A/N: Thank you, thank you, thank you for the support for this fic! This is the second prologue, Elsie's POV. I do apologize for the length and for making you all wait. It got away from me. Also, the first chapter has been updated with way too many historical facts (posted at the bottom), so if you could pretend to go read them, I'd be much obliged.
Scotland to United States, 1846
She can't help looking back through the fog at the farm. It disappears in the morning mist, as if it was a dream.
The land had supported generations before, but no longer.
Margaret was fifteen when she married. She told her younger sisters that marriage was a small price to pay for a full belly.
Mam and Da do not want that to happen to Elsie or Becky. In America there is plenty to eat. They can go to school. Grow into women.
Someday, he tells her as they board in Liverpool, you'll meet a man who will follow you for the rest of his days.
He grins at her raised eyebrows. You will be the steady hand he's been looking for. The solid ground beneath his feet. And his heart will call to yours.
Is Mam your steady hand?
Aye, he winks. I would follow her to the ends of the earth.
She does not believe that she can hear the call of anyone's heart.
The voyage across the Atlantic is perilous. Mam is seasick most of the way, so it is up to her and Da to watch David and Becky. Her older brother, Malcolm, is fascinated by the ship. He wants to know everything about it.
New York is a loud, dirty, cramped place. She thinks she will go mad in the din.
They take a steamboat down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh. It is crowded with travelers, with other settlers and adventurers. One bright morning, she sits with her family and others as a man tells stories about the Shawnee. Of burned cabins. Of the red men scalping children, ravishing women-
Malcolm gestures for her and the younger ones to leave. Why, she asks. Her temper flares. Mam silences her with a look, then gets up at glance from Da.
What's scalp mean? Becky whispers. She shrugs.
The women and children go to watch the steamboat wheel. She watches the water churn and wonders what happened to the settlers long ago.
Near sunset, she goes out on deck again to search for a wooden doll Becky had lost. A solitary man with wild black curls leans on the rail, his broad shoulders tense. He does not seem to see the green fields on the banks of the Ohio, the distant cows.
He looks as though he, too, is searching for something.
Mam scolds her later. We are in a strange country, with strange men. It is dangerous for you to be alone.
Why would any man look at me? She asks. I am only fourteen, and a skinny girl at that. And not a very pretty one.
Western Kentucky, 1846-1849
They settle on a farm south of Paducah, close to Da's brother Ian, his wife Sarah and their children. There are a number of other Scots nearby.
The freckles come out on her arms that summer. Mam has to keep reminding her to keep her hat on when she works in the fields. With her hair, Da laughs, she will never be mistaken for a Shawnee.
It is a new feeling to not feel hungry all the time.
David and Becky sprout like weeds. She, Mam, and Aunt Sarah are kept busy sewing longer trousers, longer sleeves, more material on skirts. For the first time, she sees the budding of her breasts when she dresses.
Neighbors stop by to chat. Joe Burns, a lad of seventeen, stammers and goes red when she says good morning.
The sky seems bigger than in Scotland. She gazes into the blue ether, wondering at how big the world is.
She, David and Becky go to school for the first time after the harvest is gathered. It is rather humiliating to sit in the front with the little children as they all learn the letters. But she learns fast. By the time the snow flies, she sits in a desk further back with children closer to her in age.
The schoolmaster lends her a book. Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe, she reads the title slowly. An adventure story, Mr. Molesley says. I thought you might like it.
She reads it aloud to anyone who will listen. Becky. The milk cow. Da and Malcolm in front of the fire. David, as they sit in the hayloft in the barn, the cats mewling from their nest.
When she finishes it, she borrows another book. And then another. And another.
No man will want a girl whose nose is forever in a book, Caroline Anstruther sneers. Unless you want to marry the schoolmaster.
Even Aunt Sarah is skeptical.
There is no need for her to read poetry, she hears her say to Mam.
I am strong because I use my body to work, she thinks. Why not read to make my mind strong as well?
She continues reading.
