and to myself. I wanted to be able to talk with you about whatever I felt like tonight. I wanted to celebrate your birthday in the only privacy I could allow. Please forgive me if I do you a disservice, but I have set up this dinner for the two of us, privately in my chambers because I thought it would suit us the best.”
“You argue wel . Have you had thoughts of going into law?” I stepped
nearer to the fire and removed my wrapper. Charlie took it from me.
“Yes, as a matter of fact. If I can only get this mining business settled for my father, I might well pursue such a course.” He ushered me to the
table and pulled out a chair for me.
“Wel , I too am thinking of my future. I might set myself up in a book-
store.”
He looked at me with surprise. “Surely not here in Deadwood. I doubt
that one in five men can read.”
“No, maybe back in St. Paul. Or, who knows, maybe out west. I hear
San Francisco is becoming a much cultured town.”
I noticed next to my plate a large present wrapped in gold foil with a
big white bow on top.
“May I pour you some champagne?” Charlie asked me.
I nodded and he handed me a glass flute full of bubbles. We held the
stems and clinked the rims together and they made a fine high ringing
note.
“To many more years of your life, and to the hope that I might share
them with you, dear Brigid.”
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We drank. The champagne felt like I was drinking sea foam and then
the aftertaste of it was like a fine ripe peach. All in all, I liked it very much.
“Now, it is my turn.” I said. We both lifted our glasses up again and
clicked them together. I launched into my toast. “To settling the claim
agreement and getting on with our lives.”
“Hear, hear,” Charlie said. “That will happen in the next day or two. It all looks quite good. I left before Underwood. They had no need for me,
and he and the gentleman with your ore sample should be here in the next day or two.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” I drank another sip of the bubbly and felt it fizz in my nose. “May I tell Paddy and Billy that all is going wel ?”
“I don’t see it can hurt.”
We sat by the fire, sipping champagne. My thoughts went naturally to
Charlie’s family, and I asked, “How are your mother and father and sister?”
“They are all very wel . Father had a cold that laid him up in bed for
a day or two, but he was fine when I left. Mother misses your attendance.
Dorry is doing well with her lessons. She’s always a bit shy around me, but she was persuaded to recite a long poem to me one night at dinner. Part of that one by Longfellow. ‘Hiawatha,’ I think it’s called.”
“And how are all the servants?” I would not forget them. Agnes, espe-
cially, had been so good to me.
“They are wel . Aggy tries to force food down me when I’m home. She
seems to think I’m dwindling away.” He laughed. “And of course Bigsby
bows and sends his love.”
The image of Bigsby having anything to do with love made me laugh.
“Charlie, you are a tease. No wonder Dorry is shy with you.”
“No, no. I do it only to make you laugh. I love the sound of your laugh-
ter, like a brook, a singing brook. Mother agrees. She mentioned that she loved the joy you showed in living.”
I blushed from the simple compliment. “You have talked of me to
her?”
“Yes.” Charlie bent his head. “Of course I have mentioned you. In fact,
she helped me pick out this gift for you. She sends her best wishes.”
“She knows that you are giving me a gift? What does she think of
that?”
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“All she has said on the matter is that I should be generous and kind to you. She thinks you a bright and spirited young woman. I think that you
remind her of herself when she was your age.”
“You are presumptuous. Your mother is so much above me.”
“Only in age. And you must remember when I say that, that I love my
mother very wel .” He lifted up the package. “Finish that glass of cham-
pagne so I might fill your glass again, and then I will give you this gift.”
I gulped down the rest of the drink and handed him my glass, being as
obedient as I had ever been in his presence. In exchange he handed over
the lovely gold- wrapped box large enough to hold a garment. I carefully undid the bow and eased the package out of the paper, folding it carefully, wanting to save it all. Then I opened the box and found nestled in fine
white tissue paper a lovely paisley shawl, burgundy with a gold band running through it so that it looked like it was shot with gold.
“Oh,” I said with great wit and again, “oh, Charlie.”
While words failed me, my hands went to work and pulled the shawl
out of its wrappings and twirled it over my head, wrapping it around my
shoulders. My dark best dress was transformed. With the shawl adorning
my shoulders, I felt as well dressed as any woman I had ever seen. The
shawl was so beautiful, easily one that his mother might have worn, and
she was certainly the most elegant woman I had known.
“Yes, that color becomes you,” he said from his seat where he watched
me with pleasure.
“This is too much,” I started.
“Not enough,” he assured me.
“I can’t possibly . . .”
“You must.”
