miss the dance on Saturday?”

 

Mary Ann shrugged slightly, and after kissing the top of Constance’s head put her daughter back onto the grass where the child toddled off to join Daniel.  She turned back to look at Peggy “Ben says that there could be trouble, at the meeting.   You know that he and Adam were beaten up in the saloon,  and Wang Lee tells me that there is a lot of talk about it.  There could be trouble, riots even…”

 

Peggy shrugged “There are always riots in towns like this, any little excuse and the men fight,  but I suppose you don’t go into town often enough to realise that….” she paused “When I was younger it seemed men fought for no reason whatsoever all the time.”

 

“That was then, Peggy, some things have changed.  There is a semblance of civilization in Virginia City now.”

 

Peggy backed down, true enough, things had changed, she should appreciate that after all how was she to judge a town that she had left as far back as 1862.  A year after father had been killed.  There had been a war since then, and a President assassinated, whole nations of Indians removed from their native lands, the Battle of the Little Big Horn….so much had happened and yet, sometimes, it seemed as though she were still that little girl all that time back then.

 

“Will you be going to the party?” she asked Mary Ann, hoping it would soothe things between them while she tried to think of what could have made her friend so tetchy.

 

“No,.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“Joe isn’t here, I couldn’t go without him with me, and anyway, Hester won’t go without Hoss.”

 

“You don’t have to miss out because of them…”

 

“I can hardly go on my own.”

 

Peggy glanced over at Mary Ann, and saw the stubborn little pout on her pretty mouth,  and the way she looked down her retrousse nose.   It was no wonder Joe had fallen in love with her, she mused, she was such a pretty woman,  with good taste too.  The way she dressed so carefully, teased her hair into such a well arranged style.  Peggy sighed, she turned her gaze away and wondered if Laura would have loved her more had she turned out more like Mary Ann.

 

Mary Ann felt uncomfortable.   She had been delighted when Hester has suggested that Peggy ‘recuperate’ after her illness at her home.  With Joe away she was lonely and it was good for her to have someone to share time with, especially, as Hester said, someone with whom she had so much in common.

 

She looked over at her companion, at the stubborn chin and firm mouth,  the strong features.  She knew without asking that Peggy resembled her father more than Laura, whom Joe had described as a fragile doe eyed slim woman when she had once asked him about  her.   There was nothing apparently fragile about Peggy.    Even her hair, pulled back and tied with a ribbon that looked as  though it had been used a hundred times already, was not the shimmering gold that Joe said Laura’s hair had been…

 

Peggy shrugged and picked up one of the cakes which she proceeded to nibble, and then she smiled “These are just like how Hop Sing would make them.  I can remember he would make batches of them for us …Adam and I would sit on the porch and chatter away, and we would clear a whole plate of them before  you could say Jack Robinson.”

 

“Was that when Adam was – ill?”

 

“After he had that fall, yes.   He was in a bad state when they brought him home from the house, Mother didn’t talk about it very much but I can remember seeing him lying on the bed, quite prone…hardly breathing at all… I thought he was going to die and started to cry.”

 

She shivered now, even the memory was quite unbearable.  It had been too soon after faher’s death,  she realised now, and seeing him lying there, had made her think of her father and fear the same outcome for Adam.   She gulped down some lemonade,

 

“You must have been company for him, Peggy.” Mary Ann smiled over at her and the other woman straightened her back and nodded, nibbled a little more of the cake.

 

“Everyone seemed to be so busy.   Things had to be done on a ranch of course, and Adam had his exercises …but mostly he was on  his own..  Mother always seemed to be  busy too,  in town, or at the Running D.  I remember complaining about being bored and she said I should remember how boring it must be for him, for Adam.  That I shouldn’t be so selfish…so I began to spend more time with him.”

 

“You’re very fond of him, arn’t you?” Mary Ann said in a lazy tone of voice and a slight smile on her face.

 

“Well, I did think he was going to be my father for a while …of course I was fond of him.  I still am…”      and the hard edge to the words made Mary Ann feel uneasy.  Perhaps, she pondered, Peggy was not so ‘tough’ as she tried to make out.

 

They lapsed in to silence again, nibbling at cake, sipping lemonade.  The children came and leaned upon Mary Ann’s knee so were fed cake and allowed some sips of the lemonade.   When Constance curled herself up on her mother’s lap for a little nap, Daniel went to find his own toys and was happy to play with them while his mother and Peggy sat in the sun.

 

“We should think over what we are going to say at the meeting.” Peggy said stretching out her legs beneath her skirts and thinking how hard it is to think of serious things when it was such a lovely day.

 

“Yes, but it will be a question and answer debate too…” Mary Ann replied and  stroked her little girls soft hair absent mindedly.

 

Peggy closed her eyes, the brilliance of the sun, even though it was just spring time, made everything behind the lids seem blood red.  Her own blood.  She sighed and smiled “Tell me how you met Joe…what was he like?”

 

Mary Ann relaxed, this was much easier to discuss, Peggy wouldn’t be so prickly if she told her the story of the time she met Joe…and Hoss and Adam of course… she closed her eyes and began her narrative as though she were telling the children a fairy tale, “Well, it was like this, my brother Frank and I ….”

 

Peggy smiled,  her friend’s voice droned on,  and she escaped back to the things she liked to think about,  to the days when she and Adam Cartwright would sit together on the porch eating little cakes and drinking lemonade…perhaps he drank coffee…it didn’t really matter which,  she sighed, she had chattered to him feeling such a grown up because he was listening, paying attention,  not being patronising, or pretending to listen  like some adults do, but really listening and asking questions,  and telling her about poetry, and some of the most wonderful writers.

 

She remembered coming home from school one day and asking him if he knew what a pyramid was,  because they had been told about a pyramid in class.   And he had asked if it had anything to do with geometry  and she had shaken her head, not knowing what geometry was,  and told him a lot of slaves had built them, the teacher said Moses was involved somehow.

 

“Well, a pyramid is a building, a very large building, that form a triangular shape, very wide at the bottom and coming to a point at the top.”  he had leaned down and drawn the shape in the dust .  He had taken to bringing a stick with him so that he could draw or write things down for her, it had become their little ’habit’  “Sometimes there could be four sides to the pyramid.”

 

“And they were big?”

 

“Extremely big.”

 

“Is there one on the Ponderosa?”

 

“No,.”

 

“Is there one in America?”

 

“There is  something similar  known as the Cahokia Mounds*…it was built by Indians who lived a very long time ago.”

 

“And that is in America?”

 

“Yes, around the Mississippi River in southern Illinois“

 

“And did Moses build it?”

 

“No, the Cahokia Indians did.   It was very big, Peggy, there were buildings built around it, which made it bigger than some European cities.”

 

She had listened to him describe the mounds, and the pyramids…and what they were used for, and the wonderful things that had been found in them because they had been burial chambers for kings and as he had talked she had imagined herself walking through the chambers,  seeing the colours painted on the walls…and for about a week thereafter that was all she had wanted to talk about,  pyramids and dead people.   He began to bring her books about archaeology, pictures of the pyramids, the hieroglyphics, the sarcophagus‘ that had been discovered, and he had shown her things he had found and kept ..artefacts he called them…from his journeys with his Pa on  that long journey to the Ponderosa.

 

Perhaps that had  been when the seed to explore those places had first been sown.  Long ago on the porch front of the Ponderosa ranch with a crippled man in a wheelchair drawing sketches of pyramids in the dust.

 

She could feel the sun on her shoulders as she bent over the sand, carefully flicking it away to reveal the item that had been dropped and lost oh so many hundreds of years before and leaving her to wonder who had dropped it, what had they been doing, did they miss it? Had they searched for  it?

 

“Peggy?”

 

She turned her head and smiled at Mary Ann, “I was listening….”

 

Mary Ann frowned,  she didn’t like to say that she didn’t think so because that was like calling her friend a liar,  but the dreamy expression on Peggy’s face had certainly not been due to being caught up in the romance of the story she was spinning, of that she was quite sure.

………………….

 

Luke and Marcy Dent always enjoyed the time they had to visit Olivia and Adam.   If Adam were home the men would wander off and talk, discuss the merits of cattle raising, what breeds did best, how many they had lost in the winter this year,  or other aspects of ranching.   Sometime if Adam were working on the range Luke would leave his wife and the babies with Olivia and ride out to join him.   It was good to ride through the Ponderosa for any reason no matter how long it would take for him to locate his brother in law.

 

But not to day.  On this particular day Luke wanted to find Olivia home and if Adam were also home so much the better.   The little ones were deposited on the floor to play, Nathaniel gathered up his toys to make sure they would be safe, allowing them just one …each …before settling down to watch them carefully before trusting himself and them, to play together.

 

Luke listened to the ladies chatter for  a good half hour before he slipped in the question he had wanted to ask since his visit to Virginia City some days earlier, “How is Sofia,  Livvy?”

 

“Sofia?” Olivia looked surprised and glanced over at Marcy to see if there was any hint from her as to why Luke would ask.

 

“Yes, your daughter?”  Luke smiled and took the cup and saucer from Olivia’s hand with a twinkle in his eyes,  “We saw her in town with Bridie and Paul…”

 

Olivia smiled, nodded and gave a little laugh, “Oh yes, her reward for enduring a trip to the caverns with Peggy and the boys.  Adam thought the least he could do was give her some reward for her patience, she was a little scared it seems and it was a long ride for a little girl.”

 

“Peggy?” Marcy asked and raised her eyebrows, “Do I know her?”

 

“No, you wouldn’t…” and very sketchily she gave Marcy and Luke all the information about Peggy she wanted to share out.

 

“I remember Frank Dayton…” Luke said with a crease in his brow, “He was a loud mouth and always trouble.  So he did settle down and marry?  Made something of the place did he?”

 

Olivia nodded, realised once again that Luke would have known  Frank only a little as it was during the time Virginia City was out of bounds to the Dents,  and just prior to when Luke and Philip had run off to join the army.   She sighed, and decided not to go into the story of the Adam and Laura romance, suffice to say they were left with the impression that there had been a happy little family living on the  Running D at one time.

 

“Why did you ask about Sofia?” Olivia now asked as a way of avoiding further discussion about Peggy.

 

“Well, “ Luke shrugged and wondered how to discuss the matter without giving his sister nightmares that may or may not be necessary.  “I often wondered if she had gotten over the time she was missing from home.   Some children are very resilient but somehow I wouldn’t have put Sofia into that category.”

 

Olivia lowered the cup into it s saucer very slowly, and looked at Luke thoughtfully, “As it happens she has been having nightmares again.”

 

“Oh, any reason why?“ Marcy asked, all concern now for she loved Sofia almost as much as her own children.

 

“Bridie was reading her a story…Alice’s Adventures in wonderland…not realising that Sofia always connects that story with what happened to her in Bodie.  As soon as she heard the name ‘Alice’ she just didn’t want to hear any more and had nightmares…“

 

Luke nodded and frowned, “There isn’t any other reason is there?  She hasn’t seen or heard of anyone in town perhaps who could be connected with Bodie?”

