by Ali Olson
Mary went to the mirror and rapidly put herself to rights as Josie walked briskly back into the room. “Whew! That man cannot hold his liquor. I thought I’d need to drag him back downstairs. He was so small, I probably coulda, at that. He’s lucky he came here instead of Lucy’s or he’d be robbed blind and set out on the road without so much as a hearty handshake. How was your fella?”
Mary smiled in the mirror over at Josie. “I thought I was going to lose him there for a minute, but I got him to come around.”
Josie laughed as she sat down to fix her makeup, but it changed to a cough after a moment. Mary tried to help her, but was waved off as the attack subsided. Josie shook her head. “I’m fine, Mary. Just got a tickle in my throat. Now stop hovering and get downstairs.”
Mary hesitated, then moved to the door as Susan and Eliza entered, chatting and laughing about their men. Mary hardly noticed them as she passed, still concerned for her friend, and headed down to see Daisy.
Daisy was talking to a different group of men than before, chatting up a storm with the new crowd. That was one of the reasons her place was so busy. The men loved getting a chance to talk with Daisy. The proprietor’s personality, as well as her reputation for good whiskey and pretty women, kept them coming back again and again. The other house in town, Lucy’s, could never keep up with Daisy’s.
Daisy looked up as Mary stepped off the staircase; she nodded to the counter without missing a beat. Mary looked over to see Pete smiling at her, obviously waiting for her. She smiled at him, but inwardly frowned. The braggart had likely recounted one of his tall tales of heroism to be in that good of a mood. She hoped he would be too uppity to talk her ear off with his ridiculous stories.
The rest of the night was uneventful, as far as Mary was concerned—a few of her regulars, plus a couple of new men in town for a flop, but nothing or nobody that was particularly interesting to her.
Just another night at Daisy’s saloon.
Chapter 2
By midday, Mary was up and dressed in a less elegant dress than she’d been wearing the night before, but the quality of the cloth still shone through the plain design. The rich blue fabric fell over her petticoats flawlessly, and the conservative top was alluring without being provocative. Though the girls were rarely accosted on the streets of Shasta, the small town still expected them to dress more modestly when they were out in the daylight, and the girls abided by this unspoken rule.
Mary would, in fact, have preferred something even more plain and conventional, a simple calico dress like what she had worn before moving into the saloon, but Daisy expected her girls to dress “in an appropriate style” whenever they were in public to keep up her reputation as a fine establishment.
Mary smoothed the folds of the front of the dress and began walking slowly down the stairs, resisting the urge to take the stairs two at a time and run out into the fresh air. Even though she had lived above the saloon for over a year now, she had not yet completely lost her yearning for the freedoms afforded her as a child living in the mining camps outside of town.
Her body still rebelled against the tight, constricting clothing, heeled shoes, and slow torturous method of walking expected of her. She preferred a long stride and quick, free movements. However, she was practiced enough by this time to look natural, even if she didn’t feel it.
Once outside, she opened her parasol against the sun’s rays and walked down the packed-dirt Main Street, making her way past clapboard houses to the general store a few buildings away. She walked into the bustling shop, savoring the smell of herbs that surrounded her as she glanced around at the wares; Carter’s General carried everything from cloth to candy and it was almost always full of activity, being the bigger and better-stocked of the two stores in town.
Mary felt the muscles along her back relax, releasing the tension she always felt when walking down the town’s streets. She felt almost like she was on display every time, her senses on high alert for any real or perceived slight by the other townspeople. In Carter’s General, though, things were different. Despite its constant crowds and bustle, or perhaps because of them, she was always treated courteously by patrons and the owner alike. She couldn’t say that of all the establishments in town, and to be regarded as equal to any other customer was soothing for her soul.
Mary gave herself a few seconds to look around before maneuvering around the other shoppers. She had to hurry if she was going to get the ink and papers she needed. Parcel in hand and a pleasant farewell given to Mr. Carter, she made her way through the side streets of town to the small wooden home of her mentor and knocked on the plain whitewashed door. An older woman, stooped and wrinkled from a life of hard work, but with an air of knowledge and dignity about her, opened the door, smiling.
“Bonjour, Mary. Vous allez bien?”
“Oui, merci. Et vous, Madame Swenson?” Mary responded in kind.
“Bien. On commence? But first, how about some tea?”
Mary nodded and stepped inside, comfortable in the small space. She had been nervous at their first appointment, worried the older woman might scorn her or refuse her as a pupil because of her profession. She had been afraid to bring it up that first day, even though she knew she would have no choice but to broach the subject eventually. But Angelina Swenson had quickly guessed the situation when she learned that Mary had no family and no husband, and had said only, “Then I’m sure you’ll be able to pay the fee I ask for the lessons, eh?”
