by Rose Jenster
“Good afternoon, Miss Laetitia,” Charlotte said.
“Good afternoon, Charlotte. I was on my way home but I wanted to wait and say hello to you.”
“I’m so happy you did. It was most courteous of you. Do give Roger our best,” Charlotte said with a slight curtsey. Laetitia had no honorific title but Charlotte always felt faintly at a disadvantage around her and was embarrassed to have curtsied as if before royalty. Still, Laetitia gave no sign of noticing the error and took her leave pleasantly enough.
“Mother, was I wrong to suggest she’d see Roger before we do? I didn’t mean to imply that they were residing in the same house or anything of the sort,” Charlotte fluttered.
“Do sit down, Charlotte. You did nothing wrong. She is too sweet to notice it if you did. What has you so distressed?”
“I just—had this letter arrive,” she said lamely, sinking into a chair and staring at her hands in her lap, clutching the paper.
“From whom?”
“From a Mr. Frank Barton of Montana Territory. He’s a friend of Leah Weaver’s husband. She was studying to take the teaching exam when I left school.”
“I remember. Plain little thing, bookish, father owned a stationer’s?”
“Yes, that’s Leah. I had written to her because…because she found a husband through the matrimonial news.”
“Truly, Charlotte? What is the meaning of this?”
“The meaning is that I don’t want to go live with Roger and Laetitia for the rest of my life!” she burst out. She covered her mouth with her hands in shock at her temerity. “I’m sorry, mother. I shouldn’t have spoken thus. What I ought to have said is now that I know you’ll have a comfortable home, I thought of moving out west.”
“You’re perfectly welcome at your brother’s home. Heaven knows you’ve earned your spot in any home he owns including a palace. All the nonsense you’ve put up with, what with hiding everything you did.”
“What, Mother?”
“At the newspaper. Your reporting. The piece on the dock strike was particularly excellent, I thought. But you were so proud of keeping it secret. As if I didn’t notice the trousers that kept winding up in our washing when I counted the clothes,” her mother said affectionately.
Charlotte felt incredibly foolish. Her cheeks turned with embarrassment. For two years now she’d thought herself unbearably clever at keeping her work and her disguise a perfect mystery. She’d never thought about her mother noticing the wash, or figuring it out, which was quite silly. She felt rather like a child who’d been caught at mischief.
“I’m sorry, mother. I had thought that my antics would distress you so I kept it hidden, though obviously rather unsuccessfully.”
“I hated to ruin all your fun of having a secret identity. I also knew your sewing was hardly fit to earn the sort of money you were bringing in each month.”
“I’m sorry I kept it from you. It was wrong of me. In part I didn’t want to worry you, but partly I liked having a daring secret job where I dressed as a boy and talked with interesting people about important things in a way I never would have been able to do otherwise,” Charlotte admitted shamefacedly.
“I trust you were careful. If not I’d have boxed your ears soundly,” her mother said with what almost looked like laughter in her eyes. “Did you think when you brought me a newspaper once a week that I couldn’t recognize my own child’s writing? I proofread every composition you wrote from the ages of eight to sixteen, Charlotte!”
“I should have done a great many things differently mother. Only let me tell you about this newspaperman in Billings to whom I have written. It was Leah’s suggestion that I write to him. She provided an introduction herself.”
“A newspaperman. You have a shared interest at least. I should hope you’d have more in common than that to start a life together. Please tell me you’ve not entered into any sort of engagement with a total stranger.”
“No, I haven’t. Not at all.”
“You were about to say not yet, weren’t you.”
Charlotte looked guiltily as her eyes dropped down.
“His first letter was gruff but I liked him. He was interesting, despite his insistence that he doesn’t like people much. But he wrote again after I told him the good news of Roger’s marriage and his advantageous position at the law firm and—he was very critical of Roger, I’m afraid. Not only one remark, but he went on and on about it and it was quite hurtful,” she said, ashamed.
“This man with whom you had exchanged a couple of letters had the audacity to criticize your own brother? I’d hesitate to ask what he said about me, or about anything else. Seems a bit free with his opinion and not terribly clever if he’s showing rudeness now. He ought to be trying to win your regard.”
“Don’t you want to hear what he said?”
“Not particularly. His opinion of your brother doesn’t interest me much. Your opinion of this Mr. Barton is the one that matters. And if he is harsh and uncompromising, do not marry him. Do not give him one more sentence of yours for he does not merit it.”
“Mother. I think he said those things, it seemed he said those horrid words from an excess of feeling. He expressed a wish to have protected me. He explained that he would have behaved differently had he been my brother. His words were rash, it is true, but he wrote them because he cares for me.”
“Then it is too late to speak with me, if you defend him so. You have made up your mind.” Her mother shook her head. “As for ‘if he were your brother’ he would have had a mouthful of soap from me.”
Her mother stood and shook out her skirts.
“I once heard you tell a churchgoer to stop nursing resentment and forgive her husband.”
