The Many Reflections of Miss Jane Deming

by J. Anderson Coats

  “Out here you folks barely even knew there was a war!” I protest, and even as Mr. Condon is snorting a laugh, I wish I’d set fire to that stupid pamphlet or turned it into a privy rag.

  Mrs. D turns her back to Mr. Condon and fans out the rest of my invigilating money like it’s printed in some foreign language.

  “You should give him the rest of the bills,” I tell her quietly. “That will make seven-eight, nine-ten, eleven-twelve. That’s six pairs of numbers altogether, which makes six dollars.”

  Mrs. D swallows hard. She looks mad as a wet cat, but defeated, too, and Mrs. D never looks defeated.

  At last she scrubs her eyes and throws her shoulders back. She’s Mrs. D again when she turns to Mr. Condon and smacks the money on the counter much harder than she needs to.

  “I believe that settles up for last week.” Her voice is prim and cold. “Now I must feed my children.”

  Mrs. D turns on her heel and marches toward the dining room, all rustling skirts and bobbing hat-plumes. I collect Jer and promise him breakfast, wondering with every step if I heard her right.

  Jer eats a huge stack of flapjacks that he coats with at least a gallon of molasses. Since there are no bachelors to watch her eat, Mrs. D orders a big plate of eggs and hash and puts it away like a deckhand.

  I can barely swallow my bread and jam.

  One week from today Mr. Condon’s going to need another six dollars from us. Since Mrs. D’s grand plan to marry a banker has gone the way of the pamphlet, that means one of us has to find employment.

  No looms in Seattle. Not a single familiar, lucrative one.

  Mrs. D came to Washington Territory so she could keep house and let someone else go out to work. I reckon that someone will have to be me.

  After breakfast I go to the Carr house and ask Nell if she knows of anyone planning to open a school.

  Nell’s fluttering around the looking glass hanging from a nail in the kitchen. “You sound angry. You’re not still angry, are you? Because I told you—I didn’t know there weren’t any schools. I’m no schoolma’am, Janie. You can’t have spent four months in my company and ended up with that notion anywhere in your head.”

  “I’m not angry,” I reply, and I try to sound like I mean it. “It’s just . . . invigilating for Miss Gower was a job I could do, and it would be even better to help one of our friends with her class.”

  “Hmm.” Nell bites her lips red, then makes a kissy-face at the mirror. “No. I haven’t heard a word. We’ve only just arrived, though, and we’re all so busy! Yet another tea this morning, then a wagon ride up to see Lake Union and a picnic there. Can you make my bow pretty?”

  She wiggles her rump at me, and I fluff and straighten the loops of puffy cloth even though they’ll probably get crushed in the wagon. When I’m done, Nell hugs me fierce and says, “If I hear anything, you’ll be the first to know. Promise.”

  Back in San Francisco, Flora said there was plenty of work to go around in Seattle. I just have to figure out where.

  In the Occidental’s parlor, I find a newspaper that fell between two chairs. It’s called Puget Sound Weekly, and I skim it eagerly for a Situations Available section. There are only four tiny pages that seem to be gossip and advertisements and news from the States, which is what they call the actual United States in this place that’s still a territory.

  If two girls can tend a lighthouse on some wind-blasted island, there has to be a million things they can do in Seattle. I follow the advertisements one by one, all down Commercial Street and up Occidental and as far along the mill road as Mr. Yesler’s flatiron building.

  The bakery won’t hire me, not even to sweep up. There are a lot of dry goods and clothing and general stores, but none want counter help. Mr. Cheong at the cigar shop has jobs for boys but not girls. He’s the kindest to me of all the shopkeepers, and I’m glad I saw plenty of Chinese people in San Francisco, so I don’t stare.

  The newspaperman who runs the Puget Sound Weekly doesn’t need a reporter or someone to help work the press, but he does give me a sheaf of blank ragpaper dotted with spilled ink, which he planned to use as blotting paper.

  I don’t bother asking at the tannery or the foundry, and I don’t dare go farther down on the sawdust, because I’m fairly sure whist isn’t one of the card games being gambled on there. My secret hope is the millinery, but neither Mrs. Libby nor Mrs. Shorey needs a girl right now. Not that I know a thing about dressmaking. Only I didn’t know how to change diapers once either.

