Authors: Lynn D'urso
Heartbroke Bay (4 page)
“You and a dozen others,” said a sunburned sheriff from behind a desk of whiskey barrels and planks after being informed of the scam. With the scheming geologist long gone, Hans had been forced to descend into the earth as a human mule, working as a slag scaler, breaking waste rock from the walls of a hard rock mine owned by a back-east corporation, where it was every man for himself. Six months later, while Hans was scabbing during a miners’ strike, a trio of strong-arm agents employed to quell the strike had mistaken his sharing a boiled pig knuckle with a fellow slagger as the act of a union sympathizer and beaten him.
The memory stills him for a moment, then he shrugs and gives a tight-lipped smile. “I believe there are even better opportunities waiting in the Alaska Territory. New fields of discovery, not so much competition . . .” His voice trails off; he looks down at his hands and folds them.
Hannah, interpreting his reticence as humility, is tempted to lay her hands on his but restrains herself.
After lingering until the café closes, Hannah returns to find Lady Hamilton waiting. That night she pens a short note in her diary:
Mr. Nelson, handsome Mr. Nelson, is always kind and a gentleman, but I sense a keener interest. If I speak, he listens without condescension. When informed of my broken engagement to J. Nightwatch and my obligation to Lady Hamilton—Imagine!—he laughed and told me there are women of the West who ride in trousers! I shall be sad to part company with him after our arrival in Washington.L. H. terrifically angry at my defiance of her order to see no more of him.
The next morning there is a summons from Lady Hamilton, brought by a maid in a crisp white apron and dust cap, who gives Hannah’s shoulder a sympathetic pat.
“Bernard is with her,” she says, lowering her voice. “They are in ill humor.”
When Hannah enters the sitting car, Lady Hamilton looks grim, rigid as a wire fence. Neither she nor Bernard smiles.
Lady Hamilton fires without preamble, in a tone usually reserved for discussing scripture. “Hannah, it is time for me to deal with your future.”
Dread drives a dull splinter into Hannah’s chest. “My future, ma’am?”
“A girl of your age is prey to great perils.” She pauses. “It is time you marry.”
Hannah’s heart skips two beats. In that time a wondering, hopeful thought rises within Hannah that Lady Hamilton is about to suggest that she marry Hans Nelson, then it is dashed as she sees Bernard look away, feigning interest in the workings of horsemen hazing cattle in the distance. When he looks back, there is a fleeting lift at the corners of his mouth, like the smug expression of a whist player who believes he has just played a subtle, brilliant card.
“I have decided it is best if you become betrothed. An unmarried woman of your age is susceptible to sinful urges.” Lady Hamilton’s words echo the Calvinist cadence of a Scotch parson, and her scowl tightens.
“I have spoken with Bernard. He agrees that you would be a suitable wife for himself.”
Bernard nods, smiles, and looks at Hannah over the top of his spectacles before speaking, a prim grimace that reminds Hannah of a toad considering a fly. “It is best, Miss Butler. Being both in Her Ladyship’s employ, it is natural for two of our station to agree to this marriage.”
Lady Hamilton blows and sips at her tea. “You must marry soon, Hannah. Your thoughts wander, I can tell. In your condition, the wrong man might endanger your soul. And for you to marry and leave my service would be an inconvenience to me. Betrothal to Bernard smooths many wrinkles, don’t you agree?”
Hannah struggles to find her voice. When she speaks, the words tremble.
“Beg pardon, ma’am, but such an arrangement does not appeal to me, thank you.”
Bernard begins to speak, but Her Ladyship interrupts curtly. “Miss Butler! You entered my employ after the reduction of your family’s circumstances.”
Her voice grows louder. “One in your situation should be grateful I am willing to use my position to form a proper arrangement for you! I have told Bernard you may wed when we return to England.”
At the thought of waking every morning for the rest of her life to the sight of the pallid and sanctimonious Bernard, Hannah feels her blood curdle and shakes her head in an autonomic denial of the unthinkable. The unconscious gesture enrages Her Ladyship further, until Hannah can only stare at the floor, listening to the turbulent rush of her own blood in her ears amid the rising fever of her employer’s outraged rant.
Hannah looks up and is met with a stinging slap, then another and another as she ducks her head into her forearms before finally rising to catch and push, sending Lady Hamilton stumbling backward into her silken chair. Stunned and ashen, Hannah turns away, fumbling with trembling hands at her dishevelment. From her chair, Lady Hamilton curses.
There is a sudden quiet, followed by the clink and splinter of a china cup crashing to the floor. Hannah turns to see Her Ladyship arched and quivering, her dress and bodice dark with spilled tea, her jaw working soundlessly, mute from the shock of blood vessels bursting within her brain.
Bernard gasps, carefully places his own cup in its saucer on the table before rising to his feet, and begins shrieking for a doctor.
TWO
Tears of outrage shine in Hannah’s eyes. She stands rigid before Bernard, refusing to look at him, staring instead at the hammered tin ceiling of the Tacoma, Washington, station. Bernard’s voice squeaks and trembles as he curses, banishing her from the entourage.
