The Daughter's Walk - Jane Kirkpatrick [100]
“I appreciate your opinion,” I said. “But I’m set on fur ranching; I really am.”
The First Nation processing station was a beehive of activity, and I found myself running my hands over the sewn fabrics, looking at the backs to see the thousands of seams, all matched in color and plushness, that made the pelts drape so beautifully. In one room, Indian women used lanolin, salt, and alum to soften the hides. “Used to be they chewed them,” Franklin told me. “In their old age, their teeth were nothing but nubbins.” Several other women worked on fur hats and muffs. “It takes forty hours for a skilled seamstress to make a single coat,” he said as my eyes took in another section of activity.
A scent like leather, not unpleasant, filled the workers’ room, and I found I couldn’t pass a table without wanting to run my hands over the furs laid out on paper over new designs.
Franklin picked up an unfinished sealskin coat banded with fox and held it for me try on. “I see this worn over a pale blue velvet gown,” he said, “to match your eyes.” Even without the shoulder pads or buttons and a final cleaning yet to follow, I felt elegant wrapped inside. Maybe even … desired. It was an unfamiliar feeling.
“Much too elegant for the likes of me,” I told him and moved on down the tables to watch another seamstress.
“I hadn’t realized,” I told him as we waited for the cab to return us to the hotel, “how sensual fur is.” I know my face grew warm with the use of that word, but I could think of none better. “Soft and warm. It’s like wearing fire without being burned.”
“Body heat,” Franklin said. “Put a fur coat over you at night, you’ll see. You’ve been focused on the business end of things,” he said. “And that’s not bad,” he defended when I started to protest. “But you can’t ignore the rest of it. It’s why people work with the pelts, why they enjoy coming up with the newest designs. Fur is part of the natural world, the earth itself.” My hands still carried the memory of the soft furs I’d handled that day. My shoulders remembered the pleasant weight of the garment he’d draped around my back.
“Let the fullness of this business come in to you, Clara. Be open to it,” he said. “You’re entitled to the main course of life.” I heard more than financial matters being spoken of in the tone of his voice. His words recalled Louise’s charge that I ate the way I saw the world, refusing the main course, spending my time nibbling without taking in true sustenance. But wasn’t that required of one in exile, preserving what one had, carefully rationing it while wandering in the wilderness, hoping to make one’s way home? I put out of my mind the biblical stories of manna being offered daily in exile, trusting God for provision, with no preservation but only faith for the future allowed.
“I’m trying to let it in,” I said. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
The cab arrived. “Good.” He pressed his hand on my shoulder and I allowed it.
Back in New York, we boarded the ship to England. We didn’t travel first class; we occupied separate rooms. Still, in the dining room, assumptions were made when we were introduced because we shared a last name and it was obvious we traveled together. I didn’t correct people. I enjoyed having an escort and I found myself following his advice, allowing myself to open up to the sights and smells and sounds of what surrounded me. For entire evenings over dinner, I didn’t think of my family, didn’t wonder what they’d say if they knew where I was and what I was doing, an unmarried woman using that money for such decadent pleasures as fine food and a ship’s cabin, becoming a property owner, and soon a fur rancher too.
Unlike when I’d traveled with Olea and Louise, I set the pace, and Franklin obliged. If