Thanks to all who are reading - I don't have time to reply to each of you this morning but I appreciate the encouragement.
And I remove all guest reviews.
Three
"Shall I pour before I leave you to discuss your business?" Sigrid asked Adam; she had yet to smile at him; perhaps he wasn't welcomed by both.
Adam stumbled over his words, feeling surprisingly awkward. With all he had faced in his life, Adam wondered why this should intimidate him - after all, he had practiced the "proposal" as he dressed that evening. But suddenly he considered something new; if Sigrid agreed to marry him, they would be together for many years to come. And he didn't know if they even liked each other. But then many married couples didn't like each other very much; that he knew. "Please don't leave, Miss Eklund. It's you I have business with—not your father."
Sigrid, who had reached for the coffee pot, withdrew her hand and looked to her father who refused to look at her or Adam; he rapidly puffed on his pipe.
"With me?" Sigrid asked, puzzled.
"Yes." Adam moved forward on the sofa. He looked at Sigrid, really looked at her for the first time. She had her mother's smooth, pale skin but her hair was thick and dark, and although she had captured most of it in a snood, stray curls had worked their way out about her temples. As for her face, her features were oddly unbalanced, one eyebrow arching higher than the other, her eyes lined with sooty lashes. Although she was no great beauty, there was something about her face that pleased him.
Adam took a deep breath. "I have a…well, it might be considered a business proposition, or a marriage proposal. I suppose it's a matter of perception." Sigrid sat down on a nearby chair, curious, but Alvar Eklund stood up.
"You come into my house, Adam Cartwright, basically a stranger to my daughter, and have the boldness to ask her to marry you?" He jabbed the pipe stem toward Adam, his hand shaking with fury. "Who are you to do so? And why my daughter? Min dotter?" Alvar dropped his pipe into an ashtray on the table and strode boldly to the antler rack hanging on the wall, lifting out his rifle. He jacked it and pointed it toward Adam. "Now, get out of my house and if you ever set foot in my home again, I'll kill you and enjoy doing it!"
Adam slowly stood; he regretted not having donned his gun belt and having left his rifle in its scabbard. Alvar, his face red with anger, wasn't bluffing. But Sigrid also stood up and stepped between the two men.
"Min Far, put away your rifle. I will speak with Mr. Cartwright—I will hear him out. If you choose to stay in the room, I ask that you not interfere. I know you are concerned for me and it is with respect that I ask you to let me make decisions affecting my life; I am of age to decide these things for myself."
"Sigrid…" Eklund dropped the rifle to his side as if exhausted by his fury. "I only want what's best for you. Remember the Handley boy. And that Nate Mercer. Why should this one be any different from them? They had nothing to offer and he hasn't either-just money and a name. Having money doesn't ensure a man's any good; on the contrary. I have found that having money is usually plied as an excuse for horrifying behavior and a well-connected family protects a man from legal consequences. This man asks for your hand while never having spent any time in your company. Why? Why does he want to marry you except that he remembers…" Eklund stopped and met Adam's eyes; they were both remembering the incident so many years ago. Then Eklund looked at Sigrid and his face softened. "Surely, min dotter, you can't count this man as a serious suitor?"
"Far, please do as I ask. If you insist on interfering, I shall speak with him alone on the porch." Sigrid spoke gently but there was no compromise in her words. That surprised Adam. He had always believed Sigrid Eklund was a meek girl, quashed under the heavy thumb of her domineering father. Perhaps the reverse was true. Perhaps Alvar Eklund was in awe of the young woman who had basically run his household since the housekeeper had died a few years ago and he obeyed her wishes as if they were commands. Adam knew people see what they expect to see and up to that moment, Adam always assumed Alvar resented the child of the man who defiled his wife and caused her to go mad. But it didn't seem so now.
Alvar, dejected, hung his rifle back on its rack. He stood for a moment longer and then slowly went up the stairs. Once he reached the top landing, he turned. "And see you do not stay late, Adam Cartwright. Min dotter is a good girl – morally upright and not taken to sitting up late with men." Then he rounded the corner and was out of sight.
Sigrid sat down and Adam did as well but he still sat close to the cushion's edge.
"How do you like your coffee, Mr. Cartwright?"
"Just sugar, please. One." Adam waited while Sigrid, poured coffee and dropped a sugar loaf into it. Rising, she handed him the cup and saucer with one hand, and a teaspoon and napkin with the other. He took them from her, noticing her hands, how they were small as her mother's had been. Adam wondered what Sigrid knew about her mother; he hadn't noticed any photographs on display. Did Sigrid even remember what her mother looked like? Did she know how kind and lovely her mother had been?
"Help yourself to the cookies. They're my father's favorite-drömmar- so I always keep the cookie jar filled. Do you like sweets, Mr. Cartwright?"
"Yes, I do." Adam sat the cup and saucer back on the table between them. He took a cookie and bit into it. The buttery, vanilla taste took him back to the cookies he ate in the smithy so many years ago. "Your mother baked these. She gave me some when I was a boy; they were like bits of heaven. You say they're called drömmar?"
