My dear Elizabeth,
I had promised to myself that I was going to follow up shortly with another letter to you, and look, it’s more than a week since I wrote previously! In my defense, however, I have been besieged with unexpected responsibilities. That is, they are unexpected in one respect–and not in others. Oh, good heavens, this letter isn’t going to make sense unless I attempt to narrate it in a more straight-line fashion. So let me attempt to do so.
I wrote to you the night before I (thought) I was going to finish my journey to Arizona Territory and the town rather ill-omenenedly named Tombstone. As it was, that night there was a terrible thunderstorm and flash flooding wiped out the part of the railway to the town of Tucson, which is where we were due to finish the rail part of our journey. We had to wait for a day in order for the water to go down. Incidentally, I find this landscape very strange–bare earth that bakes under the sun, with odd-looking plants sticking up at intervals, all of which bear scarily sharp barbs and spikes. I hear that many of these plants actually bloom during the spring, but I can’t imagine how or where they would do so. Anyhow, flooding is an odd notion when one looks over these bone-dry plains, but apparently the dry gullies that natives call “washes” or sometimes “arroyos” can fill, virtually in seconds, with rushing water that sweeps away anything in its path. When we finally made our way to Tucson, all that one could see was a muddy floor to several of the gullies in question, where smooth-surfaced mud rapidly dried and cracked in the inferno-like heat.
The one thing that really stood out to me as being unusual was a certain smell that rain brought out over these deserts–it’s hard to describe, really, but it has a sharp tang to it and the locals told me that it was caused by moisture bringing out the natural scent of the shrubs on the desert. Anyhow, Aunt Clara, horrified by the vehemence of the thunder and lightning of the storms, frightened herself into vapors and I had to haul her about the next day with a hand always at the ready for her smelling salts (though in my opinion if she were not so prone to tight-lacing she might be less likely to faint).
It was a good thing I had the smelling salts at the ready, for the stagecoach ride from the town of Tucson to the town of Tombstone was an experience unlike any that I would care to repeat (though I did make it back via stagecoach, too, but that is a story for later!). We were crammed aboard a dusty, rickety stagecoach with four men in Western attire who eyed us interestedly. It was already hot as blazes, and the close quarters did not help at all. My dark brown travelling dress had already been soiled beyond recognition, and the heat and increasing queasiness of the rocky ride and attentions from the seeming ruffians in the coach did not help me at all. I was very glad to disembark, even though the place where we descended looked like the last outpost before the end of the earth.
Actually, as I discovered the next morning (all that I was capable of doing that night was to find rooms for Aunt Clara and myself at a place named, oddly, The Gilded Lily), Tombstone is very highly-populated for a desert outpost. There are even a few civilized-looking folk walking through the streets, though of course the bulk of them are outlaws, miners, and other rough sorts who have decided to come West to make their fortune or to evade the law. The town’s central claim to fame seems to be a shootout that happened four years ago in a place that they call the “O.K. Corrall”. From what I gather (though I have been too wary to inquire too much), two rival gangs shot one another full of holes there, right off the main street of Tombstone, and there was some revenge-killing afterwards. I gather that things have quieted down by now, with the majority of the ruffians moved on to (quite literally) greener pastures or, perhaps, remoter outposts.
Aunt Clara seemed to wish to continue with her fit of the vapors, until I sat her down that morning and had a long, rather frank discussion with her. She (of course) dissolved in tears, but after I pointed out that we needed to be strong and not look like vaporish Eastern ladies–because to do so might attract the exact sort of unwanted attention from rougher sorts–she has somewhat reluctantly managed to trail around after me and look, if not courageous, at least semi-placid as we wander the streets. I would imagine that the stony expression I have adopted as a counter to her flightiness may be part of the reason why we have been unmolested so far. I am rather glad that I managed to develop that “stay far, far away” face long ago in balls when the least likely of the boys would start skirting around the walls in my direction. (Then again, now that I am a quite decided spinster, I wonder if it might not have behooved me to have been less prickly toward those that I considered “undesirable” back then!)
Nonetheless, we found ourselves at the office of Mr. Simms that morning, having notified him the day before of our impending arrival (I did so from the train depot). All things considered, our delay may have been a blessing in disguise because from the looks of the men around here, the roughousing may have gotten out of hand for Independence Day. I’m not sure Aunt Clara’s nerves would have stood up to it.
Mr. Simms was a blessedly civilized sort, wearing a bowler hat and a gray flannel suit. He doffed his hat when we descended the staircase into the lobby of The Gilded Lily and swallowed rather nervously. I couldn’t see why–though I’d made an effort to revive our clothes, the travel had ruined them rather terribly. Aunt Clara’s crape, in particular, had suffered when she’d been caught in the initial (and surprising) downpour three days before–it was shriveled and spotted in places, as crape will do.
“Mrs. Stuart? Miss Stuart?” he asked, looking from Aunt Clara to me.
“I am Miss Stuart,” I assured him, “and this is my aunt, Mrs. Stuart.”
“Reginald Simms,” he introduced himself. Really, he was a very small man–barely cleared my nose. He continued to stare past me at Aunt Clara.
Aunt Clara acted very oddly indeed. Her eyelids lowered and she looked at him through her lashes almost flirtatiously. “I’m so pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Simms,” she said in a manner most unlike herself.
The scrawny Mr. Simms colored deeply and bowed over the hand she presented to him. I swear, for a moment I thought he was going to kiss it! He stared into her eyes, evidently forgetting to let go of her hand until, a beat later, he jumped backwards like a grasshopper and shook his head.
“I–that is–I’ve–Well, then.” He looked at me and cleared his throat, though his eyes were already straying back to Aunt Clara. “I thought I would take you to my office to meet your cousins.”
“Cousins?” I asked, surprised, “I thought there was only one!”
This startled him enough to tear his eyes–for a moment–from Aunt Clara. She shot me a positively murderous look, then simpered at the lawyer. I wondered if she’d heard what he said.
However, I wasn’t able to get a cogent statement out of him during the walk to his office–he’d start to say something, his eyes would stray over to Aunt Clara, and he’d start muttering and stammering incoherently. I pressed my lips together in a way that I’m sure Grandmother would recognize in the mirror and marched on with him, trying to hold my increasingly frayed temper.
We entered his storefront offices and three young ladies hastily stood and faced us, looking at me and Aunt Clara with varying shadings of hostility, wariness, and suspicion.
“May I present your nieces, Miss Melisande Stuart, Miss Thisbe, and Miss Isolde,” Mr. Simms managed, “These are your Aunts Clara and Imogen.”
“Actually . . .” I started, but bit my tongue. We could sort out the exact relationship later. The names had just sunk in. Melisande, Thisbe, and Isolde? What sort of absurd romantic had named her daughters that?
Oh, good heavens–I am called away to deal with a teen-aged crisis. I will resume writing as soon as I find time!
With love,
Imogen
