Homecoming Girls

by Val Wood

  ‘I do, sir,’ Dan said earnestly. ‘Though I’ll want to go home to see my ma and da at some time and tell them all about this place, and about Caitlin too!’

  ‘Oh!’ Caitlin took Ted’s arm. ‘And I’d be able to go with him!’ she said. ‘I’d love to do that. To go to England and see where you and Ma came from.’

  Ted glanced at Kitty. ‘It’s nothing like here,’ he said. ‘That was a different life.’

  ‘It still is, Mr Allen,’ Dan told him. ‘You made ’right decision when you travelled to America. Some things don’t change. There are more opportunities for folk here than there’ll ever be in England.’

  ‘Mebbe so,’ Ted agreed. ‘But it doesn’t mean to say that it’s an easy life. You get nowhere without working hard and there’s as much poverty in America as there is in England. I saw it for myself when I first came.’ He pursed his mouth. ‘I realize now that without Edward Newmarch, Jewel’s father, I might not have made it. But that’s another story. I’ll give it some thought.’ He shook his head. ‘Can’t think of my little girl getting wed.’

  Caitlin reached up and kissed his cheek. ‘I’ll always be your little girl, Pa, no matter how old I am.’ He grinned and pushed her away.

  Jewel and Clara walked with Georgiana every day along the side of the creek so that she might take her daily exercise, and then in the afternoon she went to her room for a rest, although she strongly objected, saying that she wasn’t an invalid and that childbirth was as natural as breathing.

  ‘But you know that it’s Papa who insists,’Jewel said, to which Georgiana laughed and said that she knew that it was a conspiracy between the three of them.

  ‘I’m so pleased that you’re here to take care of Georgiana,’ Wilhelm said to them both. ‘It means that I can concentrate at this very critical time on making sure all the early planning is in place at Yeller. We want to make it a city to be proud of.’

  ‘I hope the new Yeller won’t have very tall buildings like those in Sacramento or New York, Uncle Wilhelm,’ Clara said. ‘It won’t seem right somehow, not in the middle of the mountains.’

  ‘My view entirely,’ Wilhelm agreed. ‘We want a modern city, of course, and to be progressive, but in my opinion sky-high buildings would spoil the very nature of Yeller. It is after all a mountain valley and we want to attract people here who will appreciate its beauty.’ He paused. ‘New Yeller, you said. That’s a good name, Clara. I might put that to the committee. I think it will appeal; show the difference between the new and what went before.’

  Clara was thrilled to think she had contributed to the project with her chance remark, but she hoped that the planning business wouldn’t take too long. Wilhelm had insisted that he would make the journey back to England with her, but that he couldn’t go until the planning was concluded.

  No matter that she had said she could travel alone if he would take her as far as New York, and although Georgiana had looked at him wryly and shaken her head, he would brook no argument and said that in any case he had things to arrange in England.

  ‘You realize, don’t you,’ Georgiana said to Jewel and Clara one evening, as they sat in the small sitting room at the rear of the hotel which had been designated as their own private place, ‘that even after the birth we might not return to England for quite some time.’ She glanced from one to the other. ‘I don’t think that I can drag Wilhelm away from his beloved mountains.’ She paused for a moment and then added, ‘And I’m not sure that I want to. We both want our child to be brought up here.’

  ‘I know, Mama,’Jewel said. ‘I’ve thought that ever since you told me you were expecting a child. And Papa only stayed in England because of me; because of my father’s family.’

  ‘I didn’t know that!’ Clara exclaimed.

  ‘It’s true,’ Georgiana said. ‘When I brought Jewel to England we were very torn as to where she should be brought up, and we decided that it should be in England. Your grandmother welcomed her, as did your father and mother, and then her cousins, you and Elizabeth. You were her family more than I was back then.’ She smiled. ‘We’ve no regrets about that, none; but now it’s time for Wilhelm to come home.’

  ‘But what about you, Aunt Gianna?’ Clara asked. ‘What do you want?’

  Georgiana hesitated for only a moment. ‘I shall miss everyone in England, of course, and by that I mean you and your sister and your parents, but I want to stay.’

  ‘Jewel?’ Clara questioned.