David begins to cough the second winter after they arrive. They think it will pass, but weeks later he is no better.
Consumption.
It is hard, so very hard to watch her younger brother cough and waste away. The boy who used to run through the fields can barely lift his head.
She reads to him to pass the time. He likes hearing Shakespeare, says the words are like music. Hamlet is a particular favorite.
It is in the dim hours between night and morning when she stops.
Silence.
Only later when she goes back to see where she marked the page does she cry. This above all: to thine own self be true.
In the spring, a high fever sweeps through the community. Everyone is struck with it, with varying degrees of severity. She and Malcolm are bedridden for several days until their fevers break.
Da succumbs to it. At the end, he speaks as though his absent children are in the room.
His funeral is held before she is strong enough to attend.
Her grief is like a hidden splinter she cannot reach; not often making itself known, but when it does, the pain is sharp.
Becky has changed. Once a bright little girl, she now needs help dressing herself. She has lost the ability to speak, except for a few words. She must be watched all the time.
The difficult times continue. It is a wet summer and most of the crop fails. Uncle Ian helps when he can, but he has his own family to look after. One neighbor, Patrick Clarkson, mends their fence without asking, and helps Malcolm bring the small harvest in.
She wants to go back to school. But Mam needs her help, with the farm and with Becky. One cold day in December when she is pitching hay down to the animals, the schoolmaster visits to lend her some books. Study when you can, he tells her. I'll come by next week and see how you're getting on.
She can scarcely stammer thank you past the tears that threaten. She wonders why Mr. Clarkson is there also, but remembers Mr. Molesley is currently staying on his farm.
Your Da wanted you to learn, her neighbor says quietly after the schoolmaster leaves the barn. He was very proud of you. He would not want you to give up your studies. Or your reading.
He then hands her a book with writings by Francis Bacon. He leaves before she can voice any reply.
Mr. Clarkson is keen for the local children to go to school, she knows. His own son is away at Transylvania University. But why does he care what her father said?
That evening she finds out why. She stares at her mother in shock.
You-you're marrying him?
Our land borders his, Mam says. And you know Malcolm is going west in the spring.
Her brother cleans his pipe. I could not leave without knowing you all will be cared for.
He will be twenty-one after the New Year. A man. Free to chart his own destiny.
And her mother is marrying Mr. Clarkson.
She goes to bed, not bothering to hide her tears.
Mam sits on the edge of the bed, careful not to wake Becky. Patrick is a good man, she says. A kind man. He will be good to us. She continues talking, though Elsie does not respond.
We cannot run this farm alone. Da and I agreed to let your brother go when he became a man, and I want to keep my promise. She is quiet for a long while.
Patrick is not like your father, but no one else could be. There is a tremble in her voice. For me there will only be one man whose heart called to mine.
Abigail Hughes and Patrick Clarkson are married in January 1848. Malcolm and Patrick's son Richard are witnesses.
Her stepfather wins her respect by his patience and quiet dignity. He often helps soothe Becky when she rages, and never loses his temper when she makes a mess.
Richard is not what she expects. She thought he would be a university man, too good for farm work. She is astonished when she finds him in the barn milking the cow one frigid morning.
Even more astonished when he asks her what she thinks of the end of the war with Mexico.
They exchange letters after he returns to university. She writes about helping Patrick with the accounts, Becky's troubles. Her intermittent studies.
He writes about the midwives in Lexington, both black and white. They know more than we do, he says.
Later he explains a large inkblot on one letter. He called at the house of a local banker. Robert Todd's daughter was visiting with her family, and she suffered a bout of bilious fever. Her sons ran riot that evening, scattering books and upsetting Richard's inkwell.
Their father may be a congressman, he writes, but Mr. Abraham Lincoln does not discipline his children at all. He is a man of principle, though one of the ugliest men alive.
It is good to have someone to talk to about such things. At home, there is little more to conversation than the weather and gossip from Aunt Sarah.
