The Spoils of Sin Page 8

  Everywhere there was plain evidence of the arrival of many thousands of white migrants, with their habits of dominance over nature in all its forms. Fields were marked out with fences and quickly-growing hedges. Acres of fruit trees had been planted on gentle hillsides. Forest had been cleared, leaving small patches of woodland for aesthetic purposes, Fanny supposed. They would also break the wind, perhaps, which could be strong enough to damage new crops. It came from the west or northwest, finding the gaps in the mountains. Buildings were visible at almost every point of their journey. Barns, stables and linheys to shelter cattle outnumbered human homes. Hugo chased after occasional wild creatures, in short bursts, never catching anything. The horse trotted steadily along, sure-footed and willing, the dog effortlessly keeping pace, evidently enjoying the change of routine.

  Here and there people were working the fields, using horses in most instances. ‘I have just realised what’s so odd,’ said Carola. ‘All these workers are white-skinned. Where I come from, they would be of a far darker colour.’

  ‘Slaves,’ nodded Fanny. She had heard her share of horror stories as to the treatment of the human cattle in the southern states. ‘You are well rid of that way of life.’

  ‘It will never change, you know.’ Carola spoke thoughtfully. ‘It is woven into the very fabric of the plantations themselves. And my father always said that freedom can be very over-rated.’ She gave a short laugh. ‘Most of us have little idea how to use it when we have it.’

  ‘The people working in these fields would perhaps say they can at least keep the product of their labours. Or at least the proceeds from the sale of it.’

  Carola sighed. ‘It is not a debate I am eager to engage in. We are both imbued with ideas gained in infancy and therefore deep in our bones. Tell me more about your sisters, instead. I forget the name of the littlest one.’

  ‘Nam, we call her. She is officially Naomi. My father was tired of daughters by the time she arrived, and so he has always treated her more as a boy. She is slim and agile as a monkey. She makes friends easily.’ Fanny paused, unable to provide any further detail. ‘The dog Melchior mistakenly bit her hand, one time. I told you about Melchior, I think.’

  ‘You did. And the others? Lizzie and Charity. And your brother? Tell me everything. We have several hours yet to travel.’

  ‘The horse will need to rest soon. We might think of stopping at that copse up ahead.’

  ‘Fanny Collins, I believe you have forgotten everything about your family. Why else so loathe to inform me of their characters?’

  ‘I am not loath. Nor have I forgotten. But it is a close to a year since I saw them. Most likely much has changed in that time. Besides, you met them more than once yourself. Why ask me so intently, when you must recall Reuben and Lizzie well enough?’

  ‘I seldom exchanged more than a word or two with them. I know little of their natures.’

  Fanny examined her inner workings, wondering whether Carola might have good reason to draw remembered details from her. The truth appeared to be that she had no desire to contemplate her relatives in advance of meeting them again. It brought about a tightness in her chest, which was akin to apprehension. Whether or not they had changed, she undoubtedly had. Could Carola perhaps see that for herself and understand the consequences?

  They drew up on the edge of the copse, and let the horse feed on the spring grass that was only just appearing. Their own nooning was brief and insubstantial. A slice or two of cold meat with bread and pickles, followed by beer, was enough to satisfy them for a while. ‘It puts me in mind of the Trail,’ said Fanny. ‘All the families had their own dutch oven, full of meat stew, dumplings and potatoes. It was the same, day after day. By the end, we were almost mad with the tedium of it.’

  ‘Indeed, I remember it only too well,’ agreed Carola. ‘Meat cooked on an open fire, supplied by our hunter menfolk, killing buffalo and elk. Such romance!’

  Her ironic tone made Fanny laugh. ‘More often turkey and pigeon, or one of our own steers. Precious few of our men were capable of hunting. Most of them never fired a gun in their lives. There was one who killed his own boy when the firearm discharged by mistake.’

  The reminiscences continued, the girls exchanging anecdotes from their long trek. In neither case had there been any real disasters. A few old people had died. There were accidents that had almost always been the result of folly or ignorance. The food had become unbearably monotonous. One of Carola’s brothers had almost drowned at a river crossing. As they talked, Fanny found herself relaxing somewhat, until she began to look forward to seeing her parents again. ‘My father is a real Irishman. Singing, joking, always seeing the brighter side of things. He has a good heart.’

