by Val Wood
Caitlin frowned. ‘Well, I guess they were looking for gold, same as everybody else. Sun Wa came during the gold rush, so they say, but I don’t know why he settled in Dreumel’s Creek: most of them went to California.’ She shrugged. ‘He’s been here for as long as I can remember, anyway. Sun Sen runs the laundry in Yeller. Well, he did; his middle daughter went to school with me.’
She glanced at Jewel and then, tucking her arm into hers, guided her round a large puddle of water from the previous evening’s downpour. ‘You don’t think of yourself as Chinese, do you, Jewel? Cos you’re just such a pure English lady.’
‘But I’m not!’Jewel protested. ‘I was born in America just as you were. But I had an English father and a Chinese mother, so what does that make me?’
Caitlin blew out her cheeks. ‘Well, I had an Irish grandmother and parents from Yorkshire, England,’ she said, adding: ‘That’s in the north of England.’
Jewel hid a wry smile. ‘Yes, I know,’ she said. ‘That’s where I live.’
‘We’re all a mixture,’ Caitlin persisted. ‘So you don’t really need to go searching. Anyway, we’re here. This is where Sun Wa lives.’
They stood outside the single-storeyed store. In the window were dusty boxes with Chinese writing on them and dishes filled with what looked like tea leaves. Yes, Jewel thought. I know we’re a mixture. Caitlin knows about her ancestry because her mother and father have told her. But I know nothing about my mother or how she came to be in America, because no one knew her. Perhaps my father did, but he’s no longer here to tell me.
She swallowed hard. ‘Shall we knock?’
‘Caitlin! Hello.’ A round-faced Chinese girl opened the door to them. She bowed her head in acknowledgement of Jewel and then tilted it as she said, ‘Grandfather is not available at the moment. Can I help you? Or my father’s here.’
‘This is my friend from England,’ Caitlin told her. ‘Jewel, this is Lucy. I told you we were at school together.’
The girl bowed her head again in Jewel’s direction and said hello and then said to Caitlin, ‘We were burnt out, did you hear? That’s why we’re staying with Grandfather.’ She had no trace of a Chinese accent.
‘Could I speak to your father?’ Jewel asked, disappointed that she couldn’t speak to the older man.
‘Of course.’ Lucy opened the door wider. ‘Welcome.’
They stepped inside the dark interior and needed a moment or two for their eyes to adjust to the dimness after the brightness of outdoors. There was a piquant tang of smoke in the air: not the kind from a wood fire, nor the charcoaled smell of burning which drifted over Dreumel from Yeller, but something more elusive, something sweet and yet potent.
Their eyes opened to reveal a small room; against one wall was a square table covered by an oiled cloth and two chairs beside it. They were invited to sit down. On the opposite wall was an alcove with a half-drawn cotton curtain and another table within it; next to it was an entrance which had no door but a beaded curtain obscuring the room beyond. The beads rattled as Lucy went through them, again delivering to Jewel a half-forgotten memory.
Jewel and Caitlin looked at each other and Caitlin wrinkled her nose; at the aroma, Jewel supposed. After a moment the beads rattled again and Lucy’s father, Sun Sen, came through. He wore a spherical cap, a short jacket with a mandarin collar and narrow black trousers.
He clasped his hands together and, bowing low from the waist, asked if he might do anything to assist them.
‘Miss Allen,’ he said to Caitlin, ‘I hope your family have not been inconvenienced by the fire.’ He then turned to Jewel. ‘I am a herbalist,’ he explained. ‘Like my father. But I have been making my living in the laundry for many years. Now it seems that I must go back to my original occupation.’
‘I’m very sorry to bother you,’ Jewel said. ‘It must be a difficult time for you and I’m not in need of a herbalist or a launderer, but tomorrow I am leaving for California and intend to search for my mother’s history. She was Chinese,’ she added, thinking that it was probably unnecessary to do so. ‘She died not long after I was born. In San Francisco.’
