Mother Lode

by Carol Anita Sheldon

  “The Number 9 brought us down,” the men said.

  “Thomas Radcliff brought us down.”

  In the weeks that followed, Thomas talked less and less.

  One day Catherine said, “Have you heard anything from—”

  “No.”

  “Have you thought of . . . There are many other mines.”

  “Do you think anyone would hire me now? Read the newspapers, Catherine. Don’t you know what the wags are saying?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “`Radcliff Brings The Portage to its Knees’.”

  “Oh, Thomas!” her hand went to her mouth.

  The invitations to parties stopped. Thinking she had established a real friendship with Ada Whyte, she sent her a note asking her to come for tea on Friday next. She received a simple reply: “I regret I am unable to accept your hospitality at this time.”

  A quiet pall settled over the house. Never had she seen her husband like this. Sitting before the window with idle hands, he appeared to be crumbling before her eyes.

  “Couldn’t you find some other kind of work, Thomas?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Thomas, I’m talking to you!”

  His dull eyes turned from her. Realizing he wasn't likely to come out of it any time soon, Catherine decided she would have to pick up the baton.

  She held stock of her own, having inherited half of her father's estate after her mother's death. It was not limited to the Portage Mining Company; in fact most was with the giant of them all—the Calumet and Hecula. She would sell no more than necessary. Knowing little about such things she took a parcel of papers wrapped in black ribbon from an old hat box, and with a new resolve set off one day to see their attorney, Toby Wilson.

  Thomas’s applications for employment either went unanswered or were turned down. A swift and sure underground network between the mines ensured no one would take a chance on this upstart engineer, under whose tutelage the Portage had foundered. A long and melancholy winter followed.

  She had thought that in these difficult times, at least she and Thomas would have each other. But in addition to remaining distant from her during the day, he had not attempted to make love since that awful time when his dreams had collapsed. She decided it was up to her to restore his manhood.

  “Thomas,” she began that night. “I miss you touching me, this long time.”

  When nothing happened, she bent her face to him and kissed him.

  “Please try.”

  For a few moments he did. Then, “It’s no use.” He pushed her away gently. “Not now.”

  Catherine lay on her own side of the bed once more, cold and rejected. But she was not to be so easily defeated, and noting the ill effects this involuntary abstinence had on her temperament, she persisted. Two or three times a week she tried to entice him with schemes she’d had no need of before. One night she sat naked at her dressing table while brushing her long auburn hair. She climbed into bed this way, although she was not in the habit of sleeping unclad except on those rare hot summer nights.

  “Put your nightgown on, woman. You’ll catch your death of cold.”

  “I thought you might keep me warm,” she said, snuggling up to him. But he ignored her.

  Still another time, as he lay on his stomach, she straddled him and started massaging his shoulders.

  Thomas groaned. “Don’t, Catherine.”

  “It will help relax you. Please don’t make me stop,” she said, continuing her long strokes down his back. And as she reached his waist, she slid her little body down his legs, so she could rub his buttocks.

  “Where did you learn to do that?” he muttered as she continued her ministrations.

  “Daddy.”

  He turned over abruptly, throwing his rider.

  “Explain that!”

  “I was very young. He taught me how to massage his neck, how to find the muscles that were in knots. He’d sit in the chair, and I’d stand behind him. He said my fingers were so tiny they felt like the work of little elves.”

  “Oh.”

  About a mile east of the Portage lay the Keweenaw Mining Company. In March, its agent, Burton Haversay, attended a conference in Chicago, in which the advantages of using mining engineers were outlined. Trained in ore extraction and processing, these men could save their companies needless waste. Their superior knowledge of the latest equipment, their in-depth study of geology and the technology needed to safely explore the deeper regions of the earth’s crust were all laid out in a convincing manner.

  Burton Haversay considered his mine up-and-coming. He decided what he’d learned about the advantages of using trained engineers outweighed the unfortunate circumstances at the Portage. When he returned from Chicago he hired Thomas Radcliff as chief engineer of the Keweenaw Mining Company.

  Thomas arrived home each day, touting the merits of the company he was working for. It was clear that he enjoyed being appreciated again, and even began going out in public.

  Catherine was grateful for the comfort their new circumstances provided. But she found it difficult to surrender to Thomas’ will. Having had a taste of power, of being head of the household in function if not name, she had discovered this was natural to her. She chafed when she was expected to defer to her husband, who had again claimed the throne.

  On warm Sundays he would say, “Catherine, come take a stroll with me this afternoon.” But she preferred to go to the cemetery to write. It was the closest thing to a park, possessing lovely trees and shady spots for contemplation. The subject of these walks came up every week.