“You,” he froths, one finger of a suede-gloved hand thrust at her averted face. “You are . . .” His speech dissolves at the memory of Lady Hamilton lying speechless, the left half of her face drooping in a macabre, stroke-induced grimace.
“Loose, Miss Butler, decidedly a slattern!”
He sputters in frustration, mouthing ridiculous threats of sheriffs and bailiffs. Victoria hides in the Pullman car, knowing she will suffer later for her friendship with Hannah, and worse, for Bernard’s impotence. Earlier, she had thrown Hannah’s clothes into a case, whispering fiercely that Hannah “
must
accept Mr. Nelson’s offer. It is clear he loves you!”
must
accept Mr. Nelson’s offer. It is clear he loves you!”
“But . . . ,” Hannah had said, unable to marshal the words to say she hardly knows him. “It would be . . . madness!”
When Nelson stepped through the doorway from where he had been listening, smiling the bold, white smile Hannah found so delectable, and said, “Really, Miss Butler, don’t you think
not
accepting would be the true madness?” Victoria had slammed the lid on the case, giddy with recklessness, and shoved it into Hannah’s arms, whispering, “When shall you ever again have such a chance? It’s so
romantic
!”
not
accepting would be the true madness?” Victoria had slammed the lid on the case, giddy with recklessness, and shoved it into Hannah’s arms, whispering, “When shall you ever again have such a chance? It’s so
romantic
!”
Now Hans, triumphant at having such a prize as Hannah laid at his feet, laughs and tells Bernard to “get out of the way or you’ll wear your ass for a hat,” before removing Hannah’s portmanteau to a waiting carriage. From the safety of the Pullman car steps, Bernard hurls a promise to Hannah that should she ever return to England, there will be charges laid. “Assault!” he cries, and—absurdly—“Attempted murder!”
Stunned by her sudden, explosive exile, Hannah stares at the wagon, which in turn seems a transport into a giddy freedom or a tumbrel on its way to the guillotine. Leaving on the arm of the handsome blond stranger is certainly a fairy tale, but one that will leave her marooned, eternally deprived of a ticket or welcome home to England.
Her possessions are limited to a trunk of clothing and a small box of books—two journals, one of which is half filled and the other entirely blank, a volume of poems, and a Bible. In addition, she owns two pairs of shoes, an umbrella, and a heavy coat with a fur collar. Hidden between the pages of the unused journal are her life savings: forty pounds sterling, plus one hundred and eighty-three dollars in U.S. currency. The world seems suddenly huge and threatening.
Two blocks from the station, Hans draws on the reins and brings the carriage to a halt. Shifting on the hard plank seat, he removes his hat, stares at it, replaces it on his head, and settles it. Turning to face Hannah, he begins:
“Miss Butler . . .”
He pauses, looks away, and twirls the reins.
Hannah waits for the jaws of some trap she feels yawning beneath her to spring.
Hans eyes a passing horseman, then blurts, “I’ve some money,” before mumbling, “I mean . . . if you’d rather.”
The words slip crossways through Hannah’s brain, spinning without clear meaning, until assembling themselves into a pattern ripe with a malign offer of prostitution. Voice trembling, she struggles for frost in her reply.
“Surely, Mr. Nelson, you do not propose . . .”
Suddenly awkward as a boy, Hans nods. “Yes. I’ve some money. And if you’d prefer, instead of this . . .” A loose hand wave encompasses the whole of the bustling street, the patchwork of wood frame buildings to either side, and the gaggle of rough-looking characters who pick their way through random piles of horse dung along the street.
“It’s not much, but I’ve enough to get you back to England. You don’t have to stay if it is not your wish.”
The whip-snap reversal makes her dizzy, requiring she breathe once, then again, before the notion that Hans is offering her a choice can sink slowly in. Rather than propositioning her, he is offering her the freedom to decide.
One gloved hand reaches out to rest lightly on his forearm. Then in a small and tenuous voice she says, “Please continue, Mr. Nelson. We must see to rooms for the night.”
A preacher charges a dollar to perform the short ceremony that binds them. Witnesses are included in the price. Then there are papers to sign at a recorder’s office, and she receives a document that changes her name to Nelson. After the ceremony, her new husband beams as the preacher shakes his hand, while Hannah feels a knot in her stomach, just below her sternum, as she stares at the man to whom she has been bound.
They rent a room on the third floor of the Empire Hotel. There is a stand with a basin and a carpet patterned with roses. The sounds of the booming streets below come to her through a window that opens outward above a saloon, and she feels as if she is someone else, some other young woman who lies watching as Hans methodically forces his way through her hymen. Afterward, he goes to the hotel kitchen and returns with two plates of kidneys and beans and a spray of yellow honeysuckle, which he drapes across her belly. Once, then again, she lies and watches as the act is repeated. Then on the second day, she awakens to wonder, as her nerves and skin and blood come alive, washing her in new sensations that allow Hans’s lips and hands to sweep her over the precipice of a new carnality.
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