Трейси Шевалье - At the Edge of the Orchard

Now his eyes followed the women first, as they always did. One was round and buxom, and once she realized that Robert was watching her, she began exaggerating her movements so that her hips swayed and the arcs of her turns followed the curves of her body, drawing them in the air. He didn’t know if she intended to embarrass him or if she liked the attention, but he shifted his eyes to the other woman. Small, slight, with wisps of hair escaping her bun, she did not look at Robert, or the men who held her, or anyone, but danced as if she were not in the arms of a gold miner on top of a giant sequoia stump, but somewhere far away.

At least today there were only four of them. Robert had witnessed a Fourth of July cotillion where thirty-two people had danced on the Great Stump, with enough space for the musicians as well. The cotillion had made the newspapers in Stockton and Sacramento and even San Francisco, with a drawing of the dance published alongside the articles. They were more like advertisements than news, orchestrated by Billie Lapham to publicize Calaveras Grove.

His eyes moved from the women on to the dancing men. Both had the weathered skin of miners, their obsession with gold putting them outside in all weathers and giving them a reason to ignore the hail, the heat, the ice, the wind that chapped their cheeks and lips. It was not just skin that marked them as gold miners, though, for Robert also had the scoured face of a life lived outdoors. These two still had that trace of gold obsession haunting their eyes, eight years after gold had first been discovered in California, and six years since the peak of the gold rush. Their dreams were still full of those minute glittering flashes. It was a dream common to many, wherever they came from. Robert had met French and Spanish and German and Dutch and Chinese chasing that dream. He had met men and a few women from Maine and Florida, Indiana and Missouri, Wisconsin and Connecticut. He had met people from Ohio. He had even once met a man from the Black Swamp, who had lived there only briefly, long after Robert’s time. Robert almost asked him about the Goodenough farm, but stopped himself: the man was drunk, and besides, Robert was not sure what he wanted to hear. From their clothes and the fact that they were drinking French brandy-a flamboyant expense when so much cheap Cuban rum or local whiskey was available-it seemed these two had done well out of gold, had managed not to gamble away all of their earnings. This was rare; no wonder the women, with their pale indoor skin and well-cut dresses, were willing to dance with them. These were the kind of men Molly was looking for to take her away from French Creek. These were the tourists Billie Lapham had been trying to attract with his ads and his well-kept road and his hotel and bowling alley.

And here he was. “Goodenough! Ain’t you the man of the moment. There’s a gal been lookin’ for you.”

Robert turned around. Billie Lapham’s top hat was pushed back as usual, its brim partly detached from the crown, and he was stroking his moustache with one hand and reaching out to shake Robert’s hand with the other.

“Nancy wants to see me?” Robert said.

Billie Lapham’s face fell. “Nance is a little poorly-though of course she’ll want to see you, sick or not. Put your head around the door, make her smile again.”

Lapham’s wife Nancy was soft and sickly, with faded hair and a face wide at the cheeks and narrowed to a point at the chin like a cat’s. The first time he heard her cough, Robert had known what it meant: eventually consumption would take her. Every time he came to Cally Grove, he braced himself for Nancy’s absence, and was relieved to find her still greeting visitors on the front porch of the Big Trees Hotel, or sweeping the floor in the saloon, or washing glasses out back. She always smiled at Robert and seemed pleased to see him.

It also pleased Billie Lapham to see his wife happy. He was not the jealous type, but hospitable, inviting Robert to supper or for a whiskey, both of which Robert always accepted. Or he told him he could dance on the Great Stump for free rather than pay fifty cents like the others. This offer Robert never took up. But he was happy to establish with Lapham an easy business relationship that tipped over into friendliness, helped along by the five dollars he handed over as a fee each time he collected seeds there.

Billie Lapham fingered his moustache and watched the couples dancing their polka. “Just between us, Goodenough, I’m selling my share of Cally Grove and taking Nancy to live at Murphys. More people there who can look after her, rather’n her lookin’ after people.”

“Who are you selling to?”

Billie Lapham made a face. “Haynes bought me out.”

Dr. Smith Haynes had been Billie Lapham’s business partner for almost two years, and Robert had never taken to him. He was a harder man than Lapham, with a full beard, a long stare, a snug waistcoat and his hands always in his pockets. He insisted on being called “Doctor,” though Robert had never heard of him doing any doctoring. He treated Billie Lapham with unwarranted disdain.

What bothered Robert even more was his dismissiveness of Nancy’s role as hostess of the Big Trees Hotel. Haynes wanted a hostess to be everything Nancy wasn’t: loud, bosomy, funny and assertive. He wanted her to ply visitors with drinks, tell them jokes, flirt with the men and commiserate with the women. Nancy did none of these things, though she had a quiet charm that worked if given a chance. Haynes never gave her a chance, though. As she grew sicker and weaker, he glared as if she had deliberately contracted TB to provoke him. Of course he couldn’t fire her since she was his business partner’s wife, and Billie Lapham defended her robustly, if anxiously. “She’s improving, looking better, don’t you think?” he’d say to Robert in front of Haynes, and Robert would agree even when Nancy was clearly worse. “The customers like her,” Lapham would remind Haynes. It was true that visitors liked Nancy, despite her flat chest and lack of jokes. She was gentle, and she listened when they complained about fog obscuring good views of the sequoias, or fleas in the beds, or their losses at the card tables, or the blisters they got from dancing on the Great Stump’s rough surface. When she could she did something to help: stuffed mattresses with pennyroyal and rosemary to drive away the fleas, suggested excursions to escape the fog, appealed to her husband to install a sprung floor on the stump. Otherwise she sympathized with a smile and a cough. But Haynes felt it wasn’t enough. He would be delighted the Laphams were going.

“In fact,” Billie Lapham continued, “you’ll need to make a new deal with Haynes about the seed collecting. He always thought five dollars a time wasn’t enough for what you’re takin’ from the property. Me, I don’t mind. I know how much Nancy likes to see you. My wife’s smile is worth a lot more than the five extra dollars Haynes wants to charge you.”

“Thanks for the warning. I’ll come see you and Nancy at Murphys when you move.”

Billie Lapham nodded. “We’d like that. Now, this other gal…”

“What other gal?”

“The one I just mentioned was looking for you.”

“I thought you meant Nancy.”

“Naw, this was a visitor. She came yesterday and asked for you.” Billie Lapham grinned. “Looked urgent to me so I sent her to Nance. Women know the right questions to ask, you see. Best to find out from her. I’ll take you to her now-I want to check on her anyway.”

Robert followed him to the hotel, a sinking feeling in his belly. The last time he’d seen Molly, four months before, she’d talked about visiting Calaveras Grove to see the trees. So, as she had with her threats to come to California, she had actually done what she’d said she would do. While she was at French Creek Robert felt he could keep her separate from the rest of his life. If she came here, though, she would stay. Haynes would love her, and with Nancy going, Molly could be the hostess he wanted, with her laugh and her bosom and her big open bed.