“Several months ago, you brought home something called the Grooms’ Gazette. I saved the copy. After your letter from your friend Roberta, I wrote to the matchmaker, Elizabeth Miller.” Her father handed each of them a letter. “These are in answer. You will each leave on the same train, so you’ll travel together until Mercy leaves at a place called Nampa, Idaho.”
Mercy’s eyes grew wide. “Papa-a-a, Idaho? T-That’s all the way across the country.”
Patience scanned the paper she held and her heart broke. “Not as far as Washington.” She blinked against tears welling in her eyes. “Papa, we’ll never see you and Mama and the boys again. We’re sorry we’ve upset you but please don’t send us away in disgrace.”
Mama said, “My darling girls, you’ve got everything wrong. Your father has only welfare and happiness in mind. Certainly you’ve learned how hopeless situations are here. We love you so much and don’t want to part with you but we want you provided for and secure.”
Papa smiled at Mama then directed his attention to at Patience and Mercy. “Your mother is correct and you girls should know me better than to think otherwise. There are more women here than there are jobs—or suitable men to marry. The way things are in Lawrence, you can’t earn a good wage even if you find a position. My head teacher’s salary barely stretches.” He held up his hand. “We’d manage somehow if there were prospects for you here.”
He rose and paced. “Each of your prospective grooms is well-to-do and can offer you a nice home and security. Perhaps you can even travel back here for a visit from time to time.”
Patience re-read the letter from Andrew Kincaid. “He does sound nice, and he enclosed a ticket and a generous amount of money for meals. And he says I’d have a month to get acquainted before the wedding.”
“Mr. Isaac Fairchild says the same.” A frown furrowed Mercy’s lovely face as she looked up from the sheets of paper in her hand. “But Idaho is so far.”
“It’s close to Washington. We can probably visit back and forth.” Patience fought to pretend a positive attitude, but neither she nor her sister had ever been away from their parents or one another.
Sounds of scuffling and laughter broke the tension as her brothers clomped into the room. Each was slightly rumpled and full of curiosity.
Twelve-year-old Jason he folded his legs crosswise to sit on the floor. “Why’s everyone so serious? What’s going on?”
Papa smiled at Jason and ruffled ten-year-old David’s hair. “Your sisters are deciding whether or not to accept marriage proposals.”
“From who?” David asked.
Papa thumped the boy on the head. “From whom, young man. You know to use whom when you use a preposition before the word.”
Rubbing his scalp, David said, “Sorry, Papa. I’ll try to remember.”
Jason held out his hands. “Please, just tell us who proposed?”
Holding up her letter, Patience explained to her two brothers. “Papa wrote to a matchmaker, that’s a woman who arranges marriages. Mercy and I have answers. Her groom is in Idaho and mine in Washington.” Her lips trembled in a forced smile.
Jason rose to check the globe where it sat on a table by the window. “That’s a long way from here. When would you leave?”
Mercy consulted the letter. “Oh, my, in only five days. We have a lot to accomplish before then.”
Ticking off on her fingers, Patience listed, “We’ll each need a trunk and a valise. Give our friends our new address. Do the laundry so everything is clean—.”
“And we can’t share things since we’ll be in different places.” Mercy rose to get two sheets of paper and pencils from Papa’s desk. “We’d better make lists.”
Later that evening in the bed they shared, Mercy said, “I can’t believe Papa wrote without consulting us. I don’t know whether to be relieved or angry or sad.”
“I’m a little of all those things,” Patience admitted. “And thank heavens, I never again have to work for a man with lecherous thoughts and hands like groping tentacles. I’ll miss our family, but I’ll have my own home and perhaps soon my own children.”
“You’re right. I hope we like our grooms-to-be. Mine lives on a ranch. Maybe he’s handsome and strong and rides a white horse. Oh, you don’t suppose he’d mistreat me?”
Patience reminded her sister, “Don’t you remember Roberta said Miss Miller investigates a groom before she’ll send a bride to him? She works with agents all over the country. Even if the man we’ve been assigned is not ideal, at least he’s not a criminal or drunkard.”
