Forgiving

by LaVyrle Spencer

  “A brooch.” She withdrew from inside his jacket, took the brooch and held it up as if to catch the starlight. “My betrothal brooch...”

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t see it.”

  “Here.” He found a wooden match in his pocket and struck it on his bootheel, then held it cupped in his hands. By the meager light she examined the pin. It was shaped like a wishbone with a rose on its left branch.

  “A wishbone... it’s beautiful, Noah.” She had begun to shiver.

  “And a rose, for love. I know you can’t wear it where Addie can see it, but you’ll find a hidden place, I’m sure.” The match burned short and he shook it out.

  “I will. I’ll wear it every day. Thank you, Noah.”

  “You’re shivering. You’d better go in before you catch a cold.”

  “Yes... Addie and Robert will be wondering.”

  “Thank you for the supper.”

  “Thank you for the brooch...” She smiled. “And the port.”

  He went away several steps, returned and kissed her softly on the mouth.

  “I love you, though it still amazes me.”

  “I love you, too.”

  CHAPTER

  18

  Eight days later, on a Sunday night, Robert and Noah had supper with the Merritt sisters again, setting a precedent for the weeks that followed. The foursome met often after that, to share a meal, or popcorn, play games or visit. Sometimes they had long discussions that lasted late into the night on such varied topics as true happiness; men’s right to expectorate on the street; women’s revulsion at men who expectorate in the street; the possibility of raising lettuce in the dead of winter using a cold frame; what makes popcorn pop; and the effect of weather upon human emotions. As the winter advanced, their friendship became cemented, taking the edge off the dreary season with its short days and bleak snows.

  Meanwhile Sarah’s newspaper reported the events of the new year, 1877. In Washington, a new president and vice president took their oaths of office. In Philadelphia, the U.S. Centennial Exhibition closed down. In Minneapolis the state’s first telephone switchboard opened at the city hall. In Colorado a naturalist named Martha Maxwell discovered a new species of bird called the Rocky Mountain screech owl, while another woman named Georgianna Shorthouse was sentenced to three years in prison for performing an abortion. Out of New York came the remarkable news that a woman could detect when she was pregnant by keeping careful daily measurements of her neck, which would swell immediately upon her getting in the family way. Electric clocks, run by batteries, invented by a German named Geist, were beginning to appear in American homes. Throughout all of America, trade in cattle hides had completely replaced that in buffalo hides.

  Closer to home, the legislature of Dakota Territory convened in Yankton, the capital, while in Washington the national legislature did the same, their ratification of the Indian Treaty finally and officially opening the Black Hills to legal white settlement. The inclement weather brought a respite from robberies on the Deadwood Stage Line.

  In Deadwood itself offerings at the Langrishe changed weekly. Flour was selling for $30 per hundred. A fellow named Hugh Amos shocked the town by committing suicide, apparently due to loneliness. Another fellow named Schwartz slipped and fell on the boardwalk in front of the Nugget Saloon and sued the owner over his broken arm. Local businessmen were encouraged to spread wood ashes on their boardwalks to prevent such mishaps from occurring. The females of Deadwood were invited to meet at the office of the Deadwood Chronicle to form a Ladies’ Society whose functions would be both social and charitable.

  The formation of such a group had been on Sarah’s mind for some time. Not only did the local women need to socialize; by banding together they could have a domesticating influence on the entire gulch. The town needed a library. Until a school was built, children—and adults, as well—needed a source of reading material. What a wonderful head start a library could give their school when it was eventually built. Sarah saw a women’s group as the perfect organization to begin collecting and cataloguing books for the cause,

  The problem of men spitting on the street was more than aesthetic. Not only did the women’s hems trail in the effluvia, it spread disease. Since the smallpox epidemic Sarah had written one editorial about the health hazards engendered by the habit, but she’d seen little improvement. A women’s group could work on a campaign to educate the men about hygiene and perhaps make anti-expectorating signs and post them around town.

  On the social side, the women might discuss books, read poetry, exchange seeds for their spring gardens, plan Fourth of July celebrations, perhaps invite a temperance advocate to speak.

  It was Sarah’s hope, too, that she might use the group to inveigle Addie out of the house and into the good graces of the townswomen. However, on the night of the first meeting Addie refused to go.

  “I’m not ready yet,” she said.

  “When will you be?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe when my hair grows out.” Addie’s natural blond was beginning to show at the roots.

  “If they see you there beside me, in my newspaper office, joining a group whose intent is to do charitable work, who’ll cast stones?”

  But Addie refused to go and the group was formed without her. At their first meeting they avidly embraced Sarah’s suggestion and dedicated themselves to their first project: the collection of books for the Deadwood Public Library. Sarah offered to keep the volumes in the Chronicle office and put Josh in charge of lending them out until other arrangements could be made.

  The ladies agreed with Sarah that when the town found a schoolteacher he would be overjoyed to discover the citizens had been forward-thinking enough to have already established a lending library. They believed, too, that the building of a school should be of primary concern to all of Deadwood, since it would draw more families to the town, come spring.

  Yes, they agreed, the school should come first before a church.

