Mail Order Brides Collection Boxed Set: Felicity, Frank, Verity and Jessica, Books 3-6 (Montana Mail Order Brides Series)

by Rose Jenster

  She continued in this vein until the ads grew boring. So many of them were the same and the stories behind them seemed so sad. Widowers with small children who had lost their mother. One man had lost wife and child together from influenza that winter. She decided quickly that her game wasn’t much fun any longer.

  Verity shut her eyes for a moment, feeling very sorry she had ridiculed these people in her heart. She was just as lonely as they were, after all. Verity had a deep love for the children she taught and their parents as well. There was a coarseness, but also an honesty people had in Montana Territory. Tomorrow she would take a walk and learn a bit more about her town.

  It had been a sudden decision to move to Montana Territory and she ought to do her best to become part of the community. Perhaps she could do some tutoring or help with---alphabetizing something? Her teaching skills seemed somewhat useless outside the schoolroom in this wilderness.

  At least she could have a walk and appreciate the scenery and read a bit of poetry if she found nothing useful to occupy her time. Sighing, she opened her eyes and resolved to throw the matrimonial papers away somewhere discreet in town the next day. She didn’t want Mrs. Hostelman to think she was a husband-hunter. Her eyes fell on an ad at the bottom of the page. The print was small, the placement unassuming and probably inexpensive. There was nothing to make the words stand out to her at all, and yet they did.

  Bachelor tradesman in Montana Territory in want of a wife. I own my family home, with five rooms and a piano. There is no family to fill the rooms nor anyone to bring music back into the house. I had better plans but they failed me. If I knew another way to find a good wife in this frontier, I would have done it. Now I swallow my pride and place an ad with hope, with faith that the right lady might read this and hope as well. #173

  Verity read it over several times, folded the paper and put it away. She blew out the lamp and lay down to sleep, but she kept thinking about the ad and how it spoke to her. He had once had better plans—just as she had. But things didn’t always work out the way she wanted them to, and so she could sympathize with his dilemma. No one wants to place an ad or answer an ad. It’s only as a last resort. But here she was, practically at the end of the world. She understood last resorts all too well.

  Dear Sir,

  I never thought myself the kind of person to write a letter to a stranger, nor to answer an advertisement. I read your ad #173 a dozen times. When I laid the paper aside, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I could imagine your lonely rooms, your silent piano, your better plans that went awry. I had better plans once myself, but they were not to be.

  I wanted an education and to be a teacher and to have a simple, prosperous life. I find now, several years into my teaching post, that I would like to be someone’s wife, if that someone were kind and clever and a good Christian man. If you are those things, if you are also someone who likes to read books that would be ideal. What my life is now—it is not bad at all, really, only it isn’t what I want any longer. I have the luxury of discontent, I think. I have enough to eat and shoes to wear so I get to thinking about how I’m not very happy in spite of that.

  I do not know if Montana Territory would make me happy or if you yourself might do so. I would be willing to find out. I’ve never been adventurous, but I’ve always been stubborn and when I set out to do something, you may consider that something accomplished.

  I am, I think, ready for a new life on the frontier after having been a teacher at a private academy in upstate New York for the past four years. I enjoy reading classical literature and poetry, but I think the natural beauty of the West would hold a classical beauty of its own. I am used to seeing the mountains in New York, the peaceful meadows, but

  I grew up in a small city crowded with people of all kinds. I find I prefer a town with its resources but not too large a town as I have lived in my youth in a small dwelling surrounded by the noise and nearness of far too many people. The space of the West might suit me well.

  I play the piano. I learned only a few years ago as I hadn’t any lessons as a child. I could bring music into your home, if we suit one another. I have an odd idea that we would, just from reading what you wrote in your ad. I am a very sensitive reader and I have made a job of reading and talking about words, so I feel confident that I am right. If you like the sound of me, write to me at the matrimonial news office, please, as I’m not yet comfortable giving my address to a stranger. They will forward the message to me.

  Sincerely,

  Verity Kemp

  She mailed it, wondering why she hadn’t disclosed that she had already come to Montana Territory. She was no Eastern spinster hoping for a rail ticket. She had been hired at a job and bought her own ticket. Examining her motives, she decided she was afraid the man might think she was forward or pushy. Perhaps he'd think that she had moved out to Montana to work, but with a view to get a husband. It might seem too desperate and he might think ill of her when she wanted him to like her. In truth, she wasn't sure why she hid that she was already in Billing, Montana, but she was glad she did.

  Verity spent several days mending and doing washing and helping Mrs. Hostelman scrub floors. The good woman teased her that she worked like a charwoman. The truth was, Mrs. Hostelman reminded Verity of her own mother and the resemblance prompted her to help out around the boarding house. She liked being near the matron and listening to her cheerful, harmless chatter. So she found sheets to press, inhaling the clean, homey scent of hot cotton and linen cloth as she passed the heavy iron across it.

  One afternoon, she fetched the post for Mrs. Hostelman and found a letter for herself from the matrimonial papers. She ripped it open impulsively, unable to wait until she could secret herself in her room. It had been forwarded from the newspaper office from the writer of advertisement 173!

  Verity stood on the sidewalk, its wooden slats slightly uneven, a bit warped from the weather. She was oblivious to the people around her and nodded absently to a woman who bade her good afternoon. Verity was in her own world as she read. She felt chosen, wanted, answered. She bit down on her lip—an old bad habit from her childhood—to stop herself breaking into tears over something as small as getting a reply to her letter. Verity so wanted it to be a kind and welcoming response, not a no-thank-you. So she read because she couldn’t bear to wait.

