Contents
Title Page
Copyright and License
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Author's Note
Mail Order Love
By Amy Blakelear
Oregon Mail Order Brides Series
Book 1
Text Copyright © 2013 Amy Blakelear All Rights Reserved
Copyright registered and filed electronically. Published by Edo Press. Cover Design © 2013 Amy Blakelear
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to an authorized e-book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Chapter 1
Boston, 1886.
Ellie froze in the shadowy corridor and strained her ears to listen, holding her polishing cloth and copper kettle still for a moment. Her ex-sister-in-law Ursula was speaking to the visitor in the front room.
“We are much obliged to you sir, for taking her off our hands. I think you will find she is a diligent worker and quiet.”
“Hgrrumph … well, I think this should be satisfactory … heh!”
The man had a strange way of expressing himself, clearing his throat as he spoke. Ellie stole a look at him through the half open door.
He looked as strange as he sounded. His eyes were constantly in motion, darting about as he assessed his surroundings. There was an oily, self-satisfied air about him.
He wore a black formal suit with a limp almost translucent shirt that had once been white. There was a silk cravat knotted around his neck and the chain of a watch looped out of his waistcoat pocket. His thin hair grew past his collar, cut to one length. It hung in sticky-looking pieces that swung forward when he moved his head. His skin was yellowed, with a leathery and greasy texture.
He gave a smug smile.
“Heh … harrumph … you need not worry, ma’am. Once we are family there will be no more mention of the sum that is owing me. I would have excused you as a friend, hehgm, but I’m sure you understand, with my important work as a clerk by day and my money-lending in my spare time, I am a busy man and I need a wife. You are most kind to offer your Elizabeth’s hand in marriage … hehgm."
Marriage?
Ellie dropped the kettle with a clatter and smothered a yelp. Ursula’s ears pricked up. She was not going to let an opportunity for humiliation go.
Ursula spied Ellie in the corridor. Ellie hovered, unable to escape as Ursula fixed her cold sharp eye on her.
“Oh! If it’s not our Ellie now, making a noise in the hall. She is prone to dropping things as you know, Mr. Gergmins, and it is only a decent nature such as yours that will forgive such failings. However I can assure you she will make an excellent wife.”
Ursula stretched her face into a sickly grin directed at Ellie and raised her voice.
“Come in, Ellie my dear, and meet Mr. Gergmins.”
Ellie had learned long ago to keep her feelings hidden from Ursula. It was better that way. Ursula seemed to enjoy playing off Ellie’s reactions to cause the maximum amount of pain possible.
Ellie picked up the kettle and placed it on the hall table. She kept an expressionless face as she advanced into the front room with small neat steps, her eyes lowered.
Ursula was wearing her Sunday best, with her visitor on one side and her new husband Martin on the other. She had married Martin three months after Ellie’s brother had died. They had been married for a little over two years.
A Boston cream pie sat heavily on the table in front of them. It was covered in glossy chocolate icing which gently sweated from the heat of the fire. Pale yellow creamy custard oozed out from between the layers of sponge. Martin had been holding a knife over the pie, about to cut. When he saw Ellie come in he placed the knife down and sat back as if in anticipation of a show.
Martin had a look in his eyes as if he were laughing at Ellie within himself. A look of contempt. Ellie wondered if he took a special dislike to her because she was the sister of Ursula’s ex-husband.
Ellie stood there in front of Ursula, feeling desperately self-conscious and unsure of what to do with her hands and feet. She kept her eyes down.
Ursula let out a tinkling laugh. “Your marriage will be five weeks hence, you lucky girl!”
Ursula directed an eyelash flutter in the direction of their oleaginous visitor. “Mr. Gergmins, this is Elizabeth Bates. Ellie, she is known as.”
Their visitor was watching Ellie with scheming eyes while Ursula spoke. He had the look of a man sizing up a prize heifer at a farmer’s auction. He was not much interested in her face. Instead his eyes traveled up and down Ellie in a calculating manner.
Having sized Ellie up he remembered to rise and he bowed slightly in Ellie’s direction, regarding her with a thinly disguised leer as he spoke.
“It is with pleasure that I agree to this arrangement, ma’am.”
He looked directly into her eyes, showing his slithery soul. Ellie managed not to flinch.
Their visitor spoke proudly, throwing out his words as if he were making a grand announcement.
“Hehgm … it is a fortunate day for you, Elizabeth. I look forward to having you in my house to fulfill your duties there. As you might not know, I am not yet even five decades old, so God willing we will enjoy a long and satisfying life together.”
