Part 2 (2/2)

We got back to the ladies' cabin without mishap.

Our common battle had broken down the strangeness between us, so for the rest of the journey we sat in an intimate circle, just as if we were friends, and told one another bits about ourselves. The two gray-haired ladies introduced themselves as the Misses Tonkin. ”Now, my dear,” said Dorothea, the older one, ”I know that sounds just as if we were Chinese, but we come from Cornwall, in England. Tonkin there is like Tompkins somewhere else.”

”But we don't come from there any longer, Dorothea. We come from Wisconsin, not far from Galena. Every year, we take the Galena packet to Saint Louis and shop for winter things. It's a nice trip for us, don't you see. We get to see the river, which is so lovely, and all the best French things are in Saint Louis. You can see this lace, here.” She held up her sleeve, and it was true: the black lace that edged it was delicate and handsome. ”If Mr. Tonkin, our brother, only knew how we were spending our money!” The two of them laughed.

”But he does know, sister,” rejoined Dorothea. ”That's part of the pleasure!”

”Our brother Nicky has been dead these ten years,” said Annabelle. ”He was a most serious man, and we took care of him all our lives. On his deathbed, he promised to look upon us from on high and continue to guide us, but thankfully we have never noticed anything of the sort since then. We are quite at our own disposal.”

”None of the three of us ever married.”

Annabelle leaned toward me. ”He was unusually exacting, my dear. He would have been quite a trial to an unsuspecting young girl.” The two sisters exchanged a cheerful look.

I said, ”I just got married this morning, and Mr. Newton and I are on our way to Kansas.”

”My goodness, Dorothea,” said Annabelle. ”What a lovely thing to say! There is all the hope and happiness in the world in that one sentence. 'I just got married this morning, and we are on our way to Kansas!' You are the envy of everyone in the United States, my dear, if not the world!”

”The climate is supposed to be mild and healthful-”

”I hope you married for love, my dear,” said Dorothea. ”If you are going to marry at all, that is the best way.”

At first I only smiled, not liking to reveal myself to strangers, even friendly ones, but then the other woman in the saloon looked at me with very serious eyes, and then her daughter did, as well, and with their dark eyes staring so sadly out from under their black bonnets, I said, ”I did. Yes, I did.” I thought of Mr. Newton, his pale skin and his pale hair and his long fingers, his intelligent look, and his amus.e.m.e.nt, and my sense of how large he was, larger every minute, it seemed, and how much, deep down, I was looking forward to seeing him again at the end of this journey, and I thought that that made up ”love” as much as I knew it. The woman and her daughter took each other's hands and squeezed. Dorothea said, ”This is Mrs. Evelyn and her daughter, Mary. They have suffered a bereavement.”

Dorothea addressed her, said, ”Now, Mrs. Evelyn, if you don't mind my saying so, I hope you have some money of your own, and won't be at the mercy of your brother. He may be very dear to you and you to him, but...” She shook her head.

Annabelle filled the silence that ensued. ”Our father was a Cornishman to his very heels, and when he died, he left the whole property to our Nicky, even though in this country a man need not do that.”

”Our Nicky was a tight-fisted gentleman.” They took up their work and sewed industriously. The steam engine hummed and the boat churned. I thought again of the water below us.

Mrs. Evelyn said, ”Mr. Evelyn trusted in the Lord to provide for us.”

”Perhaps He will, my dear,” said Dorothea. ”But until then, here is a bit to tide you over.” And she pressed a small black silk purse into Mrs. Evelyn's hand. No matter what that lady then did, Miss Dorothea Tonkin would not take the purse back again. Finally, Mrs. Evelyn put the black purse in her pocket. Mary, who possibly had some private worries about these very matters, smiled a quick, secret smile, and her mother said, ”You ladies are too generous! I don't even know you! I'll remember this as long as I live!”

”What we say to ourselves, dear, is that we cannot make it up to all of those who needed something of our Nicky while he was alive and were turned away, and so when we have the opportunity, we do for him what he should have done for himself. He was a religious man, but I fear he was mistaken in his beliefs, because he subst.i.tuted many very austere doctrinal restrictions for charity. What Dorothea and I suspect is that he was much disappointed when he came to receive his reward.”

”What you might say is that we are buying him off.” The two chuckled together. ”At any rate, my dear,” continued Dorothea, ”we have no family, so we are always tempted to spend too much on our own amus.e.m.e.nt, so say no more!”

