Chapter 2

Benson, Arizona

Summer 1891

Dear Mr Grant,

I hope you are well. I am very grateful that you are allowing me to write you. I have thought of more questions, as enclosed.

The list went on for three pages. Susan had written quite small on both sides, all the way up to the margins, because Mother had gotten cross with her for asking for more paper.

She folded up the letter quite small so it would fit into the envelope and addressed the outside.

Then another thought crossed her mind, and she had to steal into Father's office to find another piece of paper after all.

Why do people get sick from eating raw meat but not from eating raw vegetables? Is there something in the vegetables that makes them better, or is there something in the meat that makes them worse?

The envelope was bulging by morning, and Father's desk was missing quite a stack from the letter rack.

Susan got up very early so that Mother wouldn't try to stop her going out, and she ran all the way into town. When she got to the boarding house it was still quiet, and there were only a few people walking up and down the street on their way to work. She decided not to knock on the door in case she woke somebody, so she sat on the steps and watched the chickens pecking and grooming themselves in the middle of the road, showering themselves in dust. She wished she'd brought a pen.

Why do chickens cover themselves in dirt? They seem to like it. Are they just naturally dirty, like pigs, or does it do something useful for them? They're not so very dirty and smelly the rest of the time, so it seems like there must be a reason.

When the door opened beside her, she had almost drifted into a funny dream, full of birds and soft morning clouds. She jumped, and Mr Grant looked down at her in surprise.

'Why, good morning, Miss Darrow. Are you alright? You're up very early.'

Flushing like the dawn, Susan leapt to her feet and held out her heavy envelope to him nervously. 'Yes, I'm quite alright, thank you, good morning, I hope you're very well today, I brought you my letter.'

He took it carefully in his gloved hand. 'That's excellent, Miss Darrow. I will have something to read on my way to Tombstone. I shall think it all over and write you back this evening.'

'It's alright if you don't,' Susan said, still very pink in the face. 'It's quite long.'

He hefted the letter with interest and smiled wryly. 'Well, all the better that I get started, in that case.'

'Have a nice day!' Susan said, and hurried towards home, too nervous to look back.

She walked back along the road quite slowly after she had left the edge of town. Getting back to the house didn't seem all that appealing with the thought of Mother's disapproval to look forward to. She filled her thoughts with the conversation of the previous afternoon, trying to recall everything that the doctor had told her. It had been very interesting; even if he didn't answer her letter at all, she was already very pleased to have talked to him. She'd gone to sit with Belinda after supper and had read to her from her dog-eared copy of Treasure Island, and they had talked about the view of the mountains from Belinda's bedroom window and whether there might be caves full of gold and jewels up there.

Susan was still considering this possibility as she walked up the track to the kitchen door, when suddenly there was a shower of dead leaves and Abigail and Jennifer came out from behind a bush, giggling.

'Oh, bother,' Susan grumbled, picking twigs from her hair. 'I was still clean this morning. Now Mother will be cross, you beasts!'

'It serves you right for going out when you shouldn't,' Abigail said, sticking her tongue out. 'Where were you, anyway?' Her eyes gleamed. 'Jerry brought the milk round earlier and he said he saw you going into town.'

'I was just going for a walk!'

'Oh really. Why should you go for a walk at this hour?' Abigail tittered triumphantly. 'Unless you were visiting somebody?'

'I'm going in for breakfast.'

'You're too late! Mother says you don't get any for sneaking out like that.'

'Oh, go fall in a ditch, Abby!'

'Who were you visiting, Susie? Was it a boy?'

'Ugh! Why would I want to visit a boy? That's horrid. You're horrid. Go away!'

'It's a boy, it's a boooy!'

Susan fled the laughter, muttering furiously under her breath. Abigail didn't understand anything. She was far too silly, she didn't care about how things worked or why they were the way they were. She laughed at Susan all the time for asking perfectly reasonable questions. It was thoroughly aggravating.

When she got inside, though, things were even worse. Mother wanted to know all about where she'd been, and Father was grumbling about where all his good letter paper had gone overnight, and after not very long they put their heads together and Susan was done for. Then Abigail got back inside and had to tell them all about what Jerry had seen, and suddenly it was all out in the open.

'You did what?' Mother nearly collapsed.