 

Olivia shook her head “No, of course not.   Adam has let her have his muscial box, so if she wakes up during the night she can play it, it calms her down, but it also alerts us to the fact that she may need us.   But what do you mean,  Luke?  Mrs Soames and Ella were both from Bodie and  involved in that affair, and Sofia was more than happy to have been with them.”

 

She frowned, a little crinkle in her brow, and looked anxiously at Luke.  She knew her brother well enough to know he wouldn’t have asked for no reason, but Luke had a blank face and it was obvious that if he knew anything he was not going to say a word to her about it.

 

Just for a while there was an uncomfortable silence between the adults, while the three children chattered and laughed amongst themselves.    Cheng Ho Lee came in with a tray bearing cookies and lemonade… and immediately the atmosphere returned to its usual conviviality.

 

Chapter 25

 

Peggy was scrubbing away at the lemonade that had been spilled over her skirt as a result of Daniel tripping over his own feet and falling into the little table. The jug of lemonade had tilted and gone over before either woman could prevent it, after all, Mary Ann’s first concern was to make sure her little boy was unharmed, while Peggy’s Was to get out of the way as fast as possible. But, even so, the lemonade had splashed over her skirt and left the dark stain as a result.

 

Mary Ann had put Constance into her cot to sleep, and had calmed Daniel who had got the impression from the ‘other lady’s’ reaction that he had done a very bad thing while Peggy swabbed down her clothing. Mary Ann was thinking how odd it was that one could strike up a close friendship with a stranger one day and then find her so annoying the next, when she heard the knock on the door.

 

Wang Lee opened and smiled at the young woman who presented herself in the doorway, and who asked very politely if Mrs Cartwright, Mrs Mary Ann Cartwright to be precise, was home and available for a short while.

 

It was a long way from town and Wang Lee knew that no one travelling so far would be turned away from any of the homes on the Ponderosa. He stepped aside and waved a hand to indicate she could enter and as she did so, Mary Ann came into view.

 

The two women looked at one another; one took a deep breath and the other blinked her grey eyes in surprise. “Lucy?” exclaimed the latter, and looked over her visitors’ shoulder to see if Mr and Mrs Garston were about to appear.

 

Lucy going anywhere without her parents was unheard of, but, here she was, clutching her purse nervously and smiling rather frantically as she stood in the doorway. Mary Ann looked at Wang Lee, “I think we will need more lemonade…unless you would prefer coffee, Lucy…Miss Garston I mean.”

 

“Lucy, please call me Lucy. Coffee would be perfect, thank you. I always forget just how far it is from town to get here.”

 

“But what are you doing here, and on your own? Where are your parents? Do they know you are here?” Mary Ann asked and then gave a little laugh and shook her head, “I am sorry, Lucy…how rude of me to bombard you with questions and keep you standing in the porch. Come along with me, we can sit out side in the sun…”

 

Lucy didn’t like to say that she had had enough sun during the ride to the Ponderosa, but she refrained from making a word so followed Mary Ann out to the garden, noticing the attractive layout of the house as she passed through the rooms and admiring the pictures and furniture. By the time she had arrived outside, where Wang Lee had already provided an extra chair, she had decided that should she ever marry – which would be a miracle with parents like hers – she would have a house just like this one.

 

Peggy was already seated and looked at the girl with a slight frown, but after introductions were made she did smile and shake the proffered hand extended to her. Lucy sat down and sighed,

 

“You’re rather my heroine,” she said simply, “Ever since you rode into town the other day wearing pants. My mother was horrified…”

 

“She must be very easily offended then.” Peggy laughed and watched as Wang Lee set down the coffee fixings, and put down a fresh plate of cookies.

 

“She is, she’s famous for being easily offended. She hasn’t yet realised that we are no longer part of New York Society, and not so long ago women dressed in pants because they had to scrabble in the dirt for gold and silver along with the men.”

 

Peggy looked with fresh eyes of interest at this newcomer, she nodded with respect, and smiled “Yes, that is just how it was…and in some places it still is. Women work along with men as equals, but …”

 

“That’s what I came to talk about…your meeting, next week…I saw the posters, I think you are both very brave.”

 

She paused, realised she was gushing and bowed her head to look at her hands which she had clasped in her lap. Perhaps Mary Ann would understand how difficult it had been for her to make this journey, alone, but this bright eyed sterner faced young woman looking at her so closely would not, so she waited for one of them to speak and tried to sort out the words she wanted to say next.

 

Mary Ann poured out coffee and handed Lucy a cup, she smiled “Brave or mad?”

 

“Perhaps both.” Lucy laughed, a warm mischievous chuckle, and she looked from one to the other of them “Mother is furious about it, although she will attend of course, she would hate to miss it.”

 

“What about your father?” Mary Ann said, a smile in her eyes as she looked over at Peggy whom she knew was already more than pleased at the visit of this young woman and warming to the young woman more and more as the minutes ticked by.

 

“My father, surprisingly, told me to attend. He said it would be educational, in fact, he said it would be historical.”

 

“He agrees with women having the vote?” Peggy said, her eyebrows raised, and trying to recall if she had ever met this Mr Garston.

 

“I think he does. I think he believes that women like my mother need to have the vote just to keep them busy and occupied with more important issues than …gossiping all the time.”

 

Peggy frowned, she wasn’t sure if she liked that classification of such a serious subject. In some ways it made sense, perhaps that was what had been wrong all along, too many women had too little to do and too much to say. Properly diverted such energies could be an asset to the cause. She nodded thoughtfully, she would have to remember to put that in to her speech at the meeting.

 

“And what about yourself?” Mary Ann asked, picking up the plate and presenting it to Lucy who politely took a cookie, “How do you feel about the matter of emancipation for women?”

 

“Excited. It’s about time we had a voice…I mean …a legal voice, representatives for women in Government. I’ve read all the books in the library about it…and Miss Godfrey, the new librarian, has promised to order a whole new batch, she said that there will be a lot more interest in the matter after the meeting.”

 

“You don’t think it will cause any trouble, do you?” Peggy asked slyly, looking over at Mary Ann who chose to ignore the question but Lucy just laughed again,

 

“Of course it will. Trouble is already brewing as we speak…” she sipped her coffee, and smiled “It should be fun.”

……………….

 

Nathaniel was fascinated by his little cousins who looked so alike that he couldn’t tell them apart, not that it mattered anyway to him. He had devised a new game, he ran around the big table, round and round and round, and they would follow him, crawling along as fast as their legs and arms could carry them. Sometimes he was in the lead and sometimes he came up so close to them that he nearly fell over them at which times he would throw his arms in the air and shout “Game.”

 

Even he didn’t know why he said that, but it made the twins laugh and gurgle, and sit up and observe him with smiles on their duplicate faces. Each would then put a plump thumb in their mouths and watch with twinkling eyes as he would take his position in front of them and start running again. Then off they would go, dribbling with delight, plump legs and toes propelling them forwards, little bottoms in the air moving along after the little boy.

 

Olivia didn’t want to think about Sofia’s dreams, or the little musical box spinning out the melancholy tune. But Luke was showing an interest in her daughter that neither Mary Ann or Hester had shown., not just lately. Mary Ann had been so full of this emancipation nonsense and Hester so frustrated with Peggy being in the house that when she had mentioned Sofia’s nightmares to them they had been dismissed, in a loving kindly way of course.

 

“She’ll grow out of it.” Mary Ann said, “She is still very young.”

 

“So long as you are there, you and Adam, she’ll soon be reassured that all is well.” Hester had said before turning to feed Erik who was, to Olivia’s thinking, a bit like a cuckoo in the nest of fledglings, getting fatter and fatter so that soon he would no doubt push Hannah and Hope right out of the nest.

 

But then they didn’t know what it had been like, not really. Those weeks when Sofia had disappeared, and she had been left with a gaping hole in her insides that seemed to be growing day by day so that it was consuming her. Then when Adam left home to search for the child, and Reuben so guilt ridden…and it had seemed there had been nothing of her left to give him, or Nathaniel, she couldn’t love them, not as they needed it then.

 

Ben had said, before he had gone off as well, that Mary Ann and Hester were different to her. That Mary Ann would never have gone searching for her children in a blizzard as she had done, because Mary Ann was the type of woman who would have collapsed and been on sedatives until the child had been found, and Hester …she would have existed in a nightmare, wandering around the house caring for her children as though in a dream…no, Ben had said, neither of them would have found the strength physically or emotionally to have gone searching for the child as she had done.

 

But Olivia did not think Ben had been right there, even though she had passed no opinion of her own. What she did think now was that perhaps they believed that because she had been strong then, she could take Sofia’s nightmares in her stride, so why fuss?

 

But Olivia’s strength came from love, from the love she gave and received from Adam. That love was based on trust, and the confidence she had in the power Adam had to achieve the impossible,or so it seemed, at times. Even now, with his patience with Sofia, sitting there telling her stories before she went to bed in the hope that his stories would over ride the fears of being ’Alice’ again.

 

“I’m sorry,” Luke said as he leaned towards her and took hold of her hand, “I was just worried about her. Now that I have children of my own, I got to wondering, that’s all.”

 

She didn’t really believe that, Luke was caring and sensitive true enough after all he had lost a child of his own years ago, a child who had died. Not a child who wailed at night because she didn’t want to be called ’Alice’.

 

“Do you remember when we were with the Bannocks?” he said quietly now, stroking her hand gently as though she had been sick and needed gentle handling.

 

“Yes, of course I do….”

 

“Mother was ill…”

 

“She was pregnant and – Pa wasn’t very sympathetic.”

 

“He thought all the wrong things…” Luke said with a cold frost to his words and dismissed his father from the conversation, “But do you remember having nightmares? Bad dreams after wards?”

 

“No, not at all. I have thought of that, Luke. But I thought that perhaps it was because Mother was with us, and besides we had such good times with them, didn’t we? You and Phil, you never did any chores at all, did you?”

 

Luke laughed, a throaty chuckle that made Marcy smile “No, none at all. I rather liked the way they were thinking, and they treated Mother like a very special person, as she was, but I did wonder about yourself. How it had affected you.”

 

“I think, after the initial shock, that I was very happy to be away from ..from Father. I realised for the first time, how lonely and isolated I was.. I made friends….”

 

“Yes, and when you got back home? “ Luke looked into her face, his eyes dark and thoughtful.

 

“I missed them all. But then I was worried about Mother…and sometimes it was as though we had walked out of sunshine and into shadow. Mother would quote me the Psalm, you know, Psalm 23…she was very unhappy, wasn’t she?”

 

Marcy leaned forward “What has this to do with Sofia?”

 

“I don’t know…” Luke said honestly, “Just that we experienced a traumatic event in our childhood, and survived well enough. Sofia’s experience was – different- in a way I think that it messed with her head…you know, being absorbed as someone she wasn’t, being possessed by those women as though she was theirs, not yours, she was …”

 

“Alice?” Marcy said quietly and looked at Olivia whose green eyes had darkened and whose face had paled at the expression on Luke’s face.

