Homecoming Girls (6 page)

Clara gazed at her, her lips slightly apart. ‘I expect to be the same,’ she said softly. ‘Or do you think that something might happen to change our lives? Is that what you expect?’

The light from outside the window was fading and there was just one lamp lit in the room, which cast a warm glow over the corner where it sat on a table. The rest of the room was in shadow. Her cousin, Clara thought, seemed pensive and inscrutable as if already she was returning to her unknown ancestry.

‘Jewel!’ she pressed. ‘Is that what you expect?’

‘I expect nothing,’ Jewel whispered in reply. ‘The journey is the reward.’

They spent three weeks in New York, exploring the wide boulevards, shopping in the modern stores of Manhattan, craning their necks to see the tops of the tall buildings, strolling in Central Park and taking a boat trip around the harbour. They took a steamer along East River to watch the construction of the Brooklyn suspension bridge which had been started four years earlier to connect Manhattan with the borough of Brooklyn and replace the steam ferry. The first tower was almost completed and their guide nodded knowledgeably and said he reckoned that it would take twice as long again to finish it.

A subtle role change crept up between Jewel and Clara that first one and then the other became aware of but didn’t immediately acknowledge until at last it was too obvious to ignore.

Jewel was quite used to English people taking a sideways glance on meeting her for the first time, or even whispering behind a hand about her fragile bone structure and dark eyes; but in New York attention was focused on Clara’s fair, translucent skin and fine, almost white-blonde hair.

‘There are so many young women like me in America,’ Jewel remarked to Clara in their room after someone in the hotel had approached to exclaim at Clara’s English rose complexion. ‘Half-breeds. Whereas here, you are the one who’ll turn heads.’

‘It’s so embarrassing.’ Clara flushed, unused to being the
centre of attention. ‘And please don’t call yourself a half-breed. It’s not nice—’

‘But true,’ Jewel interrupted.

‘You wouldn’t say it of anyone else, Jewel,’ her cousin rebuked her. ‘You are of mixed parentage, it’s true.’ She smiled mischievously. ‘You’re an oriental pearl with shades of American gemstone and—’

Jewel fell about laughing. ‘And Yorkshire grit! I don’t mind,’ she said soberly. ‘It’s quite reassuring not to be noticed. To be able to merge into the background with so many other cultures and races.’

For this is what she had observed on this visit, which she hadn’t noticed when visiting as a child: that there were many skin shades and accents. Dutch she recognized from Wilhelm’s background, Irish from a maid who had worked for them, French from a governess she had once had; she saw Native American people who seemed lost in their own country, and hundreds of Chinese thronging the streets of New York.

‘But not so many Chinese women, have you noticed, Clara?’ she said after yet another excursion. ‘I wonder where they are,’ she mused. ‘Perhaps they stay within their homes. I’d like to go to Chinatown, just to see what it’s like.’

Clara pursed her lips. ‘Would they mind, do you think? Or would they be offended at us looking at them in their own place?’

They had observed Chinese cigar sellers out on the streets, peddling their wares from wooden stands where small oil lamps burned, ready to light a purchase. They had seen young Chinese men carrying billboards advertising local hotels or shopping malls, but all of these were in the main thoroughfares and not in Chinatown where the majority of the Chinese population lived.

‘I don’t see why they should,’Jewel replied. ‘We are tourists after all, come to another country to see how the residents live and work.’

Clara was doubtful, but Jewel could be very persuasive and so on the following day, which would be their last before
catching the railway train to Dreumel’s Creek, they set out for Chinatown.

They had asked the young under-manager, Stanley Adams, for directions, and after a slight hesitation he brought out a map of New York and showed them the way to Mott Street, which he said was the main street of Chinatown.

‘You’ll be careful, miss, won’t you?’ he said. ‘And don’t take any jewellery or valuables with you.’ He glanced at their summer hats, muslin gowns and parasols. ‘Perhaps, erm, perhaps if you wore something plainer?’