Mercy gripped the bedsheet in her hands. “Four days to get ready and on the fifth, we leave. We’ll ride on a train and see the country and then we’ll meet our grooms.” She gasped. “What about Red Indians? They’re not still a problem, are they?”
Patience glanced at her sister with a smile. “In spite of the penny dreadfuls we’ve read, I’m pretty sure the redmen are all on reservations now.”
“How can you not be more enthusiastic?”
Pulling the cover under her chin, Patience admitted, “Okay, I’ll admit that I’m a little bit excited. Papa said our grooms are well-to-do but I’d be happy with a cottage instead of rented rooms and enough money that I didn’t have to worry all the time. And I’ve never ridden on a train or been out of Massachusetts.”
“Ha, we’ve never been out of Lawrence. That’s about to change.”
Chapter Two
Destiny, Washington
Stone Kincaid walked into the mercantile. He avoided errands in town and usually sent a workman in to purchase what he needed. Today, he needed new shirts and he wanted to choose them himself.
He received hard glares from Mrs. Gates and Mrs. Hammond, who stood near the door. Pretending he hadn’t noticed, he went to the menswear area and perused the shirts available. The women edged close enough he could hear their gossip, as he was certain they’d intended.
Mrs. Hammond said, “If he has a heart, I’ll wager it’s solid stone just like his name.”
Her companion Mrs. Gates agreed, “Shame such a handsome man is a cad, but he is. I’m sorry for Andrew Kincaid, aren’t’ you?”
Willing himself not to respond to their usual malicious and untrue rumors, he turned his back on them. He was glad to see friendly Dessie O’Hara was the one who hurried over to assist him.
A concerned look on her face, she glared at the two gossips before she smiled at him. “Can I help you find something, Mr. Kincaid?”
He offered a grin. “Thank you, Miss O’Hara. I need a couple of new shirts.”
She sorted through the stacks of folded garments. “I’ll bet you have trouble finding anything to fit those broad shoulders.” She held up a shirt triumphantly. “Ah, here you are. You’re in luck, we have three of this size if you’re willing to have them all in white.”
He nodded. “Those will be fine.”
Carrying the three, she asked, “Is there something else I can help you find?”
Although he’d only come for the shirts, he refused to be hurried out of the store by gossipmongers and deliberately to take his time. “I might be interested in a tie. Do you have any new stock?”
He brushed by his tormentors. “Excuse me… ladies.” He gave the last word enough emphasis that both women blushed and scurried to another part of the store.
Miss O’Hara winked at him. “Right over here, Mr. Kincaid.”
He left twenty minutes later with three shirts, two ties, a dozen handkerchiefs, and six pairs of socks. In spite of encountering Mrs. Hammond and Mrs. Gates, his step was lighter than when he’d come to the store. He’d faced them and hadn’t let them see he minded their talk.
Two years of being a pariah should have accustomed him to that sort of treatment but it still clawed at his insides. Would he ever recover his reputation after being unjustly accused? If he discovered the man who’d caused his character to be questioned, he would beat the man within an inch of his life.
Stone couldn’t un
derstand why Lottie Ames had targeted him after the father of her baby had abandoned her. If she’d been honest with Stone, he would have helped her leave town for a few months to save her reputation. Instead, she’d claimed he was the father, which he knew wasn’t possible.
Sure he’d been with her, but not for a year before her accusation. Still, people in town remembered that he and Lottie had kept company. He’d stopped seeing her because he’d learned she shared her favors with other men.
Instead of moving on after talking to him, she’d spread word around town that he refused to marry her and claim his own child. In time, he might have eventually lived down her false accusations—especially after the child was born and looked nothing like him. Unfortunately, she’d left a pitiful note naming him as father and saying she couldn’t face the scorn of being unwed and raising a child on her own. Then, she jumped off the bridge, killing herself and her unborn child.
Now he was cursed for all time. No decent woman in Destiny would speak to him. Reconciling himself to remaining unmarried, he’d lost the inclination to have anything to do with women.