 

“Luke. Do you think they’re here, in town?” Olivia whispered, and her fingers tightened together, laced and intertwined, “I thought Rosemarie had died…but Katherine? Is she here in town?”

 

Luke shook his head “I don’t know, dear, I was just worried, just wondering …but if she is, then I’ll find her.”

 

“Adam will…” Olivia said with some heat in her words and her fingers parted to form two fists that balled in the lap of her skirts.

 

“Don’t forget, I know Katherine from a long time back…Adam saw her, that’s true, but not clearly, emotions can blind a man and I think his sights were more on Rosermarie than Katherine. You have to remember, he had just found his daughter, and Rosemarie was the force trying to prevent him from leaving with her.”

 

Olivia nodded, and then looked at Marcy “Adam wants to take Reuben camping this weekend. “ she looked then at Luke “Can I bring the children, to the Double D?”

 

Luke sat back in his chair and nodded, he looked over to observe the three children, two of them now fast asleep while the third ran with a toy donkey in his hands, keeping to the very edge of the big rug. He nodded, and as he turned his gaze back to his wife and sister, thought it would be a good time to take a trip to Virginia City again.

 

 

Chapter 26

 

Adam Cartwright turned over the page of the broadsheet and continued to read.  It

seemed to him that considering how bored DeQuille had been on the subject of the conquistadors and the excavation he had actually turned out a good article about them based on the latest information Peggy had given him.   Anyone who had been involved in Maurice Stevens’ dig the previous year couldn’t fail to be impressed by the fact that those long dead had been afforded a decent burial, some in ancient family crypts in the family vaults on some faraway estate in Spain, others in more humble resting places…a grave beneath a shady tree in some cemetery perhaps..and those where no family could be located to claim them had been cast in a different corner with Spanish soil covering them.

 

It seemed to him Peggy’s assignment had been accomplished and there was little point in her remaining at the Ponderosa much longer. He rolled the newspaper neatly and still deep in thought tucked it in with the mail.  Having secured the rolls of barbed wire on the back of the wagon he was about  to clamber onto the wagon seat when he saw Luke riding slowly by, weaving his horse in and out of the traffic.  He raised a hand to catch his attention but failed to do so.  The man looked as though he had something serious on his mind and if Adam had not promised to deliver the wire within a specified time he would have followed his brother in law, bought him a glass of beer and cajoled him into revealing what was on his mind.

 

He still dithered however, then rubbing  long fingers along his jawline gave himself a mental shake … Luke was a private man and would not appreciate his interest which he  knew his brother in law would consider as interference.  He took his seat, flicked the reins and allowed the horses to take him and the wagon into the stream of traffic leading out if town.

 

Miss Tyndale observed the blond haired man with a beady stare behind her pince.nez which she removed slowly as she watched him make his way towards her. A polite man she thought as Luke removed his hat and smiled rather shyly at her.   She nodded at him as though to encourage him to approach and then asked if there was anything in particular with which she could help him.  Luke glanced over his shoulder and then back at her ” I believe you have an assistant here by name of Elizabeth Godfrey?”

 

Miss Tyndale’s lips thinned imperceptibly and she adjusted the pince-nez more firmly upon the bridge of her nose, “And what is that to do with you, young man.”

 

Luke cleared his throat and felt awkward after all he was no longer justifiably of an age to be called a young man, and he was not too sure how to explain his association with Elizabeth.   He was only too grateful that there was no one in the library to see his discomfort but, reminding himself that he had a perfectly legitimate reason for being there, he stepped closer to her desk.

 

“I was a close friend of Miss Godfreys fiancé, and wanted to pay my respects to her.  It’s been some years since I saw her last…”

 

Miss Tyndale regarded him thoughtfully and then gave a sharp nod of the head as though in acceptance of what he had  said but still wasn’t sure of him, however as she picked up some books she did tell him that this was Miss Godfreys half day and he had missed her by a mere half an hour.

 

“That’s a nuisance, Ma’am, I really do need to speak to her on a matter of some urgency.  Could you tell me where she is staying while in town.?”

 

Rather reluctantly Miss Tyndale gave him the address and watched as he quickly left, striding down the corridor to the exit as though he hadn’t a moment to lose.   Once he reached the side walk Luke stood on  for a moment to get his bearings before crossing the road and making his way to the guest house.   It was Mr Albierno who saw him there and assured him that Miss Godfrey was absent but had told his wife that morning that she intended to do some shopping and get to know the town better.

 

Luke thanked the old man and left the boarding house, but he had no sooner stepped out onto the street than Grant Tombs  approached him, and after greeting him warmly insisted that Luke join him for a celebratory drink as he had just got himself work as a clerk.for Mr Hiram Woods.  The younger man’s eagerness to share his good news with him was irritating to Luke who really wanted to just set off and find Elizabeth but Grant’s friendly face, the realisation that the lad was in a town of strangers compelled him to accept the invitation.  Inside the Bucket of Blood he was greeted by Roy Coffee and Clem Foster leading Luke to feel his mission was never going to be accomplished by the time Marcy would expect him home.

 

Elizabeth Godfrey had relaxed sufficiently into her role as librarian to enjoy her stroll around  town.  She had refrained from removing the spectacles and the severe hair style  as she was more than aware that someone may pass  her by and recognise her as the librarian.  That was by far preferable to people wondering who she was and asking questions.

 

Sometimes she thought she was being overly cautious and even scolded herself for keeping up the charade but since meeting Luke at the restaurant she had convinced herself of the necessity of maintaining her false identity. It had shaken her more than she had initially thought it would, meeting him so soon after coming to Virginia City.  Her mind had gone over and over the conversation they had shared in Bodie when he had told her about his sister, how she was suffering from the loss of her child and how he had pleaded, begged, her to help them take Sofia home.

 

Strange how that time in Bodie seemed so long ago. Almost as though it had happened to someone else.  Thinking about it now brought to mind, yet again, how happy she had been despite everything else that was happening around her because  there had been a little girl who had loved her, put her arms around her neck, called her Aunt Katherine … and momentarily reality was held at bay and joy of joys she had felt loved.

 

She paused by Miss Ridleys Ladies Emporium and looked at herself in the glass.  Her sombre reflection looked back, and she thought she looked a rather sad figure in her prim costume.   She noticed a man dressed in black sitting on a wagon laden with barbed wire came into view.  He looked as though his mind was faraway on other things,a slight smile on his face and he whistling a tune softly as though it amused him to do so while he allowed his thoughts to wander .

 

But it was a fleeting glimpse, and she didn’t recognise him, and after a few minutes she stepped inside the building and lost herself in the sights and smells and delights of Amanda’s Ridleys haven for women.

 

Adam Cartwright flicked the reins and was oblivious to the sight of the woman who had created such horror to his family not so very long ago.  He whistled softly and allowed the horses to speed up a little once they had left the main thoroughfare of the town.  His mind drifted to the weekend arrangements he had in mind with Reuben, and reminded himself that he needed to be home early in order to get preparation for the trip under way.

 

First though he had to get the barbed wire to the location where his father had wanted it to go, and not for the first time he found it more than irksome to have to do such irritating tasks, such time consuming errands. Yet again he had to remind himself that he was no longer the Commodore in charge of hundreds of men and ships.   That time was long past now, and seemed as though it belonged to an entirely different person, a different world, altogether.

 

 

Luke Dent had given up all thought of seeing Kathleen or Elizabeth or whatever she called herself now and strolled to his horse wishing he had not had that last glass of beer.  He stopped to consider his options for a moment while his hand slowly stroked the neck of his mount, and when he raised his head there she was, strolling down C Street with an oyster coloured box under her arm and a slight smile on her lips.

 

Now, he told himself, was the time to confront her and not waste another precious moment.  Adjusting his hat more firmly onto his head he strode down the sidewalk, crossed the road and stepped just a few feet from her, so that it was impossible to avoid him.

 

The colour flashed up and covered her face and then faded leaving her deathly pale, and her breathing quickened so much that he thought she was going to faint and put out a hand to steady her.  “What –  do you want?” she whispered so faintly he had to lean towards her to hear what she said.

 

“I want to know why you are here?   Don’t you think we have a right to know?” he said in as calm a voice as he could manage for it shook a little, and when she looked up at him and he could see the fear in her eyes he actually felt ashamed for being the cause.

 

She glanced around her, bowed her head “Can we go to a place a little more private than this, people are watching…”

 

Luke glanced over his shoulder and sure enough a few old biddies were looking over at them although he couldn’t think as to why.  He nodded and with his hat still in his hands gestured towards where the park could be seen.   They walked along in silence and then finally paused at a bench where she sat down and took a deep breath

 

“Luke, I can’t – I don’t – find this easy to explain.  I don’t even understand it myself but – but it was as though some compulsion drew me here.”

 

“A compulsion?  Like the one you had last year when you took Sofia from her family?” his voice was harsh, and the colour was high in his cheeks.  He looked every bit as furious as he felt, and he had to keep a firm grip on the brim of his hat to maintain some control.

 

“I told you when we last met how sorry I was…I explained exactly to you how it all happened.  I didn’t steal Sofia from her family.   Don’t  you men realise that I actually saved her life?  She would have frozen to death had we left her there, in the snow.  As it was she was ill, and we saw to it she had a doctor to care for her.   I did not steal her, Luke.”

 

It was now his turn to bow his head and calm down, he took deep breaths in order to do so.  Now that he had children of his own he could not bear to even think of how he would feel were they to be taken from him.   How it would have affected Marcy was something out of a nightmare.  He raised his head and stared at her, before asking her again why she had decided to come, to change her name and to take the position of librarian, an indication that there was a degree of permanency in her future plans.

 

“Luke, you of all people know what life is like with my mother …you surely can’t have forgotten what she was like?”

 

“I have not forgotten.  How could I?  To be honest I was rather pleased to hear that she had died and gone to the best place for her.” he glowered, his cheeks burned red with mixed emotions.

 

“My sister Emily is made in my mother’s mould.  There’s little pity in her, no sympathy…” she paused, pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed her eyes.  “Look, I know what it must seem like to  you, to Adam Cartwright, but it isn’t what you think.   I came here to – to – how do the Catholics put it – ‘expiate my sins’ ‘mea culpa’ – “

 

“And coming here. .how exactly does that fit into all of that?”

 

“Because -” she wrung her hands together, then dabbed at her eyes a little more “remember I told you, I had a baby?  A child of my own? A little girl?”

 

“Go on.”

 

“Mother forced me to abandon her.  Not entirely, but to hand her over to my sister so that she and James could raise her as their own daughter.  It was thought that they could not have children of their own, and I – by my actions – had no right to one.   Well, Emily now has a son as well as my daughter…” she paused and bowed her head, stared for a while at her restless nervous fingers toying with the square of cambric in her hands, “After mother died I had to leave Bodie, and glad to do so…but there was no place to go except to my sisters, so I went there… and every day was a humiliation and a misery.  My daughter had no time for me, no fondness, no feeling.   I was her Aunt, so Emily constantly reminded me, but -” she heaved in a deep breath “but not an Aunt that the child was allowed to show any fondness for.”