  I wish I’d kept Mr. Mercer’s stupid pamphlet long enough to cross out the Industry chapter heading and scratch a correction in the margin: Nothing but timber and more timber and STILL YET MORE TIMBER. Which is fine enough if you are a boy or a man. Otherwise, Mr. Yesler will not hire you to work at the mill. He will laugh somewhat unkindly if you ask.

  Pinkham’s General Store is a stone’s throw from the Occidental. After watching Mr. Pinkham going all goosey around Ida, I bring in every pair of socks Mrs. D and I knitted and pile them on the counter. I don’t even have to remind him how Ida and I might as well be sisters. Mr. Pinkham knows me on sight, and he buys the lot for three dollars to resell and doesn’t blink or protest when I insist on coins instead of bills.

  Three is half of six. I’m halfway there.

  I should have gotten the deckhands to teach me poker.

  If only Miss Gower hadn’t left. If there’d have been a school in Seattle, she might have stayed. I might be invigilating for her right now.

  At this rate we’ll owe so much no one will marry Mrs. D even if she’s the prettiest woman in the territory. All the pretty in the world won’t be worth the debts she’ll come with.

  I trudge up to our hotel room, muddy to the knees, and glare out the window where I threw Mr. Mercer’s pamphlet. There’s no sign of it. Good riddance.

  If Mr. Mercer’s pamphlet is wronger than wrong, I’ll have to make my own.

  I fold the sheets of paper I got from the newspaperman in half and then quarters. The Occidental’s cook gives me a piece of string and I stitch up the spines. Then I slit the folded parts to make pages. It’s a book now. Just like the one Miss Bradley gave me. Only I made it myself.

  In big letters across the cover I write REFLECTIONS UPON WHAT’S NOT GOING. There’s probably some way in Latin to make it clever, but Miss Gower isn’t here to help me anymore.

  Then I whisper good luck, just in case that’s part of what holds little books like this one together.

  15

  WHEN IT’S TIME TO PAY the boarding bill, I make Jer come with me—he’d rather be playing carriage with Jimmie Lincoln—and do my darnedest to make Mr. Condon feel guilty as sin if he even considers putting us out. Mr. Condon sighs like he’s got a bellyache, but he takes my three dollars as a deposit. We can stay another week on credit, but the whole bill must be paid in full when due or the law will get involved.

  Nell thinks she can get me invited on the boat trip she’s going on. Madge and Inez want me to come to their cousins’ woods fort with them and Evie and Jenny.

  That all sounds like good fun, but I’d better start knitting. Lowell’s not as far away as any of us thought.

  The sun is actually trying to shine, so I collect my half-made sock and tell Jer we’re going to the common. As we pass the parlor, I catch a sliver of red flannel and—a frock coat? I skid to a stop and Jer bumps into me. There is indeed a bachelor in the parlor, and it’s Mr. W! He’s wearing a shabby suit that’s clearly borrowed and grinning like he just struck it rich.

  “You’re back!” I squeal. “I thought you’d gone with the others. I’m glad you didn’t, because I want to hear what happened . . . when . . .”

  I trail off when I notice Mrs. D sitting next to him like she’s taking tea with the president; uncomfortable but not entirely unhappy.

  “Oh. Ma’am. It’s just he’s been telling me ab—”

  “I’m marrying Mr. Wright,” Mrs. D cuts in, and she says it ordinary, like she’s
describing the color of the parlor walls. “We’re going to see the preacher at noon, then we’ll be leaving the hotel for our new home.”

  My mouth falls open.

  “What do you think, Jane?” Mr. W leans forward, forearms on his knees, looking like he really does want to know what I think, even if he’s not using big words to get it out of me.

  “I . . . reckon,” I finally manage. “I mean, I’m not the one marrying you.”

  Mrs. D grunts a little pained sigh, but Mr. W smiles. “In a way, you are. We’re going to be a family, all of us together. Your stepmother is becoming my wife, sure, but that makes you and Jer my children. That’s how it works.”

  We’re all Demings now.

  Only now I suppose we’ll be all Wrights.

  “Some men just get a wife when they marry,” Mr. W adds, “but I’m lucky enough to get a family ready-made for me. I’ll admit I don’t know a lot about girls, though. No sisters. Um . . .”

