It was a very quiet evening at the Barkley ranch. Julia stayed awake long enough to eat a approximately two bites of dinner. Emily tried to keep her awake by playing the piano with the girl on her lap but it was no use; the picnic had left the little girl exhausted and she was put to bed early, likely to wake up extra early the next morning.
With the older boys in town and Carrie away in San Francisco, Nick and Emily had fun playing cards with Daniel and talked like three people talking and not a mother and a father and their child. Daniel felt grown up and included. They talked about the picnic, of course. They talked about Daniel's new friend, Tommy, and that's when Daniel learned that his father knew Tommy's father. Emily said she would speak with Audra before Tommy came over. Why his Aunt Audra would need to be told about Tommy Daniel had no idea and he was too busy winning at gin rummy to care anyway. His mother also said she thought sixteen was too young for a girl to be married. All his father said was, "Seems to me, you got married at eighteen," and smiled at her intensely, his eyes twinkling, and his mother blushed deeply and said nothing more. Daniel didn't understand that, either.
Nick and Emily were tucking Daniel into bed together about the same time Carrie, Leah, Vicky, Ellie, and their Aunt Audra were enjoying intermission at the theatre in San Francisco. Carrie was glad to be going home soon. San Francisco was wonderful and she continued to enjoy every moment of it but she longed for home now. She wrote in her journal that she wondered if she had been changed by her visit.
Nick and Emily were asleep when Tom and Will came home though Emily did wake to the sound of the front door and listened till she was sure she heard two voices, then two sets of footsteps climbing the stair case, before she fell asleep again. She woke up again a few hours later, this time with a start, to find Julia standing by the bed. A drink of water and a little time in the rocking chair and the child was asleep again. Emily put her to bed between herself and Nick.
It was Nick who woke up extra early that morning. And he awoke to find his Julia's small rump against his ribs. He dressed and then he took a moment to watch his wife and daughter sleeping with the first morning light pouring in on them.
Leah was quieter than usual on the train home. Carrie kept looking out the window, trying to reconcile the difference between the sights of the bustling, crowded city with the rolling golden hills and fertile grasslands and orchards of the valley as the train sped towards Stockton. The geographical distance wasn't so great but the cultural difference was vast.
"What's gotten into you anyway, Leah? What are you thinking about?" Carrie asked her cousin.
Leah closed her eyes for a moment and smiled to herself. Then she opened her eyes and, looking directly at Carrie and speaking with absolute resolution, said, "I want to go to college and be a scientist."
"What kind of scientist?" Carrie asked.
"I don't really know yet."
Audra had watched the exchange between her nieces, so different from each other. Carrie was energized by the social activities and moved by the social problems while Leah's most important experiences of the visit were the Academy of Science and the tour of Stanford University.
Tom was there to greet them at the station and brought the surrey to carry them and all of their luggage back to the ranch for a welcome home dinner. Nick and Sarah were the first ones out the door to greet them when they pulled up to the house.
Sarah looked her daughter over after she hugged her tightly. "Well?" she asked, smiling.
"Oh, Momma, I want to go to college!" she replied, and the two of them headed into the house so Heath could hear all about it, too.
Nick didn't let go of Carrie when he helped her down from the carriage. Instead, he spun her around and stood her on the step. "Well. Let's get a look at you," he said. "Let's see if this is really my daughter or if Audra brought someone else back with her." With his hand holding hers, he made her turn around as if in a dance. "Yep, she kinda looks like my daughter," he said to Audra.
The two families ate dinner together that night; it was the first time since Jarrod and his family had left the ranch. Emily took particular pleasure in watching how Leah and Carrie shared telling about the visit, prompted each other's stories, and were generally encouraging to one another. Audra, too, was excited to share tales from the San Francisco adventure and included the girls in every story, making sure to let their parents know how proud she was of her nieces.
Heath and Sarah and their daughters left shortly after dinner, eager to have Leah to themselves again. Carrie had brought small gifts back for her brothers and Julia. In the billiards room, Daniel and Julia were busy with their presents, Tom and Will were full of questions about Carrie's trip, and the adults drifted back to the parlor.
Emily told Audra about Daniel's new friend who was coming over the next day. "He's Carl's youngest boy. I thought you should be aware." She explained how Tommy lives with his aunt and uncle during the summer.
"I appreciate you telling me, Emily. I'm sure he's a very nice boy and I look forward to meeting Mary." Audra frowned slightly, trying to remember. "I thought Carl remarried." Victoria had kept Audra apprised of all the news in valley. She had written when Carl married Kate and whenever she heard news about him. And she wrote when Kate died giving birth to Tommy.
Nick said, "No, never remarried, though I seem to recall there was a courtship with a woman a few years back. Don't think anything came of that, though." Nick handed Audra an after-dinner brandy, which she accepted.
Emily had hoped Audra would have news about her own marriage and was preparing to ask her when Carrie came into the room, hoping to be invited to join the grown ups there. Nick poured her a very small brandy and gestured with the glass to a chair where Carrie sat down and accepted the drink. Emily made a face at Nick who smiled slyly back at her.