“He is NOT your husband. I often counseled women to forgive, but that did not mean that men should do or say whatever they like and expect to be indulged. I counseled it because the anger and resentment are painful only to the woman carrying them. If she could release that, she could go forward with patience and peace. It was not for him I wished her to forgive, but for her own heart.”
“It applies here though too. I hate being angry with Frank, with Mr. Barton, I mean. I can think of little else and wish only to be reconciled with him.”
“Charlotte, I have regrets when it comes to your upbringing. But the worst right this moment is that you never had a sweetheart at sixteen or seventeen. You would have been rid of the silliness in your system and now be ready to meet with a steady, reasonable man. I should have sent you to the church socials.”
“We were in mourning. I would not have gone!”
“I had hoped you were too level-headed now to fall prey to flattering words, but I might have known.”
“I haven’t fallen prey to anything,” Charlotte said grouchily.
“I worry about you. You never took walks after church with a young man or went to his parents’ house for dinner. Do not leap at the first man to show an interest in you. Ask yourself why he cannot find a wife nearer to home.”
“There aren’t enough women in the west. The lack of eligible spinsters has made the matrimonial papers very successful. Fine, upstanding Christian men seek wives to be their helpmeets and—”
“To tame the Wild West?” her mother put in gently. “You have spent more time with novels than with people. I have allowed it out of indolence, I suppose, or out of nostalgia for what our lives would have been like had your good father lived.”
“Had I wanted to go into society, even in our reduced circumstances, I might have attended picnics and the like. I chose not to.”
“All the same, your brother’s wedding comes at a propitious time. You can be brought into good society and have the opportunity to meet nice young men.”
“I don’t want to meet nice young men!” she said.
“Then you shall be free to meet horrid young men from respectable families,” her mother teased. “Regardless, you will attend events where you have a better chance of mixing with young peopl
e suitable to your standing by birth, if not entirely by upbringing.”
“Do you forbid me to write to Mr. Barton again?” Charlotte asked.
“I do not forbid it, partly because it wouldn’t do much good. You are likely to follow your own wishes in such a matter, and in this way you at least needn’t take the trouble to hide it. However, I by no means approve the match. I insist that you both attend with a cheerful heart any social gatherings I deem appropriate and that you do not enter into any sort of engagement with this man until I have an opportunity to know him myself.”
“I—hardly think that to be reasonable. You’re not likely to travel to Montana Territory to meet with him.”
“No, but I may write to him as freely as you may. I will have his address.”
“Do you want to see his letters?”
“Yes. You can have no objection to it so early in a correspondence, and I would know what he has said to you to set your will so strongly already.”
“Just as well,” Charlotte said and retrieved the letters.
She handed them to her mother.
“You’ll find his direction written in Leah’s letter.”
“Thank you. I want what is best for you,” her mother said gently.
“I know. And I’m—glad you found out about the newspaper job as well a about Mr. Barton.”
“It’s good that you told me.”
“Thank you for not condemning him completely. I will keep to your terms. I promise.”
“Very well now. I have a bit of reading to do.”
Charlotte felt relieved. Her mother at last knew everything now. She hadn’t realized how much it weighed on her to keep the secret, or to think she kept it, at any rate. Although it troubled her to think how her mother might react to Frank’s harsh words about Roger, it also gave her a feeling of safety. She was disclosing the thing that troubled her most to the person whose judgment she trusted above all others. Hadn’t her mother contrived to keep her safe, economized to keep them both housed and fed them decently? Of course, she also mended their clothes to keep the rents from showing.
Such a woman was surely able to discern any double meanings or vicious nature in the writer. With a vague feeling of being comforted, Charlotte made up cornbread and set it in the oven. Sitting at the table, her head on her hand, she fell asleep. When her mother bustled in, it was because the cornbread was burning.
“I’m so sorry, Mother!” she said, flustered and confused, jumping from her chair.
“I reckon you didn’t sleep much last night after that poison pen letter came to you. I’ll have you go directly to bed.”
“I have to finish supper.”
“It’s a bit past finished. You can go to bed and I’ll clean this up.”
Charlotte went to the bedroom and changed to night clothes. She pulled on her voluminous nightgown, the new one her mother had just made out of soft flannel, and sank in the bed with gratitude.
Chapter 6
The next morning, Charlotte posted the letter she wrote to Frank. She added a postscript that she had disclosed his missives to her mother and he should expect to hear from her soon. Charlotte wasn’t sure if she was feeling smug that he’d get what he deserved, meaning the rough side of her mother’s pen, or if she was warning him that a rebuke was coming. She hoped he sent a sincere reply that was civil and apologetic and not some meager defense of his actions.
Her father had always said that the test of a man was how he behaved when he was wrong. She wondered now, a little belatedly, if her father had ever imagined he himself might be wrong. From what she remembered of his temperament, he didn't apologize.