  In early February, however, a telegram arrived from a man named Birtle Matheson, who agreed to become Deadwood’s minister. He was a Congregationalist and would be arriving in early April.

  The news caused a great stir of excitement, not the least of which was displayed by Noah Campbell, who, upon hearing it, went directly to the Chronicle office.

  “Sarah, can you come with me for a few minutes?”

  “Certainly. What’s going on?” She got her coat and they headed outside, striding side by side down the boardwalk.

  “Deadwood’s getting a minister.”

  She halted in her tracks. “When?”

  “The first of April. A fellow named Matheson from Philadelphia. A telegram just came in this morning.”

  “Well,” she said on a puff of breath, leaving an undecided note in the air.

  “We can set a date now,” Noah said.

  “But what about Addie?”

  “Addie can take care of herself.”

  “She still refuses to leave the house.”

  “Then it’s time you force her.”

  “How?” Sarah resumed walking and Noah stayed with her, step for step.

  “Stop babying her. Stop delivering everything she needs to her doorstep. Stop going to the butcher shop, and the grocer’s, and Emma’s every day for bread. The agreement was that she’d take care of those things for you, but you’ve continued to do it all and run the newspaper, too. Does she even cook?”

  “She tries.” Addie did try, but her cooking was abysmal.

  “Maybe Robert and I have added to the problem by providing just enough social diversion to keep Addie happy without having to leave the house. Maybe we should insist on the four of us going to the theater sometime instead of holing up the way we do.”

  “I confess, I’d rather hoped that Robert might ask Addie to marry him and our problem would be solved, but he seems quite content with a platonic relationship. Has he mentioned anything to you?”

  “Nothing. Which brings us back
to you and me and setting a date.”

  Sarah was torn. What would Addie do if forced to live alone?

  “I feel a responsibility toward Addie.”

  “And none toward me?” His voice took on an edge.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You’re not her mother, Sarah.”

  “No, I’m not. But if she had one, chances are she wouldn’t have gone astray, so who cares about her? Who helps her? Now that I’ve gotten her out of Rose’s shall I simply abandon her?”

  “Living across town isn’t exactly abandoning her.”

  “Living where?”

  “I’ve found us a place.”

  “You have?”

  “Amos’s.”

  “Hugh Amos’s?” She came to a stop.

  “It’s for sale.”

  “But Noah...”

  He turned around and went back to her. She wore an expression of wide-eyed repugnance.

  “He didn’t kill himself in the house, Sarah, he did it out at his mine.”

  “I know that, but...” Hugh Amos had used his shotgun. Sarah had reported the suicide. How could Noah blame her for balking?

  He mulled awhile, looking annoyed. Abruptly he grabbed her hand and ordered sternly, “Come with me.” They were three doors from his office. He hauled her to it, took her inside and closed the door behind them. At the rear two new jail cells stood empty. A blue granite coffeepot stood on the chrome fender of a small, oval woodstove. It was warm in the room, and private.

  Noah swung around and clamped Sarah by the shoulders. “All right, I want to know the truth. Do you want to marry me or not?”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Yes, it is that simple. Either you want to or you don’t.”

  “I want to, but—”

  “Dammit, Sarah, you find enough reasons to put it off! You won’t tell Addie because she might go back to Rose’s. You don’t want Amos’s house because he shot himself. You won’t set a date because we don’t have a preacher. Well, now we’ve got one, and I’m asking you to make it official. I want to set a date and tell my family and tell your sister and get on with our lives.”

  His insistence left her silent. There were times when she recognized in herself hints of dispassion. If not dispassion, certainly a more controlled passion than his, coupled with a reluctance to commit to all that marriage would entail: the sudden overturning of her life, which had just achieved a satisfying orderliness; sexual submission, which filled her with a certain amount of dread; and along with sexual submission, children, whose arrival would signal, the exchange of her leather apron for a cotton one; the end of her newspapering—at which she was very capable—in exchange for daily domesticity, at which she was only minimally capable; the relinquishment of her financial independence, which she also found satisfying.

  “Do you love me, Sarah?” he asked, sounding a little hurt and confused. “Because some days I’m really not sure. I know it was a little slow in coming—I realize that. Remember the day I first told you I loved you? I asked if there was any possibility that you loved me too, and do you know what you said? Not I love you, Noah, but, I think there’s a very good possibility of it. Well, I think it’s time we clarify that matter. Granted, I resisted falling in love with you, too, but now I have and I’m not afraid to say it. I love you, Sarah, and I want to marry you and live with you. I’d like to know if you feel the same way about me.”

  His eyes were dark with intensity, his voice was earnest as he fixed her with an unwavering gaze that demanded the truth. She did love him in return. She did. But she had known him only five months and he had to understand that she had accepted his proposal conditionally; that condition was Addie.

  “I do love you, Noah.” The worry remained in his eyes. “I do,” she whispered, embracing him tightly. “And you’re right. I’m not Addie’s mother. Sometimes I forget that, but I’ve grown accustomed to mothering her over the years. Please understand that and give me the time I’m asking for. I have to see some progress in her before I walk out of her life, because no matter what you say about living across town, when I leave that house she’ll feel abandoned.”