“But . . .”
“For my mother’s sake.”
“You fight most unfairly.”
“Yes, I do.”
“I will remember that.”
“I hope you wil .”
I stood and twirled around in front of the fire to show him the full
effect. “How does it look?”
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“Fine on such a lovely model.”
We made it through dinner, eating slowly and leisurely, course by
course, drinking a red wine with the main course of pheasant and pota-
toes, and finally dessert was brought in, a lovely white cake with flowers decorated in the frosting, a single candle burning in the center of it.
“Blow it out and you’ll get your wish.”
“You’ve made it too easy,” I laughed at him.
“I mean it to be easy.”
I thought for a moment of all I wanted. I looked at Charlie, wished
in my mind that I might find true love, and then I blew at the candle. The light flickered for a moment, then burned brightly again. Quickly I blew again and it went out. We both laughed, and then he grabbed my hand and
pulled me to his lap.
“Let me feed it to you,” he asked and then kissed me.
The kiss lasted a good long while. I felt like I had already had the cake, so sweet it tasted on my lips.
After the kiss, he cut me a piece of the cake and fed it to me, patting
my lips between each bite. I laughed and laughed, giddy with the closeness of him.
One more glass of champagne followed, and then Charlie asked if he
might show me the view from his bedroom.
“What view is there from the bedroom windows that you cannot see
out these windows?” I asked, wondering how he would handle this question.
“A bit of the mountains.” He answered very seriously and led me into
his room. I followed. He took me to the street- side window and pointed
up through the streets, and in
deed there was a gap in the building through which a glimpse of the hilltops could be seen. He stood behind me as I
peered out at it.
“The snow gleams in the moonlight,” I said.
“Yes,” he replied. Then I felt his arms wrap around my waist and come
up under my arms. “But not nearly as brightly as your radiant skin.” He
kissed me on the neck right below my ear.
I said nothing, but stood feeling his breath on my neck. I did not
move, surprised that I wanted him to kiss me again. I wanted to turn in his arms and kiss him back twice as full and as hard as he had embraced me.
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Then I remembered myself. While I was intrigued by the thought
of being Charlie Hunt’s wife, I wasn’t sure that was what he intended, as much as he might talk of courting me, as much as he might insist that I was an equal to his mother. “I think I must go now, Charlie.”
He turned me in his arms and looked down into my face. “Stay just a
little while longer.”
Before I could answer, he kissed me full on the mouth, which stopped
me from adding to my argument. The only thing I appeared to like better
than arguing with Charlie Hunt was kissing him. I noticed that we were
slowly moving backward into the room.
Suddenly, I was pushed back and fell upon the bed. Charlie stretched
out next to me. “Brigid, I think I’m falling in love with you.”
I had never had a man say such words to me. I so wanted to believe
him, that he might love me, that he might be capable of such a thing. But one small spot in my mind continued to think, and I realized that giving in to him might not be the smart thing to do. I also knew that if I let him kiss me one more time, I was lost.
So I asked the only question I could think of that might bring our
movements to a halt before it was too late to stop them. “But I must know: what were your dealings with Lily?” I sat up and looked down at him.
Charlie sat up next to me. “What about her? She’s dead and buried
these past four weeks.”
“Certainly I know that, but what I would like to discuss is what you
were to her or, rather, what she was to you.”
“Not what you think.”
“What do you mean?”
He looked quite uncomfortable. “Wel , to be frank, I did not pay her
for her pleasures.”
“What?” I was more shocked than I thought I could be. “You did not
pay her to be with you?”
“No, I did pay her. But I did not sleep with her.”
I sat on the edge of the bed. “What are you tel ing me?”
“This does not make you happy?”
I tested my feelings. I had seen Lily. I knew how lovely she was. “I’m
not sure I believe you.”
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He looked distressed. “Brigid, you must understand.”
“I will try.”
“It happened before I knew you.”
“I realize that.”
“I was trying to buy the claim, and I did not trust your brother and
Paddy.”
“What has that to do with Lily?”
“I knew that she was friendly with Seamus, and I thought I might get
some information from her. So I hired her to find out what they were do-
ing with the claim, if they were salting it.”
“What is salting, exactly?”
“Adding gold illegally to the ore so that it makes it look like the claim is worth more than it is.”
I stood up. He had been snooping about and had hired Lily to spy
for him. Pretty low to ask my brother’s fiancée for such information. That explained what he had said to his father the night I had overheard them
talking about the claim.
“I see.”
He tried to pull me back down onto the bed with him, but I resisted.