If Ellie had not missed breakfast today she might have needed to rush for a place to be ill. She looked steadily at Ursula.
“Might you require any other provisions at the store beyond the list you gave me, ma’am?”
A look of anger flashed through Ursula’s face before the shutters came down again. Ellie had defied her by refusing to acknowledge their visitor.
“How adorable, you cannot even speak to him! What a virtuous reserved young
lady you are. Pick up what is on the list dear, and don’t go buying ribbons or other pretty things to impress Mr. Gergmins, do you hear? You are just enough as you are. Go along now.”
Ellie dropped a curtsy and ducked out of the room. She heard Ursula simper, “She’s such a shy girl you see. We surely do appreciate all you are doing for us, sir. Saturday five weeks hence shall be the date then, and arrangements will be made …”
Ellie heard no more as she picked up pace, grabbed her bonnet and shawl, and hurtled out through the front door without looking back, left or right.
Chapter 2
“Hey!”
Ellie heard their household manager Briggs calling after her. She turned around to see him hurriedly pulling on his black three-quarter length coat. Briggs closed the front door and ran to catch up with her.
“Let me come with you, miss, I have some errands to run.”
He shot her a sympathetic look as they walked fast, side by side. Briggs had been a member of staff since before Ursula was born. He had experienced the wrath of her temper his entire working life and knew what Ellie had to contend with. He knew that Ursula dished out a special cruelty to Ellie.
Briggs had become a trusted friend for Ellie, though she hardly had a moment to talk to him with all the work she was given. Lord knows she needed a friend. Briggs was the only person she had in the entire world.
“What are you going to do, miss?” Briggs regarded Ellie with concern as they sped along the street.
Ellie could not trust herself speak at that moment. She felt that if she opened her mouth she was liable to scream. A cold rage shook through her veins. She flicked her head to the side in an angry flounce by way of an answer.
As Ellie walked she tried to process what had just happened. Her eyes were dry. She was too angry to weep. She stared directly ahead, hardly blinking, with her mouth set in a straight line.
Briggs waited for her to speak, looking at her repeatedly to check she was all right. She was walking so fast that even long-legged Briggs had to hurry to keep up.
Ellie pulled her shawl close against the late winter Boston chill. The sky was a dirty swirling gray and the cold air brought soot with every lungful. They raced past the rows of grimy terraced houses. The houses were higgledy-piggledy, jumbled together as if they were jostling for position.
Eventually, Ellie spoke. She had a tremble in her voice.
“I feel disgusted, Briggs. I thought these people were decent underneath it all. I see now they are not. I am some kind of thing to them. I am a useful thing to do their cleaning, scrubbing, washing, polishing and hauling. And now they are marrying me off for money. I denied the evidence right in front of me. It seemed as if they were laughing and sneering at me, but I told myself I was imagining things. It was not my imagination. They are not good people. They truly despise me. I have no home there.”
“Miss Ellie, I … I don’t know what to say. You are a wonderful girl. They deserve to go to hell for how they are treating you.”
“I will not marry that greasy drip.”
“Miss, you are right to stay away from him.”
Ellie turned to Briggs as they walked along. “I don’t know what I’m going to do Briggs, but they have underestimated me.”
They had reached the provisions store, an imposing wooden building six stories high. In front of them the road curved into a bridge over the Charles River.
“Miss, let me take that list from you and get the supplies. You can walk around here and calm your heart a little until I come and find you.”
Ellie looked up at Briggs with her bright deep blue eyes and gave him a grateful smile. “Thank you.”
She watched him step up into the store. Then she turned her face to the bridge and kept on walking. Mid-way across the bridge she leaned over and watched the dirty river rushing beneath her, the color of milky coffee. Ellie’s eyes came to rest on a swirling eddy and as she stared into the vortex, her eyes glazed over.
I want to die.
The thought came unbidden into her mind. She immediately erased it. She did not want to die. But she needed an escape. To marry that man would be unconscionable.
After she had lost her Ma, Pa, sister and younger brother to typhoid, Ellie had kept on living in a daze. She had been working day and night tending to her sick family before they had died. She had been far from healthy herself, suffering from the same disease. Somehow she had escaped the jaws of death, but she had been left thin, weak, and somewhat clumsy.
There had been no income to continue renting the family home once her Father had died. There were no savings either. At that point Ellie had one family member left: her elder brother who was married to Ursula and living in Ursula’s house. He was also suffering from typhoid and Ellie had moved into their home to tend to him. Not long after that, her brother had died.
