“I don’t think I can marry a man and then resolve doubts. That’s not the right order.” She paused. “I have doubts about whether I want to marry you, so how can I say that I do when the priest asks? I would be lying.”
He gave a sigh. “Look, you have come all this way to marry me, and it seems a bit odd that you’ve changed your mind without any real reason.”
“Sometimes, a woman just has doubts. You made me think the other day, about what I was doing, and even whether I wanted to get married at all.”
“How could I have made you doubt? We hardly spoke to each other, and I only said that I wanted you to look at getting a new dress.”
“That was exactly the problem, Daniel. I didn’t want to get a new dress, and you insisting on it just made me wonder whether I wanted to marry you at all.”
“I don’t understand.” He turned the handle again. “Let me in, Ellie, please. We can work this out, can’t we?” He tried to wiggle the bolt free, and so she put her hand to the door, holding it in place.
“No,” she said, clearly. “No, I don’t think that we can do that just yet. You’ll have to go back to the church and tell them that I can’t marry you today.” She was hoping that he would take the hint now, and leave her to her own thoughts, but he kept turning the handle to-and-fro and talking to her. She felt as though he was trying to persuade her to commit a sin, even though he was only talking about the wedding. What was happening to her?
“Please, come back with me and help me to make it right. It’s as much your wedding as it is mine.”
“I’m not coming out, Daniel, and I’m not talking to you today.”
He banged on the door, making her jump. “Get out here, woman! I don’t want to have to tell my family that I won’t be getting married today.” He banged the door again and again, until she pressed her whole body to the door, keeping it still. She could still hear his hands pounding on the wood. She had to stop him before he broke the door down.
“I won’t. I won’t. If you do that again I will scream.” She heard her voice trembling. “Look, it's not easy, I know. But you have to understand that I can’t do anything about it now. Just please, leave me alone.”
He stopped banging on the door, and everything on the other side of the door was quiet for a long while. Ellie began to wonder whether he had gone downstairs without her hearing him. However, as she went to unbolt the door and check, he spoke suddenly.
“Alright, Ellie. If this is what you want, then I’ll go now. You have a little time to make up your mind. Either decide to marry me, here in this town, or you can go back to the East.” His voice was shaking with anger, but she decided to take his words as they seemed, ignoring anything else.
“Thank you.”
“But if you decide that this was a mistake, then you can forget about me paying for a trip back. You got yourself here, you can get yourself back without my help. I won’t be conned by some little girl.” He banged on the door once more for good measure.
She said nothing this time, and then heard him sigh and walk down the stairs. She didn’t open the door, but instead went to the window, watching him as he walked away towards Main Street. She saw him take the flower from his shirt, and throw it onto the ground, carefully walking onto it before racing down the street. Just before he disappeared, she saw that people had come to meet him, perhaps wondering what was happening. He turned towards her hotel, and she pressed herself against the wall, hoping that he would not see her watching and think that anything was meant by it.
He didn’t go any further towards her, and instead turned back, walking with the crowd back towards the Main Street, maybe returning to the church. He seemed almost despondent, his shoulders slumped, but she knew that he was in fact very angry.
Thankful that he had gone, she sank to the floor again, her heart racing. What had she done, and what would she do next?
Chapter 7
Ellie sat upright on the bed and listened to the pouring rain. As good as his word, Daniel had given her plenty of time to think. In fact, it seemed as though the whole town was ignoring her. They might have decided to punish her for ignoring Daniel, or perhaps just not know what to do with her. Not even Mrs. Stamp had been to visit her, which was almost a relieve to Ellie. However, she still felt neglected and isolated, and rather lonely.
The time away from Daniel had been good in one way, since she had at least come to a decision. She knew that she could not marry Daniel, it would not be fair on either of them. It had been a mistake to come here, and they would both have to accept that. She wouldn’t become Daniel’s wife, in fact she wouldn’t even stay in Grass Valley. She would return to New York, but it would now have to be after the winter - the rains coming in heralded the winter, and it was too dangerous to try and cross the Nevada Valley with the weather closing in. Daniel had said so before she even arrived in the town, and what she had seen of the weather recently just confirmed her fears. If Nevada Valley was anything like this She would just have to sit out the next few months, and then take the first journey back to the East.
In the meantime, the most pressing problem was financial. She would need money in order to keep going while she was living in Grass Valley, and her meager savings would not suffice. She would need to start earning some money, but didn’t know how easy it would be to find a job here, or whether it might be possible to get the money she needed. She didn’t know what she could do, but it would have to be better to find something quickly.
As she was thinking about looking for a job, her thoughts moved slowly over to the trouble she had had with this arranged marriage. She didn’t want to run the same risk again, but she also knew that she could not just live the rest of her life as a companion to her cousin’s wife, or even to Martha. She needed to be free to be her own person, and she just had to find the right place to do that. So her thoughts and dreams turned towards finding a husband who was right for her, no matter where in the country he might live.
She was still sitting on the bed when Daniel called again, knocking solidly on the door and demanding to see her. This time, she opened the door, standing in the doorway while he clutched his hat with one hand.