"Mother, I wrote in the journal you gave me," said Carrie. "I wrote in it every night." She looked at her mother and then at her father, and then she looked at her aunt. "I know Grandma helped at the orphanage and so did Aunt Audra. I want to do that, too." She continued. "I've never seen such poverty and want and need! And I want to do something, anything, here in Stockton to make it end."
"Uh, Honey," Nick said to his daughter, "you know, you cannot single-handedly end poverty and deprivation."
Carrie again looked at her aunt, who was smiling back at her. She and Audra had already had this talk and had discussed ways in which Carrie might be able to help. "I know that, Papa," she looked at him, "and I want to be called Caroline from now on."
Nick stifled a laugh and Emily sat up a little taller.
"That may take a little practice on our part," Emily said, "but we will do our best to honor that, Caroline. Won't we, Nick?"
Nick ran his hand through his hair. "Sure," he said. "Just don't grow up too fast on us now, though, okay?" Caroline smiled, satisfied with having successfully made this step towards sophistication and adulthood.
"Speaking of growing up, Caroline," Emily said. "Alice Ann Marvin is engaged to marry to Josiah Hendrickson."
"Alice Ann?!" Caroline exclaimed. "I knew they were sweet on each other but engaged?" She paused a moment. "Alice Ann isn't even done with school. Is she at least going to finish school?"
Emily shrugged her shoulders and shook her head.
"Well, I think she's too young to get married," Caroline said with certainty. "I intend to wait until I'm at least twenty-one. A girl should be very sure before she gets married or she could regret it the rest of her life. I've seen what can happen." She spoke with the authority of a fourteen-year-old who thinks she knows.
Silence descended on the room as the adults' thoughts turned to the one marriage among them that had turned out badly. Audra made a very conscious decision to speak up in front of her growing-up niece.
"I would like to invite Charles, Junior to the ranch, if that's all right with you, Nick," she said. "His school term is almost over and if I wait until after I sue for a divorce, Charles may not allow him to be with me."
"Audra, you do whatever you think is best," said Nick. "You and your son are always welcome here. You know that."
"Thank you, Nick,." Audra's eyes got teary with gratitude for the strong support and love she'd received and that never wavered. "Jarrod is contacting a legal firm in Seattle and then we'll start getting the papers in order."
Caroline sat stunned, eyes wide, and staring at her lovely aunt. Audra told her they would talk about it later and looked over at Emily who nodded her solemn approval.
After she put Julia to bed, Emily helped Caroline unpack from her trip while listening to the details of the adventure. Caroline had no trouble making the connection between the sad stories she heard and the women's suffrage movement.
"Momma, why is Aunt Audra divorcing Uncle Charles? Is she so unhappy?"
Emily sat down in the upholstered chair. "Yes. She is that unhappy, Car- Caroline. I will leave it to her to tell you in whatever way she wishes, but from my perspective she has been . . . mistreated for a long time."
"Mother, has Father ever mistreated you?"
Emily stood, walked over to her daughter, and helped her comb her long blond hair. "Never. Your father has never treated me with anything but love and respect. That's why he has difficulty understanding why women's rights are important."
"He's afraid if women vote, we'll take away his whisky, isn't he?" It was a legitimate concern among men in general and the issue had caused a deep rift in the suffrage movement; some women saw suffrage and temperance as two parts of a whole while others believed women's emancipation should be achieved separately and first. They argued, logically enough, that if men thought voting women would abolish alcohol then men would never give women the vote.
"Your father understands the difference between women's suffrage and temperance and supports only the former. As do I."
Caroline said. "Maybe if every man was as honorable as Father, women wouldn't need the vote."
"Hmm, that's an interesting thought, and one worth a discussion, isn't it? Remember, though, you cannot make other people more honorable any more than you can eliminate want and hunger from the world."
"But you can try. We have to try!"
"Yes, we do," Emily said, then thought a moment. "And that's why we need to be able to vote."
When Emily rejoined Nick and Audra in the parlor, Nick told her, "Daniel went to bed and told me to tell you that you don't have to tuck him in because he's not a child anymore."
She smiled. "Is that so? Well, I give up!" She rolled her eyes and threw her arms up for dramatic effect and sat down. "I suppose Julia will be asking to go to a dance tomorrow!" Nick and Audra laughed.
"Yeah, probably Joseph Curtis asked her for a date," Nick said, chuckling.
"I like having all these children around," Audra said. "It keeps things interesting."
"That it does," Nick said, as he handed Emily a glass of brandy. "Audra says Jarrod hired the Pinkertons to investigate Charles."
"Oh?" This was news but it wasn't surprising. God bless Pappy, she thought to herself.
"It seems Charles has been seeing a woman in Seattle," Nick said in a hushed tone.
Emily looked over at Audra whose face looked both sad and angry. And determined.
"And he keeps a women in New York," Audra added.
"Oh, Audra, I am so sorry!" Emily
"Oh, no! Don't be sorry, Emily," Audra said. "That just makes my decision easier and . . . "
"and a divorce easier to obtain," Nick said, completing the sentence. "But first, we have to get Charles, Junior here."