Ellie had stayed on at Ursula’s house because she had nowhere else to go. She did not complain when Ursula set her more and more household work. She felt grateful for the roof over her head and was too numb from grief to do anything but what she was told.
Ursula’s social circle had heaped praised upon her for allowing Ellie to continue living in her house, extolling Ursula’s sense of Christian charity. So although she wanted nothing more than to be rid of Ellie, Ursula would not turn her out on the street because it would ruin her Christian reputation. Selling Ellie off to be married was the perfect solution. Ursula could pay off her debts and rid herself of the ball and chain that was Ellie in one fell swoop.
I have no family now. Nothing to lose.
Ellie felt courage at the realization. Any last traces of loyalty to her step family were gone. They were planning to force her into marriage with an ungodly man. Selling her into virtual slavery.
Fragile and grief stricken as she was, she refused to allow this to happen. It would be a waste of her life to be used as a slave by these rotten people. Her Ma and Pa would have been horrified.
God, please help me.
Help me move into circumstances where I can lead a good life. Give me a sign, Lord.
Her spirit felt far away from her, a tiny voice within that she could barely hear. All she could do was keep her faith.
Ellie shivered and balled up her cold fingers, shoving them under her shawl as she drew it closer still. Birds called in the sky up ahead. She leaned her head back and watched their slim forms swooping. Swallows. She wondered where they were heading. Free.
She heard steps coming toward her and turned to see Briggs.
He looked at her with concern. “Come on miss, let’s get you home, you are looking as blue-skinned as a fish. I should not have left you outside for so long.”
They walked along together. The white-haired old man was tall and bony with a big, kind face. He balanced the brown paper bags of provisions at his elbows. Ellie was small beside him, the top of her bonnet level with his chest height.
“Miss, a thought occurred to me while I was in the store. My sister was in straitened circumstances at one time in her life. She had no means to support herself. She found a way out of her situation by placing an advert in the newspaper. All respectable of course, completely above board. My sister advertised her work skills and she ended up in a very good position in Connecticut as a housekeeper. It is only an idle thought of mine, so dismiss it by all means. But it could offer the chance of a new start for you.”
Ellie’s heart jumped. The prospect of marriage to Gergmins had filled her with gumption.
“I will do it.”
“Miss, are you sure? I don’t know if these set-ups always turn out all right. I mean we cannot guarantee the people will be good folk, and …”
“Briggs, anything is better than my future here. I must do it now before I lose my nerve. Where do I put the advert?”
“The newspaper office is coming up on our right. Passing it on the way here made my thoughts turn that way. It closes in half an hour. Do you have money? I think they charge twenty-five cents for up to forty
words.”
They neared the newspaper office. “I have money. Briggs, leave me here, I want to do this myself. And don’t worry, I’ll take responsibility if it doesn’t work out. Give me one of those bags to hold so Ursula won’t shout at me for not having bought the provisions. Go on now.” Ellie pushed Briggs on down the street. “This is what I want to do.”
Briggs carried on walking with a half-worried, half-encouraging glance behind him. Ellie ducked down a side street and extracted the emergency coins she had stashed away in the hem of her dress. Her Ma had taught her she must hide some money away like this, carrying it with her at all times.
“Thank you, Ma,” she whispered as she kissed the silver and blue enameled locket that always hung around her neck, given to her as a little girl by her Ma.
She entered the newspaper office, trying to look casual as if this were the most natural thing in the world for her. She scanned the notices pinned up on the walls. There it was.
Place Your Work Adverts By Close Of Business Today. Next Day Publication.
The newspaper clerk behind the desk watched her inquisitively over his half moon spectacles.
When she came to write the advert, she simply wrote what flew into her mind at that moment.
Little bird wishes to fly away. Am skilled housekeeper willing to work all hours. 21 years of age, of good nature and upbringing. Require live-in position to start immediately. Please send travel tickets by return post.
Chapter 3
Ellie retraced her steps back to the terraced house. She felt quite different to when she had rushed out only a short while before. In place of anger there was calm resolve. When she had made the decision to place an advert, a shift had occurred within her. She would do whatever it took to get away from here. She would never let herself be married to that man.
Ellie tried to slip back into the house as quietly as she could, but Ursula heard her. A sharp voice came from the front room.
“Ellie! Come here!”
Ellie groaned. Ursula had probably been sitting waiting for her the entire time. All Ellie wanted to do was run to her room and fling herself down on her bed. With a heavy heart she took off her shawl and made her way to where Ursula sat.
Mail Order Love (Sweet Mail Order Bride Historical Romance Novel) (Oregon Mail Order Brides) Page 1
