A Sweetness to the Soul (48 page)

“I’ll stay with ye,” Joseph said, and he took my elbow.

“What are they doing here?” I whispered to him as we followed them to the parlor. He shrugged his shoulders. I slipped my arm through his, reassured by his presence, wondering if he could hear my heart beating.

My mother’s back, straight and unbending as a wagon tongue, presented itself to us as we entered. With her monocle, she peered into the glass china cupboard set next to the window. “Lovely,” she said, hearing us enter. “Your husband has provided you with lovely
things.” She had stopped to examine the silver and gold crumb chaser and pan. “Such luxuries,” she said, turning, dropping the glasses into her silk wrist purse.

“Not a bauble in sight,” I said. They were my first words to her in nearly ten years. “I especially like the silver napkin rings. Joseph had them engraved for us at Tiffany’s, in New York, when we were there last time.” I liked seeing the look of envy that passed briefly over my mother’s eyes. At least I thought it was envy.

“Please. Sit,” Joseph said. “You too, Ella. Ye’ve grown into a lovely young woman. And you, Mrs. Herbert, are handsome as always.”

Ella blushed; my mother flashed a forced smile.

As they settled wide skirts over narrow chairs, I had time to study my mother a bit. She looked older. More crow’s-feet escaped her intense eyes. Lines formed an arch around her mouth fading into her strong chin. Her skin still stretched tightly across solid bones, though. Her lips were full, slightly red. She wore a deep blue dress under her pelisse and I had to admit that Joseph was correct: she was still a handsome woman.

Ella, on the other hand, was something more than handsome. She was beautiful. Her wine red dress set off the pink of her cheeks, the depth of her dimples, the pale blond of her hair that peered from beneath her matching bonnet. Her dress molded itself tightly over a fully developed sixteen-year-old form. Perhaps a little too tightly, as though her body had just recently surprised her with its changes. Tiny hands removed dark gloves, one finger at a time. She rested them quietly in her lap, her breathing even, unlabored. When I looked directly at her, she smiled ever so slightly, showing one broken tooth and revealing a touch of sadness in an otherwise flawless face. She dropped her eyes to her lap.

“I thought it time we should visit,” my mother said, fluffing herself on the chair like a hen, nesting. “And having not received an invitation or being sure of the day you receive, I hope you’ll not think less of us for having just dropped in.”

What was she thinking? How could I think less of her than I already did? She’d told us to stay away, to have nothing to do with her or Ella! How could she have expected an invitation? And now, just when I was beginning to enjoy my life, she arrives, carrying with her both old memories and the promise of new pain.

“You’re welcome any time,” my gracious husband said, ignoring the look I shot him. He waited then, like me, wondering about their reasons. The Seth Thomas calendar clock ticked quietly. We heard the shouts of men at the river, moving toward success. Bandit yipped his aging bark in the distance. I noticed the large fern behind my mother had dead fronds that needed removing. More silence.

“Yes. Well,” my mother said, clearing her throat though not the raspiness of her voice. “I will get to the heart of it. I’m to be married next week. To Mr. John Cates. A fine man, Mr. Cates.” She said the latter defensively, I thought, though no one chose to argue. Neither Joseph nor I knew the man, nor did I think I wanted to.

“Our congratulations,” Joseph said. Again we waited. I twirled her astonishing news around in my mind.

“Mr. Cates would take a honeymoon trip back east though I prefer the southern coast of France.” She played nervously with the ribbons of her bonnet. “It’s said to be a lovely place.” Imaginary lint disappeared from her pelisse.

Only the Seth Thomas ticking filled the quiet.

“Let me get some tea,” I offered, starting to stand, looking for a reason to escape. Ella glanced up at me as I rose.

“It is not a place for young ladies,” my mother continued as though I hadn’t mentioned tea. With her gloves, she motioned me to sit and I obeyed. “The sun at the South of France can be so beastly to the faces of young women.” She blinked her eyelashes, waved an imaginary fan before her face. “Isn’t that so, Ella, dear?”