'That was half a dollar's worth of paper, girl!'

'You wrote to Mr Grant?' Abigail looked ready to burst with delighted scorn.

'He said I could!' Susan wailed.

'And what? He would write back? To you?'

'Yes! He promised!'

'Oh, like he would. You're just a nosy little brat, why would he want to talk to you?'

After another minute, Susan burst into tears and fled back outside. Sitting alone in the bushes while her mother screeched for her from the house, she scrubbed the tears from her cheeks and told herself that this wasn't fair. Alright, Father was right and she shouldn't have used all that paper without asking, but everyone else was just being unreasonable. There was no good reason she couldn't write to Mr Grant if Mr Grant said she could.

But by the evening she was feeling far less sure of herself, and Abigail's rolling eyes had convinced her: He wouldn't write back. After all, nice as he was, he was obviously very busy. He'd been going all the way to Tombstone and back in a day, he'd said, so he had to have very important business there. It was ridiculous to think he'd waste his time on her idle fancies.

All the same, she was hardly the most surprised the next morning when Jerry came with the milk and brought a clean white envelope with him, tucked carefully in his jacket pocket. He pulled it out while he was talking to Abigail and asked if Susan was home, and Susan nearly jumped out of her chair.

'That can't be for her,' Abigail objected, snatching it out of his hand and looking at it closely.

Jerry shrugged. 'I don't know much about writing, but that fella at the lodging house asked me to bring it up here for Miss Susan.'

'Abby, give it here!' Susan pleaded, reaching for it.

Abigail held her at arm's length, waving the letter out of reach. 'Oh, don't be ridiculous! Mother, she shouldn't have it, should she? Not when she snuck out like that!'

Mother snatched it away. 'It's completely improper for a strange man to be writing to you like this, Susan,' she snapped. 'No matter how charming he is! Your father must see this immediately.'

Susan went back to her chair and refused to say anything else, no matter how Abigail goaded her. She concentrated on her breakfast, eating one miniscule bite of porridge at a time just to draw it out while she kept on ignoring her sisters' mockery.

When Father came into the kitchen, though, they all scrambled to attention.

'Here, dear, here it is. Open it,' Mother said, thrusting the doctor's letter at her husband.

Mr Darrow sighed and sat down, slitting the envelope with a knife. He shook the heavy bundle of paper into his hand, unfolded it and began to read.

After a minute he turned over the first sheet and read the other side. Then he flicked through several more pages. The last handful he turned over several times to be sure.

'It looks like it's for Susan, alright,' he said finally. 'All sorts of rubbish about birds and beasts and the weather and diseases of the lung. And half a pound of blank paper, by the feel of it.'

'What? What on earth for?' Mother demanded.

Father gave Susan a stern look. 'I should say to replace all of mine that she stole-' he began, and then he shook his head. '-But never mind that. For whatever she wants. It's a gift from the doctor.'

Abigail was looking quite red in the face, and Marianne seemed almost as shocked as Mother. Jennifer and Belinda didn't seem to know what was going on. As for Susan, she was trying not to let the smile show or she knew she might burst from excitement.

With a sigh, Father handed the bundle of paper to her. 'Here you go. I can't see any harm in it. If the man wants to answer all her interminable questions, let him. So long as she doesn't touch any more of my paper, I've got nothing against it.'

'Well, I... I never,' Mother said.

And that was that.

Mr Grant stayed in Benson for seventeen more days, all told. Susan kept count because every day after that Jerry would bring an envelope with him in the mornings. Her sisters soon tired of teasing her and went back to their usual pursuits, but for Susan, the world turned three-hundred-and-sixty degrees in half a month. Jerry's deliveries weren't just paper and ink, they were the treasure of a thousand kingdoms: The secrets of the universe.

Mr Grant had the very finest handwriting in the world, of that she was sure. He would draw diagrams and pictures for her, too, delicate and meticulous and utterly beautiful - the muscles of a bird's wing, maps of the stars, the growth of trees, the patterns of glacial erosion. Her questions grew even more outlandish, even more varied, as the days passed, because for every one he had an answer. Even when he didn't know, still it satisfied her, because he seemed to find joy in her curiosity itself and to delight in the unknown and the unknowable.