  ‘It’s odd,’ Jewel said, ‘but when I began to consider that I’d like to come to America to uncover the facts of my birth, I hadn’t given thought to what I would do if I discovered nothing, or if by chance all the circumstances were revealed. I didn’t anticipate that my life might change because of either situation.’

  She hesitated. ‘But it has, and I realize now that there is no going back to how things were, but only forward.’ She gazed wistfully at Clara, and said softly, ‘And so, my dearest friend and cousin, I too will stay.’

  Ted relented and said that Caitlin and Dan could consider a courtship. It was Caitlin who did the persuading, but Kitty also told him that she knew their daughter had been attracted to Dan from the moment she’d met him. ‘She’s so contrary,’ she said. ‘I knew by her offhand manner with him that there was a spark there.’

  ‘It needs more than a spark to start a fire,’ he’d grumbled.

  ‘But we don’t want a conflagration,’ she’d warned. ‘Not afore they’re wed.’

  But Caitlin was impatient. She wanted Dan to build them their own little house in the new town and wandered around the valley looking for the best sites before they were all snatched up. Dan soon caught her enthusiasm, though tempered by the fact that he had no money.

  ‘Not enough to build a house,’ he explained. ‘I need to get on my feet first.’

  She’d pouted at that and then cajoled her father. ‘It makes sense,’ she said, ‘to buy a site now, even if we don’t build on it straight away.’ And Ted’s instincts told him that his self-willed daughter was also level-headed, just like her mother, and was probably right.

  ‘All right,’ he agreed. ‘The pair of you look for a site, which I’ll want to approve,’ he warned them, ‘and I’ll loan the money to Dan until such time as he can earn enough to pay me back.’

  Dan demurred. ‘My da allus told me neither a lender nor a borrower be,’ he said. ‘And I never have been.’ He’d scratched his stubble. ‘Reckon I’ll have to think on that afore I tek up your offer, Mr Allen.’

  On which, Ted Allen, mighty pleased with his circumspect response and with some prompting from Kitty, decided that a gift of land would be a suitable wedding present, now that without his actually realizing it he appeared to have given his consent.

  Another week went by and then another. Clara was becoming more and more restless. There had been a slight scattering of snow, the air was fresher and cooler and fires were built up for the darker evenings. Householders were beginning to bring out their warmer shawls and winter bedding; Georgiana wrapped herself up in furs and sat on the hotel porch watching the people of Dreumel walk by.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said to Clara. ‘I know that you want to be going home. I’ll do my best to persuade Wilhelm that the matter is pressing and you need to be on your journey before the weather closes in.’

  ‘I don’t like to bother him,’ Clara said. ‘I know how important this project is to him; if only he would agree that I’m perfectly able to travel alone.’

  Georgiana shook her head. ‘He won’t,’ she said wryly. ‘He knows how anxious your father would be if you were travelling by yourself.’ She mentioned the problem to Kitty during their conversations. Kitty’s hotel was quiet because of the fire and the subsequent building work in Yeller, so she came most days to chat with her friend.

  Caitlin had asked Clara if she was going to stay until the spring. ‘You could be a bridesmaid,’ she said eagerly. ‘And I want Jewel too.’

  Clara replied that although she
would be sorry to miss Caitlin and Dan’s wedding, above all else she wanted to go home to be with her twin sister, who, she told her, was expecting a child.

  ‘Oh, of course you must go,’ Caitlin exclaimed and promptly told Dan, who came to see Clara to proclaim his enthusiasm at the news.

  ‘Elizabeth going to be a mother!’ he declared. ‘If onny Caitlin and I were already wed, I’d be happy for us to escort you. Caitlin longs to see our home town. But it’s a question o’ money. Work is slowing down; Jason says it allus does this time of year. Everybody finishes off all ’big projects afore ’winter sets in and then do all ’indoor jobs. Da and Thomas and me allus had plenty of work over ’winter. That’s when we did all our big orders. Rocking horses and dolls’ houses, trains and waggons and furniture for ’bairns. All that sort o’ thing.’

  Caitlin laughed. ‘You sound just like my ma and pa. Bairns,’ she mimicked, and then said, ‘You could do that here. We don’t have a toy store in Yeller or Dreumel.’

