Chapter Four
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Mademoiselle Fleur L’ Rusoe
Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana
Dearest Mademoiselle L’Rusoe
I am a matchmaker in a small settlement called Silverpines, Oregon. Your niece was a client of mine and suggested I contact you for assistance.
I have a fine, upstanding gentleman named Damien Alexander Burnett as a client. He is a special case in my file. His needs are different for my clientele, who mostly are women from the north-eastern states. So, Mademoiselle, I reach out to you for help.
He is a craftsman who can yield an ordinary slab of wood into a work of art. He has a musical ear and thirsts for lyrical stimuli most men would loathe. He is looking for a wife who has a creative mind and who can fill his life with beauty and happiness. I am confident, after speaking at length with your niece, you can help me make a perfect match for Mr. Burnett. I understand you have an accomplished pianist in your area. If she is still available, I have a good feeling we have a match waiting to happen.
Sincerely yours,
Mrs. William S. Carter,
Silverpines, Oregon
CeeCee stared at the words in the letter Mademoiselle L ’ Rusoe had handed her when she sought her help. Trying to read between the lines, she fantasized that her husband carved great pieces of art out of wood, like Michael Angelo had shaped marble. Wood could be a beautiful medium in which to sculpt magnificent replicas of nature. She imagined a team of horses splashing through water as it ran across a creek that he had carved. She ’ d seen such a carving when she visited a museum in New York.
Or an upright statue of a lovely version of Venus de Milo, with a polished wood grain running vertically through her face and torso. But what had she meant by “ he has a musical ear?” Could she dare hope he, too, played the piano? Or that part about, “ thirsts for lyrical stimuli.” Would he enjoy listening to her play? Was there a suitable piano in Silverpines?
She lifted her head and stared out the window. Texas was such a great distance to travel through. She had changed trains in Dallas and was now headed for El Paso. Its landscape changed four times from state line to state line. What a fascinating stretch of land. She had a very long trip ahead of her with nine connections, and according to the telegram with the funds and instructions for which transportation to take before she arrived, she had seven trains, a stage coach that traveled north along the western coastline because the railway was not yet completed, and a river boat at Portland, Oregon that would take her east on the Columbian River to Silverpines, Oregon. Her new husband had been kind enough to forewarn her to purchase, and had included enough funds to do so, a non-perishable sack of food to bring with her on the stagecoach.
She needed to take out her book to read, rather than to attempt to decipher who this man was she had married by gleaning information that was not actually there from the letter Mrs. Carter had sent Mademoiselle L'Rusoe. The last part was blatantly obvious. She was the pianist of which Mrs. Carter spoke. It hadn ’ t taken Mademoiselle L ’ Rusoe throwing down her rune bones to decipher who the letter had intended. What was mysterious was the timing of it all.
Folding the letter as it had been when posted, she held it in her lap. Unwilling to give up on determining what Damien Alexander Burnett was truly like.
She had packed a variety of books to keep her mind busy and her journal, of course. She wouldn ’ t write in her journal while in the public car, but she might go to her sleeping berth and jot down a few thoughts she had after re-reading the Oregon matchmaker ’ s letter for the hundredth time. In her bag, she had a romantic fiction called “ Wired Love: A Romance of Dots and Dashes;” a non-fiction memoir from France titled, “ Travels with a Donkey in the C é vennes; ” and a piano score for a popular play in the Northeast about pirates. She loved to read scores as much as she loved to read books. They were one and the same to her. She had stationery, a pen and ink, and wax with her initial to seal a letter back home. She could post it along the way when her stop included a post office.
The romance seemed apropos for her to read since it was about two telegraph operators conducting their courtship by wire across the miles. Wasn ’ t that essentially all she had done, so far, with Damien Burnett? Sent polite telegrams? But she just could not switch her mind off deciphering the matchmaker ’ s letter. Opening it, she re-read it again for the one hundredth and oneth time.
The food in the dining cars was sufficient to nourish her body, although by the state of Nevada it had become too much of the same and tasteless. She ate because she knew it was important, not because she enjoyed a single bite she put in her mouth. Even the coffee became tasteless and boring. The tea and biscuits, too, lost all favor. How she longed for the food back home. What she wouldn ’ t give for some gumbo, étouffée, boudin, andouille, maque choux, jambalaya, or alligator tail.
She thought of the delicious dishes as they came out of cook ’ s kitchen and were set on the sideboard. She had eaten to her heart ’ s delight and thought nothing of the abundance available to her. Would she ever eat such delicacies again in Oregon. It was fairly near the Pacific Ocean, but did it have the same delightful critters that the Gulf of Mexico had to offer? She sighed when the steward came through the passenger car announcing the dining car was now open for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. She didn ’ t want to be ungrateful, or seem hoity-toity, and hoped the staff understood her indifference. Surely, they saw this culinary fatigue in their cross-country passengers all the time.