She gazed into his round face and black eyes, so like his daughter’s. ‘I don’t know where to begin,’ she pleaded. ‘Can you help me?’
He surveyed her solemnly. Then he said, ‘Thousands of Chinese came to America in search of a better life. Most were men who worked the gold fields or on the railroads. There were few women. The men sent any money they earned back to China to feed their families, which is what my father did. Very few of the families were able to follow them, and many of the men intended to return to China when they had made enough money to afford to do so, but died in the attempt without ever seeing their wives or children again. Thanks to my father’s determination, my mother and older brother and sister were the lucky ones able to join him here. Perhaps your mother was from such a family.’
Jewel bit on her lip. ‘But how would I find out? Is there a register of some kind?’ Even as she asked the question, she realized that even if there were, which was doubtful, it wouldn’t help her as she didn’t know her mother’s family name.
Sun Sen shook his head. ‘Not to my knowledge. If you are determined to find out, then you must ask the Chinese community in San Francisco. But prepare yourself for disappointment if they do not tell you anything,’ he said, adding kindly: ‘You are not Chinese.’
Jewel’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. ‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘But I don’t know what I am.’
He smiled. ‘You are searching for an answer,’ he said softly. ‘But perhaps there isn’t one. Come with me.’ He beckoned with his hand.
Jewel followed him through the beaded curtain. Caitlin looked puzzled, undecided whether to go with her, until Lucy appeared and came and sat in Jewel’s vacated chair.
‘I will take you to see my father,’ Sun Sen told Jewel. ‘He is old now and very tired.’
They went through another door into a stark room where there was a narrow bed and a fug of the sweet-smelling smoke Jewel and Caitlin had noticed earlier. On the bed lay an ancient-seeming old man; his head was bald but his long white beard came down to his chest. His eyes were closed as he smoked a pipe half the length of his arm. Sleeping on his legs was a white cat, which looked up as they entered and jumped down, disappearing under the bed.
‘Father.’ Sun Sen spoke in his own language to the old man. ‘Here is a young woman who is seeking answers.’
The old man opened his eyes and looked at Jewel; he said nothing but drew heavily on his pipe as he gazed at her.
‘I want to know about my mother,’ she said softly. ‘I have reached a time in my life when I need to know who she was and where she came from.’
The elder Sun took the pipe out of his mouth and spoke to his son and then closed his eyes again.
‘What did he say?’ Jewel whispered.
‘My father said,’ Sun Sen spoke quietly, ‘that a bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
That evening one of the maids came upstairs to help Jewel and Clara pack their trunks. Both girls were subdued. This last day had been significant, and neither had discussed with the other what had occurred. Not yet; the time wasn’t right, not until each had assimilated feelings and emotions and come to her own kind of judgement or understanding.
In her head, Jewel constantly repeated the Chinese proverb given to her by Sun Wa in order to make sense of it. That it was profound she had no doubt, but what did it mean to her personally? The answer to that particular question was at present unattainable.
Clara’s emotional senses were in confusion; she was attracted to James Crawford by his difference, for he was unlike any other man she had ever met; by his manner, which was polite and courtly and yet, beneath that exterior, undoubtedly passionate; hence his kiss and declaration, which had awakened a response in her that, she decided, must have been waiting, lurking even, beneath the
calm and self-possessed exterior for which she was known.
The next morning they were given an early call so that they could finish packing their personal belongings. The coach was due to arrive at nine o’clock and leave at half past. The driver had half an hour to stretch his legs and have breakfast before making his return journey.
Caitlin and Robert were waiting in the hotel foyer to see them off; Caitlin tearfully asked if they would come back to Dreumel before returning to England, whilst Robert stood dumbly gazing at Clara.
‘I don’t know,’Jewel said. ‘Perhaps. I’m not sure. We’ll write,’ she said, ‘and tell you about California.’
Caitlin wiped away a tear. ‘I hope you find what you’re looking for, Jewel; you too, Clara.’