  Dan had told her about the toyshop in the Land of Green Ginger and she was enchanted by the name, not really believing it until her mother had confirmed that it was true.

  He looked at her and she gazed back at him. ‘Why not?’ she gasped. ‘Why not? A winter project! And I could run a store, just like your ma.’

  He stared at her. ‘Thomas is ’one with ideas,’ he said. ‘I’m not much good with design but I can follow his plans. He’s a wizard is our Thomas. He’s got such an eye for detail.’

  ‘He has,’ Clara agreed. ‘Years ago he made me a small wooden box for my birthday and carved such an intricate design on the lid.’ She fell silent with her thoughts. How I long to see him again.

  Caitlin and Dan were still arguing. He was telling her that special tools were needed for toymaking.

  ‘You can’t use ’same tools for toys as you would for building a house,’ he said. ‘We’ve allus used Hirsch chisels and planes; they’re made in Germany and ’best you can buy. I’d need a whole selection of them. It’s not possible just to tek a piece o’ wood and start carving without ’right equipment.’

  ‘Well, we can get them,’ Caitlin said eagerly. ‘There’ll be tool catalogues.’

  He caught hold of her hand. ‘Course there are; but money!’ he said. ‘You can do nowt without money.’

  ‘I’ll ask my Pa,’ she said eagerly.

  ‘No!’ Dan was adamant. ‘I’ve been under my own da’s rule. I want to be my own boss and I’ll not go running to your pa every time you want summat.’

  Clara remained silent. Dan was right. He had to make his own decisions about his and Caitlin’s future. Caitlin was obviously used to twisting her father round her little finger for all that she wanted. Dan, she was sure, would be quite different.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  ‘I’m sorry, Caitlin,’ Dan said. ‘But that’s ’way it is.’

  He and Caitlin had come out of church on Sunday morning; Caitlin wanted him to meet the parson who would marry them when the day was set. Dan was uncomfortable about it; he’d never been much of a churchgoer, but when he went inside the simple wooden church in Dreumel’s Creek he hadn’t felt overawed. But he was amazed when the parson turned towards them and he realized he had met him before. Jason had taken Dan into the timber yard and introduced him to a man called Mark, only a few years older than he was. Mark had been sawing a length of timber which he said he needed for a pillar. The timber pillar was now one of two on the church porch.

  ‘I’d expected him to be a parsimonious old preacher,’ Dan exclaimed, at which Caitlin had laughed and asked why would that be. They needed young blood in the town. The parson had only recently arrived in Dreumel’s Creek and had a wife and children.

  Dan and Caitlin had walked by the creek into Yeller and begun the climb up the mountainside to see the town from on high. Except that there wasn’t much to see at the moment, only piles of timber, some blackened from the fire, and plots staked out where houses once were and would be again.

  Dan was sweating, not because the weather was warm, for it wasn’t – the air was crisp and sharp up here – but because he wasn’t used to walking up hills. Hull was in one of the flattest parts of England, he told Caitlin, but he was also hot and bothered as she had once again asked why they couldn’t borrow the money from her father and take a trip to England. He was fast coming to realize that his parents’ teaching of thriftiness had bred caution into him.

  ‘It’s ’way I was brought up,’ he said. ‘You don’t spend what you haven’t got. And right now I’ve got hardly owt.’

  Which wasn’t quite true, since he still had the money his father had given him, but he regarded that as emergency money.

  ‘Phew,’ he groaned. ‘I’ll have to sit down, I’m jiggered.’

  He dropped on to the rocky ground and stretched out, heaving out a breath. ‘I can’t believe we’ve climbed so high.’ Then he sat up again to survey the view and saw the dips and humps and blackened crags where men had once sunk shafts and blasted rock in their search for gold. Caitlin sat beside him. ‘This is ’highest I’ve ever been.’

  ‘Never,’ she said. ‘We’re not even halfway up. Next time we’ll come on horseback.’

  He glanced about him at the rugged outcrop and the rough uneven track they had ascended and then the towering mountain behind. ‘No. I think I’d feel safer on my own two feet.’

  She gave him a little push. ‘You’re just a city feller,’ she scoffed.