Negotiations between the United States and Mexico finally conclude with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The west is vast, and is a tantalizing prospect for many. Malcolm heads to California in the spring.
She misses her brother.
After he leaves she finds herself often watching the sunset in the evenings over the flat fields, wondering what his journey is like.
Richard graduates from Transylvania and settles in the area. In his spare time, he spends a lot of time helping at the farm and looking after Becky.
Joe Burns waits for her after church every Sunday. She walks with him sometimes.
She does not want to be rude.
But it is nice to join him in the reeling at a neighbor's dance one evening. Strip the Willow has always been one of her favorites.
When Joe gently takes her by the hand and pulls her laughing behind the barn, she feels giddy in the moment, her face flushed in the warm air, her hair tumbling down her back.
Lying in bed that night she wonders why she felt so little when he kissed her.
Surely she should feel something.
It is a new sensation to have men's attention. At her cousin Lizzie's wedding, there are a flock of them trying to receive her favor, like bees around a daisy, she thinks. She is more amused than anything else. It is a relief when Richard dances with her.
She is not amused at all when she hears gossip about herself and the young doctor. She makes it very clear to her Aunt Sarah that Richard Clarkson is like another brother to her, not a potential husband.
Sixteen is too young to be married, she thinks. Margaret writes from Scotland, and she reads between the lines sensing the poverty, the fragility of her sister's existence. Of two children before the age of nineteen, and another to arrive before the end of the year.
Her own resolve is tested when Joe proposes.
For a moment she can see her life before her – hard work, a farm, a solid man. Flaxen-haired children.
He is a friendly man, and would make a good husband.
But not for her.
His heart does not call to her, and though she would not shy away from a farm or children, she does not want either of them with him.
She declines, her voice soft. She does not like to hurt him either, but she cannot marry him.
Her family's support is a great relief.
Richard walks with her near the edge of the field one summer evening. Elsie Hughes, you are a romantic, he says. For all your practicality, you also want a man who will read Byron aloud and who will rock the bairns to sleep.
Maybe she does.
Harvest season comes and goes. She sees Joe riding with another young woman one windy afternoon.
It was not meant to be, she thinks. Just like perhaps we were not meant to stay in this place.
Unlike most people, it is not the allure of gold that the family speaks of in the evenings. Patrick suffers from arthritis in his hands, and the cold is cruel to him. He and Richard talk of California, of the mild climate.
I would like, Mam says from the rocking chair, to be as near as I can to as many of my children as possible.
That is when she knows they will follow Malcolm west.
Western United States, 1849
The birds are twittering in the trees the morning they leave. She does not look back.
Mr. Molesley travels with them from Paducah down to Cairo, then up the Mississippi. He too is looking for a fresh start.
At St. Louis, Becky gets away from Mam. They are frantic until Richard appears in the crowd by the docks, carrying her. A man caught her before she fell into the river, he says, as Mam embraces her youngest child. English, maybe Irish, from the sound of him. Fellow named Bates.
They take their leave of the schoolmaster in St. Joseph, Missouri and wish him well.
Acquiring sufficient supplies and good oxen takes time. Patrick notes the rush of people scurrying to leave. The journey is dangerous and he refuses to put the lives of his family at risk. Before they have reached Fort Kearny, two of the families in their train have had to abandon furniture and other heavy non-essentials.
Under the sky on the plains, she feels both free and insignificant. The hardest part about leaving Kentucky was saying goodbye to Da and David. But out here, under the great expanse, she feels them with her.
Along the Platte, Richard warns them to find more distant sources of water, away from others. Cholera is rampant, and it festers among the larger wagon trains.
Maybe if they are fortunate they can escape the dread sickness.
They do.
She enjoys the evenings when they have set up camp. One of their party carries a fiddle, and the music livens up the sameness of each day.
One night, as she dances with a young boy named Tommy Barrow, she sees a man leering at her from next to the fire.
She does her best to avoid him.
But one morning when they are camped in the Bear River Valley someone clamps a hand over her mouth. She drops the bucket and it rolls on the ground, spilling water.