Mary had been relieved, and quickly found in Angelina a dear friend. She always looked forward to their thrice-weekly lessons as a time of learning, but also a chance to get away from the world of the saloon and share a pleasant conversation with someone besides the other girls Daisy employed. For the past year Angelina had been working with Mary, first on basic alphabet and spelling, then on more complicated aspects of the written word. Mary was dedicated to her studies, excited by the difficulties, and had progressed quickly despite the lack of education in her childhood. She could even read literature now, a world that had been closed to her for so long.
She went to Angelina for help with words and concepts she could not understand, but these days most of their time was spent learning French. Mary had gotten so proficient with her English skills that it was necessary to study something new or stop her lessons, and she couldn’t stand the thought of that. Angelina taught English, French, and the piano; since Mary had little interest in the piano, she began studying French in earnest, despite the practicality of knowing a language so far removed from her life. She struggled more than she would like, but it was also more of a test of her abilities, and she reveled in the challenge.
Mary sat down at the table as the older woman set out the cups and battered tin teapot on the table, the sight of which always caused Mary to smile to herself. In one of the first conversations they had, Angelina had explained how she had tried to bring her wedding china with her to California despite her husband’s admonition. He tried to get her to understand that it would all break on the long trek.
To prove him wrong, she had packed each piece gingerly in a box full of hay, only to have the whole lot fall off the wagon into a river during their first week on the trail. For the fifteen years since the incident, he insisted that he had been correct; she would remind him that as far as they knew, none of the pieces were broken, so technically there was no way to be certain he was right.
Since that time, she refused to buy another set of nice china for some reason. Mary suspected that Angelina believed the box would somehow turn up on her porch one day.
Angelina sat down across from Mary and poured the tea. “How’s Jane doing?” she asked.
Mary’s face grew serious as her heart ached for the main character of her current novel, Jane Eyre. “It’s so unfair. It’s not her fault Mr. Rochester had a wife who was off her nut, so why must she be the one to suffer? I was reading yesterday and nearly threw the book across the room because of the trials that poor girl’s had. It bette
r turn for the best before the end or I ain’t taking recommendations from you anymore.”
Mary had long since given up on speaking perfectly proper around her teacher. The small vestiges of her upbringing on the gold claims became more pronounced when she was excited or frustrated, which happened fairly often during her studies with Angelina. It was far too hard to speak using perfect grammar the whole time, and Angelina had dismissed it as unnecessary after the first few attempts to fix it. As long as she could write correctly and use appropriate grammar when necessary, the older woman said, there was no need to force it in private at the cost of candor.
Angelina laughed at Mary’s exaggerated vitriol. “Don’t I know it. But is there anything in the reading that has stumped you with which I can help? That is what you pay me for, you know.”
“Angelina, I think you’ve done a pretty bang-up job as far as my reading’s concerned. Currer Bell uses some impressive vocabulary, but I understand about everything I’ve come across, and what I don’t know I can figure out or look up in the dictionary. I’m moving through this one quick, and I am excited to see what you have for me next.”
Angelina smiled a mischievous grin, placed a thick book on the table, and said, “I think we shall take it up a notch and try this one.”
Mary looked at the tome, confident that she could master any novel, even a book as thick as that. Then she glanced at the title and frowned. “Les Miserables. Angelina, this book is in French! I’m not good enough yet!”
Angelina’s smile widened. “I think you are, and since I am the teacher, it is my opinion that matters. Or are you too scared you might fail to even try?”
Mary chuckled, knowing that Angelina was playing on her inability to back down from a challenge. She was unable to do anything but take the bait. “Wait just a second, Mrs. Swenson,” Mary started, using Angelina’s title—which she only did in public or when she was trying to make a point as forcefully as possible—“I may be a little green when it comes to French, but you know that I’ll never give up just because something is tough. Hand it over.”
Mary took the book and opened it to the first page, nervous that the text would be incomprehensible. To her surprise, however, she saw that most of the words were at least somewhat familiar to her. There were several she’d never seen, though, and was glad she had a French dictionary as well as her English one tucked away in the room she shared with Josie.
“How about you read the first page aloud, so we can work on your pronunciation? You can use your dictionary to look up anything you don’t know later,” prompted Angelina.
Mary spent a half hour arduously repeating word after word to practice her French accent—something she struggled with, but had gotten noticeably better at in the few months since they’d started incorporating it into her studies. She was finally garnering many fewer corrections and more exclamations of “Charmant!” from Angelina. After that, it was another half hour of writing in both French and English, in which Angelina would dictate and Mary would write, trying to spell correctly and write in the beautiful nearly blotch-free script expected of a lady.
Angelina praised Mary on her gains. “My dear, you’re about as perfect a writer as I expect to see in these parts, and that includes the teachers. I can picture you blending in with the educated ladies in New England without trouble, if you could just keep yourself from saying ‘ain’t’ so much.”
Angelina tittered as Mary grimaced. She could speak properly if she paid close attention, but often reverted when she let her guard down; just one more holdover from her wild and free childhood around the panners.
Mary thanked Angelina, paid her for her time, and went back to the saloon with her new book. In the room she and Josie shared, she carefully placed Les Miserables beside the French and English dictionaries, Jane Eyre, and the primary readers and various other texts she had purchased as her reading skills improved.
