by Reina Torres
“Miss Belham?”
She heard the soft treads of Carolina Hampton’s shoes across the floor, but she couldn’t look up, even when Carolina sat down beside her and reached out a hand. Brigid could only remain still, barely able to breathe, struggling to wrap her mind around his words.
“Brigid?” Carolina reached out and took both of Brigid’s hands in hers. “My dear, I am so sorry.”
Brigid didn’t want to see, but her gaze darted up to look at Carolina. She saw the pain in the other woman’s eyes and knew it was for her. That was when the tears started to fall.
Life with her father in Omaha had always been so stoic and serene. Ambrose Belham didn’t abide by noise or messy emotions. Brigid could count on one hand the number of times she’d been allowed to cry, but when she felt Carolina reach up to touch a handkerchief to her cheek, she felt the fall of tears rolling down her cheeks.
She turned to look at her host, her lips parting on a gasp. “I didn’t lie.” She shook her head and felt a hair pin pull loose, tumbling to her cheek. “He didn’t ask about my height and I didn’t ask about his. I was just so excited. He seemed like such a fine gentleman with education and manners.” She shook her head, dislodging another pin from the same side of her coiffure. “I had so much hope.”
“He did offer to get you a ticket home-”
“Home.” Brigid hated herself for the break in her voice and the way her hands shook as she clasped them in her lap. “I don’t have a home to go back to. This was my future.” She drew in one long shuddering breath. “And now I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
Carolina gave her a gentle sigh. “There are other men here who would like a wife. Perhaps-”
“Are any of them taller than I am? If Mr. Winslet reacted so strongly to that fault, would there be another willing to overlook the issue?”
Those questions gave Carolina pause and as she sat back on the settee, her long braid fell back behind her shoulder. “Mr. Winslet has prepaid for your stay here for the week. I doubt he would ask for the money back. You can take that time, Brigid. We’ll take you to see Pastor Clement. He may know some of the other men who are looking for wives. Men who are looking for substance rather than superficial.”
Brigid heard the hope in her voice, but struggled to believe in the possibilities that Carolina seemed to latch onto. So rather than visit her misery on one of the two people who had been so very kind to her, she forced a smile onto her lips and a lightness into her voice. “Yes, thank you!”
Carolina relaxed and gently patted Brigid’s knee. “Come, let’s have some tea and cake,” she urged her on, “and talk about sweet things.”
Brigid grabbed onto the offer like a lifeline. “Please.”
Smiling, Carolina poured a new cup of tea for Brigid. “Things always look a little better with a warm tummy and some sweets.”
She couldn’t crumble, not in the face of such kindness. She would put on a brave face… for now.
Chapter 3
Mail order brides.
Livingstone resisted the urge to shudder and then remembered that he was all alone at the side of the creek, so he let out a long slow whistle.
The idea of bringing another person into his solitude, let alone a woman, made his back teeth grind together. It wasn’t that he didn’t like women. He’d adored his sister, respected his mother, and their housekeeper had been the quiet presence and a warm hug when he’d needed it. Carolina Hampton had been the first woman in Bower that didn’t crawl on his last nerve. She didn’t flutter, she was polite and gentle and straight forward in her speech. Most importantly, she didn’t press him to talk. He liked her calm presence, but even if he could find her twin, his home was just that… his.
Mail order brides.
He scoffed and watched something dart through the water just beneath the surface.
Sneaky little fish. He trained his gaze on the dark surface and realized his little sheltered fishing spot was a little deeper than normal. Narrowing his eyes on the dark water beneath his bare feet, he sat forward on the old fallen tree, dipping a few toes from one foot into the water; he felt the push of moving water as it swept around his foot on its way downhill. He didn’t have to see through the thick canopy of leaves above his head to know that there was a storm in the mountains.
He wasn’t going to get much from the creek on a day like this. With his luck all the fish would be pushed on by the end of the storm. Setting his hand down on the rough bark of the old tree, he pulled his legs under him and stood. He couldn’t hate the storm for ruining his afternoon. A storm two years before had nearly unearthed a tree beside the river, still managing to knock it down, making a natural bridge to the other side of the creek-bed. Some might call it destruction, but it had cut nearly an hour from his travel time to town if he crossed on the trunk. And the roots that had pulled from the ground beside the creek had made a hole which had filled with water, and then fish.
Weather was just a way for nature to change things up from time to time.
And it was time, he realized, that he should get back to his homestead and make sure all the animals were somewhere safe and dry and then he’d hunker down to wait out the wash. Tucking his fishing rod under his arm, he bent down to pick up his boots. He left them dangling from his fingers, enjoying the soft scrub of grass beneath the soles of his feet.
He reached a deep patch of sunlight and felt a bit of fire touch his toes, warming his feet. The sensation was fine for a moment and then it pushed him on, he didn’t need to waste any more time.
A thought echoed back into his mind.
Mail order brides.
He lifted his arm and brushed at his cheek with his sleeve, trying to ward off the thought as if it were a fly buzzing around his head.
What was it about the idea of ordering up a woman that made so many men silly enough to buy into the idea?
