Chapter 88

Summary

Upstairs beside her dying husband, Clara and Augustus have the conversation of sixteen years. She admits she thought of him two or three hours a day but never wanted him actually present — she needed the dream, and knew him for a rake. He tells her he came hoping to find her a widow, and that he would smother Bob and send Lorie to perdition if she said stay. She asks for a kiss, finds it notably bland, and refuses to marry again: she has too little respect for men, and he is only about half honest. Then she goes downstairs and simply invites Lorena to remain while the herd goes north — and to Augustus's shock, Lorena wants to. He leaves that same night rather than lose his nerve, refusing Clara's argument that there is cheap land three days' ride away. Lorena is dry-eyed; Clara cries.

Analysis

Sixteen years of withheld conversation, conducted beside a dying husband and resolved by a bland kiss. Clara's admission that she needed the dream rather than the man is the novel's sharpest account of romance. Then Lorena chooses to stay — and Gus, shocked, leaves that night rather than reconsider.

Plates

00 Clara lights a lantern and takes Augustus up the stairs to the room where her husband lies.

01 Lorena plays draughts with Sally and Betsey at the kitchen table while July Johnson, too shy to join in, sits and looks at her in the lamplight.

02 Clara and Augustus sit an hour beside Bob, whose eyes have been open for two months; Gus cannot get used to it and tells her about Tom Mustard.

03 They walk out onto the little upper porch for the cool air, and Clara asks him why he came up here — he ain't a cowboy.

04 "You've been my dream, Gus. I used to think about you two or three hours a day" — Clara turns on him with anger in her face, and he thinks there will never again be such a woman.

05 The kiss is so bland that Clara draws back her head and laughs at him — "you've ridden a long way for some pretty weak courting" — and Gus looks hangdog.

06 Clara walks into the kitchen and simply invites Lorena to stay while the herd goes on to Montana; the girls are not surprised and Lorena blushes at being called a lady.

07 Left alone over the last of the coffee, Lorena looks at him solemnly and asks whether he still wants to marry Clara. "No," Augustus lied.

08 In the yard at Gus's horse's head, Clara spends five minutes arguing that there is cheap land three days' ride away, the baby colicky on her shoulder, Lorena beside her looking sad.