 

They were silent for a moment, neither knowing what to say to the other.  Luke felt a little out of his depth now, his anger cooling into sympathy for her, and her embarrassment warming up her narrative, she glanced up “When I could bear it no longer, I decided to leave.   But I didn’t know where to go.”

 

“That still leaves open the question …why here?”

 

“The time with my sister, and my daughter, made me think of Sofia, and of her mother, and of what they must have been feeling .  I felt so miserable, so sorry and so ashamed.” she dabbed at her eyes again, “I think – what I mean is –  I thought that if I came here I could go and see her, Mrs Cartwright I mean, your sister, and explain to her exactly what happened.  I wanted her to understand, as a woman, what compelled me to keep Sofia close and not return her right away…”

 

Again silence fell between them as both thought of the ramifications involved in what she had considered.   She took a deep breath and continued on “I wanted her to see that it was really an errand of mercy that saved Sofia’s life, after all, how could I have returned her when the weather was so dangerous for travel?  We only just got to Bodie ahead of the worst storms, and – and my mother was insistent that we returned there, and did not turn back into Virgnia City to locate the child’s parents.”

 

“And would you have done so, had it not been for your mother insisting on returning to Bodie?”

 

“Yes, of course I would have done.   Please believe me, Luke.  I would have taken her home – or at least have taken her to the doctor for treatment.  She was suffering, Luke.  We – I – saved her life.”

 

He rubbed his chin, thoughtful, unsure and regarded her with a worried countenance. Then he shook his head “No, you may have thought you would have done that, but you did keep her, and  you changed her name, insisted she was someone else other than Sofia Cartwright.  You played games with her emotional state, you made her – tried to make her – forget who she really was without any heed as to how her parents were suffering.”

 

She nodded and looked into his face “I know.   That was the crime of which I am guilty, Luke. That is the sin I must confess to Mrs Cartwright, and apologise for … I missed my baby so much, and my Mother kept saying how much like my Alice the child was….and my heart went out to her, Luke.”  she wrung her hands and tears sprung to her eyes yet again “Luke, believe me, my body ached to have her as my own, I missed my own baby so very very much.”

 

“Did you think of going to see Olivia right away, or what?  Why the change of name? Why get this librarian job?  You could have gone to see her, make your excuses and then have gone elsewhere….why make these plans to stay?”

 

She shook her head, she couldn’t find the words, not words that he would have understood anyway.   She didn’t even understand herself but it had made sense at first, it really had.   He looked down at her and took hold of her by the wrist bringing it up to his chest level so that she was forced to look up at him and half rise from the bench

 

“My advice to you is to get the next stage out of here.  Leave Olivia and Sofia alone…” he lowered his head so that they were nearly nose to nose “Don’t see them, don’t go near the Ponderosa, do you hear me?  You just leave here and go.  Let them forget about Bodie.  About Katherine and Rosemarie Royale.  Let them get on with their lives.”

 

“But I need to …”

 

“No, you don’t need anything.   Sofia is suffering nightmares enough as it is just from someone wanting to read her a story from a book… I dread to think what effect seeing you again would have on her.  Or Olivia.   Just leave them be, Katherine.  Get on the stage and go away.”

 

He released her then, and she fell back rubbing her wrist and watched him as he walked away from her.   She sat for a few moments more, her head bowed, then she dabbed at her eyes and stood up.   Running away was not an option, she would have to see Olivia and Adam, and explain.  Then whatever they decided – she would do.

 

“Miss Godfrey?”

 

The voice came from behind her, catching her by surprise for she stumbled her next step and put out a hand to steady herself, her fingers brushing against the trunk of a  tree.  The voice, her name, was repeated and much closer now so that she turned to see who it was who was addressing her.

 

Sunlight gleamed upon a handsome face one that she did not recognise.  But the face bore a slight smile and kindly eyes, so that she forced herself to stand still and straighten her back.  This was not the enemy, she told herself, but a potential friend, or perhaps not that just yet, but at least some kind hearted stranger.

 

“You have the advantage of me, sir?“ she said as calmly as she could and hoping that he would not notice her bloodshot eyes as she hurriedly pushed back the spectacles on her nose.

 

“Abel Greigson, Miss Godfrey.” he smiled, but his eyes looked at her anxiously now and he had a handkerchief in his hand which he had stretched out towards her “I thought you might be in need of this…it is clean.”

 

She smiled then, odd how men always assure women that their handkerchiefs are clean, and she wondered why, just fleetingly, just a thought nibbling at the  back of her mind.  She sighed “Was it that obvious?”

 

“That  you were distressed?  Only to those close by …myself and a few birds.” his smile did reach his eyes then, and she thought how pleasant he was, what a kind face.

 

“Don’t think badly of the gentleman to whom I was speaking,” she said softly and turned her steps towards town, he came to her side and matched his stride to hers, “He was a friend of my fiance’s, in the army .”

 

“You’re engaged?”

 

“Oh no, my fiance was killed on manoeuvres in Indian Territory.  Some  years ago now..” she dabbed at her eyes again, aware that tears were still forcing their way down her cheeks, “I’m sorry…” she mumbled, feeling now ashamed and wishing she could go somewhere private to blow her nose, as it was she gave a polite dab at her nostrils and bowed her head.

 

“No,, I’m sorry, I’m intruding…I’ll leave  you to get on…only…” he paused again and slowed his steps to match hers once again, “I do understand how you must feel, a stranger here and with losses…”

 

She looked at him again then, and wondered what losses  he could have experienced.  A wife, sweetheart, perhaps?  He was old enough to have once been married and suffered such heart ache.

 

“Thank you, Mr Greigson, I truly do appreciate all you have said,”

 

He bowed his head, but said nothing so that for a while they walked along in silence but at the entrance to the park he turned to her with a more genuine smile this time, his eyes twinkling

 

“There’s a dance at the Town Hall tomorrow night…would you like ….I mean, if you would like to go, I would be very happy to be your escort for the evening.”

 

“A dance?” she blinked, and a slight frown created three tiny lines between her eyebrows, “I saw the posters but didn’t think to consider going.”

 

“Why not?  A pretty lady like you should go, and have a little music and dancing …” he grimaced “I’m not a very good dancer I have to say…”

 

She laughed now, wiped away the last tears and nodded “Oh Mr Greigson, I would love to come to the dance.  I shall dance for the two of us…if you really don’t mind taking me.”

 

Abel shook her hand gently as she had placed it between his own, “I shall be honoured.” was all he could say and then he turned to go, paused and looked at her again “I shall come for you about 7 o’clock.”

 

She nodded  and without looking back turned into C Street and walked briskly back to her lodgings.  It didn’t matter about the past, she was gong to make a new life for herself to go along with her new name…she tilted her head higher, facing the sun, letting it warm her face with a firmer hope that all would indeed be well.

 

Chapter 27

 

By the time Adam Cartwright arrived home Luke and Marcy had gone, leaving Olivia to weave nightmares out of what Luke had told her, and seeing her Nemesis leaping from corners and shadows that she never even knew existed before.   Cheng Ho Lee had kept a watchful eye on her, not having seen her so nervous or skittish since the time Sofia had been taken from home, and anxious for her now as she paced restlessly back and forth, or sat so still with her hands clasped in her lap and her eyes fixed to a space far off.   Even little Nathaniel felt her distress, and clambered aboard her lap, nestled into her body and leaned his head upon her shoulder as though by doing so he could take some of the burden from her.

 

But just sometimes things became too much, logic and emotion clashed and bumped into each other, words and suggestions and thoughts were tangled together until she didn’t know where she was and she knew she needed clearer thinking, better reasoning and more reassurance that all would be well.

 

When she heard the door open and her husband’s foot steps her heart leapt so high in her throat that her head swam.  Nathaniel clambered down from her lap and ran to the doorway, called to his Daddy, and throwing his arms around Adam’s legs while his father untied the holster string, and unbuckled his gun belt to set it aside before catching his son under the arms and tossing him up into the air.

 

Olivia was standing by the hearth watching them, the sight of them together pushing aside the anxiety for the briefest of moments and then she was moving towards him, and his arms were around her and holding her tightly, while Nathaniel slid away, preferring not to be squashed between the two of them as had happened countless times before.

 

“Oh Adam, have you seen Luke?” she whispered, not daring to let go of him, liking the feel of his hard body against her and thinking how well they fitted together, even now, like this, his and her body linked and fashioned as though made for each other.

 

“I saw him in town…not to speak to…but …” he bowed his head and narrowed his eyes, dropped a kiss on the nape of her neck and then gently pushed her away from him in order to look more closely at her “Why?  What’s happened? Is Marcy alright? The children..”

 

She put a hand to his mouth and shook her head, “No, I mean, they‘re alright, but – but he saw someone in town….”  she searched his face, looked into his eyes “You – you didn’t see – anyone – new to town, did  you?”

 

He shook his head and took her hand in his own, then gently led her to the settee where they sat down together, and now he took hold of both her hands in his and held them, resting them upon his thigh, while his eyes looked into her face.   Nathaniel came and chattered, leaning against Adam’s legs and telling him about the babies, and how they had played.  He smiled and chuckled, and Adam smiled back, but even a little tot like Nathaniel knew when his attentions were not really wanted and without feeling any irritation at his parent’s lack of interest he wandered off to find Cheng Ho Lee who was always willing to listen to his chatter.

 

“Well, what did Luke have to tell you…who did he see?  And no, I saw no one new in town…but …” he touched her face again “Who was it?”

 

She nodded “Katherine Royale.“

 

A sharp intake of breath confirmed to her that Adam had not known Katherine was in town, nor anywhere near the Ponderosa.  He even glanced over his shoulder as though he expected to see her there, before he turned to her again ..after a second as though both of them needed the time to catch their breath he asked her to tell him everything, and so, in a halting narrative, she did..

 

“He saw her, and spoke to her….she told him that she …she only wanted to come and see us, to apologise…she told him about her own child,  taken from her…and ..but…” she paused and shook her head now, a tendril of soft milk blonde hair curled over her shoulder and very gently he took it between his fingers and waited for her to continue speaking.

 

She told him all that Luke had told her, explained to him her fears, her feelings, her tangled messed up feelings.  “I should feel pity for her, shouldn’t I?  Why can’t I feel pity for her, Adam?”

 

“What do you feel for her, sweet heart?” he replied, very quietly, as though she were Sofia needing explanations as to the why‘s and wherefore‘s of some problem with which she was struggling.

 

“I  – I‘m angry.  I feel threatened by her being here. I‘m afraid that she’ll arrive here one day, wanting a confrontation or she’ll come and take Sofia away again…” she lowered her eyes and bit her lip “And I feel angry with myself for letting her make me feel like this, making me want to hit her or – or worse – “

 

Adam frowned, just slightly, not enough to alarm her, but he allowed her words to sink in and he thought them over while he gently rubbed his thumb against her wedding ring and turned it round and round while he wondered what he could say to help wipe away fears and uncertainties that held her when he himself was trying to understand himself, something that he couldn’t comprehend.