  ‘I am,’ he agreed. ‘Was! I could get used to this place, though.’ He nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yeh. I really could. It’s grand.’ This was praise indeed from a taciturn Yorkshireman not inclined to compliments or pretty phrases. ‘We could build up here,’ he murmured, ‘and see this view every day, though it’d be a long hike down to work.’

  Caitlin leaned towards him. ‘Give me a kiss, Dan, and don’t talk so much.’

  He put his arm round her, pulling her towards him and kissing her gently on the mouth.

  She fingered his shirt buttons and began to undo them, running her fingers inside and on to his chest.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, catching hold of her hand. ‘Cheeky! Don’t get me going.’ He kissed her again and breathed softly into her ear. ‘Or it might be a shotgun wedding.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind,’ she whispered. ‘Then Pa would have to let us get married now rather than wait until spring. Anyway,’ she giggled, ‘Ma was expecting me when they got wed.’

  Dan drew away. ‘How do you know?’

  Caitlin laughed and snuggled into his shoulder. ‘I worked it out.’

  He patted her gently on the nose. ‘You are a very naughty girl.’ He looked down at her. ‘I hope you haven’t been practising all these naughty things with anyone else?’

  She drew herself up and away from him. ‘No, I haven’t. I’ve been waiting for someone special to come along.’ She glanced down at him from under her lashes in a provocative way. ‘And then you did.’

  He laughed and grabbed her. ‘Then don’t tease,’ he said. ‘Or I might not be able to wait either.’ He jumped to his feet and stretched, looking around him. ‘I’m thirsty. We should have brought some water.’

  Caitlin stretched out and put her hands behind her head. ‘Plenty of water up here; can’t you hear it?’

  Dan cocked his head to one side and listened. ‘Yeh! Is it a stream?’

  ‘Sure it is,’ she said. ‘How do you think the creek gets filled? The water runs down the mountainside.’

  ‘Not all of it, surely,’ Dan said. ‘There’ll be a source somewhere higher than here.’

  ‘My pa says that the headwaters come from pack ice, probably from thousands of miles away. And every mountain stream contributes to the rivers and creeks and lakes. After the winter snow melts, the streams are fast-flowing and the creek becomes really full.’

  ‘So we couldn’t build up here,’ he said. ‘We’d get washed away.’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Or crushed by an avalanche.’
r />   ‘So why doesn’t the town get washed away?

  She pointed up the mountain to the banks of pines which covered the rock. ‘The trees,’ she said. ‘When Dreumel’s Creek was being built, some of the city men cut down the trees for timber and they cut too many, not realizing that the trees would protect them, and there was a flood the following winter. Now there’s some kind of law in Dreumel and Yeller that the trees can only be thinned and not cut down at random.’

  Dan nodded. I’ve a lot to learn, he thought as he wandered over to the nearest trickling stream to take a drink from the icy water. He hunched down and ran his hands through it to cool them and scraped the gravel at the bottom. Imagine the excitement of finding gold, he thought, recalling what Jason had told him, of how Wilhelm and Ted Allen were on the point of giving up searching for gold in this second valley; they had found some but not much and many miners had left. Then one day as Jason was wandering along the side of the creek he saw something glinting in the water. It was gold washed down into the creek. They’d blasted deeper into the bedrock, and Jason had had a grin on his face as he told him, ‘We had a lucky strike. We hit the lead!’

  The gravel glinted as Dan ran it through his fingers. How did they tell, he wondered? How did they know it was gold? I suppose they’d seen some; enough to know, anyway. He held a handful of gravel in his palm. I wouldn’t know; this could be gold. It’s shining like gold anyway, and there’s a seam on this lump of rock that’s glinting.

  ‘Hey, Caitlin,’ he called. ‘I’ve found gold!’

  ‘Oh yeah? Tell me another!’ She turned over towards him and lay with her head propped on her elbow.

  He went over to her with the cube of rock in his hand. ‘What’s that, then?’

  She took it from him and turned it over. She shook her head. ‘Don’t know. They’ve always said that the seam was played out up here. But who knows? It might be.’ She smiled at him. ‘If it is we could go to England after all.’

  He gave a deep sigh. ‘You don’t give up, do you?’