They looked at each other and Clara turned about and headed back towards the stairs. Jewel followed.

‘He’s just trying to scare us,’ she said irritably as they entered their door. ‘There’s no reason for us to be afraid. It’s broad daylight, for goodness’ sake.’

‘Nevertheless, we might be entering an area where there is not much money. The Chinese we have seen look to me as if they might be very poor. We shouldn’t flaunt our possessions. It isn’t fair.’

Jewel sighed but took off her hat and put on a plain bonnet and a shawl over her gown. Clara did the same.

‘And sensible shoes,’ she added. ‘Looking at the map it seems to me that it might be a long walk.’

It was indeed a long walk from the Marius and they got lost several times traversing the grid system of Manhattan, but they realized they were approaching Mott Street as the number of Chinese people in the area increased.

They were not prepared for the sight of dilapidated slum dwellings on either side of the narrow street, or for the fact that they themselves were objects of curiosity. Residents were crowded into doorways and windows or sat on the steps of rooming houses as they passed by, and the elusive Chinese women whom Jewel had looked for hid behind beaded curtains which swayed and rattled and reminded Jewel of something from her past but she couldn’t think what.

Outside the general stores, which were converted from the lower floors of the tenement buildings, wooden stalls were
piled high with strange-shaped vegetables. Some looked like large white carrots, some were a shiny rich purple colour, and others they thought were either thin green beans or spring onions.

Displayed in another store window were dried mushrooms, bowls of preserved eggs, dried shrimps, packets of rice and long thin pale crisp strands which Jewel said were noodles, and bundles of wooden chopsticks tied with string. Outside the store a squat shopkeeper sat smoking a bubbling pipe which emitted a sweet and spicy tang that tickled their nostrils and made them sneeze.

‘Do you think it’s opium?’Jewel murmured as they waited for a rickshaw and a waggon to pass before crossing the road.

‘Yes,’ Clara said. ‘It is. I’ve smelled it before.’

Jewel turned an incredulous face to her. ‘When?’ she asked.

Clara took her by the elbow and turned her about to go back the way they had come. ‘I once went with Mama to visit a woman in difficulties and her grandmother was there – the woman’s grandmother, I mean – and she was smoking a pipe. It had such a strong smell it made me dizzy. Mama said it was opium and it was very common at one time to smoke it for pleasure and not only for medicinal reasons.’

An elderly Chinese man barred their way. He gave several deep bows and asked in a sing-song, melodic voice if he could help them. ‘You want medicine?’ he asked. ‘You want potion? I take you to my store and give you anything you want for illness, for pain in your joints, ache in your limbs or trouble in your mind.’

‘No, no,’ they said in unison. ‘We’re visitors,’ Clara hastily explained.

He bowed towards Jewel. ‘You are not visitor. You are seeking something.’ He shook his head. ‘You not find it here. Not in New York.’

There came a sudden call in a language they didn’t understand. A Chinese woman was standing in the doorway of a rooming house and beckoning.

‘We have to go,’ Clara said, but Jewel hung back as if mesmerized.

The man bowed again several times. ‘My daughter says I must go in. The soup is ready.’

Jewel stood and watched him shuffling towards the house. ‘He could be my grandfather,’ she murmured.

‘I don’t think so.’ Clara took her arm. ‘He’s quite different. His face is a different shape, more round than yours, and why would he be in New York? Wouldn’t he be in California?’

Jewel looked back, and then she sighed and shrugged. ‘I didn’t mean he
was
, or even might be, my grandfather,’ she said. ‘I meant he was about the age that my grandfather would be.’

‘
Great
-grandfather, I should think,’ Clara commented. ‘He’s ancient, much older than my grandparents.’

The incident unsettled Jewel. How did he know I was seeking something, she thought? What did he see in me that told him that? She was pleased that on the following day they were to move on to the next leg of their journey to Dreumel’s Creek. And after that? She gave a deep sigh. After that they would begin another journey to take them – her – to who knew what? She was eager and yet anxious; would she find out about her mother, and, if so, in doing so would she also find out more about herself?