 

“Did Luke say how long she had been in town?”

 

“Some weeks…” Olivia stammered.  “She’s here.” she said, looking him in the eyes with a wild look in her own, “She’s right here in town,  she’s changed her name, she has a position in town and a place to stay.  She’s going to be permanently here, Adam.  How will Sofia react when she sees’ her, what if…” she paused then, and shivered “what if she …if she …”

 

“What if she – what?”  Adam asked kindly and stroked his wife’s face with his forefinger,

 

“What if she takes Sofia from us again?”

 

Adam looked into his wife’s anguished face, the wide eyes, and shook his head “I don’t understand it, why should she come here?  Why hide away behind a false name…for weeks” he glanced sharply at her again, “Did she tell Luke…did she explain why …”

 

“Just that she came because she wanted to have our forgiveness.“ she turned away, frowning, staring at the colours in the rug at their feet, thinking over all that Luke had said about his confrontation with Katherine..

 

“She has made no effort to see Sofia…”  he murmured, half to himself, a thought that trickled into words.

 

“How do we know?  She may be haunting the school house…watching for Sofia to come out of school..”

 

“And do what?  Snatch her away?”  Adam shook his head, “But why wait so long?  Why, if that were her intention, has she hidden herself away behind a false name, got a position… and done nothing.”

 

Olivia sighed, a deep miserable sigh that caught at her throat,  she leaned into him, her head upon his shoulder once more, finding the hollow by his collar bone which fitted her head so well.

 

“Why is she here, Adam?”  it was a moan, a sigh, strangled in fear.

 

“From what Luke says, to make amends.  To make a new life for herself.”

 

“But why here?  Why not Sacremento or Reno?”

 

“You would have to ask her that, my dear, I don’t know.”  he stroked her head, found the lock of hair  that had come loose and curled it around his finger “I was thinking of all the kind things she did for Sofa while she had her in Bodie…the clothes, the toys…the love and …”  he paused “everything so contradictory, kindness and love and yet the subtle cruelty of trying to rub out Sofia’s real existence, her identity…” he leaned away from her, and rubbed his jaw, his brow creased in thought “And if she were really here for forgiveness why take so long to receive it?”

 

“I don’t want her to love our girl…” Olivia said hotly, and she pushed herself away from him, and looked at him “It‘s her love that is the most dangerous about her, don‘t you see?!

 

He narrowed his eyes slightly and nodded “I know, I understand.”  he bit down on his lip, still sore from the altercation in town some days previously.  “I don’t understand why she’s here…she could be anywhere else in the world but here…”

 

Olivia said nothing but clasped her hands together again in her lap.   She hadn‘t wanted to say that love could be dangerous, it could be like quicksand, sucking a person in, pulling them away from all that they loved…she closed her eyes and put a hand to her head, it ached and she felt as though it would explode beneath her fingertips at any moment.

 

“I wish -” she said quietly, hesitantly, “I wish she hadn‘t come.”

 

Adam said nothing to that, Nathaniel had run back into the room with a cookie in one hand and a smile dimpling his cheeks…but in all sincerity Adam whole heartedly agreed with her as he leaned over to pick the child up and swing him onto his lap.. .

 

After a moment or so of bouncing his son on his knee he swung the boy in the air and then deftly dropped him into Olivia’s lap while he got to his feet, “I’m going back into town,  sweetheart, I think the sooner I see this woman the better we both will feel about her being here.  Perhaps we’ll even get to understand why she’s really here. “

 

Olivia sighed,  and with Nathaniel in her arms, despite his being a big boy now, she walked with her husband to the door,  and waited for him to replace his gun belt, “If she had come here to apologise, to ‘expiate her sins’, as Luke said, surely she would have done so as soon as she arrived?”

 

“Uh-huh, I would have thought so, “Adam replied as he retied the thong  of the holster around his thigh.

 

“I mean – she would have  been here,  talked to us – instead of changing her name and getting a position in town, wouldn’t she?”

 

Adam picked up his hat, paused to look at Olivia and sighed, for it seemed that the sun had gone out of her eyes, and the ready smile turned into a sad little moue of misery.  He reached out a hand to caress her cheek and then turned away,  quickly,  so that she wouldn’t see the  anxiety on his face and be even further dismayed.

 

Nathaniel wriggled to get down and run after his daddy, but Olivia kept a firm hold, almost as though subconsciously frightened of losing him should she let go.

…………

 

Elizabeth Godfrey emptied the oyster box with the scarlet ribbon and spread out the pretty lace trimmed under garments onto the bed in her room.   She loved the feel of the silk, it was so light to her finger tips, and the colour, a very shell like pink, was one of her favourites.  She remembered as she refolded the items back into the box the look of curiosity she had received from one of the assistants who seemed to be in some doubt as to whether or not the wages of a librarian would cover the cost of such furbelows,  but Miss Ridley didn’t seem too bothered once the money was put in her assistant’s hand.

 

But it was a good warning to her to be more careful in future.   People expected her to live within her means, and that was not as the rich daughter of a very wealthy couple from Bodie.   She placed the box in the wardrobe and closed the door before leaving the room and going down  to the communal room where Mrs Albierno encouraged her lodgers to be ‘comfortable’ and socialise.

 

There was no on else there, as Elizabeth had expected there would not be, as there were few staying and those that were had their work to attend.   She sat down and picked up a book and began to read, an interesting story about four sisters who lived in an English village with their cousin.

 

Mr Albierno provided her with some coffee during the course of the afternoon, and having finished her book she reclined back in the chair and looked at the view of Sun Mountain from the window.

 

She was thinking of the  young man who had approached her earlier in the park,

Abel Greigson,  and tried to conjure up the memory of his face which she remembered was handsome, deeply tanned.  He looked strong and dependable and she wondered whether or not he had overheard any of the conversation she had had with Luke.    She was thinking over this strange encounter when she heard someone mention her name…her real name…from the doorway.

 

Adam hadn’t spoken it loudly but it seemed to boom around the empty room and when she turned to face him, the look on his face made her knees go weak.

 

He stood with his hat in one hand and the other hand resting on his gun belt, at his waist.  If anyone had asked her to describe what an avenging angel would look like, then she would have said Adam Cartwright at that very moment in time.   She stood up and turned to face him,  and as she did so, he closed the door behind him and stepped closer to her.

 

“Did Luke tell you I was here?  Did he send  you?”  she asked in a voice that shook slightly for Adam Cartwright was not like Luke Dent whom she had known years earlier, who could be gently persuaded due to their past association, to believe what she told him.

 

“Do you have a good reason for being here? “ Adam asked in a cold level voice that was clipped and abrupt.  “If you have, you had best say what it is right now before I get the sheriff and have you arrested for kidnapping my daughter.”

 

A flush of anger blushed her cheeks and she felt the heat of it in her stomach, she firmed her lips and shook her head “Don’t any of you ever listen?  I did not kidnap your daughter. I saved her life.  If I had not found her…I mean ….if we hadn’t found her, she would have died.”

 

Adam inclined his head, narrowed his eyes,  and indicated by a nod that he wanted to hear more.

 

“I was with my mother, and a friend, the man who was driving the coach.   They both felt, with the weather conditions as they were, that we should continue on to Bodie.  I had no idea how close or how far Virginia City was from where we found her.  I only knew that she needed our help,  and the best help we could give her was in Bodie.”

 

She wrung her hands, looked at him with pleading in her eyes but still he just stood there, his own dark eyes narrowed, looking into her face, demanding more words, more explanations…she drew in her breath…”What would you have done in the circumstances, Mr Cartwright?  Tell me?  What would you have done?”

 

“I don’t know.   I wasn’t in that situation.” he replied with a tilt of the chin, “You were.  The thought must have crossed your mind, or  your mothers, that the child had parents?”

 

“Parents that were negligent as to their responsibility.  Parents who allowed their little girl to wander about in the wilderness by a raging river with a blizzard about to rage down again…don’t you see how it would have appeared to us? “

 

He could see her anger,  beneath her attempt to put the case calmly, anger was raging beneath the surface.  Having to justify her actions, again…having to explain, to beg …she shook her head “She was an adorable little girl who could have died had we left her there.   What were we supposed to do, tell me, what would you have done?”

 

“Considered her parents for one thing.   Reasoned on the fact that no one would abandon their child like that,  unless there was some reason…a very good reason….in which case surely they should have been considered?”

 

“Time was ticking by….my mother insisted we got on to Bodie.   She said we would find the parents later.”

 

“She never meant that though, did she?”

 

“I meant it…”   her voice faltered “At the time, I meant it.”

 

“Maybe so, but you didn’t follow up on it did you?  You left that child’s mother frantically worried, frightened for her daughter. .. And there was another child, our son, who saw you.  You drove away with his sister and left him …  you left him to think he had been abandoned,  and that he was to blame for  his sister being taken.”

 

“I never saw the boy.   Had I done so we would have taken him too.    He would have been safe with us.”

 

“And we might never have seen either of them again….”

 

His voice drifted into the room, and she stared at him, eyes wide, feeling suddenly afraid, very afraid,  that with this man there was no reasoning with, no talking out the situation, no hope of  peaceful negotiation.

 

Chapter 28

 

There were sounds from outside the room, the handle on the door rattled as though someone was going to come inside, but thought better of it for the door did not open and whoever had been there walked away. They could hear the footsteps fade as though an echo of their own heart beats.

 

She stepped forwards now, her hands clasped together and a look of concentration on her face, then she stopped and looked up at him her eyes meeting his, not in challenge but as honestly as she could,

 

“I went to Jethro Tombs trial. I had read about the murders and thought it would be interesting to see Sofia’s family … and the whole drama of it both appalled and appealed to me. I was intrigued by the developments of the case, and I thought that Mrs Cartwright was wonderful in her loyalty to her husband. Such a pretty modest young woman.”

 

“I’m sorry.” Adam frowned, gripped his hat brim more tightly between his fingers, “I don’t exactly understand what this has to do with anything regarding our current problem….”

 

“But it has everything to do with it…I mean, with my decision to come here, to have a new start in Virginia City. I saw the young man, Grant Tombs, having to come to accept his father was a murderer, that his mother was one of the victims, and I so admired his courage…his ability to walk away from it…”

 

“Who says he has, he has to live with the memories all his life long…”

 

“Yes, and so do I, Mr Cartwright, so do I.” she drew herself upright, “Had I had that young man’s courage I would have kept my child, and left my family when I could, but I didn’t. But when I saw … realised…what Grant Tombs was going to do, then I thought. ’I could do that’ I could start a whole new life … some poet once wrote “What matters it that went before or after, now with myself I will begin and end.””

 

She glanced up at him and then sighed “I thought he had courage, and that, somehow, I should find that courage too…a new beginning…is that so bad of me to wish that? To wipe away all that was past, was so miserable …”

 

“Madam, you talk about yourself as though you alone have ever suffered, and give no thought to those to whom you caused a considerable deal of suffering. “

 

“I had not forgotten. And I’m sorry if you don’t understand my meaning… only in my defence may I say that were I of my right mind, and if my mother and her companion, whom you knew, were not of such a strong character, I would have done more than I did to return Sofia to you.”