  He holds out his big hands and trails off, so what he probably means is that he’s looking forward to having a son to help him with his work. Jer’s real sweet, and they’ve already formed a bond over inedible jerky.

  “I’ve packed the trunk.” Mrs. D nods toward the staircase. “You’ll want to go wash up before the wedding. I’ll sort Jer out. Make sure you have everything. We won’t be coming back here.”

  I nod and hurry upstairs to our room. I even dip the washrag in the bowl of water she left on the dressing table and scrub my neck. Then I get my carpetbag out from under the bed, stuff my knitting inside, and check to be sure everything’s still there.

  It feels too light without Mr. Mercer’s pamphlet. Even if that thing was nothing but lies. I look out the window where I flung it, but of course it’s nowhere in sight. It’s probably fallen apart in the rain by now, or sunk deep in the mud. Which is a fitting fate, considering how the rotten thing mentioned neither rain nor mud.

  When I go back downstairs, Mr. W is handing silver dollars to Mr. Condon. Mr. Condon slides a paper across the registry desk, and the two shake hands.

  Now I understand. Mr. W is paying the rest of our boarding bill. The three dollars left from last week and this week’s six dollars on top of that. Mrs. D has no other way to pay it—she can’t teach school, there are no looms—so she has to marry someone who’ll take her and Jer and me. Who has enough money to pay off all the flapjacks and molasses and biscuits and bacon we stuffed ourselves with.

  Mrs. D came four thousand miles to get married. She had it all planned out, and her plan involved a banker and a pretty new dress and a fancy church and the whole town turned out for the shivaree.

  There is no pretty dress. Mr. W is not a banker. I don’t know what he is. I don’t know where he lives or what he likes to eat or if he goes to church or chapel or meeting like Mama did once upon a time.

  I don’t know much about him at all. The one thing I do know is that Mrs. D could have chosen a whole lot worse.

  Mrs. D is waiting nearby. She meets my eyes, then looks down. Mrs. D never looks down.

  “All clean?” she asks briskly.

  “Yes, ma’am.” I peer into her face. “Are you crying?”

  “No. Hush.”

  “I thought to bring the trunk down, but I couldn’t manage it myself. I’m sorry.”

  Mrs. D. swallows and lifts her chin. “Don’t worry. The baggage will be waiting when we get back from the church.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “What, Jane?”

  “Congratulations,” I say softly.

  That’s when she hugs me. It’s not a proper hug, not like she gives Jer, but she puts a quick arm over my shoulder and pulls me against her, hard and sure and fierce.

  Mrs. Yesler rallies some of her neighbors, so there are a dozen people including us in the white church behind the Occidental Hotel.

  Mrs. Grinold and Mrs. Horton are both there, but none of my friends from the Continental turn up. Not even Julia Hood, who’s boarding with the Yeslers. Mrs. Yesler spills over, apologizing for Julia. She explains there’s a social for the girls going on in the old Blaine orchard, and Julia really didn’t think anyone would miss them.

  That’s where Nell must be. Nell, who was fortunate enough to fall in with friends when she found herself high and dry.

  Mr. Mercer is absent as well. Considering we still owe him, I thought for sure he’d be blocking the altar until money changed hands.

  My Seattle friends turn up together. Evie brings some wildflowers that are odd but pretty, and Madge and Inez picked proper flowers from their mother’s impressive garden, so we all have bouquets. Jer holds my hand and whacks me across the knees with a tall iris Jenny gave him.

  Just as Reverend Bagley is starting the vows, Nell rushes into the church and plows right to the front.

  “I’m not too late, am I?” Nell throws her arms around me, then whispers into my neck, “The social is nice and all, but I couldn’t leave you here by yourself. Not for this.”

  Evie and the others stare like Queen Victoria just arrived in their midst. I hug Nell back and make room for her at my elbow. I tug apart my bouquet and give her half.

  Once we’re settled, Reverend Bagley finishes the vows. Mr. W and Mrs. D are pronounced man and wife. One in the sight of God.

  Jer swings his iris cheerfully, his little suit already tight across his chest. He won’t remember this wedding. He won’t recall the exact moment his family stopped being his family and became this other family that includes some strange new person.