"Yes. Drömmar means dream; they're 'dream cookies'. Years ago, I found the recipe in an old Swedish cookbook stored on a kitchen shelf; it was my grandmother's cookbook. Our housekeeper, Mrs. Helström, taught me to cook and bake and translated the ingredients into English. I hope my cookies are as good as you remember my mother's to have been."
Adam offered a small smile and ate two more cookies in silence before drinking his coffee. Then he sat, considering his approach.
"Hoss, my brother, his mother was Swedish. Her name was Inger Borgström and she…" Adam chuckled self-consciously. "I suppose I'm looking to find some common ground. We don't know each other so I, well, it makes things…" Adam sighed and stood up. "Thank you for your courtesy, Miss Eklund, and for calling off your father. Also, for the coffee and cookies, but I realize that the reason I came here was, at best, hubris on my part, and at its worst, insulting to you."
"Please sit down. I'm determined to hear what you have to say. You have piqued my curiosity and I will hear your business."
Adam judged the situation. Sigrid wasn't what he had expected; she had that same iron core that Inger had, that same strength that had allowed Inger to marry his father and travel with them across the continent and even to bear a child along the way. But still, Adam considered, did he have such a high opinion of himself that he thought Sigrid would leap at the idea to go off with him? Adam wanted to walk away from the whole idea and yet…Sigrid Eklund was to be obeyed.
"All right." Adam sat back down, clasping his hands, his elbows on his knees. "In four days, I plan to be on a ship for Australia. I'm going into business – mining - with an old friend of mine, Caleb Morgan, who's already there. The trip will take over a month and I have no idea what I'll find when I get to Queensland but I want to take the chance. My friend urged me to bring along a wife and since I have none and need to leave for San Francisco tomorrow, well, I was wondering if you would join me. That's why I'm here-or why I came here." He waited, watching Sigrid's calm face; her expression hadn't changed.
Sigrid seemed to gather herself. "Why ask me, Mr. Cartwright? Is it because I am without husband at my age? Or is it that due to my parentage, you feel I am unmarriageable, that no one who knows my background could possibly want me? Therefore, I would snatch at your proposition. After all, my actual father – if that is what he is to be called - forced himself on my mother and was hanged for his crime. But you know that, don't you? Yet you're willing to deign to marry me and take me with you across the seas to the other side of the world to use me to keep house and fulfill your desires. Oh, don't protest, Mr. Cartwright; I am not naïve. I am well aware of wifely duties. You pity me-poor spinster bastard, Sigrid Eklund. Am I correct?" She waited.
By the subtle heaving of her breast, Adam knew Sigrid was upset, although neither her face nor her voice betrayed her. "You're hard on yourself, Miss Eklund, but yes, that's partially what I had thought - but I see I was wrong. I'd prejudged you and expected you to be a lonely young woman subjugated by an overbearing father. I thought he kept you from having friends and…suitors. I mean I've ever noticed you out with a young man." Sigrid Eklund had him off-balance and Adam wasn't used to feeling so disconcerted.
"You never noticed me at all, did you?" Sigrid waited, smiling slightly.
"No, I suppose I didn't. You were only a young girl when I left for war and…so, I suppose now that I've confessed and you have the upper hand, you're going to demand I leave"
Sigrid laughed without amusement. "Is that what you think? Oh, Mr. Cartwright, you are full of biases and prejudices, aren't you? You see, I have noticed you, and in my opinion, you are a vain, supercilious, haughty man who demands adoration from any woman he selects to squire about. Is that a true summation of your character?"
It was Adam's turn to laugh—not at Sigrid, but at himself. "I suppose to some degree, it is. I often have a high opinion of my abilities. I have, in the past, also been flattered by many lovely women. I think I may even have taken some of it seriously – one of the many flaws in my character. But since I've returned, well, I know myself better and I don't much like what I see."
"Well, we seem to be two unpleasant people, don't we? So," Sigrid said, sitting more upright, "let me understand - you are asking me to accompany you to Australia as your wife."
"Yes." Adam watched Sigrid carefully. Was she setting him up merely to say no?
"Then you are offering marriage? Aren't you afraid I will be like my mother?"
Adam was puzzled. "I hope you would be. I…I was fond of her. She was lovely and was kind to me, a small, motherless boy."
"But she went mad. Perhaps I'll become unhinged as well. Did you consider that?"
Adam sat in silence; he hadn't considered it. He knew it was possible that put through enough, any person could lose the tenuous grasp on reality. He had seen it on the battlefield and in his own life.
"All life is a risk. And you can always decline my offer."
Sigrid considered. She didn't know Adam Cartwright, but then, he was the best prospect for her to escape her life in her father's house. Sigrid wasn't unhappy, but she rose each day knowing what to expect – except, apparently, today. And she longed to be a woman of means in her own right. She decided to make a counter proposal.
"I would, if your offer of marriage still stands, Mr. Cartwright, demand part interest of any mining operation in my own name, exclusive of your interest."
Adam managed a slight grin; he was beginning to like and respect Sigrid Eklund very much; she was shrewd. "My proposition – proposal - still stands. If you agree, we can marry tomorrow and tonight, I'll write up a contract that gives you one third of my share in any venture we undertake - in your own name - as a wedding present."