“What do you see?” He suddenly got angry in a way that I had never
seen him do before. “You do not seem to ever believe anything I say, Brigid.”
I tried to disagree, but he continued.
“No, hear me out.” He took me by the shoulders and forced his face
close to mine. “First, you must check to be sure I didn’t abduct you and tie you up in a mine shaft, that I did not kill Lily, and now that I did not sleep with her. Even before this all, at my parents’ house, you had to ask the other servants about my previous engagement. I know because Aggy told
me. What must I do so that you will trust me?”
“But I am the one who is in a vulnerable position. What would you
doubt about me? Is there any matter in which I might trick you?” I pulled away from him, angry that he did not see my situation better.
“Yes, there is. For one, you might be in league with your brother and
his friends to get the most money out of me for the mine. For another, you might trick me about your very feelings for me, your affection. You could be going along with me now, having dinner with me, leading me on, so that
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I would think more favorably about the mining deal. Or maybe you wil
even take it further. Marry me for my money.”
“That you could think that . . .” I stomped my foot.
I gathered up my wrapper and left the room. I swept down the dark-
ened hallway and then tripped down the grand stairway into the entrance.
Before I went outside, the doorman helped me into my wrapper and held
through the streets. I ran for home.
Charlie did not follow me, and I must admit part of myself was disap-
pointed. What would I have become if I had stayed? A streel like many of the women in Deadwood— or a wife?
28
The day after my birthday, the sky was close and heavy with steel-
gray clouds above us like the lid of a cast- iron pan. This lid rested
on the high hil s that surrounded the town and gave the sense that we were truly closed in.
Elizabeth had complained to me that “February, while technically be-
ing the shortest month of the year, here in the territories lasts forever.” Already I knew what she was talking about. The month, while barely started, seemed interminable, with the same cold, steely days we had had most of
January. I found that I had grown bone tired of this winter.
“I’m off to work at the claim today,” Billy announced as the three of us sat around the table and ate warm oatbread and coffee.
I longed for a bit of sweetness, some jam to put on our bread, but we
were very low on gold at the moment. If Billy went to the claim, we might be able to shop for some food supplies. Besides, I was all for getting him out of the house. He had been nothing but a nuisance and a bother the
past two weeks.
“I don’t know about that,” said Paddy. “Myself I don’t care for the look of the sky this morning.”
“The great weather foreseer. Looks the same as it has looked the past
fortnight, Paddy.”
“I’d lay odds that we’ll be in a storm before nightfall.”
“And I will be home before that happens,” Billy assured him.
Billy was in a queer mood these days— waiting did not suit him at
all. I had told them that Charlie had been quite positive about the claim settlement and that we would probably hear from the Hunts today or tomorrow. Professor Underwood was still on his way and so was the man
with our ore sample.
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“I’d like to pull a bit more gold
out of the earth before we sell it. Lord knows, we could use it.”
“Be off with you, then,” Paddy agreed. “But go now and do not stay
out too late. You’ll have to camp there if it gets too bad.”
I cleared off the table and was washing the dishes when Billy left.
Paddy came up behind me and said, “I’m off to run to the hardware
store. Can I get you anything, Brigid?”
I kept working away at the dishes. The water cooled so fast I had to
work quickly. “Paddy, thanks, but I’m fine.”
“Did you have a good birthday?” he asked.
I turned and faced him. He had a solemn, rather distant look on his
face as if he were asking the question merely out of politeness.
“Fine enough. Did your family make a fuss about the birthdays?”
“No, not much of one. There was never enough to go around in the
ordinary run of things, so a birthday was nothing but another day. How
was it with your family?”
“Much the same. My mother would try to add a festive note, even
during the hard times.”
“But you had a fine meal then, last night? I heard you come in not so
late.”
“It was a very nice meal indeed, but I think we’ll all be glad when this transaction is done.”
“Is Mr. Hunt serious about you?” He looked me straight in the face.
“Who’s to know.”
“Do you believe him?”
I looked to Paddy. “Do you?”
His face dropped. Then he said, “I might not be the man to ask.” His
words trailed off, and without another word he left the room.
I watched him go, my hands in the cooling dishwater, wondering who
had caused the ache in my heart— Charlie or the look in Paddy’s eyes.
As soon as he was out the door, I whisked off my apron and went to put
on my wrapper and new shawl. I hoped that if I questioned Nel ie today I
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would know the truth about Charlie. But before I could step out the door, I heard a knocking. Elizabeth peeked her head in.