  ‘My father too. He treats the workers well, I think. He is fond of his food and drink, and fine clothes. The horses are the best in the county. He has an excellent eye for a good breeder.’

  ‘Will you ever see him again?’

  ‘Who can say? It seems unlikely. But my brothers are very much closer at hand.’

  Fanny had almost forgotten her friend’s brothers, so seldom did she mention them. Their fate as they settled into Oregon ways was unknown. ‘We could maybe visit them sometime?’ she suggested.

  Carola shuddered. ‘I think not. Their views on the behaviour of women would ensure that I was lynched like a runaway slave if they ever learned of my activities. I must warn you, Fanny, that if I suddenly bolt into the trees or behind the nearest rock, it is because I have caught sight of one of the Beaumont boys, and am running for my life.’

  Fanny laughed, but there was something altogether sad in her friend’s words.

  It would be necessary to break their journey for the night, for which they had made only the vaguest plans. ‘We can fashion a shelter under a tree,’ said Fanny, ‘if no-one will offer us a bed,’ and had added a canvas sheet to the contents of the trap.

  But in the event it turned wet towards the end of the day, and neither girl felt equal to a night in the open with nothing but a sheet to keep them dry. ‘We must beg hospitality from a homesteader,’ said Carola. She seemed entirely comfortable with the proposition that two young women and a large dog might find accommodation with strangers selected at random along the way.

  Fanny was less inclined to adopt the idea. ‘How would we explain ourselves?’ she wondered. ‘Travelling unchaperoned, as we are.’

  ‘We are returning to our family after a visit to the city. Perhaps we have a dying grandmother. Or perhaps nobody but the two of us has survived cholera and we are orphaned and seeking new lives. Or it might be…’

  ‘Stop!’ laughed Fanny. ‘We are sisters, then? With such different accents and appearance?’

  ‘Cousins. Stepsisters. One of us is adopted.’ Carola’s eyes twinkled. ‘Let your imagination run free,’ she urged. ‘We shall become whatever we can invent for ourselves.’

  Fanny smiled doubtfully. ‘We tell them anything but the truth – is that it?’

  ‘Exactly so.’

  Two miles further on the horse was entirely willing to turn off the road and head for a low wooden building set back amongst trees. Hugo loped ahead, until Fanny whistled him back. ‘Might alarm the people,’ she told him with a smile.

  She need not have worried. A woman was already waiting in the doorway as they approached. Of middle height and perhaps forty years in age, she had pale hair pulled back from her face and a shrewd expression. Before Fanny or Carola could climb down from their vehicle, she was fondling Hugo’s ears as if she’d always known him.

  ‘Good day, ladies,’ she said calmly, her accent a pure unsullied English that Fanny had not heard since leaving Rhode Island. ‘Jeremy!’ she called over her shoulder. ‘We have company.’

  The two girls stood a short distance from her, uncertain of their next move. After half a minute or so, a man in shirt sleeves appeared, standing behind his woman. Clean-shaven, with a high balding brow and a long nose above a small receding chin, he was an odd-lo
oking character. ‘Welcome,’ he said in the same accent.

  ‘We are Jeremy and Matilda Hastings,’ said the woman. ‘From Buckinghamshire, England.’ She raised one eyebrow in clear invitation.

  ‘Oh – I am Fanny Collins, and this is Carola Beaumont. We have come from Chemeketa. This is Hugo,’ she added. ‘He is very gentle.’

  ‘So I see. I am inordinately fond of dogs of every sort,’ said Matilda Hastings. She spoke carelessly, as if her thoughts were on some other track altogether. ‘Are we to understand that you seek a bed for the night?’

  ‘If you would be so very kind,’ said Carola, nudging forward. ‘It is a great imposition.’

  The woman laughed. ‘But out here in the wilderness, such impositions have become quite usual. Until enough men of enterprise find their way here, and build inns and hotels and suchlike, travellers are forced to throw themselves on ordinary homesteaders. It is a regular occurrence. Since coming here two years ago, we have accommodated no fewer than eight. But it must be admitted that not one of them has been a female person.’