What seemed to her to be an “ at last” moment, she reached the junction where she had to disembark the train, non-perishable bag in hand, along with her trunk packed to seam-ripping fullness, a carpet bag and a fashionable purse that matched her traveling gown, and took a seat on a dusty bench, on a dusty road to wait for the stagecoach that traveled between this stop and Portland, Oregon.
Three buildings stood behind the bench. A combination post office, telegraph office, and stagecoach stop office; a traders’-supplies store, and a barber shop/bath house. She delivered her collection of letters back home to the post office and returned to the bench to wait. Were women too far and few between to accommodate their need for a bath and shampoo?
CeeCee sighed as she took a seat with her precious cargo close beside her. How long ’ til the stagecoach arrived? Others sat with her. All men. This last train had been smaller than the others. Few people disembarked. Most boarded at San Francisco and were heading north and east on the Central Pacific Railroad iron horse for whatever business they needed to leave California to do. After everything CeeCee had been through, and with the ache permanently embedded in her backside, she vowed to never leave Oregon once she got there. She stretched and wriggled trying to find a comfortable way to sit on this wooden bench. How were all six of these people she saw disembark from the train going to fit in the stagecoach?
She sighed again. She had thought the train ’ s passenger car was uncomfortable. How bad would it be to sit straight and proper in a horse drawn coach with five men. Thank God she had books and a musical score to keep her mind occupied. She put away the letter. No one needed to know why she was on this adventure.
Hours later, a coach with six horses rattled into the little stop. A dust cloud settled behind it as the driver came to a halt. Another man who had been riding on top, with a shotgun in his hands and two Navy colt revolvers on each hip, shouted to someone inside the trader store. “ Stagecoach ’ s Yar!”
Two men ran out of the store and began unhitching the six horses and leading them off. The people inside let themselves out of the coach. They seemed only too glad to be on solid ground.
CeeCee stared at the empty coach. Should she climb in?
Six more horses were led out of a livery, CeeCee had not noticed because it was behind the three small buildings, and hitched the fresh team to the dust-laden harnesses. The driver and his companion had strode into the general store while the horses were switched out. Before too long they came back, chewing on whatever they had purchased to eat, and draining a mug of what looked like a dark ale, or was it sassafras?
The driver yelled a quick and sharp command that was not words but more of a sound, and the horses moved forward. He circled the coach around and lined up to the stores, heading the opposite way he had been. He tucked his whip in the back of his pants, tip pointing up toward the sky, jumped down, and opened the door to the coach. CeeCee noticed he, too, had two pearl handled pistols strapped to his sides. He reached into the coach and brushed dirt and debris from the floor and seat.
He turned to the waiting people.
“ Here you go,” he said without further instructions. He walked back to the door of the trading store and put down his empty mug on a barrel that held the door open. The second man with the shotgun and pistols at his hips gathered the luggage and placed them on top as if they were full of feathers, and at the back of the coach. He shook the straps that held the boxes to the coach to make sure they were secure. He too put his mug on the barrel at the trading store door and climbed back on top where he was before.
The driver saw that everyone was inside. “ Anybody else?” he called out.
No one came running, so he swung up onto the driver’s bench and yelled at the horses. The coach lunged forward, and CeeCee was on her second-to-last leg of her journey. She had purposefully chosen an area on the worn velvet seat next to the far window, hoping to at least be able to get some fresh air, but soon discovered the roads through northern California were dry and full of dirt. She felt gritty and hot. Six bodies inside this wooden box added to the heat that built like a boiling pot on cook ’ s stove. Would she perspire to death in here? The gentlemen who accompanied her seemed to be professionals, and kept to themselves for a while. But by morning light, with everyone sleeping upright, one or two of the passengers exhibited their need to share their life ’ s story, much to CeeCee ’ s chagrin.
She put her book closer to her face, leaned toward the dusty window, and did her best to ignore them all, vowing once again, to never ever leave Oregon until the railways were complete.
A canteen was passed through one of the windows, and the men took a drink, passed it to the next man, who took a drink. CeeCee felt a revolting sense of disgust at the thought of drinking from the same canteen as these other complete strangers and had waved the cantina off when offered to her. However, by day two, she gladly accepted a drink. It was warm, but wet. Her irritated throat welcomed the liquid to wash down the dry, gritty dirt she prayed would not choke her to death.
Would these men do anything if she died? Other than, maybe, open the door on her side and shove her body into the dirty road and tell the driver to continue?
Grateful for apples in her non-perishable bag to add moisture to her mouth, she ate the last of them by noon the third day. Everything had a gritty taste and feel, no matter what texture it had when she put it in her mouth. How much further, she wondered too many times to actually say the words and be accused of being childish?