“Ellie.” He looked down at floor, not meeting her eyes. “I just wanted to make sure that you were alright. Do you have everything you need?”
She looked down at the floor too, and didn’t answer, instead shifting from foot to foot and hoping that he might go away quickly.
“I know that you probably want to go back to New York, but it’s too late in the season now. You’ll have to wait until the end of winter, and maybe well into the spring before you can go.”
“Late into spring?” She had hoped to be leaving as soon as the worst of the weather died down.
“It seems as though it's going to be a cold one, this year. Rain’s been falling hard since summer, and now that Fall is at its height, the cold will come soon. There is a touch of it on the air already, and that means a hard, long winter. I doubt the Valley will be passable until May.”
“Oh!” She gave a cry of disappointment which made him wince. “I had thought to be back in New York by that time.”
“Well, you’ll have to settle in here for a bit. I reckon you’ve got at least 6, and probably 8 or 9 months before you could go home. I would imagine that you’ll need to find another room, unless Mrs. Van Buer can put you up in a smaller place for less money.” He lowered his voice. “I assume that you do have a little money coming in.”
“No, I only have a little bit…” She paused, dreading his offer of a place in his own house, but instead he suggested that she find somewhere in town.
“I don’t think there is much point renting out,” she said. “Instead, I will stay here as much as possible. The only help I need really is to be able to find a place to work.”
He rubbed his chin, and she could almost hear him thinking about the matter. “I guess I could find you a place with Uncle Jim.” He nodded to himself. “He runs Green’s General S
tore. He always needs more help than he has.” He put on his hat. “I’ll talk to him right away. If he likes the idea, I can introduce you to him tomorrow.”
She nodded her agreement, and he left. She shut the door before he had reached the bottom of the stairs, and turned back to the bed. She didn’t know whether she was happy that Daniel was so willing to help, or annoyed that he was still trying to take over her life. Didn’t he know that she wanted to be her own woman? Then she laughed at herself, remembering that she had been worrying about what to do next until Daniel came and offered his assistance.
The next day, he took her to the general store, and Mr. Green came out from behind the counter, shaking her hand warmly, but looking at Daniel the whole time. He was still keen to press the hand of his nephew, but even the rejected groom seemed a little embarrassed, and finally all of them lapsed into silence.
Mr. Green began it again by talking about her employment. “I don’t know what Daniel has said, but I won’t need a permanent helper.” He smiled at Daniel. “But I don’t expect that you will have to work here for long. Married women don’t tend to work in Grass Valley.”
“I don’t plan to be in Grass Valley for long.” She stared straight over Mr. Green’s head as she spoke, trying not to let the men see that there were tears in her eyes.
The man looked quickly back at his nephew, who gave a small, barely noticeable shake of the head, and then turned away.
“I see.” Mr. Green looked back up at Daniel, and then towards the woman who the town thought would be his wife.
There was a frosty silence, broken by Daniel starting up the conversation again and trying to get the other two people talking to each other. He put so much effort in that Ellie started to think that he was quite ridiculous. The more she saw of him, frankly, the happier she was that she would never be his wife. However, she also saw that Mr. Green was warming up, starting to laugh and joke with his nephew, and once or twice turning to Ellie and trying to joke with her, too.
Eventually, the ice was thoroughly broken, and Ellie was given an offer of a 9-5 job in the general store during the week, and sometimes on Saturdays when required.
Chapter 8
The next morning, Ellie woke, and crossed the room to wash her face in the basin. The water was cold, even though the maid had brought it in hot just half-an-hour ago. It really was getting chilly in the mornings, and while she was still regretting not even trying to cross the mountains, she realized that it would have been no good, and she was probably safer here, where at least she was protected from nature.
She dressed and left the hotel, feeling the thrill of frosted air as it touched her face. Snow was close, she could almost smell it. She would have to hurry through the streets if she wanted to avoid being caught in a snowstorm.
As she approached her new workplace, Ellie saw Mrs. Stamp coming from across the street. She groaned inwardly, and tried to duck into the general store in order to avoid her. However, the older woman had already seen her target, and called out to Ellie in a loud voice, so that everyone else in the street turned to look at her. Ellie blushed furiously, but made no further attempt to move, staying where she was and shivering slightly in the cold.
Mrs. Stamp approached Ellie, and took her arm, walking with her down the road, and further away from the general store.
“Ellie, I haven’t seen you since you fled the church. Are you coming to chapel on Sunday?”
“Of course.”
“Well, you can’t be late, Dr Lewis doesn’t like stragglers.”
“I’ll be sure to get there early, then. It is only a short walk.”
“Are you still living in the hotel?”
“I am.” Ellie wanted to look straight ahead of herself, but instead found that she had to look to the floor and keep her eyes on the boards in order to avoid tripping. What was the woman doing.”
“We’ve been talking it over at the store.”
“Have you!” Ellie couldn’t help the indignation rising in her voice. Was she being gossiped about now?
“We are worried about you, Ellie. We don’t know why a girl like you would refuse to marry a good man like Daniel.” Mrs. Stamp sighed deeply. “He is such a good man, I think most girls would give a lot to be able to marry him.”