Novels had to be special-ordered, were expensive, and often didn’t last long in the rough-and-tumble of California. Mary treasured each book she purchased, and handled every book Angelina lent her with care. Reading was akin to breathing, and every text held a special place in her heart.
At first, she had wanted to learn to read because she hated seeing the squiggles above the doors and not understanding what they meant, and she thought it might be a handy skill. Once the world of novels had been opened to her, though, she found a love of literature that she never expected. She read anything and everything she could get her hands on, from the dime magazines full of serials to the giant volumes Mr. Carter secured for her at his store.
Once her books were organized and tucked away, Mary pulled up the floorboard near her bed and took a small sack from the hidden space beneath. She poured out several small chunks of gold into her money purse and put the sack back, pushing down the board so it looked untouched. While she trusted the other girls in many ways, she was very careful to keep her hoard of gold secret.
Then she went out once again, this time in the opposite direction.
She stopped at another house, not much different from Mrs. Swenson’s, but bigger. She knocked and a plump kindly-faced woman in her thirties answered. The moment the door opened, the sounds of shouts, laughter, and running footsteps could be heard, and the woman smiled at Mary and shrugged her shoulders. “The children are feeling a bit wild today, if you cannot tell.”
The woman laughed at her own joke and held the door wider so Mary could enter. The house looked as it usually did—as if a small tornado had landed, tossing jackets and toys wildly around. It was a homey, comfortable mess clearly made by happy, energetic children. It lifted Mary’s heart to see it. “How are you today, Mrs. Harper?”
Mrs. Harper smiled again. “Oh, just as crazed as usual, but the boys will be calming down for dinner here in a few minutes.”
The woman’s smile dropped from her face as she continued. “Emma has had a rough morning, though. She was playing with the others, happy as can be, yesterday. Today she won’t do more than sit on the couch and lets nobody near her, not even me.”
Mary looked over towards the couch and sighed. A small girl, twelve years old with mousy brown hair covering her face, sat wedged into the farthest corner of the piece of furniture, looking away from the door. Mary went and sat beside her, putting on a smile and a lighthearted tone. “Emma! You look right pretty today, except for your hair all over your face. Let me just move that so we can see your pretty blue eyes.”
Mary reached over to touch Emma’s hair, only to get her hand pushed away by the little girl, who then huddled into a small protective ball. Mary moved away a little, knowing that it would be pointless to do more while the girl was in this mood. Usually describing her eyes would be enough to make her interact, since she loved the fact that her eyes matched Mary’s. They both had their father’s eyes.
Emma had been four when Mary found out that her father had another child. Emma’s mother had walked up to their tent, talked to her father quietly for a few minutes, and walked away without the child despite his protestations. He didn’t want another child to take care of, especially not one that was…different.
Emma had not been able to talk or fend for herself at all when she was four. Even at twelve, she only spoke single words and used gestures to explain herself. Their father had ignored the strange girl, effectively putting Mary in the role of parent, and she was often the only person that could get Emma to cooperate.
When their father had died, Mary had to find a place for Emma to stay where she’d be taken care of while Mary tried to earn enough money to provide for both of them. Mrs. Harper asked a fair price for taking in Emma, but it would have been an impossible amount if Mary hadn’t gone to work in the saloon.
Mary missed the freedom of just taking care of herself, missed the fun she had when playing around the camp with her best friend, the one she still looked for night after night, but those times were long gone, and her responsibility to Emma was tantamount, even if it was a burd
en at times. She loved the girl, though, and was unwilling to shut her away.
Mary sat there for several more minutes, talking occasionally to lift the girl’s mood, but to no avail. Emma continued to sit, not moving or looking at her half-sister, until finally Mary got up to leave. She found Mrs. Harper setting food out on the table. “You were right. She is in a terrible state today, Mrs. Harper. I’ll come back tomorrow and try my luck again. Here is what I owe you for the next few weeks.”
She poured the golden nuggets she had so carefully saved into the woman’s hand. They smiled and nodded at each other, and Mary left much sooner than she had expected. Outside, she leaned against the side of the house and took a deep breath. Having Emma in her life certainly didn’t make things easy, and days like this made it even harder. She reminded herself of the days when Emma would smile and hug her, chattering happily in a language only she understood. It helped ease the pain a little.
She let out one long, low breath and headed back towards her room.
She whiled away the afternoon finishing Jane Eyre, then napping to prepare herself for the long evening ahead, and finally looking up the words she could not understand on the first few pages of Les Miserables.
At six o’clock, an hour or more before the saloon would be busy enough for the ladies to enter, Josie came in from her afternoon spent purchasing cloth and ordering new dresses from the town seamstress with a few of the other girls. She took off her sunhat, set down her parasol, and began ripping open packages of ribbons and rouge. Mary glanced up, smiled and shook her head slightly before continuing with her studies.