Mrs. Evelyn said no more but did pat her pocket in a wondering fas.h.i.+on. Not long after that, Mr. Newton appeared at the door of the ladies' cabin and declared that we were pa.s.sing the mouth of the great Missouri River and that I should come to the railing and see what those waters had brought from the west. We all hastily put away our work and went to the door. I saw Miss Annabelle look Mr. Newton up and down. He helped her over the threshold, then held out his hand for Miss Dorothea. She thanked him. I was pleased to observe that the two Misses Tonkin seemed favorably impressed with my new husband.

It was close to dusk, but I could see that my familiar Mississippi had changed considerably and now ran much faster and browner. Had I imagined some sort of turbulent rush, a wall of water pouring over our river as over a floor, I was mistaken. The river only widened into a broader sheet, rimmed by a low fringe of trees. Mr. Newton stared as if he had never seen such a thing, and finally said, ”My dear, I've read many an account of these rivers, and I've talked to many men who've made this journey, but I confess I am unprepared for the somberness of it. I expected to feel gratified and enlarged by the knowledge of the distance these waters have come. I find it oppressive.” The dull red glare off the flat expanse had the same effect on me, and I realized only with difficulty that the glare was just the reflection of the setting sun. It pa.s.sed in moments, but then the darkness seemed to filter up from the water into the trees. The lights of our boat, including the better-to-be-forgotten lurid reflection of the firing of the boiler, lay dimly over the opaque water. We weren't alone in being subdued by the sights. Only a couple of drunk men continued to laugh and shout. Finally, they flung their empty bottle in a wide arc over the railing and cursed the fact that they had drunk everything they had with them. Mr. Newton walked all of the ladies back to the door of the ladies' cabin. It was disturbing to hear the two lonely voices of those men cursing and braying against the noise of the boat and the splash of the water.

Back in the ladies' cabin, the lamps had been lit, and they cast a dim but pleasant glow over the papered wall and the few curtained cubicles that functioned as staterooms on this small packet. It was too dim for me to work, but the two sisters needed little light, as they didn't watch their knitting anyway, only counted the st.i.tches and turned their work. Mrs. Evelyn seemed subdued by the gloom. Her daughter leaned against her. Sometime later, we heard a great shouting, and the clamor of feet upon the deck told us that we had arrived in Saint Louis.

Miss Annabelle put her hand on my wrist as I moved to rise from my chair. She said, ”If you'll pardon me for making a personal observation, my dear, I must say that you seem a young woman of uncommon self-possession and fort.i.tude. So many of these young wives we see, well...” Her voice faded as if ruefully. ”The adventure is for the men, my dear; that's the way of it here in the west.”

I said that this was surely true. But I didn't mean it.

CHAPTER 5.

I Am Much Daunted by New Experiences [image]But, as society gradually shakes off the remnants of barbarism, and the intellectual and moral interests of man rise, in estimation, above the merely sensual, a truer estimate is formed of woman's duties, and of the measure of intellect reguisite for the proper discharge of them. -p. 156 THE TUMULT OF THE LEVEE at Saint Louis burst upon my sight, unlike anything I had ever seen before. Our boat was undeniably moving toward the land, but the water was so dark and so crowded with other boats that it seemed to be magically pressing itself through a tangle of decks and railings and chimneys and freight. Above the waterline, all was alight with great lamps on poles and torches and fires, and there were as many people about as if it were broad day. We made our way through a thick field of boats, large and small, glorious and humble, empty and full, busy and quiet, among them the most famous Saint Louis-Pittsburgh packet, the Allegheny Queen, which just that summer had won a race from Cincinnati to New Orleans, jostling with the most famous Saint Louis-New Orleans packet, the Paul Revere, whose railings on the pa.s.senger deck gleamed with gold in the flickering light. Their names were clearly painted in ornate script on the wheel housings, and I told Mr. Newton what I had heard of each one in Horace Silk's store, where talk of the best steamboats and their pilots and captains and owners came second only to talk of Kansas. We pa.s.sed two steam-wreck salvage boats that lay side by side among the others, giant flat platforms on two hulls with a great complex framework like a metal forest that rose into the dark night. Mr. Newton stared at them in perplexity. I said, ”That's what they use to raise exploded hulks from the bottom. Otherwise, the river would fill up end to end and bank to bank with wrecks.” One of these, or a vessel just like it, had raised a wreck upstream from Quincy earlier in the summer. My cousin Frank had been the first boy at the scene, pus.h.i.+ng himself forward to see, he said, what crinolines and combs and corpses he might be able to catch a glimpse of.

