Whatever happened to
the Lovely Mothers?
Sheriff Roy
Coffee always enjoyed visiting his old friend, Ben Cartwright at the Ponderosa.
Not that Ben was as old as
“Nice to
have some ladies around the house,”
Ben looked
reminiscently towards his desk, where the pictures of his three wives sat.
The only
problem with this was that Adam was the only witness to two of the deaths, and
Ben was the only witness to one. And everyone knew the Cartwrights stuck together.
With a slight shake of his head, he decided not to pursue the matter any
further. Perhaps it was just bad luck.
“It’s a
pity you didn’t know about the Curse of the Cartwrights, isn’t it?” remarked
the redhead sympathetically.
“You could
hardly say it was a curse,” Ben protested. “These are dangerous times you know.
After all women do die in childbirth, like
“My Love,”
the others chorused, resignedly. They knew the routine by now.
“Poor
“I do
know,” the redhead said. “I do have 2 children, remember?” Ben looked round
worriedly, for he had disturbing memories of a small girl child, wittering on
incessantly about riding lessons.
“With their
mythical father on an imaginary oil-rig,” the redhead said, helpfully, and
"Perhaps
all those readings of Paradise Lost were a slight mistake?" said the
blonde. From what she remembered of the text it was very long, packed full of
illusions and imagery and really rather dark and depressing. Ben shrugged his
shoulders: the same thought had often occurred to him. John Milton did have
rather a tendency to ramble on at great length. However, the only alternative
poet
"Anyways,"
"My Ma
was Swedish!" Hoss added helpfully. "That's why I've got a Swedish name,
rather than a biblical name like Pa, Adam and Joe!" Mind you, now he came
to think of it, that did seem a little unfair. Surely
there were Swedish biblical names they could have used?
"My
dear wife, Inger, was indeed Swedish," Ben said, neatly preventing his
family from ruining a poignant story with their choruses. "She was a
sweet, unassuming girl and she loved Adam very much. We were so happy - but
alas! Once again my happiness was cut short by Inger's untimely death."
"Remind
me again how she died?"
Hoss felt
the tears trickle down his face. "She was shot by Indians."
Ben felt he
should explain. "Inger was a statuesque lady and kind of hard to miss.
Luckily, Hoss, Adam and I were unhurt."
"Very convenient!"
Ben eyed
“And then
there was Joe’s darling mother, Marie,” Ben said, quite forgetting his chorus.
“My Love,”
they all chimed in, grinning at one another. Ben glared at them.
Joe nudged
the redhead. “This is where he tells me how like her I am,” he whispered.
“You’re so
like your mother, Joe,” Ben said, dreamily. “She was like having spring in the
house the whole year round.”
The blonde
rolled her eyes. What did he mean by that? Was she cold and wet all the time? Fresh and bright? What?
“I remember
your mother, too, Joe,”
“She was
French,” Joe added helpfully. He’d always felt that this fact gave him a
certain dash and élan. After all, everyone knew the French were stylish, and
debonair and generally full of joie de vivre. He liked to think he’d inherited
a certain amount of continental elegance and always insisted that his jackets
were cut high and tight, to display his perfect physique to its best advantage.
Was it possible to inherit dress sense, as well as charm, great hair and
devastating good looks?
Pondering
this theory, he looked across at Adam, who was certainly the model of
Joe turned
and looked at Hoss, who really didn’t overly concern himself with clothes, as long
as they were practical and hardwearing. He only seemed to have a couple of
jackets, both of which were brown and made of a rather hairy fabric. Both were
very warm and Joe wondered if this was yet another example of genetic
inheritance. From what he remembered of Miss Abigail's geography lessons,
The redhead
smiled gently at Ben. “I’ve been wondering about something – Joe talks about
living in
It had to
be said, Ben really didn’t like the redhead. She was the one who asked the
awkward questions, and he was sure she was the one who was leading Joe astray.
Besides, he didn’t know the answer to the question. He’d often wondered why, in
The Storm, it had been implied that they had lived in
“Not long,”
he prevaricated. “Not long at all.” He looked round, hoping someone would
prompt him, or at least change the subject.
The blonde
sort of obliged. “Why didn’t you mention Clay’s father to him when he was
here?” she asked. “Since Jean was a good friend of yours, and had saved your
life, I’d have thought that would be the first thing you’d say.”
“I was
shocked by Clay’s appearance,” Ben answered.
“Weren’t we
all?” Adam inserted, dryly. The Cartwrights were, to a man, clean-shaven, so it
was somewhat disconcerting when the moustachieod Clay
Stafford had appeared in their midst.
“And who on
earth was that female in the photo you gave to Clay?” the redhead demanded. She
was nursing Paw, who had fallen asleep on her lap, with all four paws in the
air. He looked so cute. “She didn’t look anything like Marie, although she was
better than the picture in House Divided.”
“I wondered
that too,” Joe agreed, and they all looked at Ben for an answer.
Ben looked
rather shamefaced. Marie had been a lovely woman and her picture was always
slightly to the forefront on his desk. That is, on the occasions it was on the
desk, for like so many other things the pictures tended to appear and disappear
with alarming regularity. It almost made the viewers dizzy at times.
“I gave you
that picture when you were a child, remember?” Joe nodded. “Well, I was afraid
you’d lose it, so I, well there just happened to be this old picture of Cousin
Clarissa’s dear mother lying around, so I popped that into the frame instead.”
Joe’s eyes
nearly popped out of his head with shock. “I’ve been cherishing a picture of
Great Aunt Agnes?” he exclaimed in disbelief. Ben put a consoling hand on Joe’s
knee and patted it gently. He was a little taken aback to realise that his
youngest son had failed to realise that neither of those pictures bore the
slightest resemblance to the one in the gold frame that sat on Ben's desk, or
indeed to his dear Mama.
The redhead
kept thinking of the immortal words of Oscar Wilde and was tempted to comment,
“to loose three wives looks like carelessness”, but
she decided it wasn’t really appropriate. Mainly because the playwright
wouldn’t actually write The Importance of
Being Earnest for another 30 years, but also because she could see that Ben
was rather upset by the whole conversation.
In point of
fact, Ben was looking at his three sons and seeing the qualities of their dear
mothers reflected back at him. Elizabeth, Inger and Marie lived on in his three
sons and no other woman could ever enter his heart in quite the same way. He
sometimes fretted over the fact that none of the boys seemed inclined to settle
down and it was indeed tragic the way so many young ladies met tragic ends or
simply disappeared once the closing credits ran.
Perhaps
there was some merit in the theory of the Curse of the Cartwrights after all?
Ben looked across at the Giggly Sisters, who were draped attractively over Joe
and wondered why they seemed to immune to the phenomenon.
“I hear
they’ve got a new delivery of blue dresses in the Mercantile!” Ben's eyes
sparkled with mischief and delight. Perhaps another trip into town was called
for?
The End
Giggly Sisters Productions
March 2003