The girl had not yet spoken. Her hands were calm in her lap. I noticed her nails were chewed to the quick. “It’s what I’ve heard,” Ella said in a voice as soft as a baby’s breath.

“And since she has not seen you,” my mother proposed, “for so long a time, I thought perhaps you might wish to spend some time with Ella. Perhaps you have need of some help here, what with the inn doing well. Maybe at the post office?”

Neither Joseph nor I said anything, dumbfounded. Ella’s working for us had never entered our minds. “And, of course,” my mother continued, “there would be no objections should you wish to complete adoption proceedings. It has been her father’s wish for some time. Her older sister has a place with the Gilliams, in the Mitchell country. Her brothers remain with their father in Vale. Only Ella is without. That is, if you’ve still such a mind to. A child needs a family, after all.”

Adoption? Now? It was an incredible suggestion. I took in the wonder of it and felt it explode into fury inside my chest.

“When you no longer have need of her,” I said, “you send her to us. Is that it? Or is it that your Mr. Cates does not like the burden of a family? What about Baby George? Do you want us to adopt him, too?”

“Well.” Mother fidgeted on her chair. “I thought you would be pleased.” She picked up her gloves, strained them through her hands, put them back in her lap, strained them again. “George is going with us, of course. But Ella, well, I thought it better if she remained. And she agreed.”

Joseph asked, curious. “And Mr. Cates? He is willing to have Ella left behind? To be adopted by us?”

“Don’t even think of it!” I shouted at him. “I will not rescue my mother! She never saved me!” I glared at her. “And she could have!” I felt the tears of rage and hurt burn behind my eyes. Joseph reached to calm me, touch my hand. I shook him off, swallowed back my fury.

My mother looked nervously at Ella, back at me, twisted her gloves again.

“I see it,” I said, calmer. “It’s you who doesn’t want her with you. Afraid Mr. Cates might find a young woman more appealing than her older mother. I won’t protect you from that!” I felt spent, tired,
and my voice reflected it. “Learn to live with the uncertainty of wondering if someone loves you. I did.”

“I meant to love you,” she said stiffly. “It was forgiveness I found I couldn’t give.”

“Forgiveness? You should be asking for mine!” My heart pounded in my ears. My mouth was dry and yet I swallowed over and over.

“ ’Tis neither of yours to give,” Joseph said, stepping over my despair. “But to receive if ye both be willing.”

“Well. I’m not there yet, so let’s salvage what we can,” my mother told him.

“And what’s your pleasure, Ella?” Joseph asked. He was always the gentle one, sensed the thread of my need before I could see how to sew it. He knew I lacked time to see the gift my mother had just offered us, and he didn’t want me to throw happiness away just to be right.

Ella’s answer came to me, not him, and I suspect she’d had enough of being in between.

“Mrs. Herbert has been good to me,” she said. I scoffed. Ella glanced quickly at me. She took a deep breath and spoke as though rehearsed. “I’m a good worker. I can clean, cook, ride, milk, read, write, tend the books or the saloon. My temperament is even. I listen and get along with all nature of humanity. I am not demanding. I learn quickly or can be off without a fuss.” She sighed.

“I repeat the question,” Joseph said. “What’s your pleasure?”

Ella looked at him now, a kind of light filling her face as she prepared to risk her wants. “It would please me to come here, to be with you. I know my mother would have wished it.” Looking back at me she said, “If you’ll both have me.”

Joseph had Ella’s Saratoga trunk unloaded from the wagon they’d arrived in. My mother left in it without a backward glance or wave.

Ella attended her wedding. I have not spoken to my mother these twenty-one years hence.

Perhaps because I’d been prepared for nothing, I found Ella doubly delightful: she was an unpredictable surprise and the offspring of Francis. So Joseph and I both knew we’d been guided by an angel.

