Homecoming Girls by Val Wood Page A

judging by his raven-black hair and lean face.
    They were shown to adjoining rooms on the first floor by a uniformed bell boy and followed by a maid who came to turn their beds down and bring fresh water jugs.
    ‘My room is charming,’ Clara called through to Jewel. ‘There’s a canopied bed with a patchwork bedspread, and a lovely vase of flowers on the bedside table. And muslin curtains!’
    ‘So has mine.’Jewel came to join her. ‘Except that my bedspread is rose and not green like yours. I don’t remember any of this,’ she said. ‘But of course I wouldn’t.’
    Supper was brought to their rooms: slices of cold chicken, hard-boiled eggs, tomatoes, and a pot of English tea and china teacups to drink from.
    ‘There’s Mama’s influence,’ Jewel said as she poured. ‘She said that English tea was something she often longed for when she lived here.’
    When they had finished eating they undressed and prepared for bed, but first Clara looked out of her window. Their rooms were at the front of the hotel overlooking the creek and she could hear the rush and gurgle of the water. Its source was somewhere high in the mountains and the stream came down first into the neighbouring Yeller Valley, which, Jewel had told her, had also been a secret place, approachable only by climbing the mountain peak and descending the other side until Wilhelm and his team, including Ted Allen, Caitlin’s father, had blasted their way through, releasing the waters of the creek which had previously spouted through a narrow opening in the mountain wall and simultaneously finding gold as they did so.
    The evening was warm; she could smell tobacco smoke and hear the low gruff tones of men’s voices. She guessed that they were sitting on the front porch below them, perhaps discussing the events of the day. It was a comforting, pleasurable sound, she thought, as she climbed into the feather bed,like old friends joining together in companionship.
    They both slept soundly, exhausted by the travelling but waking refreshed. They bathed and dressed and went downstairs for breakfast, where they were served with eggs, bacon, muffins and piping-hot coffee. The day was sunny, with a heat haze over the mountains, so Jewel suggested they first of all visit Nellie and Isaac and then in the afternoon hire a cabriolet to take them to Yeller Creek.
    ‘It’s not that it’s too far to walk,’ she explained. ‘But it will be too hot.’
    They took parasols and walked the short distance to Nellie’s hotel. Jewel explained to Clara that the building was the original miners’ longhouse.
    ‘Mama said it was all very basic when she and Kitty first came. There were no facilities at all; the men bathed in the creek, and,’ she lowered her voice, ‘she and Kitty had to dig a hole in the ground – you know,’ she nodded significantly, ‘for—’
    ‘A privy, you mean?’ Clara had no qualms about such discussions. She had visited enough poor houses in Hull with her mother to know about primitive conditions.
    ‘Yes. And then as the town grew, Papa rented the longhouse to Nellie, added on another storey and it became a rooming house.’
    ‘Fascinating,’ Clara said, gazing about her as they walked.
    The town was built along one side of the creek, but, where some areas delved back towards the mountains, squares with houses or stores on three sides had been built, with the road running into them and room for waggons or carts to pass or turn. Many of the buildings were raised on stilts and all had boardwalks in front of them, and she guessed that this was a precaution against winter snow cascading down the mountainside or a swollen creek overflowing. New buildings were still going up and some had land in front to make a garden plot.
    On the other side of the water, between areas of white fencing, cows and sheep grazed on lush grass and smallcopses of cottonwood trees were well managed for the animals’ shelter when the weather became too hot. Beyond the