 

She sunk down upon a chair and stretched out her hands as though in pleading “Why is it so difficult for you to understand what it was like for me? And for Sofia? Had she remembered her past life, her name, her family…”

 

“She did…but you continued to force her to be someone else.”

 

“No, it wasn‘t just me.” she shook her head, “Not just me. My mother…I gave in to wanting to be loved by that child…and my mother used that to her advantage…” she still shook her head as though by doing so she could shake away all the past and send it scattering to the clouds and beyond. “I am so sorry, Mr Cartwright, I truly am.”

…………………….

 

Sofia ran to her father with a beaming smile on her face as she waved her tablet at him “Daddy, look, Miss Hayward gave me a gold star for writing so good…pick me up, daddy?” and when he did so she hugged him tight and kissed his cheek, and told him she loved him because he was the best daddy ever in the whole world.

 

“Pa?” Reuben was suddenly beside them with a smile on his face and his eyes twinkling, “Pa, guess what?” he grinned when Adam tried to shake his head hampered in doing so by Sofia who insisted on kissing him so that he had to put her back down and free himself from her arms, “Pa, Davy said he wished he could come on the camping trip with us, his Pa never takes him anywhere, he can’t even ride a horse. We are still going, aren’t we, Pa?”

 

His voice had dipped with the anticipation of disappointment as he had noticed the quick look towards Olivia that Adam had made, but then Adam smiled and looked down at him and nodded so with excitement back he continued to chatter on, and even hung onto Adam’s arm as his father attempted to unbuckle his gun belt.

 

It was Sofia who removed his hat for him and told him that Jimmy Carstairs was moving out of his house and going to live with Miss Ridley. Reuben shook his head,

 

“No, he isn’t…he isn’t, Pa. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about…”

 

“Do too….” Sofia pouted and looked for support from her mother who shook her head and continued with her task of washing Nathaniel’s hands which were sticky from eating sugar he had found in a bowl that Cheng Ho Lee thought he had hidden.

 

“Guess what else, Pa? Mr Evans is going to help Mrs Carstairs and Jimmy move into the new place, it’s above the store where they sell ladies things…” he glanced over at Olivia with an impish look in his eyes knowing already that some ladies things were ’unmentionable things’ to him so it was with a bit of daring that he mentioned them.

 

“Well, that’s good, Mr Evans is certainly showing a …” Adam paused and looked over at Olivia, he smiled “He’s being very generous with his time, and how did you get on with your math?”

 

“I got ’em all right, Pa. Miss Hayward said that I can go up to the next grade, she said I did real well.”

 

“I did too, Daddy…I writ my story so nice, shall I read it to you…” Sofia said in that begging winsome voice she used when wanting to ’go one better’ than her brother, “it’s about a horse that is so beautiful and everyone wants to ride him, but he’s wild and no one can except for a handsome man who can ride him, and he can because he is my Daddy.”

 

She turned then and was rewarded with the chuckle from Adam that she loved, whether or not all that was actually written on the page of now rather limp paper he rather doubted. Olivia sent Nathaniel running off to play with a tap on his backside and then a request to the other children to wash up before they eat. Once they had vanished from the room she turned to him, reached for his hands and clasped them in hers. “Did you see her?”

 

“I did.” Adam nodded and glanced at the door through which the children had passed, then gave his wife a tentative smile, before running the fingers of one hand through his hair, “She’s either a brilliant actress, or perfectly sincere or quite mad.”

 

“What did she say? What was she like?”

 

He led her to the settee and they sat down together, he nodded as though he had got the words in order and could now proceed, he cleared his throat “She’s attractive, as we expected her to be anyway. She thought Sofia had been abandoned, left behind … as does happen at times out west …the friend who drove the coach had been an army scout working for her father, and he advised that they headed to Bodie because of the weather, also because Sofia was obviously very ill.”

 

The grip on his hands tightened and Olivia heaved in a gulp of air, then nodded for him to continue “when they got to Bodie they had to get a doctor to attend to her, as you know, because I have told you all this anyway….but the point is that they cared for her, looked after her. “

 

He looked into her face, saw the battle of emotions going on by the expressions on her face, the waning and then darkening of the eyes, he sighed and continued “She told me how they had felt for the child, and when Sofia had began to regain her senses she didn’t know who she was … and because she, Katherine, was suffering the loss of a daughter who she would never have to love and hold, she transferred her love to this little girl who turned to her for comfort…”

 

His voice faded, and still he watched her face, saw the fight of the conflicting feelings, and when she said nothing he told her that he had gone to see Hiram, to ask his advice on legal grounds but the lawyer had said they could bring no charges against the woman…Sofia had not been kidnapped, nor abducted and had in fact been saved from death by the women. The fact that they had not turned back to Virginia City or made any attempt to find the parents Hiram said was down to common sense, they would themselves never have managed to return to Bodie in the storms that winter, and would have been stranded themselves.

 

“But Sofia would have been safely home with us.” Olivia persisted with a tightness in her voice which indicated how hard it was for her not to break down in tears.

 

“Perhaps, if they had made it in time. “ Adam frowned, “Hiram said there was no point in pressing charges with regards to their keeping the child, as even I can testify to the fact that as soon as Katherine knew there were parents who cared for Sofia, she did all she could to help us..provided warm clothing for Sofia, food for our journey….”

 

Olivia released his hands and turned away, for a few moments she stared at the blank faraway wall and then nodded “ I see… yes, I can see what you are saying. “

 

“If they hadn’t come along when they did, Livvy, then Sofia would have died. We would have been bringing home her body, you do realise that, don’t you?”

 

“I know. I have told myself that so many times ..” she put a hand to her temple and rubbed the pale flesh with her long fingers, “Did she explain why she came here?”

 

Adam nodded “For the first time in her life she had no one to tell her what to do….no strong dominating force dictating where she should go,nothing like that, so she felt lost. Her sister seems like she was made of the same stuff as her mother, strong, domineering, selfish…she has successfully turned Katherine’s daughter, Alice, against her, the child doesn’t know the truth, of course and Katherine never had time alone to tell her, Emily, her sister, made sure of that. It became unbearable so she felt that the only place where she knew …or felt she knew…anyone was here, in Virginia City.” he paused, pursed his lips “And here is a strange thing about that…she was at the trial of Jethro Tombs and she said that Grant Tombs impressed her so much in having the courage to re-start his life, that she decided to do the same. Here. In Virginia City.”

 

“But who does she know here?” Olivia frowned, “Who does she know who are friends of hers …?”

 

“No one, not really. I called in to talk to Paul about the situation and he said that it was a tenuous thread, but it was like a lifeline and she was clinging on to it. Mentally, emotionally, there was a link that she felt she needed in her life.”

 

“And why hide away …”

 

“Because she wants to build up a good name and reputation here, one that will break down any animosity we may hold against her under her real name. Paul said that she was trying to re-invent herself so that when we did meet, we could more easily forgive her because we would have, by then, accepted her and even got to like this new person. “

 

Olivia nodded and was about to speak when Sofia ran into the room, her skirts swishing around her thin legs “Mommy, Nathaniel spitted into my milk….he’s a naughty boy and I smacked him. Now he’s crying for you…”

 

Olivia and Adam glanced at one another, he smiled and was rewarded with a kiss on the brow so that when she left to attend to the howling child he watched her with the look of attention a man in love pays to the object so desired. Sofia came and perched on his knee, one arm snaked around his neck,

 

“Daddy, can I come camping with you and Reuben?”

 

“No, not this time.”

 

She leaned her head upon his shoulder, and sighed tragically, “But, Daddy, what can I do instead? And why can’t I go?”

 

“Well, I think Mommy has plans to take you somewhere … “

 

“Oh?” she sat upright, “Where? “

 

“That’s for Mommy to tell you.” he smiled and stood up, letting her roll from his lap but catching her in his arms before she landed on the floor, and then swinging her up and into his arms “you’re getting too big for this, young lady.”

 

She laughed and hugged him, never thinking for a moment that the day would come when she would disdain such privileges, and not because she had grown too big, or too heavy. She allowed herself to be borne into the other room and placed on her chair, beside her mother who smiled at them both while Reuben watched thoughtfully, and Nathaniel struggled to climb out of the chair and get down to more serious things than eating at the table.

 

“Mommy, where will we be going when Daddy takes Reuben camping?”

 

Olivia smiled over at Adam before looking at her daughter, “I thought a few days with Uncle Luke and Aunty Marcy would be rather pleasant, the orchard will be in blossom, and we haven’t been there to stay over for such a long time.”

 

Sofia nodded, the smile on her face broadening, “And I can sleep in my little bedroom where I was when I was very little.”

 

“You can, after all, it’s still there…” Olivia replied and relaxed, looked at her husband again, before turning her attention to the food on Nathaniel’s plate that needed to be cut into portions for him.

 

It would be alright for now. She would be safe and so would Sofia. Perhaps Katherine Royale was sincere, and a decent person at heart, but just for now, Olivia just wanted to be as far from the Ponderosa as possible.

 

When evening came Sofia and Reuben were eager to get to their beds. In the morning, early, Adam and Reuben would be on their travels. They had spent the evening cleaning the guns and rifles, and their voices had provided a low background murmur in the room as Adam explained various matters to Reuben that needed to be stressed every time they went on one of these excursions for children could be forgetful, and excitement could often drive common sense from their heads. Adam oversaw his son taking a rifle to pieces and cleaning them, then putting the weapon to gether again. He asked questions about what to do if one saw a snake…or a baby bear cub …which was more than likely at this time of the year. Should one run, should one stay quiet and hope for the best? What did one do to make a camp fire…and when leaving the camp site what did one do with the camp fire then? Many little points, that could have major repercussions if left unsaid, unknown.

 

In her bed Sofia held the music box carefully in her hands, and opened the lid. She smiled when Adam tip toed into the room, “Not asleep yet, Miss?”

 

“I was waiting for you, Daddy. “

 

“Ho.hum, so I see…and why was that?” he perched himself on the small chair beside the bed and she handed him the music box which he set down on the night stand. The music tinkled into the room until slowly winding down to a stop.

 

“Daddy, tell me about how you got the music box?” she settled down, her head upon the pillow, her eyes fixed upon his face “Tell me about Grandmother Elizabeth…was she like Grandmother Abigail?”

 

“No, she wasn’t anything like Grandmother Abigail.” he said and pursed his lips, he smiled at her but there was no smile in his eyes, although there was a tenderness that made her feel safe and secure when she saw it. “Grandmother Elizabeth never got to be an old lady, Sofia. She died when she was very young. “

 

“Young like me?”

 

“No, older than you. Younger than your mommy.”

 

“Oh that’s sad. Was she a happy lady?”

 

“Yes, my Pa says she was always happy, she loved reading and poetry. She was clever, he told me that she was a good business woman. That means she could do her math, not like you, pumpkin.”