By night fall, the stagecoach pulled near a train depot. She could smell water at a not-too-distant place beyond the railway. The stagecoach driver brought the team to a halt in front of a general store. Activity was bustling despite the darkness. Was this Portland? The big man who rode on top jumped down and began unloading the luggage. The men poured out of the coach. One stopped just as his feet touched the ground and turned to extend a hand to her. She accepted his help. Her legs were cramped and her back hurt worse than ever. It felt as though someone had stabbed her with a knife low in her back. If he hadn ’ t helped, she might have just fallen out of the coach.
“ Is this Portland, Oregon?” she asked.
“ Yes Miss. ” He tipped his hat.
“ It ’ s Missus. ” she corrected with a lift of her chin. Her dignity was no longer an issue. She felt like an invalid, crawling out of the coach and trying to walk as she had before she climbed inside this death box. The man ’ s eyes diverted from looking directly at her. Was he being a gentleman and not eyeing a married woman, or was there something else to cause his sudden averted gaze?
He tipped his hat again. “ My apologies.”
Just a little longer. She thought as she widened her stance and pressed her fist into her back while stretching with a moan. Looking around for a steward to help with her luggage and seeing none, she stacked her carpet bag on top of her trunk, slid her purse onto her arm, and tossed the non-perishables in the closest garbage bin. Breathing deeply, she homed in on the smell of a waterway, she walked toward the smell to find the port where her last leg of this journey would take her to Silverpines.
Surprisingly, a riverboat was docked and the bow was pointed east. Could she dare to hope this was her boat? She stopped at a window and bought her ticket that included a meal. The young man inside the ticket office looked fresh as a daisy. In contrast she felt like a bouquet that had been placed on a grave weeks ago and had been wind-blown and dried. He, too, would not fully make eye contact with her. She myopically re-focused her eyes from the young man in the room behind the glass window to her own reflection on the glass and gasped.
She looked awful! Half of her face was caked with dust from leaning against the small window to avoid the men in the stagecoach. Her hair was frizzy, haphazardly springing out of her once neatly pinned bun. The bun itself was no longer centered with the crown of her head. No wonder her hat was so hard to put in place as before. Even her teeth, when she smiled, made it appear she had been eating mud pies like when she was a child.
“ Oh my.” She exclaimed. “ Is there a place I can wash up?”
“ I ’ m afraid you ’ ll miss your boat, Miss.” the man answered with a flick of his eyes to glance at her. His lips quivered slightly. Was he trying not to laugh?
“ Right now?” She shrieked and turned to look over her shoulder at the men who were untying the narrow plank that allowed passengers to enter the river boat safely.
“ Yes, Miss.”
CeeCee lifted her chin with a sigh. “ It ’ s Missus. ”
She turned on her heels, dragged her belongings to the men at the plank, and handed them her ticket. They immediately stopped untying the path onto the boat, took her trunk and quickly moved it to another end where it would be loaded, another of the men stiffened as if to come to attention, and put out his gloved hand to assist her onto the plank. She realized for the first time, the skin on her hand was nearly as dark as her friend Mireille Bergeron back home. Weakly, she asked, “ Please tell me there is a place where I can freshen up on board.”
“ Yes Miss. ”
“ It ’ s Missus. ” She spoke through gritted teeth and despised the taste of sandy-dirt between them.
Knowing she had a change of clothes in her carpet bag that she had worn on the train, but was cleaner than what she currently wore, she clutched the carpet bag under her arm, and marched up the plank.
“ Welcome aboard, Miss” A steward said as she passed the railing on the side of the lovely river boat.
She remembered not to smile and avoided their hospitable gazes. “ Thank you,” she mumbled. “ Might I enquire about a wash room… I ’ m in desperate need of freshening up and possibly changing.”
The steward didn ’ t bat an eye or visibly pass judgement on her disheveled appearance. “ Yes Ma ’ am.” He looked at her ticket again. “ There is no assigned seating, but there are stately rooms toward the center of the boat, if you were to go in one of those, you would have the privacy you need to… freshen up, Ma ’ am.”
“ Uh, one more thing.” She hesitated.
He looked into her dirty face patiently waiting for her to ask her question.
“ How long ’ til we reach Silverpines?”
He smiled. “ Depending on the current, two and a half to three hours, Ma ’ am.”
“ Thank you.” She moved onto the lovely, polished deck and sought that private room where she would wash and change. Because it was close to Christmas, she decided her red dress would be appropriate to change into.
Two and a half to three hours and she ’ d be home. She was so exhausted. She no longer cared what was waiting for her at the end of this boat ride. She ’ d call a pig sty home if it meant no more traveling. Right now, she didn ’ t care what Damien Burnett looked like, how he acted, or what he did for a living. She just wanted to be done with this traveling.