She is certain he will have his way with her – until both of them hear a voice.
Tommy. With his rifle.
I owe you my life, she tells the boy later, still trembling. I wish there was a way to make it up to you.
There is nothing to repay, he insists stubbornly.
Soon after she sees him struggling to read a psalm to his mother. By the time they reach Carson Pass, he feels comfortable enough to read aloud to Mam and Patrick. To Becky. The exhausted horses.
The man who had so frightened her is kept away by the diligence of Patrick and Richard.
And by Elsie herself.
She, like her young friend, has acquired a new skill.
Patrick teaches her to shoot his Colt revolver. He praises her aim and calm demeanor. Hopefully you will never have to use it, he says. But it is better to be prepared.
California, 1849-1852
They settle in San Francisco. Patrick finds work with a harness-maker, and Richard is quickly pressed into service among the huge numbers of people flooding the city.
A doctor is a rare specimen. A university-educated one even more so.
She and Mam find plenty of work sewing for the legions of men who have not brought wives, mothers or sisters with them.
She does not like it, but twice in the first six months she is forced to draw the Colt revolver on men who will not take hints.
Two months after they arrive, Malcolm rides from Mission San Jose. He works on a farm near there, for a wealthy Californio. He brings several fruits and vegetables, including a strange shaped one called aguacate.
He also brings his wife, Josefina.
Elsie thinks Mam is more shocked by the knowledge that her oldest son is now Catholic, than that he is married.
She wonders how they talk to each other, as the young woman's English is limited. And Malcolm is still learning Spanish.
Brother and sister take Becky for a walk along the Bay. The great ships with their billowing sails rock back and forth in the choppy water.
How did you know she was the woman for you, she asks him, when you could barely tell her 'good morning'?
Malcolm swings Becky between them. It was like…stepping from an unsteady deck of a ship onto dry ground, he says. And for her, she said it was like an eagle finding its mate.
They talk about Mam. She looks well and happy, he says. I hope I did not disappoint her.
You never could, she replies, raising an eyebrow. If you had married an Englishwoman, on the other hand…
They laugh.
Later she watches her brother with his wife. Sees how her sister-in-law's eyes light up when he comes in the room. How he smiles at her.
How they have a language between them without words.
Shortly after California becomes the thirty-first state, a new Hughes is born. She and Mam travel south to help Josefina and to tend little Sofia.
Her niece is one of the most angelic creatures she has ever seen. Dark hair and eyes like her mother. But she gets her nose from her father.
Your nose, Mam smiles as they admire her.
Malcolm wants them all to come and live with them. Though the Mission has become a bustling hive of gold-seekers as well, it is further removed from the city.
She can see her mother would prefer to spend her remaining days in the beautiful country. It would be better for Becky as well.
She prefers it herself.
But after they return to San Francisco, Richard asks her to stay with him for a while. Just until the summer, he says. I don't want to keep you from your mother or brother.
Just until I can find a suitable place to stay. And you can fulfill your obligations here.
You are my brother, too, she says. She knows he is more suited for the busy life in the city. For now. They have grown close since Kentucky. He can tell her things he cannot always say to his father. They understand each other.
She decides to stay for a little longer.
Patrick, Mam and Becky leave to go live with Malcolm. Life continues on.
Hurrying back home after delivering a set of shirts, she pauses to take in the late afternoon sun. It is nearly dark when she moves again.
She touches the revolver, makes sure she still has it.
The streets are mostly deserted. The air is chilly when the sun fades, and it is too early for the sailors and vagabonds to fill the taverns.
Then she sees a dark shadow of a man huddled near the wall. A tall figure ambles nearby. Unafraid. Inattentive.
She sees the glint of a knife after the shadowy man trips his victim. What he says she does not hear.
Nor does she care.
Silently she moves behind him. Lets him hear the click of the hammer on the revolver.
She speaks softly. With utter calm. Her voice is cold.
