Homecoming Girls (38 page)

‘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.

‘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.’

‘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?’

‘No,’ she said softly. ‘And now would be such a good time to go, to escort Clara and see your ma and pa.’

‘I know.’ He sat down and contemplated. It would be nice to take her, but I’ve not been here five minutes. It’s too soon to go back and yet in another way it makes sense. I could ask Da and Thomas what they think about me starting up a toy store here. Better to explain face to face than in a letter. This’ll soon be a good-sized town and families will come to live here. I could buy tools, and I could tell Ma that I’m staying here for good but that it doesn’t mean she’ll never see me again.

‘Come on.’ He jumped to his feet and held out his hand. ‘I’ll talk to your pa again.’ He jiggled the piece of rock in his hand. ‘And he can tell me if we’ve found gold.’

‘Fool’s gold,’ Ted told him, when he was shown the rock. ‘Pyrite. It’s a mineral and looks a bit like gold, though it’s more of a brassy yellow, and see this greenish streak? You don’t get that in gold. But,’ he added, seeing Dan’s look of disappointment, ‘it does sometimes show that there’s gold or copper in the vicinity, so mebbe I’ll go up with Jason and we’ll take a look. But don’t get your hopes up.’

‘There was some gold-coloured gravel in ’stream where I found this rock.’

‘All right. We’ll have a look in a day or two. There’s no hurry, is there?’

Dan gave a wry laugh. ‘No, onny for Caitlin. She thinks we can get wed straight away and sail for England if it’s gold.’ He hesitated. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t consider letting her travel before we were married, sir? Clara wants to go home but Mr Dreumel is too busy to go yet, but won’t agree to her travelling alone; and, well, I could escort her, and Caitlin would be a companion.’

Ted gazed at him. ‘And what about the return journey?’

‘Ah!’ Dan said. ‘I hadn’t thought o’ that!’

Ted patted his shoulder and grinned. ‘You’ve got to learn not to give in to her.’

‘Like you, you mean!’ Kitty said sarcastically when he told
her that evening of their conversation. ‘You don’t spoil Robert in ’same way as you do Caitlin. Do they have to wait? We didn’t.’

He laughed. ‘We were in a hurry.’

‘So are they.’ She smiled back at him. ‘So why not?’

‘He’s only just arrived,’ he argued. ‘Yet they want to go to England now, or at least Caitlin does; they’re making the excuse that they can escort Clara.’

Kitty put down her sewing. ‘It’d be nice for her to go,’ she said pensively. ‘Clara would show her around Hull and she’d meet Dan’s parents and his brother. She’d know what kind of family they are.’

‘And see how we once lived?’

‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘And how Dan’s parents once lived – and Clara’s mother, though not her father. She’d see ’difference in society there as compared with here. There’s no shame in our background, Ted. None at all.’

He leaned over and kissed the top of her head. ‘You’re right, of course. As usual.’

Caitlin raced down the main street of Yeller the next morning. She should have been at work at the hotel but this just couldn’t wait. She charged into Jason’s yard shouting Dan’s name. A carpenter looked up and pointed towards a shed and she ran towards it. ‘Dan,’ she called.
‘Dan!’

The door flew open and Dan came out. He was wearing a bowler hat, a rough cotton jacket and a wool scarf wrapped round his neck. ‘What in heaven’s name – what’s up? What’s happened?’

She flung herself at him. ‘Oh, it’s wonderful news! Pa said we can be wed straight away if we want. And we do want, don’t we, and then we can go to England with Clara and – and – aren’t you pleased?’

‘Of course I’m pleased, but we need money, Caitlin!’ Dan pushed the bowler back and scratched his forehead. ‘Haven’t you thought of that?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, but Pa showed the piece of rock to Wilhelm
and he said it might be worth taking a look at the site where you found it, and so Pa is going to put up the money to sink a small shaft in
your name
, cos he knows how to go about it, and even if it isn’t gold you can still sell the pyrite!’

‘I’ll be for ever in his debt,’ Dan said doubtfully.

‘You’ve got to have faith, Dan,’ she said earnestly. ‘You do want to marry me, don’t you?’

He gave a sudden grin and threw his hat in the air. ‘Course I do.’

Everything is moving so fast, Jewel thought. Dan and Caitlin were immersed in wedding plans, and she was both delighted and relieved. I hope he never tells her of his obsession with me, she thought. That would not be a sensible thing to do. She wanted to keep Caitlin’s friendship, and Dan’s too, for ever.

And now I’m losing Clara. They had spent nearly all their time together since they had come to America and she knew how much she would miss her.

‘You’ve been like a sister to me,’ she told Clara, and couldn’t help the tears which welled in her eyes. ‘But I realize that you must leave and how much you wish to see Elizabeth, your real sister.’

Clara put her arms around her. ‘I do long to see Elizabeth, especially now at such an important time for her; but I cannot find words to say how much affection I hold in my heart for you. When I reflect on the time we have spent together, with never a harsh word between us, I know that our friendship has become even more than a sister’s could be. We have shared so much, Jewel, but what comes next in our lives must undoubtedly be shared with others.’ She smiled. ‘Have you heard from Lorenzo?’

Jewel wiped her eyes. ‘Yes. I wrote to him and Maria to tell them we had arrived safely, and then wrote again once Mama had given permission, to say she needed my company at the present time, thus giving him the reason for our hasty
departure. He has written twice since then and says he hopes to see me in the near future.’ She blew her nose. ‘But that could mean anything, Clara. It could be just his abiding politeness. I’ve yet to recognize any sign of passion.’