 

“I don’t like math…”

 

“Well, Elizabeth did…even though she was often on her own, because my Grandfather Stoddard used to be at sea a lot of the time. “

 

“I remember.” she smiled, dimples in her cheeks, “Granpa told me that he was on the ship and that was where he met your mommy. They fell in love and he gave her the music box.”

 

“Yes, that’s right…a present …” Adam nodded, and cleared his throat, “And then later on he gave it to me, so I could play it if I got lonely.”

 

“Yes,but you don’t get lonely now, do you, Pa? You got me, and Reuben and Mommy and Nathaniel…” she yawned, “Was she a nice mommy, like mommy is?”

 

“I guess she would have been, sweetheart…” he said and felt a slight tightening of the throat, he cleared it with a cough and then put on a mock stern face “And you should be asleep…its late.”

 

“Daddy, did she have black hair like you?”

 

“She did, and she had hazel eyes too…she was very pretty. Well, now,get to sleep, or you’ll not be up to wave us goodbye in the morning.”

 

She yawned again, “Daddy…I love you.”

 

Her skinny arms circled around his neck and he leaned down in order to gain his kiss from her, then tucked the arms beneath the covers, kissed her brow and watched as she slipped into sleep.

 

Chapter 29

 

Farewells echoed behind them as Adam and Reuben trotted their horses out of the yard and up to the track. Once there they turned to look down at the house where Olivia, Sofia and Nathaniel stood waving goodbye at the doorway. This was the only place they could clearly see the house from the main track to the Ponderosa, as its avenue of trees from henceforth would obscure the view.

 

Cheng Ho Lee had slipped several packages of Reubens favourite cookies and sweet stuff into his saddle bag making Adam appreciate yet again the quiet loyal man who had almost ‘forced’ them to take him into service for them. Now as the dawn of day was just beginning to streak the skies over head they turned their horses into the wilder untamed land that, although still part of the Ponderosa, was seldom traversed by any of them and the haunt of wild animals, outlaws and rough terrain.

 

Over the course of the trips like this one Reuben had learned quite a lot, one of which was how to ride easy, and as a result he could now ride for longer distances before his backside became numb and he felt uncomfortable. As Adam said he would have to conquer discomfort for the time when he would be accompanying them on the cattle drives. Now they could lope along together at a comfortable pace, enjoying the clean morning air and being together. The silence of the morning was too precious to spoil with chatter, they rode in companionable silence, able to enjoy the new day, knowing they were together.

 

In the house Olivia and Sofia got busy organising their stay away…packing away clean clothing, and the necessities required when staying over , which would include Clarabelle, of course, and Nathaniel’s favourite toys which changed every minute so that they were constantly having to chase him up to make sure he really wanted that rag rabbit, or that chewed red trailer or that poor one eared wooden horse.

 

Now they too were ready to leave and Cheng Ho Lee helped put the luggage in the trunk of the buggy, and then lifted Sofia up into her seat and Nathaniel next to her. Then he handed then a paper bag containing ‘goodies for the journey’ which made Olivia smile and thank him with one of her very sweetest smiles.

 

Oh to be leaving and having a little breathing space between the goings on in town. She flicked the reins and the horses ambled forwards, with a jerk which caused Nathaniel to bump his head, but he was very good and made no fuss, instead he rummaged about in the paper bag to see what goodies actually were there for him.

 

Sofia was excited. She loved the Double D, and the memories it held for her were every bit as precious to her as they were to Olivia. She chattered to her mother about the little bedroom under the eaves where she and Reuben had slept when they had first arrived there.

 

“Do you remember the big spiders, Mommy? Do you remember how you had to chase them out of the room because they were under my bed?”

 

So many memories…and there was the time they met with the Indian, Johnny Tall Bear who had saved Reuben from being bitten by a snake because they had been city children and had never heard the rattle of a snake before …and there was the little tomb stone for the baby sister that Olivia had never known.

 

“I’ll pick some flowers for the baby, Mommy.” and she sighed and looked momentarily sad, “Even though she was only a very little baby, wasn’t she? You didn’t see her at all, did you, Mommy?”

 

And so she prattled on, until Olivia said she would tell her a story, Nathaniel had obligingly fallen asleep by then.

 

Shadows from the trees dappled them in shades of sunlight and grey, like the skies themselves that chased clouds. Olivia told the story that Sofia loved, of the cold winters day when they first met Adam, the Commodore, in his great coat, and uniform, and how they had been in a park covered in snow and ice…the park that is…not them although of course, Sofia fell over once or twice and managed to get snow everywhere.

 

By the time they drove over the bridge at Miller’s Creek Nathaniel was awake, leaning against Olivia’s shoulder, and Sofia shrieked “The Trolls….who’s that clip clopping over my bridge …” and she peered over the side to see if the Troll who lived under the bridge (because everyone knew there was at least one living there, didn’t they?) would peek out and rush over to gobble them up.

 

Nathaniel didn’t like the idea of being gobbled up by anyone and started to sniffle, until Olivia started to sing his favourite song, to which he knew a few words and would shout them out with glee into his mother’s ear so that she cut it short before she was deafened.

 

In town Mr Evans arrived at Old Zeb’s place to help Mrs Carstairs to move into her new apartment. There was a back stairway that led to the private door to the rooms so there was no problem disturbing business for Miss Ridley’s Emporium beneath. Jimmy was more excited than he could care to mention, for the apartment was large and comfortable, bright with sunlight on such a splendid day. Mrs Carstairs didn’t own much in the way of furniture so the rooms looked spaciously elegant instead of being cramped and pinched together in the dingy rooms she had been renting from Zeb.

 

At the library Miss Tyndale unpacked a box of new books which Elizabeth Godfrey neatly ticked off on the form she held, and as each one was handed to her she set it into a pile so that eventually the box was empty and there were five neat piles ready to be catalogued and then set out onto their relative shelves.

 

Elizabeth had had an uneasy night with little sleep and had as a result arrived for work a little less spick and span than usual. Dreams, nightmares, of her mother and Emily had haunted her and at one time she had woken up in tears. She caught only a drift of a memory of the dream, but enough to know that it had to do with her daughter. The little girl who would never know that she was not Emily’s child

 

During the early hours as she had nursed a glass of water and tried to assemble her scattered thoughts, memories of her conversation with Adam Cartwright tumbled through her head…so that when she did fall asleep again she fully expected him to be the subject of new nightmares. But the last few hours of sleep had been deep and peaceful with the result that she was latet for work.

 

“Miss Tyndale,” she said as the last book under the letter R for Romances was slipped into place, “Will you be going to the dance at the Town Hall tonight?”

 

The Librarian looked at Elizabeth with her eyes going as round as an owl’s behind her glasses. She straightened her shoulders, “I will not.”

 

Such a definite response made Elizabeth wary of asking her as to why not, so she merely went about her business of writing down the title of the last book she had shelved with Miss Tyndale looking rather fretfully over her shoulder.

 

“You have a very neat hand, Miss Godfrey.”

 

“Thank you. My father was a stickler for good calligraphy.”

 

“And he was an army man?”

 

“A Major in the army, yes…”

 

“Oh, an officer …” Miss Tyndale’s eyebrows shot up over the rim of her glasses and she nodded “What was his name? I may have known him…”

 

Elizabeth felt a shiver of trepidation trickle down her back, very much like an electric shock, and she stood as though frozen to the spot for some seconds before reallising that Miss Tyndale was still waiting for her reply “Oh, well, it was – Godfrey, of course.”

 

“Where did he serve?” Miss Tyndale now asked, following behind Elizabeth so closely she nearly trod on the hem on her assistant’s skirt.

 

“Indian Territory…that’s where my fiance was killed. Father retired some years later.” she turned and stared into Miss Tyndale’s face, “I had better get on as I don’t want to be late leaving today.”

 

The Librarian looked at her thoughtfully, tilted her head at an angle “Are you intending to go to the dance this evening, Miss Godfrey?”

 

“I am -” Elizabeth replied with a conviction in her voice that was not usually there for she normally spoke very demurely to Miss Tyndale, “I haven’t been to a dance for many years now. It will be a good way to meet people …here…in town.”

 

Miss Tyndale frowned and looked at her assistant as Elizabeth walked down the aisles of book shelves, she shook her head and returned to the counter just as a family strolled in and asked for assistance. It was fortunate timing for had they not come she would have said in no uncertain terms that Elizabeth should think better of going, as “no good will come of it.”

 

But even if she had said anything of that kind it would have made no difference to Elizabeth. Her mind was made up, and she was eager to slip away to the party, to dance and to be young again. She also looked forward to having a man’s arms around her waist, dancing together – it would be like recapturing those heady moments of some years ago when her dear fiance had held her, kissed her fingers, reminded her that she was a very attractive woman and had a right to her own life

,,,,,,,,.

 

Peggy Dayton was restless as she always was after a bout of malaria. She had returned to her room at the Ponderosa and was busy collating the information she had gleaned from the papers, books and parchments that she had been given by Ben and Adam. She felt the sun’s rays falling across the floor to touch and gild the desk at which she was seated and put down her pen. This was such a lovely day, too good to be cooped up indoors.

 

She remembered that there was a dance that evening and wondered why Hester wouldn’t consider going, then remembered that without her husband with her, she would not have given it a thought. Peggy wondered how many other women had no choice but deny themselves the opportunities of doing things because their man was not there, or their man would not approve. She wondered what her father would have thought of Laura, her mother, had she decided to go into town and fritter away a few hours with dancing and laughter.

 

She turned to the picture of her father on the nightstand and picked it up. A handsome man, a ready smile and a twinkle in his eyes. Even in these early days of photography the camera had picked up Frank’s easy going nature in the study of the picture. Peggy thought back to the days of her childhood, struggled to remember as clearly things about Frank that she could remember about Adam Cartwright. There were the days her father would be absent from home, and when he returned he would whisk her into his arms, hold her close and kiss her, tell her how he loved her, how she was so pretty…and … other things too, like the smell of perfume, sweet and quite lovely. She had really loved the smell of him because of the perfume and could never understand why her mother would turn away from him when he approached her.

 

Of course she understood a lot more now, she knew that men coming home to their wives smelling of perfume should not expect a warm welcome, but …and there was always that ’but’….to her Frank was different, quite different and there were other reasons why…

 

She returned the picture to its place on her nightstand and walked to the window…she heard the laughter of children, and looked down to see Hannah and Hope running around the yard with a hoop and stick. Hester was hanging washing on the line. She could see Hop Sing bending over plants in the vegetable garden that he so carefully tended.

 

Not a day for staying indoors she told herself yet again. She made her way downstairs, and out into the yard, to the stables calling out to Hester as she passed by that she was going for a ride. She knew exactly where she wanted to go, and if the Greigson’s made a fuss what did it matter, she just wanted to ride out to her favourite place on the Running D land as it had once been known, and remember the days she had been there with her father.

 

Much happier days then …so free, so uncomplicated .