  “Thomas, I’ve gone with you the last three Sundays. I wish to have some time to myself today.”

  “As long as the weather holds, I believe your duty is to be seen with me.”

  “Must we put on a parade each week?”

  "Our friends in town, the Whytes—”

  “Friends? Ada would have nothing to do with me when you were out of work.”

  “You should be thankful for her amity now.”

  “I don’t care what she thinks!”

  “Do you care what I think? I don’t understand you. Victoria was so reasonable, so . . .”

  “Obedient?”

  “Yes. Is that such a bad thing? You took vows, Catherine—”

  “I was seventeen! I am twenty-four now. I have always been willing to listen to reason, when that is what you proffered, Thomas, but no man will instruct me in my duties, or tell me what to believe.”

  She took Jorie to the cemetery to write.

  When she returned home, Thomas said, “I’ve hired a man to paint the exterior of the house next week.” As she sat at her dressing table taking the pins from of her long hair and shaking it out, Thomas said, “Give me the brush.”

  Catherine, seated before the mirror, could see him behind her, could feel the anger. Fear and excitement arose in her. She handed it to him and he began the old ritual of brushing her hair. But tonight there was no tenderness in his touch. His strokes were fast and hard. She offered no resistance, bit her lip in silence as he yanked at the snarls.

  When he finished he said, “Get into bed.”

  This too she did without protest, discovering that her wanton body answered his mandate against her will. Familiar responses rose in her legs, flowed into her groin.

  In the morning Catherine mused on how much easier everything would be if she could be as compliant out of the bedroom as she was in it. But this state was so contrary to her feelings the rest of the time, it confused her.

  As the weeks went on, matters did not improve. The strain between them was palpable and the attention little, save for the animal passions they played out at night in muted moans. Catherine often thought it was anger, not love, that kindled Thomas’ fire, and some dark part of herself that enjoyed these hedonistic scenes with him.

  She noticed that whereas at one time her husband’s authority had come naturally and without question to him, now it was an ephemeral state, ever req
uiring shoring up.

  “Catherine Dear, don’t scrape your chair across the floor when you leave the table.”

  After a few attempts at false apologies, she decided she would not succumb to this new demeaning status. She tried ignoring him, but he only brought it up again.

  “Thomas,” she reminded him one evening, “you never found it necessary to school me in the first years of our marriage.”

  “In that case, my dear, I was remiss in my duties.”

  “My God, you are pompous!” she retorted.

  “You would do well to govern your tongue.”

  “I will not!”

  “I think you had best retire to your room.”

  “I’ll retire when I choose and not a moment before!”

  “Then I shall disassociate myself from your society.” He left her alone at the table.

  Chapter 13

  Restless and discontent, Catherine put her hand to writing verse again. She sent some of her poems as far away as New York City and Boston, but she had nothing to show for them but a box of rejection notices.

  Thomas took less and less interest in the family. When he did talk to her it was all about his work: No one was hiring the Poles, this shaft was closing, that one got flooded in the spring run-off, six men were injured in an explosion last week. But the Keweenaw had outproduced the other mines this year— even the mighty Calumet-Hecula.

  Since his older sons’ interests followed his own, they shared their father’s life now. Once it was to her that he would pour out his hopes and fears. It was with her he shared his dream of discovering the lode that would make the whole copper country prosperous, and his family in particular. Now he seemed not to need her; she had become a fixture in his life.

  In some ways Catherine realized she wanted no more from him than he from her, but she wanted to be wanted, needed by him. She did not fail to see this paradox. Perhaps her imagination did not serve her so well after all. Why couldn’t she rein in her desire for love, for physical intimacy? What business had it hanging around like a ghost to haunt and taunt her when there was no prospect for fulfillment? She wished she could find contentment in just raising her child as she supposed other women did.

  Catherine recognized a melancholy in herself she knew she had to fight with all her strength, or it would sweep her under. If only Desdemona were still alive. The beautiful mare her father had given her had helped to release some of her pent up feelings. Riding took her out of herself, left her dark demons behind, while she expressed a wildness, an uncensored energy no amount of domestication could tame. She knew that later the demons would find her out, but for the moment she had fashioned a fragile truce with them, allowing her to step out of time and place and lose herself in a world apart.

  “Thomas, I want to buy a horse.” As he stared at her she added, “I hope you won’t fight me on this.”

  She named the beautiful roan-colored gelding Falstaff. Every day his soft welcoming neigh greeted Catherine in the stable.