And now his father had ordered a mail-order bride from who knew where? What had come over the man? A long list of widows and single women chased after his father.
Why would Dad order a bride he’d never seen instead of courting one of the women interested in him? Fifty was too young to be senile but Stone had heard some men had trouble coping about that age. Was Dad undergoing some sort of middle-age craziness?
After Stone’s experience with women, he sure didn’t want anyone from who knew where to take his mother’s place. No need for his father to send away for a mail-order bride when there were plenty of women in Destiny to serve his father’s needs. For himself, Stone didn’t think he could ever trust a woman. And he supposed he would never understand his father any more than he understood women. No, he’d stick with business.
***
May 3, 1891
On a train somewhere in Idaho
Patience asked her sister, “Do you realize this is Sunday and we didn’t go to church? Doesn’t that seem strange to you?”
Mercy stopped humming under her breath long enough to answer, “Odd, and a first for us unless we’ve been ill. Or, there was a blizzard.”
Patience glanced up from her embroidery. “Have you noticed, this last part of the landscape has been sort of barren? I wonder what Henderson Flats will be like?”
“Mr. Fairchild has a cattle ranch, so there must be grass for the animals to eat.” Mercy waved a hand at the window. “This is kind of pretty in a way, just different than anything we’re used to seeing. Oh, look at those animals running. They’re sort of like deer, but different. Don’t you think those are the pronghorn antelopes we heard about?”
Patience leaned forward to see around her sister. “I agree they must be pronghorn antelopes. Oh, my, how lovely and fast they are. I’ve never seen anything like them before.”
Mercy kept her forehead pressed to the window. “I knew this would be a wonderful place. Who can say what other new things we’ll see?”
“We’ve already seen dozens of things we’d not experienced. I never imagined rivers so wide or that we would ride so many days on this train.”
Patience held her embroidery hoop and fabric but wriggled on the train’s upholstered bench. “I wish our grooms had sent first class tickets so we could have slept stretched out in the Pullman Sleeping Car. I’ve been on this seat so long I’m convinced my backside is bruised and flat. Right now I’d like to see a bathtub filled with hot water, wouldn’t you?”
Mercy fairly bounced from eagerness. “We won’t have to sit much longer. We’re almost to Nampa. I can hardly wait to see my groom.”
Patience wished she could be as effusive as her sister. “I wish he were coming to Nampa instead of having you take a stage alone. I want to meet him.”
Mercy’s lips trembled. “I am sorry you won’t be at my wedding or I at yours. At least we each have a new dress for the ceremony.”
“No more tears. We promised one another we’d stay strong. Besides, I think I’m all cried out after parting with our family.” Patience smoothed a wayward curl away from her face. “We set a record for sewing dresses, didn’t we?”
She cut her embroidery thread and released the design she’d just completed from her hoop. “Here’s the second of the pillowcases I made for your new home. With the train’s motion, this isn’t the neatest job I’ve ever done.”
Mercy folded pillowslip with its mate, shoving them into the overstuffed valise that would barely close. “Thank you. I’ll think of you each time I see them.”
The conductor came through announcing Nampa as the next stop. Terror knotted Patience’s insides. She and Mercy hadn’t been apart in the twenty-one years of Mercy’s life. They’d even worked near one another at Brown’s Textile Mill and Factory until it burned.
Although two years separated them, they were as close as twins in thoughts and actions. One difference was Patience’s practical outlook and Mercy’s optimistic attitude. The other difference was Mercy had glorious auburn hair while Patience’s locks were a less attractive reddish-brown.
In spite of their resolve, the two parted with tears and hugs and promises to write and visit. The brief stop was soon over and the train resumed its motion, slowly gaining speed. Patience pressed her hand to the window’s glass and watched as long as her sister was visible. She didn’t see the stage and didn’t know how far Mercy had to walk to board for the next part of her journey.