Another letter awaited her that day and she opened it dubiously. Would be from a penitent Frank or would he attempt to justify his judgments of her family? She unfolded it slowly.
Dear Charlotte,
As it shall be six weeks before I get your response, if you did reply, I hope to go on as if we were still correspondents..
Just now I am getting a great number of advertisements for my paper from as far away as Helena, for produce and livestock and farm implements being sold as second hand. A dressmaker in Helena and a jeweler are advertising as well as a bookshop. I know there are several around here, your esteemed friend Mrs. Rogers and her husband among them, who subscribe to a lending library. I have wondered if a bookshop might not be a prosperous concern in Billings as well. It is mere speculation of course, but with long winters stuck out on one’s homestead, it makes sense that the mind might yearn for some entertainment beyond the dullness of those four walls.
I have also wondered about how many local residents read the articles from months back during the winter since some homesteaders paper their walls with newspapers to help keep in the warmth of the stove. It doesn’t help much, to tell the truth, but I reckon it’s something to look at.
Which subjects did you like to write about when you were a reporter? Come to the point, which subject was your best at school? As for myself, I was better at arithmetic than I was at parsing sentences and telling clauses apart. Odd that I chose to work with words when numbers made more sense to me at one time.
I suppose what makes sense changes as we get older. Right now nothing much makes sense at all, except for the one thought that I had a whisper of a chance at having more in my life than my work. I had a chance at getting to know you and I spoiled it. I promised myself I would not spill more ink on the topic of things I ought not to have said. Only know that I am sorrier than you could know.
Do you enjoy looking at rivers and mountains? Out back of my rooms, which are attached to the newspaper, I can walk down past the end of the street and come out in a field of wildflowers. It is like that from May until it turns cold in the autumn. I have no idea which types of flowers bloom there, only that there are several kinds as different ones blossom at different times. They are mostly purple with some yellows and whites mixed in. The sight of them refreshes the eye as a drink from the cold stream will refresh the body in the heat of summer.
I told you I hadn’t patience for poetry, but looking at those flowers, that’s the nearest thing to poetry I ever knew. It is barren now that the weather has turned. I have thought of the flowers several times since you wrote me last. Not because I know of any particular interest you may have in flowers or any favorite color thereof, but because flowers were the closest thing to poetry I knew until we began to write.
Once when I was a young man, my elder brother accused me of romancing things, of looking at them like they were better or brighter. I believe he was talking of a girl we both knew. I took it as a grave insult that I should be less than a hardened realist even at that tender age of fifteen. I was made aware of my tendency and did all I could to stamp it out. I thought I had extinguished it entirely until I found myself writing to you about flowers and poems. I fear what my brother would say of me now. I doubt he would have much that was favorable to report.
I publish the minutes of the church ladies’ society meetings and also of the men’s guild. The ladies are making quilts for a raffle at the soup supper that is in a few weeks. The guild will have a hunt after the first freeze and cure and smoke meat for the town. Some is for their own families and some to sell. I usually get a ham to cut off and fry up for a bit of a change from fatback and cornbread. I got thinking that if I had a family I might join the hunt. I’ve never been a sportsman myself but if it was to put meat on the table for my family, I would learn to hunt. Luke, I’m certain, could teach me and would delight in the absurdity of my early failures as well.
As for family, allow me now to disclose a very private truth. If you think me improper for speaking of this to you, I own that you are correct by standards of society. However, it is information you have every right to know if you choose to go forward with any correspondence or courtship. Were you to choose me, were you to move west and marry me, you would never be a mother. As a small child I caught measles from my brother and had a dire case. I was in the hospital for we
eks and my parents despaired of my life. My fever was so high and my illness so severe that the physician who treated me told my father I would never be a father as a result. Please excuse my frankness on this indelicate topic, but it would be unjust of me to impose upon you by attempting to secure your regard under the pretense of a man with whom you could raise a family.
Regretfully,
Frank Barton
Charlotte sat with this idea, blushing at the implications but at the same time respecting his openness about such an important and painful topic. She felt that he had confided in her, that sharing his secret had brought them closer. At the same time she hoped her mother didn’t ask to see the letter. Surely she would be scandalized, would declare that he was no gentleman. Perhaps she would be right, but what Charlotte wanted was a different sort of life.
If she had aspired to be a traditional wife, in a conventional marriage, she would have made very different choices. She had dressed as a boy, had worked in a man’s job, under a man’s name, knowing that it was immodest and that she was flouting propriety.
While she said it was out of necessity, she could have taken work as a companion or a governess. She could have begged her mother to try yet again to teach her embroidery so she could earn money plying that trade. It was what she had chosen for herself. Charlotte had understood at seventeen that it would handicap her chances of making a decent marriage when the time came.
Out west, where standards were more relaxed, where she might be considered pioneering instead of merely odd, she had a better opportunity. The question was now whether Frank Barton could be the opportunity she was looking for, or if he wasn’t the right fit.
