Chapter 1

“Good morning Ladies.” The man said as he clambered in to the stagecoach. The older lady looked disconcerted.

“I think this is reserved, sir.”

“Yes, I have a reservation, I bought it this morning.” The coach rocked, that was his trunk being hauled onto the back and then onto the roof.

“Excuse me.” She stood and descended before he had a chance to offer his hand. He was well dressed in a suit, smelt faintly of ... apricots?, he carried the obligatory gun on his hip, but it was attractively shiny with ivory handles. It did not look like it had ever been used. The three young ladies left thought that at least he wasn’t some smelly fat old man, like they had shared a train carriage with earlier in their journey.

This was the end of an era, the rail lines from the east were extending west, and the pacific railroads were extending east, soon the country would be unified by the wonders of modernity, and the journey from the east coast to the west would only take two weeks. They could not wait, the father of the younger two had travelled out for the gold rush with the elder girl’s fiancee (a boy with whom she had had an understanding for ten years) and been one of the lucky ones. Now they were all travelling out to take up the life of running a boarding house. Their father had bought it as a going concern and the man and wife who ran it had stayed on until the new owner’s family arrived.

Outside, the lady was remonstrating with whomsoever she could find. The driver told her he just drove the stagecoach, it was none of his responsibility to check who was travelling. The clerk told her that he would call the manager. The manager explained that what he had said was not “There will only be women on the coach”. He had said “‘There were only women booked to travel’. Now this passenger came along. He seems very respectable. Truth is, I prefer an extra man on board. We have a shotgun rider too, but you can never be too careful. No, no, all perfectly safe.” Which last comment seemed to be contradicted by having a man with a shotgun riding with the driver. She gave up. The coach, she was told, would leave on time whether she was on it or not. Since the time table had leaving times and only very approximate arrival times, that seemed equally questionable. But she got back in and, in the manner of a well-bred Eastern lady, introduced herself and her two daughters. “I am Mrs Edmund Gilmurray.” he later heard her referred to as Aunt Carol by the older girl. “These are my daughters: Melissa and Elissande.” Two young women, the elder on the cusp of womanhood, perhaps fourteen, the younger was twelve and showed barely any bodily evidence of female development but her face and hair were clearly a younger version of her most attractive mother. “And this is their cousin Sarah.” So, not ‘my niece’, but ‘their cousin’. Perhaps she did not wholly approve? Sarah had lodged with her for the last two years, since her parents had been lost in the river ferry sinking, Carol Gilmurray would not be sorry to pass her on to her beau even though Sarah Gilmurray was her niece. Sarah had a slightly wild streak, she had been seen to venture out unaccompanied for walks! Once even omitting to wear gloves! It was all very taxing. She was a poor influence.

“Pleased to meet you all, ladies. My name is Bertram T. Essex. And what brings you to make this journey if I make so bold as to ask? The railroad should join up very soon and make the travel much more pleasant.”

“Oh, we are heading out to join my uncle and my fiance; we are going to run a boarding house in San Francisco.” Sarah boldly replied. Mrs Gilmurray would not have told him their private business.

“How delightful.”

“And you sir?”

“I am setting out for pastures new, to seek my fortune. Mayhap I shall reside in your boarding house as I establish myself.” It was a bland, uninformative statement that Mrs Gilmurray wished she could have made to him before Sarah blurted out their business. “Ohhhh!” The stage hit a large rut and bounced. The young man was clearly unused to the trials of travel outside the luxurious. All four women thought that he would not survive long in California.