 

Chapter 30

 

Marcy had been collecting eggs when Olivia arrived in the one horse buggy. Sofia was the first to see her Aunt and leaned forwards to shout “Aunty Marcy …Aunty Marcy” which prompted Nathaniel to lean out too and wave his hands and call out “Marcy- Marcy”

 

“There you are,” Marcy cried, turning to face them, a smile wide on her generous lips and her eyes twinkling. She put down the basket with the eggs she had collected and opened her arms wide to receive the little girl, and hug her. Then Nathaniel who wanted hugs as well, his arms outstretched to receive them from this little woman with the merry face and a body as flat as a board.

 

But what she lacked in curves and softness Marcy more than made up for with love and laughter and those were the things the children, all children, responded to more than anything. Up Nathaniel was scooped and swung round and round so that Olivia admonished her by saying “Put him down, Marcy, you’ll crick your back.”

 

But she was laughing, and Sofia was happy to hear her mother laugh as she had been aware that there had been anxiety over something or other, and that there had been whispered conversations between her parents during the course of the previous evening.

 

It was all right now though, and she relaxed and jumped up and down to ask where were the twins, where were they? Marcy set Nathaniel down and reached out her hand to touch Olivia’s arm, and smile at her, before turning to the little girl, “They’re asleep, thank goodness. All being well they will sleep for another hour. “ she smiled at Sofia “I think you’ve grown some more since I saw you last, Sofia.”

 

“I know, Daddy says I grow an inch every night, but I don’t think so…an inch is a lot, isn’t it?”

 

“It is, and if it were true you would be a giant by now.” Marcy agreed and Sofia said very solemnly “I knew he was teasing me all the time…”

 

Nathaniel didn’t want to stop and talk, he was running off to the orchard to climb trees, or pull up flowers, or just crash about and feel free. He whooped and yelled and jumped as though he had existed in a strait jacket for the past year and Olivia and Marcy watched him, smiled at one another, while Sofia frowned and wondered if she could get away with a whoop and holler as well. Somehow she doubted it.

 

“Whereabouts is Adam taking Reuben?” Marcy asked as she leaned down to pick up the basket with the eggs and slipped the handle over her arm.

 

“Going towards Frenchmans Creek.” Olivia said and smiled at Sofia who was watching a fat speckled grey and white hen who had come to explore and was pecking at Sofia’s feet.

 

“I don’t think I have ever been there,” Marcy replied as she led the way to the house, and waited for Olivia to call out to Nathaniel that they were going in now for some drinks and some of Marcy’s cake.

 

Nathaniel was too busy scrambling around a tree to see if he could climb up it, he may have been only a little boy but he was a very ambitious one. Olivia raised her voice and hearing the stern note fluting towards him, Nathaniel sighed and ran back to where the women and Sofia were clustered by the door. The fat hen turned her attention to him now, and as he ran to wards them the hen ran towards him, wings flapping as though she recognised a naughty boy when she saw one and was warning him to stay clear of her and her chicks in the barn.

 

The house was warm and welcoming, and the two women entered it with a smile, both remembering the first time they had been together at the Double D. Of course Marcy knew nothing about the cobwebs and dirt, the cleaning and scouring that had been done prior to her arrival, it had already been cleaned, whitewashed and decorated so prettily by the time she had arrived from San Francisco. Olivia sighed as she removed her bonnet,

 

“How odd, it still feels like coming home.” she leaned over to untie the strings of Sofia’s bonnet because the girl had fiddled with them so much they had knotted. “I love my home on the Ponderosa, but I do love It here.”

 

“You have lots of memories of being here, Olivia, from when you were young with your brothers and sister.”

 

Olivia nodded and helped put the eggs into a bowl on the dresser. Sofia asked if she could get Clarabelle from the buggy and disappeared, while Nathaniel settled himself on the rug to fuss over the cat.

 

“Yes, true enough…but I was thinking more of when we came from San Francisco with Ben…there was Abigail of course…and Hop Sing stayed over to help clean up and care for her. He had such a wonderful way with her…she was always calm when he was near by.”

 

She walked over to the window where she had sat so often in the past…sometimes with her mother who would put a gentle arm around her and hold her close, whisper stories, sing songs…. Sometimes with her sister, Katya, pushing and shoving to get the best and most of the seat until father would come and order them to behave with more decorum, as though children of that age knew what that word meant indeed!

 

She smiled and looked over her shoulder at Marcy, who was putting cups on the table and looking serious as she concentrated on the task. “Thank you,” she said quietly, “I am so glad I could come here for a few days while Adam and Reuben were away.”

 

Marcy said nothing but raised her head to smile over at her friend, she would have liked to have said so much…like ‘if it hadn’t been for you I would never have found Luke, found my home, found my place in life . Why thank me when I have so much to thank you for…’ but her smile was enough, it spoke the words for her leaving Olivia feeling a warm reassurance that all would now be well

………….

 

Reuben had been very shy when he had first seen Adam naked. He had been younger of course, and more impressionable but he had never expected to see a body with so many scars on it, and for a little boy, it rather unsettled him. He had been afraid to look at Adam at first, uncomprehending as to how anyone who looked so whole when wearing clothes could be , well, so messed up when undressed. He had never needed to think much about injuries, wounds, his Pa always seemed to bounce back from whatever happened and although he had only been very young, he did know that the scars were the result of bullets, arrows,knives and …(when he dared to cast his eyes at Adams leg )..fire.

 

It was probably when he had been shot himself, that time with the Downing Boy at school. Now he too had a scar on his smooth body, marring the soft silkiness of his skin. It had made him realise that every scar he saw on Adam’s body held a story to it, some older, some fresher, but they were all there as evidence of the kind of life his father lived.

 

He knew that Robert, his fleshly father, would have had not a single scar, well, perhaps if he had cut himself shaving. That in itself didn’t make him any less a man, and Reuben knew that too, because there were a lot of people in town who would never have had so many scars as Adam, or even his Uncles. He knew they were rather battered around the edges too, and he had seen the scars on Uncle Joe’s shoulder and chest where a mountain cat had savaged him once…he had asked about it, but Joe had just shrugged and said he had got in the way of the bullet. That had puzzled Reuben, he thought his Uncle was teasing him, or perhaps hadn’t heard him right, so he had asked Adam who had been quiet for a while and then sighed and said that Joe had been right, he had got in the way of the bullet.

 

“But I was asking about the scars from the mountain cat?” Reuben had protested.

 

He had found out the real story later, from Uncle Hoss, who always loved to talk about the adventures they had got up to, as though nowadays life was boring and there was nothing interesting to talk about any more.

 

But here they were this moment in time…poised at the edge of Frenchmans Creek ready to dive in and swim before they had their meal which was slowly roasting over the camp fire. The sun was warm as it kissed their skin, Adam looked at Reuben and grinned, winked, and then dived … for a moment, just for a moment, Reuben hesitated. He watched the ripples spread out, widening and widening until they hit the banks. Then he dived in too, a slim lithe figure, cutting into the water, feeling his muscles contract, his heart almost miss a beat as the cold swept over him. Adam had said the water would be cold, it was fed from the glacier snow and ice on the mountains and it was still too early in the year for the waters to have warmed up. But it was invigorating, and for a while they swam, dived, and every so often Adam caught Reuben by the waist and tossed him skywards before he splashed back into the water again.

 

It was too cold to stay in there for long and they clambered out, shook themselves like two dogs to remove the worst of the water and then pulled on their clothes. The sun was warm enough to dry them, it would have been warm enough to have dried them before they had dressed but they were shivering and Reuben was only too eager to get back to the camp fire, something hot to eat.

 

It was when they were half way to the camp that Adam raised a hand, gestured to Reuben to stop, to lower himself down, just as he himself did…squatting low and peering through the grasses. Voices ebbed and flowed towards them, and Reuben shivered for another reason while he kept his eyes on his father, who remained where he was, eyes and ears alert, his hand still outstretched towards the boy as though cautioning him to remain where he was in order to be safe.

 

Then Adam smiled and shook his head as though admonishing himself for being overly cautious. He stood up and beckoned to Reuben to do likewise so that they walked onwards to the fire where two men were standing, one was putting rashers of bacon in a skillet while the other was standing there watching him, his arm in a sling and looking anything but happy.

 

Joe did smile when he saw them though, and nodded “Could hear you a mile off…”

 

Hoss grinned “Thought you would like something to eat when you got out of that thar creek…a mite cold I’d a thought.”

 

“More than a mite…” Adam replied, with a chuckle, “But where did you two spring from? What happened to your arm?”

 

“Broke it.” Joe said with a shrug, and a wince.

 

“Yeah, dang fool thing he did too, chasing after our rustlers and tripped over his own feet.” Hoss tossed more bacon into the skillet and frowned.

 

“So there were rustlers – Pa was right?” Adam replied, setting the coffee pot down on the hot stones.

 

“well, sort of.” Hoss replied.

 

“What do you mean, sort of? Where are they? The rustlers, I mean?” Adam glanced over to where Cooch and Navejo were standing, looking for all the world as though they were catching up on the news with Kami and Max.

 

“The rustlers were old Ma Hoag’s grandsons….” Joe said tetchily, and he scratched his head and scowled, “I couldn’t believe it…there they were helping themselves to some of our steers as though they had every right to them. Said they were left wandering around like no one wanted them so they took them.”

 

“They had our brand, surely?” Adam asked, sliding a hand to the back of his shirt to push into his pants, while watching the bacon with more care than he was giving the conversation.

 

“The cattle all had our brand, of course they did.” Joe replied and hunkered down onto his haunches as though standing up to talk was too much effort.

 

“I’m surprised Grandma Hoag would have allowed it, she was not above thievery herself but …”

 

“She’s dead. Willow told us she died about six years ago from old age.” Hoss mentioned and licked his fingers where the salt taste of bacon lingered, “Anyways, we talked things over and got it settled. Ain’t nothing to create a fuss over now.”

 

“Willow has four children.” Joe said matter of factly, and grinned “Still a fiesty little thing though.”

 

“So what are you two doing so far off the track? Came to join us, huh?”

 

“Nah, only saw the smoke from the camp fire and decided to make sure we didn’t have any squatters. “ Hoss stretched, the buttons on his shirt looked likely to pop off. They had once much to Reuben’s delight and one had gone clear across the settee to land in Gran’pa Ben’s lap.

 

“Just want to get home as soon as possible to see Mary Ann and the children. Missed them …” Joe said and sighed, and Adam wondered if seeing Willow again after so long had made his little brother realise what a fine wife he had found in Mary Ann compared to the wild girl that had caused mayhem all those years ago.

 

He grinned, he owed the Hoag’s one scar and when Reuben asked for information about the old woman and her clan, Hoss was more than glad to tell him. They ate the food, swallowed down coffee (water in Reubens case) and spun the yarn about the Hoags, and how a poetry book had saved Adams life, but shot him out of the saddle none the less.

 

Reuben nodded and listened, looked at Adam and smiled…well, that accounted for one scar at least, he knew there was a story behind each and every one of them. Perhaps, one day, he would find out what they were… he might even write a book!