Ellie sighed deeply. “I think it would be wrong to marry someone when you didn’t want to, don’t you?”
Mrs. Stamp looked taken aback, and didn’t reply.
“I came here expecting to marry him, but somehow it has not worked out as I expected. I don’t know what else I can tell you to make you understand.” Ellie paused. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Stamp, but I can’t really explain what I feel. I am sure that he is a very good man, very upright in the town and so on. I know already that he is considerable in his business. However, it isn’t enough to make me want to marry Daniel.”
Mrs. Stamp took a deep breath, and said, “if you don’t like Daniel you are the only person in Grass Valley that doesn’t. In fact, he is one of the most popular people here, and everyone is astonished that you can’t seem to find it in your heart to love him, never mind marry him.” She smiled, flushing slightly. “I’ll tell you what I’ve never told Mr. Stamp, that if I were thirty years younger I would marry Daniel in a heartbeat. He’s that good a man.”
“I can’t give weight to what other women would do in my shoes. You don’t know what you might do there.”
Mrs. Stamp shook her head. “You’re a very stubborn, silly girl,” she said. “What that man does for everyone in the town makes him a fine catch for any girl, even someone as downright proud and obstinate as you. You’re like a little fyste that won’t stop barking even after they’ve been given their own kennel.”
“I don’t care to be compared to a dog.”
“You’ll stand there and listen, young miss. You can stop this nonsense right now. Daniel would give you everything if you asked, he’d do anything for anyone, as the whole town could tell you.”
“I’m not going to be his wife because Grass Valley likes him.”
“You should. Not everyone gets a good man, let alone one running his own logging company. He works hard but he wouldn’t neglect you, if that is what is worrying you.”
“It never crossed my mind. Please, let us stop talking about this.”
“You know that everyone is talking about you, about how come you came down here on Daniel’s dime and then wouldn’t marry him.”
“It was my own money.” Ellie said, stiffly, but Mrs. Stamp wouldn’t be interrupted.
“They think that you took his money to come down here for your own reasons, and now he can’t sent you away until the spring. Everyone thinks that he has been robbed by you. They’re saying that you’re a fraud, that you’ve come here with no intention of getting married, just to get away from something back East.” Ellie didn’t say anything, and Mrs. Stamp clearly took this as consent, for she added, “You’re not really on the run from the sheriffs, are you?”
Ellie shook her head, staring the older woman full in the face. She wouldn’t give her the pleasure of looking down, so she just stared her out. Mrs. Stamp looked away first, muttering “Well, I never believed it anyway.”
“I’m not on the run from anyone. I don’t have a criminal record, I haven’t robbed a stagecoach, and I certainly do not have a husband that I am trying to escape.”
Mrs. Stamp blew out her cheeks, and was silent for a while, before a slow grin came to her mouth, and she said: “Mrs. Bartholomew said that you must have murdered your husband and had him buried before coming out here with a million dollars.”
Ellie burst out laughing, throwing her head back and letting the gathering crowd stare at her, their chilled faces shocked and alarmed at her laughter. She turned to them now, freeing herself from Mrs. Stamp’s grip, and crossing her arms as she spoke to them.
“You people must live very quiet lives if all you have to do all day is make up stories about me. Let me be clear: I came here solely with the purpose of
marrying Daniel Black, but when I arrived I changed my mind. I’d no reason to leave the East, and certainly no reason but marriage to come to this place. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.”
“Then why are you in a black dress?” One of the younger women asked.
Ellie bit back the reply she wanted to give, and instead said, flatly: “I am mourning for my father, who died last year. I swore that I wouldn’t take my black dress off until I married. So here we are.”
“No-one thinks that is true.”
“No-one? Then none of you know anything.” Ellie said. “Really, you need to all get on with your own little lives. I’ve made a mistake coming here, and the fact that you are all here with your vicious little opinions makes me even more certain that I won’t be staying.”
Mrs. Stamp tried to take hold of Ellie’s arm, but the girl shook herself free, walking down the road. As she walked up the steps to the general store, snow started to fall heavily on Grass Valley.
Chapter 9
Ellie had made her way back to the store, but she stood on the steps for a while, watching the crowd move away from her and go about their business. The snow was falling heavily now, and already some of the rooftops were obscured, as white as the land around them. She shivered, and then went into the store.
The work was not hard, and Mr. Green did most of the stacking, apparently reluctant to allow anyone else to touch his goods. Ellie sat at the cash desk, watching people come and go. Each day, it seemed was the same, and from Monday to Friday she worked at the shop, being started at by the townspeople and having to return their silent, resentful gaze. There were more walking into the shop to stare at her, she thought, than trying to buy anything, but the storekeeper seemed pleased, and kept looking towards Ellie and nodding. He didn’t ask her to work the first Saturday, and she didn’t see him in church on Sunday, but he was back there on Monday, filling the shelves as she worked to serve people at the counter.
The Reluctant Bride (Grass Valley Mail Order Brides Book 3) Page 3