She has learned that most cowards will not call her bluff. She has never had to shoot someone, but it is easier if they think she will.
The man drops his knife into the dust. Trips as he scampers away. He does not look back.
Still kneeling in the street, his would-be victim doesn't move. She wonders if he has been hurt. She puts a light hand on his shoulder.
Are you all right?
"Yes," he says, getting to his feet. They walk back into the more brightly-lit street nearby. She warns him about watching where he goes. Carrying a revolver is wise.
He is tall and broad, a big bear of a man. Coal-black hair escapes from underneath his hat.
"Thank you," he says quietly. It is clear he is embarrassed. He explains he has a revolver, but it is at his boarding-house.
Yorkshire, she thinks of his accent. A deep voice, one that could carry the length of the docks. Or soothe a fretful child to sleep.
When he tells her where he is staying, she feels as though an icy hand has reached out and squeezed her heart. It is a temporary place to lay his head. A place for sailors and men who only stay in port a few days.
She directs him in a safer direction. As she points the way he should go, regret gnaws at her. It is a real shame. He seems the sort of man she would like to know.
But he is not staying.
"Where do you live?" he asks. The questions startles her.
"I do not make a habit of telling strange men where I live," she replies, a little more harshly than she intended. But the more she sees him the deeper her disappointment gets.
Silly girl. You are in a city full of men. What's this one to you? He would have had his throat cut if not for you.
"I-I only want to repay you for your kindness, miss," he stammers. "But I must be on board my ship tomorrow and will not be able to call on you."
She swallows. A courteous man.
Who she will never see again.
"There is nothing to repay," she says, remembering Tommy's gallantry. I must write him back, ask after his mother. "Now if you don't mind, I must get on." Better to get home and forget about this.
"Of course," he replies, his impressive eyebrows knit together.
The way he says it echoes something of the regret in her own heart. "You seem to be a decent sort," she murmurs. "What's your name?"
He takes off his hat. "Charles Carson."
"I'm Elsie Hughes." She takes a few more steps, then wonders why he has not moved.
"Are you going to walk me home, Mr. Carson, or just stand there?"
She slows her pace a little as they walk. It is imperceptible to him, she knows. Richard jokes that she could beat a horse at a decent trot.
They talk nonstop back to her home. She is secretly thrilled her brother will be late coming home after finishing his calls.
Charles-Mr. Carson's adventures sound like a journey akin to the Odyssey. New York, Philadelphia, down the Ohio (he is pleased she knows of some of the places he describes), following the Mississippi to New Orleans. Back north to St. Louis, up the Missouri, traversing most of the same trail her family had gone.
And now from California back to the Atlantic.
The sound of his voice is like water in the desert. She almost does not want to answer when he asks for her story.
"Well," he says as they stand on the steps of the rambling house, "it seems you have had quite the trek yourself." The landlady thankfully has left an oil lamp burning near the window, providing light.
"And yours is just starting," she folds her hands. At his befuddled expression, she reminds him. "You sail in two days, headed for Cape Horn."
"Oh – yes," he says, as if he has forgotten he has signed on to a clipper ship sailing to Rio.
"May you be safe, Mr. Carson. God keep you," she hopes her trembling heart is not heard in her voice.
He shifts his feet slightly. They are too big for the steps. He leans towards her, and she looks up.
Her breath comes short. It is not that she is affronted by the thought of him kissing her.
It is that she wants him to.
Charles stops his movement, as if remembering his manners. She is not sure if she is glad – or disappointed.
"Thank you," he lets out a long breath. "And thank you again for your help, Miss Hughes." He descends the stairs to the street. Turning, he looks up at her, holding his hat in his large hands.
"A funny thing…being so near the ocean again," he says, half to her and half to himself. "It reminds me of the primacy of feeling solid earth beneath my feet." Replacing his hat on his head, he smooths several errant hairs under the brim. "I don't want to change that any time soon. May I call on you in the next few days?"
When he smiles, his eyes twinkling, it is as if she can hear the beating of his heart.
It calls to her.