Early the next morning they were driven to Grand Central railroad terminus and the manager of the Marius himself accompanied them to see them board the train which would take them on part of the journey to Dreumel’s Creek.

Since 1850 there had been an enormous expansion of the railroads, built mainly by Chinese labourers and Irish navvies. There was now over thirty thousand miles of track, but it did not yet run into Dreumel’s Creek.

‘I wish you a good safe journey, Miss Dreumel, Miss Newmarch,’ Mr Brady said, after overseeing the stowing of their luggage. ‘You should be in Dreumel’s Creek before nightfall, but if there is any delay I recommend that you stay
the night in Woodsville; that’s the stop where you depart the train and catch the coach for the last leg of your journey.’

They thanked him and settled down; there would be two changes but they would travel by train for six or more hours. They had the compartment to themselves and sat opposite each other so that both had a view out of the window. They divested themselves of their coats and took shawls out of their bags to drape around their shoulders in case of any draughts. Their travelling gowns were plain, with only petticoats beneath them and no hoops, but even so their full skirts touched and rustled against each other. Jewel’s was cherry red and Clara’s turquoise, and the young women wore co-ordinating bonnets which they removed as soon as the whistle blew and the train began to shunt out of the station.

‘I can’t read,’ Clara said, gazing out of the window. ‘Even though I’ve brought books. I just don’t want to miss a thing.’

The environs of New York spread for several miles. New highrise buildings soared into the sky and they craned their neck to see the workers perched like black crows on the tops of the girders.

‘I’ve brought
Little Women,’
Jewel said, taking a book out of her bag. ‘Louisa M. Alcott,’ she read from the spine. ‘It’s about a family of American girls whose father went to fight in the war and they and their mother had to fend for themselves.’

‘I’ll read it after you, if I may,’ Clara said. ‘I’ve heard of it. It will be interesting to read it whilst we’re on American soil.’

The train headed west on the long journey into Pennsylvania and in mid-afternoon they changed trains to travel towards Fort Duquesne, once a trading post in an area where, a century before, the English had fought the French and the Indians, and now the city of Pittsburgh had put down its roots.

They were travelling through wilderness country towards the Appalachian mountains, where creeks and wooded valleys lined either side of the railroad track and explosive scars showed on the rocky hillsides where engineers had blasted to
smithereens anything that stood in their way. The National Road system too was even now snaking its way across the Appalachians to Ohio, although its citizens still preferred the canal routes and tributaries of Lake Erie to transport their goods.

They were travel-weary when they reached Woodsville but both agreed that if there was a late coach to Dreumel’s Creek they would get on it and rest the following day.

‘Papa has written to the Dreumel Marius,’Jewel said, as they waited for a porter to unload their luggage, ‘so our rooms will be ready for us, though I expect that Kitty and Caitlin might want us to stay with them in Yeller Valley. They have a hotel too,’ she added. ‘You know that Kitty travelled to America with Mama when she first came out here?’

‘I recall Aunt Gianna telling us about her.’ Clara smiled. ‘They had such adventures, didn’t they, just the two of them riding across the mountains on horseback! How very daring they were! Twenty years ago how different things were: no trains as far as this but only waggons or dog carts.’

‘And no National Road. I think she’d like to come back,’ Jewel said musingly. ‘She becomes quite introspective when she talks about that time. That’s when she met Papa – Wilhelm, I mean; she met my real father some time later.’

The last coach was due to depart in an hour, so they booked their seats and went in search of something to eat, then walked about to stretch their legs before boarding for the last part of their journey. They were very stiff after the long train ride, and the road to Dreumel’s Creek, which was originally a waggon trail, had many potholes and deep wheel ruts. The driver was obviously anxious to finish his day in record time and the coach rattled and swayed at breakneck speed, shaking them and the two other passengers about like sacks of old bones.