Mail Order Melody

by Kirsten Osbourne

  "Wait...you're pregnant? How long have you known?" He was excited about the baby, of course, but he couldn't understand why he was just now finding out.

  She sighed. "A couple of weeks. I wanted to feel like I could tell you everything before I told you about the baby. Now that I've told you all about my past, I feel comfortable telling you about him." She touched a hand to her slightly swollen belly, wanting to protect the child that lived within her.

  Calvin thought about that for a moment before nodding. "I think I can understand that. I'm thrilled about the baby. I just need you to know that." Thrilled was putting it mildly. He wanted to shout and dance in the streets, but the conversation was too serious for that.

  She smiled. "So am I." She looked down at the letter in his hands. "What are we going to do about that, though?"

  "I'm going to hire an investigator, and we'll go from there." He'd never even tried to hire an investigator, but he'd heard good things about a firm in St. Louis. They'd drive there and talk to them, doing everything they could to keep her family safe.

  "I do have some money. Most of it was kept by Sebastian, but I always carried a little. I have what was in my purse the day I ran from him." She opened her purse to pull out whatever money she had.

  He put his hand on her arm to stop her from getting the money out. "I'll let you know if I need it. For now, keep it safe." He put one finger under her chin, tilting her face up for his kiss. "Now that I know about the problem, we'll solve it together."

  She smiled, resting her head on his shoulder as he turned the wagon around and headed back to the mercantile. "You'll stop asking me to sing 'Yankee Doodle' now that you know I'm an opera singer, right?"

  His eyes were dancing as he looked down on her. "Why would I do that? You have a beautiful voice, and you should put it to good use. That opera stuff is boring. You should sing something worth listening to." He hid the laugh bubbling up inside him, waiting for her reaction.

  She laughed softly knowing he was never going to change, and for once being happy about that fact. He could sing all he wanted, and she'd put up with it as long as he worked to keep her family safe.

  *****

  They left early the following morning to head to St. Louis to see the investigator Calvin had heard about. "Are you sure you're up to a long drive in your condition?" he asked, his eyes going to her stomach. If it was up to him, he'd put her in a glass case for the next seven months.

  Eliza laughed. "It's too early for you to be worried about my condition. I n a few months you can worry all you want but for now, you need to let me do what I feel like doing." She'd moved back into their room the previous night, and he had made sweet love to her. He'd been so tender, she had been ready to scream at him to go faster. He was convinced he was going to hurt the baby.

  "How can I not worry about you and the baby?" He shook his head. "You're the most important person in my life, and you're carrying my child. I'll do nothing but worry until he's born, and then I'll worry some more." He climbed up into the wagon beside her, picking up the reins.

  "Well, there's really no reason to spend all your time worrying. I feel good, and I think he's doing fine in there." Not that she knew. She'd never had a child and really wished she could see a doctor, but there just weren't any close to them.

  "We'll make sure of it while we're in the city today."

  "How will we do that?" Did he think there was a magic scope that would see into her belly? Let them know that the baby was growing well before he was ever born?

  "There's a good doctor in town that I saw a few years back when I broke my leg. I'm going to take you to him while we're there. He'll put both of our minds at ease." He didn't ask if she wanted to see a doctor, because her answer really wasn't going to sway him either way. He needed her to seek medical attention, so she would see a doctor.

  The whole four hour drive was spent talking about potential names for the baby. He had some strange names that he liked, and she told him 'no' to most of them. First he suggested Egbert which caused her to wrinkle her nose. Then he asked about Philomena. She refused.

  Some of the names were so ridiculous she couldn't help but laugh. "Where do you come up with these names?" she asked.

  He shrugged. "I don't know. They're just unusual names that I've heard over the years. How about Lela?"

  "I like Lela. I've never heard that name before, but it's nice. Fora girl, I hope?"

  He nodded. "I heard about a saloon girl by that name once. It sounded pretty to me."

  "I'm not naming my daughter after a saloon girl! Are you kidding me?" She couldn't believe he'd even suggest such a thing. What was wrong with the man?

  "Well, we wouldn't be naming her after the saloon girl. We'd be giving her a pretty name that also just happens to belong to a saloon girl. She won't mind." He watched her out of the corner of his eye to get her reaction to his words, hoping she wouldn't realize he was doing his very best to tease her.

  Eliza shook her head, refusing to even respond to him. He suggested another name, and so it went the whole way to St. Louis.

  When they pulled into the city, he drove down the main street for a while, before finally stopping and asking about the detective agency. Eliza mumbled about men not asking for directions. They were directed to a street just two over from where they were, and she held tight to the wagon while he made a sharp turn in the middle of the street.

  When they reached the investigator's office he helped her down, and they went to the door together. "Let me do the talking please," he asked.

  Eliza bit her lip but nodded readily. She didn't want to have to explain again. She wasn't sure she could do it without crying her heart out.

  The man who came to greet them was nothing like she'd expected a detective to be. He had gray receding hair and was shorter than she was. He was almost as round as he was tall. She couldn't imagine the man would be able to apply any stealth to an operation, but if Calvin had heard good things about him, then she was determined to trust him.

