The Indifference of Tumbleweed by Rebecca Tope Page B

we were not overheard. ‘I should return to my family,’ he said now, with reluctance. ‘I am grateful for your company, Miss Collins. I understand how strange it must seem to you, for me to behave in this way. It is strange to me, too. I felt driven to it by an inner force. I trust I have not upset you?’
    The formality was an irritation to me. Henry had doubtless been schooled in the acceptable tone to adopt with a young lady, and it was quite familiar to me from our years in the east. And yet I felt the falseness of it, when I stopped walking for a moment and deliberately looked into his face. He was almost bursting with other words, other ideas or questions.
    â€˜Mr Bricewood,’ I returned, further chafed by this extension of formality that I was demonstrating in turn, ‘we have been fellows in this company for several weeks now. Surely we can have a normal conversation without embarrassment?’
    â€˜You are Papists, are you not?’ The question was so extremely unexpected that my jaw simply dropped. I stared hard at the river close by, with its swirling currents and clusters of rushes on the further bank. It had been quite a time since such a question had been asked in my hearing.
    â€˜We are Roman Catholics,’ I corrected him. ‘As are the great majority of Irish settlers.’
    â€˜I have heard of missions being established amongst the Indians to the north,’ he said, with a strange eagerness, his short legs almost dancing with energy. ‘A wild land indeed, with Blackfeet and Crow and Flathead all in need of the white man’s attentions. They can doubtless be civilised as the Cherokee and Sioux have been in other regions. It is a worthy vocation.’
    â€˜You would be a missionary?’ Was this, then, the real import of his approach to me? I could not see his face, walking side by side as we were, although a glance at his profile revealed a demeanour of excitement.
    â€˜Not quite that. I have no strong religious faith, and I would hesitate to impose it on others, even if I had. I believe it important to let such things occur freely. However, I would educate, instruct, assist. There is such a great gulf between the societies of Europe, its great cities and history, and these savages, who have scarcely learned to wear proper garments, leave alone having any awareness of the great works of literature that have filled Europe for two thousand years or more.’ Here he pulled the gilt-edged book from his pocket and waved it under my nose. ‘Such as this, for example.’
    It was his copy of
Paradise Lost,
and I hoped he was about to give me a further rendition from it.
    But all he did was flip it open, showing the verse form in very small print. It made me feel tired to imagine anyone reading every page. ‘Would you read it to the savages, then?’
    â€˜I might select some especially beautiful lines to share with them,’ he said softly.
    I tried to enter into his thinking. I had heard many descriptions of Dublin and Liverpool; I had seen Boston, Providence and Saint Louis for myself. Of the five, only Dublin struck me as
great
, and that must be debatable. I had seen Indians wearing entirely decent clothing, controlling their horses with magical skill, behaving with perfect respectfulness to the white women they met in the street. The tales of scalpings and cannibalism and wanton slaughter were vivid and inescapable, but they were more a kind of fairytale than anything from actual experience. ‘It is God’s wish for us,’ I acknowledged. The words
manifest destiny
were repeated so often by emigrants that they had almost lost their meaning. It was beyond question that the colonisation of the west beyond the boundary of the Louisiana Purchase was a virtuous exercise. We were following an imperative that might test our stamina and determination, but which would reward us handsomely. We were patriotic Americans intent on