Where the river ended and the land began, the boats gave way to horses and drays and piles of freight, but there was as little room amongst all of these as there was between the boats. Everywhere, every human, animal, and machine was making as much noise as possible-the blowing of horns and ringing of bells and belching of steam formed the background to the shouts of the mates and the draymen to stand aside, or hand it over, or move it this way, or coming through, or watch the lines, or careful of the horses! The horses stamped and jingled their harness and whinnied and snorted; their carts and wagons and carriages and drays creaked under the thumps of the boxes and bales and people loaded onto them. Always there was shouting. Boys younger than Frank, black and white, looked as full of business as the white-haired men: ”Planter's House! Baggage wagon here!” (The Misses Tonkin solicited the attention of that well-dressed porter, and he recognized them with a happy smile.) ”The George M. Hardy! Leaving at first light for the Falls of Saint Anthony! One of the foremost sights of the known world! Embark tonight for a convenience!” ”New Orleans in five short days! The Arkansas Hopeful is the fastest boat in the west! Sixteen dollars!” ”Newspaper! The Missouri Democrat! Tomorrow's news tonight!”

We were hardly out of our cabin and had only begun pus.h.i.+ng our way through the mob trying to get onto the Mary Ida, when I saw that they had begun unloading the freight. Seeing this, too, Mr. Newton began urging me through the crowd with some insistence, his one hand grasping my elbow tightly and his other arm outstretched. A few men scowled at us as they gave way, and one muttered, ”Boat must be about to explode! Save yourself, brother!” as I was hurried past, but then all we did on the levee was stand there as the boxes came off the boat. Almost the very last was the one Mr. Newton was waiting for, and when he saw it, he relaxed.

This box, with our two small bags, he directed to accompany us to the Vandeventer House. The others were to be loaded onto the Independence for pa.s.sage to Kansas. I must say that what had seemed a vast pile of baggage when we left Quincy now seemed but a paltry collection of trinkets easily dragged away by the (no doubt) sneering draymen. Kansas! Kansas! If busy Saint Louis was so vast and frightening, how much more so the solitudes of Kansas!

I WILL Pa.s.s OVER our ride through the busy streets and my impression of the Vandeventer House. If I were to linger over everything new, I would prolong my story far past the reader's patience. Suffice it to say that all things were fresh to me, and the moments, which pa.s.sed slowly, were full of shock, interest, and some fear. I sensed that Mr. Newton, too, felt more strange than he expected to, and more tempted by dread and low spirits. From time to time, we exchanged a glance. I could hardly see his face in the darkness, yet I knew he was full of wonder at how little we had foreseen, he had foreseen, the consequences of our impulses. I said to him in a low voice, ”We are true Americans now, husband. We don't know where we are going or what for, nor do we know anyone we're traveling with. But we're perfectly certain it will all turn out best in the end.”

He took my fingers in his and spread them apart, staring at my hand as at a strange and wonderful object. At last, he said, ”Better than Quincy?”

”Already better than Quincy.”

The conviction of my reply perked him up, and I saw for the first time that I wasn't merely to follow him to Kansas but was sometimes to lead him. My husband was less sure of himself than my suitor had been.

In our room at the Vandeventer House, he set our little carpet bags by the door and the large, heavy box, which he'd carried up the stairs with the heaving and groaning help of the porter, between the bed and the window.

There were two chairs beside the window, and after I took off my bonnet, Mr. Newton led me to one of them and sat himself in the other. We rocked back and forth without speaking. We had the bridal room, which meant that no one else was sleeping in our room with us, though should our departure be delayed, we would have to move the next day. The bridal rooms in Saint Louis were in such demand that you could have one to yourself only for one night, or so they told us at the Vandeventer House.

After some minutes, Mr. Newton said, ”Did your sisters speak to you about marriage?”

”They told me what they knew.”

”What was that?”

”Harriet said if at all possible not to allow you to fire guns in the house, but if I had to give way on this point, to draw the line at pistols, but absolutely not to allow horses into the better rooms, because sometimes they panic and damage your good furniture. She learned her lesson the hard way with a two-year-old colt Roland had-”

Mr. Newton began laughing.

”Well, he did kick to pieces a very nice lowboy she had, with a sh.e.l.l design on the drawer fronts ...” I cleared my throat. ”And Alice told me that my husband would figure very significantly in the conception of children, but she couldn't bring herself to describe exactly how. She just said that I would be better off if I kept a table between us at all times, especially early on in the marriage. Another tactic was to always have a cup of hot tea in my hands, day and night. Those were her words exactly. Day and night.”

I laughed, too.

”And Beatrice said that every town in America had lots of clubs and public betterment organizations, so that if you played your cards right, you could spend an evening with your husband maybe once or twice a year and have the rest of your time to yourself ....”

”You're making these things up!”

”Do you have anything to add, Mr. Newton?”

”My dear, I am as ignorant as you.”

<script>