Livingstone shook his head with a soft oath.
Insanity.
Determined.
Brigid had always taken pride in her singular devotion to accomplishing a task. When she decided she wanted to work for her father, she didn’t take no for an answer. She studied hard. She practiced her hand writing so that instead of her normal light and flowing hand, she could write like anyone else in the office. She could add faster, work neater, be more accurate than any man who worked for Belham Industries. She’d earned her place amongst the men and even the oldest and most set in their ways amongst them had finally accepted her place.
She’d spent most of the day before holed up in her room at Hampton House, finally divested of her restrictive corset and the layers of underpinnings, and sobbing into any available scrap of cloth until she had no more tears left.
The next morning, she woke with the sun, dressed, and went down to the kitchen. While she enjoyed a biscuit and some cold ham, she’d formed a plan with Carolina. Miles had even joined in, drawing a map for Brigid. When they were done, she’d thanked the couple and left the house with a purpose and determination.
Defeated. It was not something that Brigid understood. Until that very day she’d never fallen to that depth, as she’d made her way around town, stopping in at all the businesses on the map that the Hamptons had drawn for her. The people were polite, some openly friendly, but the answers had all been the same.
There were no jobs available for her skills. No one needed a clerk.
No one on the list had any work for her.
Taking a walk down to the train station she tried not to give in to the dark feelings that were twisting inside of her. She was careful to keep a pleasant smile on her face. There was no need for her to pass her mood on to anyone else. The train schedule was posted beside the window and she looked at the names of the towns that were the next few stops down the line. None of the names sounded particularly interesting to her.
Brigid felt a gentle blush on her cheeks as she remembered how elated she’d been when she’d seen that Appleton lived in a place called Bower. A bowe
r was a place where one could relax, feel protected, at home. The idea had filled her heart with hope.
A hope that was very quickly drying up.
She looked down at her map and the one last option that Mr. Hampton had given her. The Haverhill Mine was the largest single employer in town, but she understood Mr. Hampton’s carefully side-stepped warning. He hadn’t come out and told her that she wouldn’t be successful, but there wasn’t much about his expression that had given her any reason to be hopeful. It wasn’t that he was being mean. In fact, she completely understood his reservations. It was hard enough to convince her father to allow her to work in his offices, and Belham was situated in a fine brick building in the center of the town. The accounts office had been on the second floor and the men that she worked with had impeccable reputations for not only their skills but their manners.
Mining was a hard and dirty business. Her father had been to a mine before, and when he’d returned home, he had sworn that she would never, as long as he drew breath, set foot in a mine. The men, he said, had been “gruff, grubby, and as uncouth as they were unbathed.” Gathering her courage around her like armor, Brigid found her way over to the offices of the Haverhill Mine and took a few precious moments to rub the dirt from the tops of her boots against the back of her calves, knowing she would end up scrubbing the cloying dirt from the buttery soft muslin over a wash basin later. Still, it couldn’t be helped, not if she wanted to make a good impression.
Smoothing her skirt down at her sides, she took a moment to crane her neck so she could try to see the way her bustle looked and made do with a quick swipe of a hand on each side to settle the fabric before she took a hold of the doorknob and swung the door open.
There were four desks in the room and boxes upon boxes stacked up along one wall. At the moment, there was only one man in the room, and if he hadn’t dropped his pen on the top of the desk, she probably wouldn’t have seen him behind the stacks of loose-leaf papers in front of him.
“Hello,” she almost winced at the overly-bright tone of her voice, “I’m Brigid Belham, and-”
“Are you lost?” He stood, his arms braced against the desktop. “How did you get in here?”
She considered her words carefully. “I asked one of the workers and he said that the clerks work in here.”
“Why would you need a clerk?” His eyes continued to squint at her and Brigid wondered if there was some kind of smudge on her face, but she didn’t think this was the time to ask.
“I don’t need a clerk, sir.” She tried to turn up her lips in a friendly smile. “I’m here to inquire if you were in need of one.”
His posture changed, a little pull of his spine, an eyebrow lifting just a hair above his eye. “You here to ask for your brother?”
She shook her head. “No, sir. I don’t have a brother. It was just my father and myself and-”
“Oh!” He looked up at the ceiling before his gaze settled back on her face. “Well, I’m sure your father is quite talented, however-”
“Sir!” Brigid felt her cheeks color after her outburst. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I believe, if you’d just let me explain, you’d understand why I’m here.”
His lips were a tight white line under the trimmed edge of his mustache. “Then please, explain.”
She took in a breath and set about explaining her unique situation. “I am looking for a position as a clerk, sir. I studied at a fine school in Clarkston. After I received my certificate, I worked for Belham Industries as a clerk in Accounts. I am proficient in calculations, done in writing, in my head, and on an abacus.”
The last little bit earned her a sputter of sound from the older man. “We don’t have one of those here.”
“Oh,” she relaxed a bit, her tone and nerves easing a bit, “I have one in my trunk, and I’d be happy to bring it-”
“We’ve no need of something like that.” He took a step and rounded the corner of his desk. “Really, miss. I believe we’re at an impasse. The Haverhill Mine won’t be hiring you as a clerk, now or any day.”