She was light and frothy, full of fun yet on her way to leaving I was sure, as soon as some young man could turn her head. St. Mary’s had given her a good education and a better sense of herself than most young women her age.

She volunteered to teach the English classes when she realized Alice M could neither read nor write. Soon, several of Sunmiet’s cousins sent their children and George sent his children too. We were wary of the latter’s formal education since there was talk of making it illegal to teach Indians how to read and write. Later, that turned true, but Ella had already made a difference by that time.

Alice M attached herself to Ella like a pea to honey, the less experienced girl copying the spirited, sweeter one in subtle ways. A tinge of jealousy fluttered in my chest when Alice asked Ella for advice instead of me, but they were sisters, after all. Alice changed the way she combed her hair, took to wearing the redwine ribbon Ella gave her on the latter’s second day here. Alice opened up more, too, in the presence of a sister. She shared with us the way to make sagebrush-twine nets to capture rabbits wreaking havoc on the garden. With the inside of sagebrush, she wove soft leggings she gave to Joseph, to put around his ankles when he walked beside the roads through tall grasses, to protect his pants. She showed us how to capture crickets, grasshoppers, and ants and roast them to crisp. Surprisingly, they proved tasty little bites we served at meals and never once divulged their source, the three of us grinning whenever those tasty “nuts” were mentioned.

Alice never told how she had learned these things—not even to Peter whom she seemed to trust beyond all others, walked often to his and Sumxseet’s house, moved now to the same side of the river as our inn. With Ella near, Alice smiled more, and once or twice even looked me in the eye, if only for a moment.

Ella had not done justice to her own list of personal assets identified that fateful day in May. Not only did she do all the things she listed, she did them well. Her ability to cook came at a perfect time, what with Sung-li having made his way rather dramatically to The Dalles and us still needing to feed a bridge crew. Ella pitched in immediately and the men seemed only to notice the addition of a sweet-smelling young woman, not the change in menu. In the weeks before we acquired Tai, our long-term Chinese cook, Ella was a God-sent gift in more ways than one.

Both “A” supports were set for the bridge that day in May, stretching forty feet across the gorge where the river ran more than one hundred feet deep. On following days, cross beams fell into place between the two frames and over the old bridge where possible. Then the planking began, the pounding breaking the morning silence and continuing until the wind came up the canyon as dusk fell.

Within a matter of weeks, the bridge was complete with a solid base and fir side-rails.

James, whose friends had dropped him over the side, told Joseph there were caves back under the rocks and writings on the walls beneath the bridge, carvings of a man, animals, figures. “Indian books,” he said through Peter, his interpreter, and asked to carve them on the bridge sides, a request Joseph granted warily as he watched James hang out over the water.

We did not have any grand ceremony the afternoon Joseph motioned two heavily weighted freighters across the bridge without a sway or bounce. Several men stood around and nodded their heads appreciatively. The drivers shouted their approval on the other side. “Tell your friends,” Joseph yelled to them. “Roads’ll look better each time you come!” The drivers waved their hats, slapped the leather on their horses’ rumps and headed up the road toward Bakeoven, newly born colts tripping along beside the mares. The freight drivers chatted amiably with the few crew members who understood English as they passed them on their way up the grade.

At dusk on the day I considered the bridge finished, Joseph and I stood at its center, looking over into the swirling turbulence below. The wet muscle of turquoise and white froth twisted beneath us, cutting through the lava rocks. Sea gulls called and swooped at the white water. Men on scaffoldings leaned out over the falls beyond us, arching their long poles with nets into the powerful surf. “We’ve done it, Janie,” Joseph said. “Won’t ever have to worry or creak or close your eyes to cross again.”

“You’ve done well,” I said, knowing this bridge marked a milestone on my husband’s path.

“All of us have,” he said. “Been blessed with the best of hands. Yours, and Peter’s, James’s, Alice’s, now Ella’s too. Even Benito and Anna and all those who’ve been with us down this trail.” The rush of water, screech of sea gulls and the memories of people and time pushed our voices into silence.