  ‘Did you come in a wagon train?’ Fanny asked.

  Matilda shook her head, and flung her arms wide. ‘Time enough for such exchanges when we have you settled. There is scarcely an hour of daylight remaining, and we must seize it while we can. Our resources do not permit very much lamplight, and I have a horror of naked candle flame.’

  The man Jeremy patted her shoulder and went towards the horse. ‘Let me take him into the barn and find some oats,’ he said. ‘I can promise him a comfortable night.’

  The barn was a building somewhat larger than the house, with a wide door and a loft opening above. A new-looking plough stood outside it, with a four-wheeled wagon not far off. ‘How many acres have you here?’ asked Fanny.

  ‘The same number as all the settlers,’ said the man, as if the question were a foolish one. ‘Many more than two people can readily work unaided. We are still wondering where to start.’ He rubbed his sparse-covered head ruefully. ‘The agricultural life does not come easily to us. All we can think of is to plant orchards. There is a great need for livestock, but cattle and sheep are almost impossible to obtain.’

  Inside, the house was a great surprise. Divided into three rooms, the largest was a living room boasting an iron stove and a whole wall of books on sturdy shelves. A large chart occupied half of another wall, depicting a hairless skull divided into sections. The smallest room contained a bed and a washstand and very little else. ‘You can sleep in here,’ said Matilda.

  ‘It’s wonderful!’ gasped Fanny.

  Matilda seemed puzzled. ‘In what way? Did you expect a hovel, with nothing but a few wolf skins on the dirt floor?’

  Fanny hesitated, not knowing what to reply. It struck her that she had entertained no notions of how these people lived, as she and Carola had driven up to the house. Chemeketa was developing into a town with recognisable facilities and institutions – but those who chose to live in isolation, scattered along a little-used track that could scarcely be termed a road, were entirely mysterious to her. The enormity of creating a settlement with all its various needs and procedures, still defied her understanding. ‘How did the books get here?’ she asked.

  ‘In a very large and very strong trunk,’ said the woman. ‘It now stands empty at the back of the barn.’

  ‘So you came here by ship,’ Carola said.

  ‘We came here by ship, indeed. Down the endless coast to the cold southern tip of the continent, and then slowly northwards on the western side. It took eleven long months to bring us here from Boston.’ Matilda shuddered. ‘A barbarous business it was too.’

  Fanny thought of her own long migration by land, walking with her family alongside a laden wagon, and considered herself fortunate. Then she recalled a young man named Henry and his regret at not being permitted to bring a chest full of books on the journey. ‘We had to carry our own provisions,’ she said. ‘There was no space for fripperies.’

  ‘Fripperies?’ echoed a male voice from the doorway. ‘You consider the thoughts and experiences of scientists and philosophers to be fripperies?’

  The word sounded more ridiculous with each utterance. ‘N-no. Of course not. I meant…’ she trailed off. ‘Please accept my apologies.’

  Carola was in the small room, removing her travelling cape and gloves. There was no doubt that she had heard every word of the exchange. She came through with an expression of castigation for her friend. ‘Fanny! You know better, I hope.’

  ‘Enough,’ decreed Matilda. ‘We will eat shortly, and Jeremy can expound on the glories of human understanding and development.’

  ‘Let me assist,’ said Carola firmly. ‘We have fruit and cheese to contribute.’

  ‘I should see that Hugo has all he needs,’ said Fanny briskly. ‘I hear him whining.’

  She knew better than to raise the possibility of the dog sharing their room for the night. The fact that Hugo was permitted inside their own house, both upstairs and down, was probably something to avoid mentioning. Only small lapdogs could expect to share home and hearth with humans, in the opinion of most people.

  ‘He will be safe and comfortable in the barn,’ said Jeremy. ‘And if he catches a rat or two, he will have earned his board.’