She felt her stomach sink, twisting about with her nerves. “But, sir, I’d be happy to prove my skills.”
“You’ll do no such thing, miss.” He advanced on her a few steps but she didn’t move. She was fairly sure she wasn’t being brave. Her legs just didn’t seem to want to move. “Men work in mines.”
Her hand pressed against the front of her bodice and she felt the simple touch like a blow to her ribs. “I’m not asking to work in the mine, sir. A clerking job is safely done within an office.” She looked about before meeting his eyes again. “It’s quite clean and quiet in this office. I’m sure I would be quite safe and I would do a good job. I just need a chance.” She was trying to control her tone. The last thing she wanted to do was beg. She would never be able to work with this man if he thought she was weak.
“You don’t seem to understand my concerns, miss.”
“No, I don’t,” she answered back. “I just want to prove-”
The door behind her opened up with a loud creak of sound. Two voices in the midst of the conversation stopped short.
“Goodness!” She heard the humor-laced tone and turned slightly to see who it was. The young man was fresh faced, his nose sprinkled with freckles and his hair greased down on either side of a center part that Moses would have been proud to claim. “Is this your daughter, Mr. Clemson?”
The older man sputtered and shook his head.
The second man stopped just inside of the doorway looked like he’d seen a little too much sun in the last few days. Perhaps a new import to Bower himself, his face was branded red to his hairline. “Don’t tell me that this is Mrs. Clemson?”
Brigid wanted to melt into the floor at the outraged gasp of the older man.
The man beside him looked horrified. “I’m sorry, Mr. Clemson, sir. Did you get yourself a mail order bride too?”
Brigid turned to face the two men, holding up both hands in an entreaty for calm. “No, I’m sorry, I was just here to apply for a job as a clerk.”
“Goodness!” The first lifted a hand to his head and managed to muss his carefully oiled hair. “That seems a stretch. It’s not much like embroidery or baking, Miss. It’s a lot to do with numbers.”
The second poked the first in the arm. “She knows that much if she’s here looking for a job.”
Brigid’s shoulders relaxed a bit. She turned a grateful smile in his direction.
“But I don’t know how much work I’ll be able to get done with a woman in the room.”
Well, there went her smile.
“Sorry, miss,” he continued to explain, not that she really wanted to hear it, “I’m sure you’re sweet and all, but-”
She tuned him out, turning her head to look at Mr. Clemson.
The older man was still standing where she’d left him, but instead of his frustrated sputtering stance, he was now staring at her with a smug smile spread across his lips.
A bell clanged outside the building, and Mr. Clemson folded his arms. “Well, that marks the end of lunch. If you’ll excuse us, Miss.”
He left the invitation hanging in the silence, but she didn’t wait long before she quietly said her farewell and headed around the two men and out the door. The last thing she saw as she left the office was a small printed advertisement pinned to the wood, extolling the virtues of mail order brides.
It was insult, heaped up on top of injury.
Almost as if the world was mocking her.
Balling up the map that Mr. Hampton had made for her, she dropped it in a waste basket outside of the office. Her first few steps were directed toward town, but she stopped just shy of the end of the building. The only place she had to go now was back to the boarding house. While spending time with the Hamptons would be a balm for her nerves, she could only bring them disappointment. She’d set about to find an answer to her situation and now, she didn’t even have the energy to face the hospitable couple.
The last thing she wanted to do was to bring down their good spirits with her problems. Turning off on a side path, Brigid started into the woods. In her hometown of Clarkson, she went for walks all the time. On a day when she needed to think, she would walk from one end of the town to the other under the watchful eyes of businessmen who knew her father.
Here, she had no one to keep an eye on her, but the woods would also remain quiet. There would be no ‘helpful’ comments from trees, no one to question her sour mood. The woods, it seemed, would be her perfect refuge.
Chapter 4
The woods, in reality, hated her. Well, not necessarily just the woods. Mother Nature had apparently thrown in her lot against her as well.
After she’d left the Haverhill Mine office she’d walked into the woods as planned, but she’d also let her mind wander to the point that she’d only thought to turn around when the first few drops of rain broke through the leafy canopy above her head.
“Oh no, my hat!” Reaching up, she’d quickly removed the pins securing her hat to her hair and tucked the precious item tightly against her chest. It was pert and white, made of the finest fabric and created by an expert hand. Perched on the back of the hat, affixed to the frothy white netted bow, was the most precious bird with his wings outspread.
The fact that he’d once been alive was something that she tried to ignore. The modiste and the milliner had both said it was the height, yes, the very height of fashion and she had wanted to impress. Now, as she struggled to keep the poor stuffed little bird dry against her chest, she realized that she was just as false as that little bird.
Stuffed into her corset, caging the normal spread of her ribs, her bustle, rounding out her backside into a fashionable curve. Even her boots, oh goodness, her boots.
As the rain began to pour in earnest, matting her hair to her head, the tendrils of hair that she’d struggled to style into curls at her temples were now plastered to her cheeks.