Clara smiled. ‘I’m not looking for anything, Caitlin,’ she told her. ‘I’m just looking.’
She turned to Robert and gave him her hand. ‘Goodbye, Robert,’ she said, and impulsively kissed his cheek. ‘Don’t forget me,’ she whispered in his ear.
The staff of the hotel stood on the porch to see them depart. James Crawford came down the steps carrying Clara’s portmanteau. Jewel stepped aboard but Clara turned and gave James her hand and he held it for a lingering moment.
‘Goodbye, James,’ she said softly, so that no one else could hear. ‘I’m so glad that I met you. I’ll think of you often.’
‘And I you, Miss Clara.’ His eyes were dark and unfathomable and she saw no hint within them of what he was feeling, until he murmured, ‘I will think of you in my dreams and in my waking.’
He bowed then to Jewel, murmuring pleasantries, then turned about and walked swiftly up the steps and into the Marius without a backward glance.
Their companions on the return journey were once again the Thompsons, who were returning home to sell up the possessions they didn’t need, having decided that they would buy a plot in Yeller and make their home in the new town. They had not been disheartened by their adventure in the forest; on the contrary, they didn’t think they would find anywhere else in the country where there was such comradeship and compassion.
Everyone was quiet for the first few miles, and then Jewel murmured to Clara that perhaps they ought to have written home to tell their parents that they were about to start on the next stage of their journey.
‘And the fire!’ she said. ‘We should have told them about the fire. Will anyone else, I wonder? Not that Papa will be affected by it. I don’t think he has any property in Yeller.’
‘I wrote home a week ago, saying that we would be travelling on to California very soon,’ Clara told her. ‘I told them about going up into the mountains and looking down over Dreumel’s Creek. I didn’t write about the incident,’ she smiled, ‘for how could I explain that we had both sensed something, but knew not what? They won’t have heard of the fire in England, so they won’t be worried about us. But we can write when we get to New York.’
The New York Marius was to be their first stop before catching another railway train from Grand Central terminus the following morning. When they spoke to other visitors at the hotel they were advised to break their journey into stages, as although they could stay on the train for the whole journey it would not necessarily be comfortable.
‘I can’t believe that it’s possible to travel on a train for so long and so far,’ Clara had declared on being told that it would take a week to reach Promontory Point, the historic junction where the Union Pacific from the east and Central Pacific from the west had first met in Utah less than five years ago, joining the railroads from New York and California. The rail route travelled along the old coaching and Pony Express road, which in turn had followed the waggon and pack-horse trail and before that the rutted tracks of buffalo and Indians. Running alongside it was a Western Union telegraph line which after its completion in the north of the country had been a successful aid for communication during the Civil War.
The two girls were up very early the next morning and this time it was Stanley Adams who was on duty and took them in a horse cab to the train, found the porter who would take care of them during the journey and escorted them to their seats in the first-class passenger car.
‘Good luck, Miss Dreumel, Miss Newmarch. I hope you have a good journey,’ Adams shouted as the engine got up a head of steam and the wheels began to roll. He stood and watched, his hand rising in farewell as the locomotive puffed and chuffed and rattled; thick black smoke issued from the funnel, the guard blew a whistle, there was a series of clanging bells and they were off.
Jewel and Clara sat back and made themselves comfortable, each heaving a gleeful expressive breath. Jewel was buoyant with optimism; at last she was on a journey which might provide her with the knowledge she craved, even though Sun Sen had expressed his doubts; Clara was still animated after what she thought of as a romantic interlude and wistfully remembering James Crawford’s words and his swift departure as he left her at the coach.
There were about a dozen other passengers of varying ages in their car and most appeared very pleasant, the ladies greeting them politely and the gentlemen touching their hats before removing them, unbuttoning their jackets and taking their seats. Once they were under way the porter came along and invited them to inspect their sleeping quarters, which were in a separate car.