  More’s the point, he’ll always belong to this new family in a way I never will. He’s Mrs. D’s flesh and blood. I’m left over from a family that doesn’t exist anymore, that got pulled apart like hot biscuits the moment Mama felt that first sniffle come on.

  Nell lingers as departing guests wish the new couple well, but soon she says she ought to get back to the social. “I’ll stay if you really want me to, Jane, but Mrs. Dalton saw me leave, and I’d feel terrible if she took it personally. She went to so much trouble.”

  “That’s all right,” I reply, even though I wish my Continental friends were slightly less beloved by the town.

  Nell says farewell to each of my Seattle friends one by one. They all stand straighter, like they’re reciting something important.

  My Seattle friends don’t leave with the other guests. Inez and Madge stay so long they have to be collected by their father, and Evie and Jenny linger till Mrs. Bagley shoos them out so she can tidy the church.

  Just two weeks ago our schooner rounded the point and a sprinkling of white buildings came into view, and Seattle was beautiful and perfect for the very last time.

  “Well then!” Mr. W slaps his belly with both hands. “The first thing to do is lay in some supplies before we head home.”

  Mrs. D heads right to the counter of Pinkham’s General Store and sets the shop boy scrambling for cornmeal and flour, but Mr. W pauses outside where an Indian woman is sitting on a blanket next to some things she’s made out of . . . tree bark, I think. Or long grasses. She has hats and baskets and shoes with braided ties instead of buttons or buckles. I hold Jer’s hand when he tries to touch a bumpy-looking mat tight-woven in dark and pale stripes.

  “Ik-tah kunsih?” Mr. W kneels and points to a tidy pile of bright blankets, the kind that were on the beds at the Occidental Hotel.

  I can’t have heard right.

  The woman frowns like she’s considering. “Kalltan.”

  Or maybe Mr. W really is speaking Indian.

  Mr. W reaches into his pocket and pulls out a handful of bullets. She helps herself to half, then hands him the top two blankets off the pile.

  “Mahsie, klootchman,” he says politely, and she nods to him just as nice.

  “I’ll be!” I glance in wonder between the woman and Mr. W. “Did your wife teach you to speak Indian? I mean, before she died? I mean . . .”

  Mr. W flinches like I slapped him. “My what?”

  I bite my lip. “I’m
sorry. That was rude, wasn’t it? You’re probably still sad about it.”

  He doesn’t seem sad, though. Just bewildered.

  “I’ve never been married at all,” Mr. W replies, slow, like maybe he missed something and doesn’t want to look foolish. “Not until about twenty minutes ago.”

  “Oh. Golly.” My cheeks are getting warm. “I suppose . . . I heard you got your heart broken. Then at the meeting with Mr. Mercer . . .”

  “Ahhhh.” Mr. W nods big. “I see. All right. She had—has—other names, but I knew her as Louisa. I loved her something fierce. She’s an Indian. A Suquamish Indian. She lives on the Port Madison reservation now. I courted her. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. I’m certainly not ashamed of her, like some people in this town think I should be. She’s the one who’s ashamed of me, and rightly.”

  I frown. “Why didn’t you marry her? You loved her. Didn’t she love you?”

  Mr. W smiles sadly. “She did. Only I . . . made some mistakes. I didn’t understand exactly how badly I’d fouled things up. I tried to make it right, but it was too late. One day Louisa told me to go away and not come back. So I went.”

  “But why didn’t you fight to win her back? Why didn’t you make her change her mind?”

  “I’m not in the business of making folks do things.” Mr. W shrugs. “She didn’t want to be with me. That hurt, but making her come with me wouldn’t have made either of us happy.”

  Jer tugs on my hand, and even though he’s not the same as a sweetheart, it’s hard to think what I’d do if he never wanted to see me again.

  Mr. W doesn’t go on, and then it’s too quiet, too solemn for a wedding day, so I ask, “If your sweetheart didn’t teach you to speak Indian, how did you learn?”

  “It’s not Indian. Not Lushootseed, that is. It’s Chinook. Everyone knows it around here. You have to. Don’t worry, you’ll learn soon enough.”

  “Chinook?”

  “It’s a mix-up of French, English, and several different Indian languages,” Mr. W says. “Chinook sort of . . . happened after the Hudson’s Bay Company started trading in the territory back when it was still part of Oregon.”