  He introduced himself, his gaze remaining on Eliza's face. "I'm Grant Bigelow," he told them.

  Calvin smiled, shaking his hand. "Calvin Simpson. This is my wife, Eliza."

  "What can I do for the two of you today?" His eyes were still glued to Eliza's face as if he were trying to figure something out.

  "We'd like to hire you. Someone has been threatening my wife's family."

  Mr. Bigelow nodded, inviting them into his office and sitting down to hear their story.

  Calvin explained everything in detail. When he mentioned that Eliza was an opera singer, Mr. Bigelow's face lit up. "That's where I know you from! You're L'Angelina. You have the voice of an angel."

  Eliza nodded once. "Thank you." She was used to the compliment and had even been given her stage name because her voice was so angelic.

  Calvin finished the story, telling him about the letter that Eliza had received the previous day. "We're not certain what to do at this point. My wife can avoid singing, but we want to make certain her family stays safe. She likes to sing in church, and we'd like her to be able to do so when she wants to."

  Mr. Bigelow shook his head. "She can't avoid singing. That would be doing a great disservice to the world." He leaned back in his chair, his face thoughtful. Looking at Eliza, he asked, "Your sister is a widow?"

  Eliza nodded, not certain what that had to do with anything. "Yes, she is."

  "You came out West as a mail order bride. Would your sister consider doing the same? Maybe she could marry someone close to you?"

  Eliza shrugged. "I don't know any of the single men around. I'm not even certain that Beulah would agree. I know she's short of funds, but I'm not certain that she's feeling that...well, desperate is the best word I can come up with." She hated using the word desperate in terms of a mail order bride because she'd been one, but nothing seemed to fit better.

  Mr. Bigelow nodded. "Is your sister near a telegraph office? Could we get
a message to her inviting her to come West? Perhaps while she and her boys are traveling you could be finding her a husband. Then she could she stay with you for a short time until the danger is past."

  Eliza looked at Calvin who nodded. "I think I even know someone who she could marry. My closest neighbor told me he'd like a wife, but he's older than I am. He didn't want to send off for a bride and end up with a young girl."

  "That would probably work out well for Beulah if he wouldn't mind her having two boys already that is." Eliza would love to have her sister and nephews that close to her. She couldn't imagine anything that would make her happier.

  "I don't see that being a problem, but we can ask him when we get home." Calvin turned his attention back to Mr. Bigelow. "What about the man threatening her? Can you find him?" His biggest concern was for his wife's safety, but she cared about her sister, so that made Beulah and the boys a priority as well.

  Mr. Bigelow looked at Eliza for a moment. "Would you make me a list of all of your fiercest competition? I'm certain the threats must be coming from another singer." He pushed a pencil and a piece of paper at her.

  Eliza took the paper and began making a list of anyone who could possibly want her to stop singing. Every opera singer she'd ever come into contact with went onto the list. She had no close friends in the industry. She'd never been allowed to spend enough time with someone away from rehearsals to become close. While she wrote, she listened to the men with only half an ear.

  "Does her manager know where she is now? Is he looking for her?"

  Calvin shrugged. "I haven't heard anything about that. Why do you ask?"

  Mr. Bigelow opened his desk and pulled out a folder with papers in it. He found the one he was looking for and laid it on his desk. There was a drawing of Eliza with the name "L'Angelina" under it. The words, "Reward for helping me find my daughter" were under it with the amount of two hundred and fifty dollars printed beside it.

  Calvin picked up the paper and sighed. "His daughter?" He nudged Eliza with his elbow. "It looks like Sebastian is looking for you. He's calling you his daughter." He watched her face carefully for a reaction. Knowing how she felt about Sebastian, he expected a very big reaction.

  Eliza shook her head. 'That man is not my father. He is just hoping someone will turn me in so he can force me to sing more." As much as she loved to sing, she hated the opera singers' lifestyle. Keeping a home and having babies was what she wanted to do. She was finished with being on the road.

  Mr. Bigelow looked at Eliza. "Did he force you to sing before? Were you his prisoner or something?"

  "No, sir. I sang willingly for the most part, but he became more and more controlling as time went by. I ran away from him because he never would have willingly let me go. I honestly think that if I'd tried, he'd have made me his prisoner. As it was, I wasn't allowed to get more than five feet away from him while we were out. He watched over everything I did. It made me crazy." Eliza kept writing her list as she talked, not really wanting to explain just how much control Sebastian had over her life.

  "Did you sign a contract with him? Can he legally come and get you?"

  "No, there was never any contract. He just kept telling me that I owed him my life for the way he'd 'rescued' me from a life of poverty." She shook her head. "My sister had offered to let me live with her and her fiancé once they married, but I didn't feel right about that. I took his offer to sing, because my sister deserved to have privacy with her new husband."

  "I understand." Mr. Bigelow looked at Calvin. "Your wife may need to have someone with her during the day. Someone who can protect her."

  Calvin nodded. "I think so too. Do you have a man you can send with us, or should I have one of my ranch hands stay with her and keep her safe?" He could spare a man after a day or two. They would get ahead on the work needing to be done, and then someone could stay with her constantly.