I'm afraid I don't know how swallows find their way home. Maybe they have their own kind of compass, or they keep a map inside their heads, or perhaps they merely know something we don't. What do you think?

She saved the letters in a box where nobody else would find them. They were the most precious things she could imagine, a fountain of understanding in a muddy world of incomprehension.

Then, to everyone's amazement, something even more remarkable appeared.

The day that he left, Mr Grant's last letter came. Jerry handed it to Susan with a serious look on his face. Mr Grant had told him to take extra special care of it today, he said - that it was very important.

Susan refused to open it while the others were all pestering her about it. She saved it for the afternoon, when the sun was pounding down so nobody wanted to go outside. She went out anyway and climbed into the sycamore tree, and there in the shade she opened the last envelope.

Inside was the letter, and with it a plain little key.

Dear Susan Darrow,

I am very sorry that this must be my last letter to you, as I've so enjoyed our correspondence. I wanted to give you something that I hope can be of use to you - please take good care of the key, as the rest will arrive later. In the mean time I have answered your questions from your last letter, but before I get to that, I want to offer a few more personal words.

You are an exceptionally clever young woman. Do whatever you can in your life to keep on learning, and to follow the things you are passionate about. You are capable of great things, Susan, and I hope to hear of some of them in the papers one day, or even the scientific journals.

If you ever do decide to pursue medicine, as you have spoken of to me, I have listed the names of some of my friends in California who may be of service to you. They are all good, honest people whom I trust. Of all of them, I most highly recommend Mrs Mills - though she is not in medicine herself, she runs a school for young ladies and I would be more than glad to vouch for you if you ever wished to apply there. You need only mention my name.

It has been a great honour to meet you, Susan. I hope you have a very good life, full of new and wonderful discoveries and all the joy in the world.

Yours faithfully,

Alastair Grant

She didn't read the rest right away. The other six pages were full of fascinating things, and they meant everything to her, but for a little while at least she needed to sit and think about the first page.

She didn't cry, but for a few weeks after that nobody heard her laugh very much. Marianne asked her if she was missing Mr Grant terribly, and Susan didn't deny it, but it wasn't just that. She was very busy, because she had more things to write. Since she couldn't ask her questions of Alastair Grant, she would have to think about the answers for herself, and to do that she had discovered that a pen and paper were excellent tools.

The key she kept on a piece of string around her neck. Her sisters wanted to know what it was, and so did she, but she wouldn't let anyone else touch it. Mr Grant had told her to keep it safe for a reason. Whatever that reason was, she had confidence that she would find out.

They all did, when a month later Father came home early with two of the shop-boys carrying a very large steamer trunk along with them.

'Susan!'

She dashed downstairs from Belinda's room.

'What's that?' It wasn't just Abigail who wanted to know.

'It's got Susie's name on it,' Jennifer marvelled.

Susan traced the lettering; it had been carved deeply into the metal band around the trunk, impossible to remove, and it was in a hand she recognised.

Property of Susan Darrow

Benson, Arizona

'It's locked,' Father said.

Everyone looked at Susan, and at the little grey key hanging around her neck.

She took it off and carefully opened the trunk. Her family, and the shop boys, all craned to look over her shoulder. Only Susan laughed, and she with a breathless delight.

Light fingered with awe, she brushed the covers of the books within.

'No wonder it felt like we were lifting a ton of bricks!' one of the lads grumbled.

'What's that say?' Jennifer asked.

Susan read the name aloud: 'Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.'

'Well, I'll be,' Father said, scratching his head.

Abigail tittered. 'That Mr Grant is the strangest man I've ever met!' she remarked.

Susan closed the lid of the trunk with a snap.

After more discussion and debate, Mother and Father agreed that there was no real harm in letting her keep the books. It was certainly odd, there was no denying that, but if the doctor wanted her to have them, there wasn't much reason to disagree. After all, Father pointed out, there might be some money in selling them one day. Perhaps it would help to pay for Susan's wedding.

'Wedding!' Mother almost wailed. 'As if anyone will marry a girl who won't ever get her head out of a book!'

But all the same, the shop boys helped to carry the trunk up to Susan's room.

When she was finally alone she sat on the edge of her bed and opened the first page of Newton's Principles.

'He isn't strange,' she said fiercely to herself, stroking the thin old paper with trembling fingers. 'He's the kindest man in the world.'