‘Breakfast will be served in the dining car from eight o’clock,’ he told them. ‘There’s a small kitchen with facilities for you to make coffee or cook yourselves a meal.’
They must have looked astonished at this, as he added, ‘Some folks like to prepare their own food. Only breakfast is free; at any other time meals have to be paid for, or you can buy supplies from the station houses when we stop to collect coal and water.’
They inspected the beds, which were curtained for privacy, and each agreed that they seemed quite comfortable if a little claustrophobic, with only a minuscule washroom.
‘Oh, what fun!’ Clara declared. ‘Oh, Jewel, do let’s stay on the train. Let’s not break our journey.’
‘I agree,’ Jewel said. ‘But shall we ask the porter what he thinks?’
He took off his cap when they asked his advice and said, ‘I guess this is your first journey on the transcontinental?’
When they told him that it was, he said, ‘Well, young ladies, this is the finest railroad in America. On that famous day in May 1869 I was on the Union Pacific’s 119 when we rolled into Ogden. Proudest day of my life. A tale I shall tell my grandchildren, when the rails joined and made it possible to travel coast to coast. You know, some folks don’t like the Chinese,’ he went on, ‘but I always say that America wouldn’t be the same without them. My, but they sure know how to work. They blasted through granite and rock and took us right through the Sierra Nevada to make this journey possible. Don’t know of any other race that could do that.’ He took a breath. ‘’Cept maybe the Irish.’
When they managed to turn the conversation back to their original question he nodded and told them that they could break their journey, but that it would add several days to their travelling. ‘You’ll have to wait for the next connection,’ he said, ‘and you could be waiting in the middle of nowhere and what’s the point in that?’
They agreed that there was no point at all and decided that they would stay on board.
When they arrived in Ogden five days later, they knew that it had been an experience they could never have had in England. They had travelled through narrow rocky canyons which had been blasted out of granite mountain walls; gazed down from terrifying heights on gushing rivers as their carriage rattled over what seemed like flimsy iron bridges; and seen dry and dusty deserts.
From the train windows they had watched herds of wild buffalo roaming the plains; columns of Indians on horseback, platoons of soldiers not far behind; long caravans of covered waggons and trails of Mormons travelling towards Salt Lake City; remote settlements huddled on the banks of tributaries, and isolated rundown homesteads with scavenging dogs and thin cattle and waving children; a
nd always, as a backdrop, the towering lofty peaks of the sierras and soaring, wheeling buzzards in the vast sky.
They had enjoyed the company of their fellow passengers, played cards with them, sung songs with them and walked along the tracks when the train moved so slowly over high terrain that they got out to stretch their legs and reached the next station house before the locomotive did.
In station dining rooms everyone sat together at long wooden tables and was served meat and vegetables from huge cauldrons, with chunks of dry bread, and declared it to be the best food they had ever tasted.
Hats and bonnets were discarded and Jewel and Clara wore their hair loose down their backs; boots were taken off and slippers were worn, except when descending from the train.
Now, in Ogden, Utah, the home of the Mormons, they had a three-hour wait in blistering heat for the engines to be fuelled with coal and water and to give the drivers the chance to have a sleep before the final two-day leg through the Sierra Nevada mountains and into San Francisco. They took shelter in the station house and at their request were brought cold drinks and beef, and the men of the party drank beer.
Clara looked out of the window and saw the passengers from the second-class car getting off the train. She had glanced through the windows as she’d passed and noticed how ill equipped it was. The passengers were poorly dressed and many of the children amongst them were crying with tiredness. Poor things, she thought. What do they have for food and drink? None of them had come into the station houses so she could only assume that they had no money for food, but only ate what they had brought with them.
The sun was beating down and it must have been unbearable in the train. She took a long drink of lemonade, then put down her glass and went in search of the station-house mistress.
‘Could I have a jug of lemonade to take to the children?’ she asked. ‘Some of them look quite unwell.’