  One day she took the path up the hill toward the mine and across the fields to the west. New buildings were going up every day, and one of them was the library.

  With Jorie in school, Catherine started attending regularly. She’d pore over volumes of poetry and novels, sometimes checking the books out, but often staying at the library to read. In the pleasant surroundings of this new hideaway which held no threat of unwanted intrusion, she could lose herself vicariously in the lives of others.

  It was here that she met Chester. Over a period of weeks, nods and smiles were exchanged for walks on the adjoining grounds. Not long after that, they started taking rides across the hills behind the town. She discovered he had been sent there to survey land for the government, and he was single.

  She noticed his tanned skin and healthy appearance. She gauged his age to be about thirty-five.

  “Are you here to stay?”

  “No, when I finish this job, I’ll be sent somewhere else.” He shrugged, smiled down at her.

  “You’re fortunate to be able to work above ground.”

  “And what does your husband do, if I may ask?”

  She hadn’t told him she was married, but she supposed her ring gave her away.

  “He’s chief engineer for the Keweenaw Mining Company.”

  On another day she asked, “How is it that with your work, you have time to come to the library during the daytime?”

  “The first time you saw me was a Saturday, if you recall. After that, I rearranged my hours. Shall I confess to you that I am now at the site by dawn, taking advantage of the early daylight, and have done a day’s work by two or three o’clock?”

  His openness touched her. She felt a prickly heat creep up her neck, for surely he’d told her that she was important enough to re-arrange his whole schedule!

  “I don’t mind telling you I am enjoying your company. I haven’t been with young women for some time now.”

  Young! He thought her still young! Well, she was, after all, only twenty-six.

  “But this town has its share of young women.”

  “I don’t know how to meet them, and I don’t care for the company of ‘ladies of the night’.”

  “Do you have a sweetheart back east?”

  “Not any more. She got tired of my taking off across the country, and married someone else.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I doubt if I was ready for marriage five years ago.”

  He asked her if she liked to bathe.

  “If you mean swimming, I haven’t been since I was a child.”

  “Would you like to — at the lake?”

  “It’s much too cold. It’s barely June.”

  “There’s a very small lake on the way to Dollar Bay. It’s not so cold.”

  She promised to consider it.

  “Mummy, you’re so happy,” Jorie said as they were reading a story that evening.

  She hugged him. “Yes, Darling, I am. And with a bright boy like you, why wouldn’t I be?”

  But she could hardly focus on what he was telling her.

  “On the twentieth, Mummy. I can’t wait.”

  “What’s on the twentieth, Dear?”

  “School’s out.”

  School’s out! She hadn’t thought about that. Well, thank God for Helena.

  “We’ll have the whole summer together, Mummy. Just you and me.”

  “Yes, Dear.”

  On a warm day in July they met at the library and rode silently toward Dollar Bay. When they reached the shore, her heart was pounding more than ever as they dismounted and tied the horses to a tree. She’d worn the bathing outfit under her riding clothes, but still could not imagine disrobing in front of this man.

  He saved her the problem by disappearing for a short time. Catherine quickly removed her outer clothes, and went toward the water. She wanted to go as far out as she dared, to avoid the embarrassment of his seeing her in this costume.

  She turned and saw him coming toward her, crashing into the water as wildly as a horse. He dove under and came up beside her, shaking his head vigorously to get his hair out of his face. She burst out laughing.

  “I’m not that funny, am I?”

  “No,” she tried to stop laughing. “It’s just, I’ve never seen you this way before.”

  Through the top of his suit, she could see his nipples, and suddenly wondered if he could see hers. Well, no, the top of her outfit was loose and blousy, thank heavens.

  “Can you swim?

  “No. It was not a popular pastime in Scotland, and I daresay not here either. I doubt anyone swims in Lake Superior. Even Portage Lake is very cold, I’m told.”

  She moved her arms back and forth through the water for something to do.

  “I would tell you that I was the swimming champion in school, but that would be bragging,” he said.

  “All right, then, don’t tell me, and you won’t have that on your conscience!”

  “Oh, I’ve much worse things on my
conscience.”

  He swam in a circle around her for awhile before coming back to her.

  When she started shivering he spread a blanket on the ground in the sun. She told him about her son, how bright and inquisitive he was. Chester said he’d like to meet him sometime.

  When it was time for her to go he said, “Next time I’ll teach you to swim, Katie. . .Do you mind if I call you Katie?”

  Katie. Only her father had called her that. It felt strange hearing it from this man she barely knew. She wasn’t quite sure she wanted to share it with anyone else, but she found herself nodding.