  He said nothing, only held her.

  “Noah,” she told him, “we’ve only known each other since September. Shouldn’t we give ourselves a little more time, too?”

  He drew back and studied her eyes. His remained somber. She wondered what he was thinking.

  He kissed her, holding her by the upper arms, a tender-sad kiss that made her wish she could concede to his wishes and marry him without delay. Because she could not, she put her arms around his neck and gave him a kiss of apology.

  In the middle of it, Freeman Block opened the door and walked in. “Well, what have we here?”

  “Get out,” Noah ordered, keeping Sarah where she was.

  “Do I have to? This looks pretty interesting.”

  “Dammit, Freeman!”

  “You forget, I work here.”

  “Go work somewhere else for half an hour.”

  Freeman chuckled. “You and Sarah, huh? I told you, didn’t I? The day she bought you that hat, I says, Noah, that gal’s got eyes for you.”

  “Freeman, damn your mangy hide!”

  “All right, I’m going.”

  When the door slammed, Noah sighed and released Sarah. “Well, it won’t be a secret anymore.”

  “Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps it’s time I tell Addie anyway.”

  “Against your wishes?”

  “Let’s call it a compromise. I’m not ready to name a date yet, but I’ll wear your brooch where it can be seen. Maybe if Addie knows about my upcoming departure she’ll prepare herself for it.”

  Studying her, Noah thought, She’s always so rational, so in control of every situation. I wish sometime she’d lose that control.

  “Now I really must go back to work, Noah. I’ll have to write up the news about the new minister coming.”

  “Should I walk you back?”

  “No, you don’t need to.”

  “Let me know what Addie says when you tell her.”

  “I will.”

  He gave her a brief kiss, wishing once again that she felt the same reluctance at parting as he. Wishing just once she would fling her arms around him and declare she would miss him, would give anything if they could spend the rest of the day together, the rest of their lives, starting now. But Little Miss Containment had things to do that were probably of equal importance to her as lollygagging with him, so he had to be content with her brief display of affection and the one promising kiss that had been interrupted by Freeman.

  When she was gone, Noah went over to the stove and tipped the coffeepot above a white enamel mug, but only a tablespoon of thick black sludge ran out. He lifted a stove lid and tossed the dregs inside. A plume of smoke rose. A hiss. The smell of charred coffee. He stood a long time staring into the coals.

  If she loved him she’d want to marry him, it was as simple as that. He loved her and that’s what he wanted to do—speak vows, set up a house, sleep together (lord, yes), have babies. That’s how it was done, dammit. He didn’t understand loving without being impatient for these things. He didn’t understand how she could put her feelings for her sister before her feelings for him. It wasn’t enough for Noah that Sarah conceded to wear his betrothal brooch only when forced to by Freeman Block’s wagging tongue. She should have been wearing it all along in plain sight because she was so excited she wouldn’t consider doing anything else!

  But it had never been that way with Sarah.

  His mother had a theory that in every marriage there was one who loved more. Well, in his it seemed obvious who that one would be.

  He put two sticks of wood in the stove and returned to his desk. Five minutes later he’d done nothing but stare at a bunch of papers.

  He needed to talk to somebody.

  He chose Robert, that night, at a table in a corner at the Eureka Saloon. It was smoky and loud, and somebody ne
arby had horse manure on his boots. But in all the noise nobody paid them any mind.

  “What do you think of Sarah?” Noah asked Robert.

  “Salt of the earth. Honest. Moral. Hard worker. Probably the most intelligent woman I know.”

  “Probably a damn sight more intelligent than me.”

  “Hell, Campbell, that wouldn’t take much.”

  They laughed good-naturedly. They could do that now.

  Noah tipped his chair back on two legs. He studied Robert from beneath his hat brim. “I’m going to marry her.”

  Robert’s cheeks went flat with surprise, then lifted in a smile. “Well, I’ll be damned. You’ve already asked her?”

  “Yup.”

  “And she said yes?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Sort of?”

  Noah’s chair came down on all fours. “She’s not willing to name a date yet. I’ve given her a betrothal brooch which she’s agreed to wear, though.”

  Robert set down his beer and gripped Noah’s hand. “Congratulations! This is good news.”

  Noah smiled wryly. “I hope so.”

  “What’s the matter? You don’t look very excited.”

  “Oh, I’m excited. Sarah’s the one who’s not.”

  “Well, she said yes, didn’t she?”

  Noah studied the rim of his beer mug, then leaned forward with an elbow on either side of it.

  “She’s an odd woman, Robert, totally different than Addie. Sometimes I get the feeling that she’s so smart, there’s so much going on in her head, so much she wants to do that she hasn’t got time for marriage. It’s the other thing she’ll do when she finally gets time. Sort of takes the edge off the excitement, if you know what I mean.”

  Robert took a sip of beer and waited.

  “There’s a preacher coming to town and I want to get married as soon as he gets here but she’s dragging her feet. It’s as simple as that.”

  “Hell, you haven’t even known her half a year, and half that time the two of you fought like two roosters slung over a clothesline.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Noah sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “There’s something else.”