  These words echoed in Fanny’s mind as she went out to tend her animal. Were she and Carola expected to pay, then? The thought had never occurred to her, but now it had taken root, it seemed foolish to assume anything else. A room at an inn would require payment, after all. On the other hand, natural hospitality carried no price. The food they ate would be modest, and their own contributions enough to balance it.

  Hugo rolled mournful eyes at her when she left him with a bone in the barn. His appetite was not sated, and any separation from Fanny’s side was a grief to him. ‘Just another day,’ she assured him, ‘and then you will be feasted like a king.’

  When she went into the house again, there was a startling alteration to the atmosphere. Carola met her enquiring gaze and rolled her eyes in a warning not to speak. ‘We are discovered,’ she said with a softening smile. ‘It seems our reputation is much greater than we knew.’

  Matilda and Jeremy Hastings were also smiling. They appeared to be vastly amused, in fact. Matilda spoke reassuringly. ‘The two young ladies of Chemeketa have made a profound impression on the area,’ she said. ‘Francesca and Carlotta, with their welcoming boudoir, are much talked of. And we have been greatly interested in this talk.’

  Fanny could think of nothing to say. ‘Indeed?’ she managed, through a tight throat. The smiles were not enough to persuade her that censure and rejection would not soon follow.

  ‘Give me time to get the food on the table, and we might talk more fully then. You will soon understand that Jeremy and I are in no position to judge you. Not that we would wish to, in any case.’

  Carola was soon occupied with slicing bread to accompany the stew that simmered on the stove. Jeremy poured four glasses of ale, from a thick black glass bottle that caught Fanny’s attention. ‘I have seen the like in Providence,’ she said. ‘But never here.’

  He showed her a crest in the glass. ‘It has travelled the world with me, like a mascot. I believe it was made fifty years ago or more.’

  ‘There is a glassworks in Portland, we hear,’ said Matilda. ‘Strange, the things a person takes so utterly for granted. And yet glass does not make itself, nor grow on trees. A man of enterprise must erect a workshop, with a furnace and moulds and tongs and shelves for his wares. The same is true of books, of course.’

  ‘And lace,’ said Carola.

  ‘And leather,’ added Fanny, thinking of her father.

  ‘And pewter tankards.’

  ‘And porcelain plates.’

  ‘And good quality cutlery.’

  They all laughed at the growing list. ‘They will import many of those items from China and India,’ said Jeremy. ‘Although I believe it will be a very short time before these men of enterprise that Ma
ttie talks of will set up their shops and get to work.’

  ‘It thrills me,’ said Matilda, with sparkling eyes. ‘It is as if we are present at the dawn of creation.’

  Jeremy snorted at this. ‘Steady on, old thing,’ he protested. ‘Remember how deplorably behind the rest of the world this place is. All that mankind needs has already been created in Europe and Asia, centuries gone. We simply have to follow the pattern already set.’

  ‘Pooh!’ scoffed the woman. ‘You’ll be telling us about Uncle Isaac before long, I suppose.’

  Somehow the meal was presented and everyone seated around the plain square table, using bone-handled spoons for their meat and gravy. Fanny remembered Hugo in the barn with his well-chewed bone and wondered if she might beg some scraps for him.

  Carola ate sparingly, her eyes darting from face to face, as if expecting some sudden surprise. Matilda soon noticed her tension and shook her head in a motherly gesture that spoke of self-reproach and concern. ‘Perhaps we should tell you our story,’ she said. ‘It will set your minds at rest, I hope.’

  ‘If you wish,’ Carola invited, somewhat stiffly.

  ‘Well, to begin with, Jeremy and I are not lawfully wedded. We are living in sin, as the saying goes. We each have a living spouse, back in England. I am as much a fallen woman as you two are, in the eyes of society.’

  Jeremy’s strangely small bare chin lifted in pride. ‘I am in the midst of a veritable harem of wicked women,’ he proclaimed cheerily.

  ‘We saw no alternative but to emigrate to a land where we might pass ourselves off as an ordinary married couple,’ Matilda continued. ‘It was an escape from a life grown intolerable. And yet, there are many who advocate a freedom in such matters, who write of the benefits of physical passion and the harm that comes from abstinence.’ She waved at the bookshelves. ‘We have their writings here.’