Ridiculous as it was, Patience felt abandoned. She questioned how Mercy would do on the long ride to Henderson Flats where Mr. Fairchild lived. At least Patience could be sure her sister with her buoyant nature would find a way to be happy with whatever her new life presented.
Admiring the changing scenery, Patience marveled at the distance she’d traveled from Nampa. She and her sister had thought Destiny, Washington would be near Henderson Flats, Idaho. As night fell, she pulled her wrap around her. Apparently, they were wrong and the trip to visit her sister would take over a day, and then the stage ride. Travel might be difficult, but she believed in her heart she would see her sister again.
The fourth of May brought sunshine and the barren landscape changed to green with jagged, snow-covered mountain peaks in the far distance. The knot in Patience’s stomach uncoiled a little. If Destiny was like this, she’d have a pretty place to live. She ate oatmeal in the dining car because that was the cheapest item on the menu. That’s all she’d eaten for breakfast since she’d left home. She’d enjoyed the luxurious setting of damask table cloths and little silver and glass vases holding fresh flowers at each table. Even the cutlery and plates were far nicer than any she’d used previously.
Although Mr. Kincaid had sent plenty of money for food, she’d been afraid to spend all of her funds. She and Mercy had splurged a few times and even enjoyed a celebratory dessert the night before Nampa. Certainly they’d had more elaborate meals than in a long time because, by necessity, food at the Eaton home was quite plain.
From the window she saw orderly row crops and lines of fruit trees in flower. The beautiful sight fairly took her breath away. What would the fragrance be like if she were walking among those blooms? She also noted the blue sky untouched by a smoggy haze like the one that shrouded Lawrence.
Finally, the conductor came through calling, “Destiny, Washington next stop. Please take all your belongings with you. Next stop Destiny, Washington.”
Patience hurriedly brushed at her green serge travel suit and straightened her white shirtwaist. As the train slowed, she stood and gathered her valise and the carryall holding her books and needlework. A flock of butterflies took flight in her stomach. The train hissed to a stop and she moved unsteadily to the exit.
The conductor assisted her down the steps and she strolled along the platform. She peered around and searched for whomever had come to meet her.
A tall, handsome man with a graying
mustache stepped toward her, but he appeared older than her father. Surely he wasn’t her groom.
“Miss Eaton?”
“Yes, I’m Patience Eaton.”
Confirming her fears, he took the valise from her. “I’m Andrew Kincaid. You match the description furnished me by Miss Miller. Welcome to Destiny, Washington. I trust you had an uneventful trip.”
“Yes, seeing the countryside was quite an experience. Crossing the wide rivers was both frightening and awe-inspiring.”
“You’ve come a long way and must be tired. Let me make arrangements for your luggage. How much do you have?”
“Just that brown trunk near us and the valise you’re carrying.”
After signaling a porter, Mr. Kincaid offered his arm and she laid her hand on his sleeve. “I’ve made arrangements for you to stay at Mrs. Shaw’s Boarding House for the next month. Hers is a reputable residence for women so you need have no fears on that score.” He helped her into a buggy and signaled to the porter who wheeled her trunk over and placed it on the back of the conveyance.
When Mr. Kincaid had climbed onto the seat beside her, Patience asked, “Is the boarding house near your home?”
He pulled a lever at his other side and then snapped the reins. “I live just outside Destiny on the site of my first orchards and near the sorting and packing sheds. You’ll need to rest, so I’ll take you to Mrs. Shaw’s now. In the morning, I’ll call for you and take you to Kincaid Orchards so you can see our layout and meet my son, Stone.”
Her mouth got ahead of her brain and she blurted, “Stone’s an unusual name.” She could have bitten off her tongue. What a first impression she was making. “Sorry, I meant no offense.”
He smiled her way. “None taken and you’re not the first person to say that. Alice…er, my late wife’s maiden name was Stone and we passed it on to our son. Her Stone family lives in the Palo Pinto Mountains of North Central Texas, while my Kincaid kin live near Austin in Central Texas. Not our parents, of course, for they passed on several years ago.”
Patience: Bride of Washington (American Mail Order Bride 42) Page 2