  "I think a ranch hand is a better bet. I have men, but I'm going to be employing them all to help me find who is threatening your wife. I think with the right questions, we can get to the bottom of things relatively quickly."

  Eliza let out a sigh of relief. "I certainly hope so. I've been living in fear for my sister and my nephews for too long." She'd never imagined her singing career would put people she loved at risk. Never again. She'd sing in church, but they'd have to carry her in kicking and screaming to get her to do anything else.

  Calvin took her hand in his. "We'll telegraph your sister today, and hopefully she'll be on the next train out here. We can watch over her for as long as we need to. Even if my friend has no interest in marrying her, we'll find someone."

  Eliza nodded. "That would make me feel a great deal better. I need to know she and the boys are safe." She was relieved there was a plan in place, but she knew she wouldn't be able to rest easy until her sister was by her side.

  "They will be," Calvin promised.

  After they left Mr. Bigelow's office they went straight to the telegraph office. She sent a message to Beulah, and they got a recommendation for a hotel. They'd wait for a response from her sister before going back home to the ranch. Knowing it could take a day or two, they made an appointment on their way to the hotel with a doctor for the following morning.

  Calvin found a small restaurant not far from where they would be staying, and they went inside. The menu was printed on a huge blackboard on the wall, and they both read it trying to decide what they'd have. When the waitress came over, they gave their order.

  "I just want the pot roast with mashed potatoes," Eliza requested. She'd been wanting mashed potatoes with every meal ever since she'd found out she was carrying.

  "Steak and baked potato." Calvin turned back to Eliza taking her hand as the waitress walked away. "What do you think of the plan to get your sister out here and married?" He thought it was a good one, but if she wasn't comfortable with it, then they'd have to do something else. He wouldn't have her worrying while she was nurturing his child.

  "I like it. I like the idea of her being close, but not only so I can watch out for her. I feel like I don't even know her boys, and I'm their only aunt." She hated that her work had kept her away from her family for so long, but she understood the necessity as well. She'd sent her sister money many times over the years.

  "Do you think she'll agree?"

  Eliza thought about it for a moment. "I do. She and I have wanted to live closer together. She's invited me to move in with them many times over the years, but I wasn't willing to be a financial burden on her husband. After he died, I knew that she couldn't afford to have me there. They needed the extra money I was able to send." She wasn't certain how Beulah would feel about being a wife to one of the men there, but she knew that she would want to be close to her.

  "How did her husband die?" he asked.

  "He was working in his field one day and just fell over. The doctor thinks it was his heart, but he was such a young man." She shrugged. "I guess we'll never really know what happened to him." She'd liked her brother-in-law and was still angry with herself for not making it back for his funeral.

  "What are her boys like?"

  Eliza looked down at her hands which were folded on the table in front of her. "I really don't know, and that's the God's honest truth. I hate that I don't know, but I've never really had a chance to get to know them. They've lived so far away for so long. I went home whenever I could, but Sebastian kept me booked up as much as possible. Even when there wasn't an opera for me to perform in, he'd make singing engagements for me." She tilted her head to the side, thinking. "You know, I honestly believe he was trying to keep me busy so that I'd be isolated from the rest of the world. When I did go home to see family, he insisted that I stay in the hotel in town, and he had to go with me every day to see them. I don't have any idea how I was able to tolerate the way he controlled me for so long." She hadn't really realized before that Sebastian was deliberately keeping her from her family. Being away from him was eye o
pening.

  "Well, it won't be that way when she gets to us. We'll make sure you see each other as much as you want to." Calvin was surprised to hear she had dealt with her manager's controlling for so long. She seemed too independent to put up with a man like that. A woman had to be at least somewhat independent to get on a train and travel to marry a total stranger.

  "Thank you for being so understanding. I should have told you sooner, but I was afraid you'd think less of me for appearing on stage. And worse, I was afraid for my family." Eliza didn't care that they were in public. She took his hand and raised it to her lips, kissing it gently.

  "I'm always on your side. Remember that. You were on stage singing. It's not like you were dancing around and showing your legs."

  She laughed nervously, wondering if he'd ever seen an opera. Some of the costumes had shown her legs a bit. "Well, sometimes the costumes were...not as modest as I would have liked." She watched him carefully worried he'd be angry with her for something she'd done before she'd ever known he existed.

  He frowned at that, not liking the idea of other men ogling his wife, but understanding that she was doing what she needed to do to help her family. "Well, as long as you didn't enjoy showing your legs, I guess it's all right."

  She grinned. "How could I enjoy showing my body to anyone but you?" She was relieved he didn't seem angry with her for past misdeeds.

  "Just so you know, I happen to really like your body just like it is." He hoped she was giving up the idea of getting slimmer altogether.

  After their meal, they walked back to the hotel having left the horses in the hotel's livery. The front desk clerk called them over as soon as they walked into the hotel. "Telegram for you, Mrs. Simpson."

  Eliza took the telegram, reading it eagerly.

  ELIZA SIMPSON SAINTS HOTEL ST LOUIS MISSOURI SELLING EVERYTHING STOP ON TRAIN NEXT WEEK STOP