"I would demand half of your share. After all, we would be partners."
"All right, half."
"You would need an answer tonight – now - I suppose," Sigrid said quietly.
"Yes. I'm trying to cement arrangements."
Sigrid scrutinized the man before her; her head was spinning, her heart thumping. Could she wake up every morning and look in his eyes after lying with him the previous night? Could she cook and clean, scrub floors on her knees and wash dishes and clothing for him? If God should desire, could she gladly give him children? Adam Cartwright's face was beginning to show his years, lined by hard-work and what to Sigrid's eye, seemed pain from an unknown source. His dark hair was graying about the temples but what she noted the most were his eyes, an odd golden-brown. Sigrid glanced at his hands. They also reflected hard work but the nails were pared and clean, the fingers long and elegant, the thumbs, narrow-waisted. Something she had heard…yes, he played the guitar. And although Sigrid knew it was foolish, could any man with an artistic temperament be cruel to a woman?
"Of late, I have found myself wanting for a change," Sigrid said. "I will accept your offer of marriage, Mr. Cartwright."
A shuddering sigh escaped him; Adam hadn't realized he had been holding his breath.
"I need to…inform you that it won't be easy. It is a wilderness and although there is a house for us, I was told not to expect too much. We'll be a distance from any town; there's a small settlement of traders and such, the rudiments of society, nearby but that's it. You should know that you'll have to, well, have a kitchen garden and tend chickens and some cows and…I'll be gone all day and you'll be basically alone until I'm home at night." He sat and waited, watching Sigrid's face. Adam expected to see a change come over her at the daunting prospects but her expression never altered.
"I think I can bear up under the weight," she said.
Adam was taken aback – was her reply a double entendre? Was she referring to his weight above her as they coupled? Was Sigrid flirting with him? No. It couldn't be. There was no smile, no tilt of the head, no sly smile indicating such. But still…Adam felt himself heat up like a stallion that catches the scent of a ready mare.
"All right," he said. "We'll have to leave right after visiting the justice of the peace in the morning, so you'll need to pack tonight and be ready by 9:00 in the morning. And we'll have to tell your father of your decision, of course." Adam waited and watched Sigrid.
Sigrid rose from her chair, a bit unsteady, as Adam noticed. "It's an acceptable agreement, Mr. Cartwright, if you follow through."
"I'll follow through. And, although a kiss after an acceptance of marriage may be provincial, I suppose it is expected…" Adam took Sigrid's hands in his. He bent to kiss her mouth but she turned her face and his lips touched her cheek. But it was a kiss and it was done. My reluctant bride, he thought. "Call your father down. We'll tell him."
"No, Mr. Cartwright – that wouldn't be wise. Our marriage is not a meeting of the hearts so I think it's best I tell him myself and give him my reasons. He has been a wonderful father to me and I…he might think I'm rejecting all he's given me to leave with you; he might blame you more than you deserve. And I don't think he cares for you very much as it is."
"All right, but if you change your mind about marrying me, it doesn't leave much time to find someone else."
Sigrid smirked. "Are all women so interchangeable to you?"
"What?" Adam had picked up his hat; he hadn't quite heard.
"Nothing. Tomorrow then."
Adam started toward the door. "I'll be here at 9:00 with the contract and the rest of what I'll need to travel. Think your father will shoot me before I can climb down from the buggy?"
"It's possible. I suppose you'll have to judge if I'm worth the risk."
"I think you just may be. You seem to be a formidable woman, Sigrid Eklund. And an equal partner."
Sigrid walked Adam to the door and together, they stepped out onto the porch.
"Do you think the sky looks the same in Australia?" Sigrid asked as she looked up at the stars.
"I'm sure it does—the constellations move about but since Australia is in the southern hemisphere, north circumpolar constellations won't be observable…" Adam chuckled at Sigrid's expression; she had arched one eyebrow in amusement and was smiling. "I suppose stars should remain "candles" in the night sky and not a matter of factual science, especially after such a romantic moment as a marriage proposal. Forgive me, Sigrid. I am not the most romantic of men." Adam put his hat on and started to leave but turned on the last step. "Sigrid, you won't change your mind, will you?"
"No. Will you?"
"No. I won't change my mind."
Riding home in the dark, considering all that had transpired in the past hour, Adam decided that Sigrid was definitely worth the risk of facing Alvar's rifle again. He felt excitement that made his blood pulse throughout his body, stimulating all his senses. The air seemed crisper, fresher, the sounds of crickets, louder, the feel of Sigrid's smooth skin still on his lips. Adam considered the two unknowns in his future, the two "lands" waiting to be explored. One was the wilderness of Australia but the other, Sigrid Eklund, was the greater challenge. Adam smiled to himself as the lines of a John Donne poem came to him:
O…my new-found-land,
My kingdom, safeliest when with one man mann'd,
My Mine of precious stones, My Empirie,
How blest am I in this discovering thee!
To enter in these bonds, is to be free;
Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be..
He would have two new lands to explore. And as of tonight, Sigrid Eklund was the greater draw.