  Dear Miss Kemp,

  Yours was the first letter that came after I placed the ad. I am not sure what right manners are in this situation but my mother would tell me that a letter must be answered with a letter, just as a gift must have its thank-you note written and posted before the gift is enjoyed. I learned that one as a boy and it never left me. I do recall a handsome toy boat I wasn’t permitted to play with until I’d formed the words neatly enough at my mother’s knee. Have you memories of that sort? Of birthday presents come in the post from relations you’d never seen?

  I have questions for you, too many questions to put to a stranger. You do not seem a stranger to me. Even your short letter seemed familiar. I want to know you better. Write to me. The correspondnces are slow. The sooner I have your address, the sooner I can write you directly. Until then, I will post letters to the newspaper office where I placed the ad in hope you’ll read them without being alarmed at how many letters I send and so soon.

  I was not convinced that placing an ad was a good idea for me, but I have several friends in my town, in Billings, who have had, shall we say, good luck with this approach. I never thought to have more than a practical bargain of it—to find a woman as lonesome, as ready for a family as myself who would agree to make a life together and be polite. I hadn’t thought to find anyone I might have feelings for—any feelings but respect that is.

  I was engaged before to a young lady I cared for a great deal. Circumstances being as they were, it did not work out and I wound up alone. I expect that was my—what the poets you like would call my great love. And it may be that is true, but then again it may not. It may be that you and I like each othe
r after a few letters and we decide to see if we’d get along in person. I’d be happy if it worked out that way.

  I’m not much of a poet myself and I don’t mean to try it. In truth, I’m a blacksmith, the only one for miles around, and I keep mighty busy at my forge. But while I’m there, shaping iron in the fire, I wonder how I will prove, tested by fire or tested by experience. Because the true character of a man comes out when he has to face trouble, or so my mother told me. If that’s the truth, then my father wasn’t much of a man. I’ll tell you more about my parents in another letter if you reply favorable to my suit. I plan to write to you and I hope you plan to write back to me.

  I don’t have many people I count friends. I have customers and I have people I sit alongside in church, but not much in the way of anyone to talk to. I reckon you’re more a sociable type than I am. The only family I have is a sister in Helena and her husband and son. I don’t have any other relations nearby so it’s solitude for me most times. I go to sleep early and get up early to fire the forge. I read the local newspaper and the almanac. I haven’t read much in the way of books since I left school and that’s been more than a few years ago.

  I don’t ask how old you are or if you have ever been engaged or married and widowed because I reckon it’s not my business. My business is with your future, not your past, if it’s to be my business at all. I get rambling a bit with a pen in my hand which I guess is common for a man who doesn’t talk much. The words are in there it just isn’t easy for them to get out sometimes.

  Write to me and let me know one way or another if I’m to expect to hear from you regular or if I shouldn’t bother watching the post.

  Adam Rexing

  Her cheeks were flushed and her pulse was racing. She knew two things for certain: She liked this man’s letter very much, but she didn’t like the man himself. She had, after all, met him and he had dismissed her concern about the schoolhouse stove. He was none other than the blacksmith who had been rude to her! The only blacksmith for miles around, he claimed and that was true enough.

  Only now she’d got herself into a kettle of trouble because she’d started a correspondence with a man she didn’t like above half and he had hopes of her now when she had represented herself as a total stranger. It was a pickle, her mother would have called it. If he didn’t know the etiquette of matrimonial advertisement letters, she wasn’t at all sure how she should respond to his letter.

  Respond to it she would, she knew. It was only to figure out how to do it properly. And by ‘properly’ she meant without losing his regard.

  Chapter 6

  Verity went to her cousin Charlotte that very day. She did not even stop at the boarding house to give Mrs. Hostelman the mail. Instead she rushed to Charlotte’s home and rapped on the door insistently until her cousin opened the door.

  “Could you come out for a stroll with me, please, cousin?” Verity said tightly.

  “I—suppose I could. Give me a moment.” She disappeared back into the house for a moment and returned, having removed her apron and put on a sunbonnet.

  Linking her arm with Verity’s, Charlotte walked along beside her. Then, in her direct manner, asked what the problem was. Surely, something was wrong for Verity to show up and make a request with urgency.

  “I’ve answered an ad. Remember when you wrote to me, half joking I expect, and suggested I might find a husband out West? Well when I moved here to take on the teaching job it was with a mind to find a groom also.”

  “I thought as much. Go on. Is he horrid? Does he have eleven children and expect you to milk the goats every morning at five before teaching?”

  “Not at all. He’s---he’s the,“ she dropped her voice to a whisper, “blacksmith!” Verity said it as if it were a very shameful secret.

  “Is that all? It’s Adam Rexing? About time, too. I heard he was jilted by his sweetheart a while back. He’s a fine looking man, though I shouldn’t say so. I should say you could do a great deal worse!” Charlotte squealed with delight.

  “Oh, Charlotte, you mustn’t speak so! It isn’t dignified. Besides, he doesn’t know it’s me.” Verity was hesitant to explain her dilemma.

  “What? You used a fake name?”

  “No. I used my real name, of course. Only I didn’t say I was in Montana. I pretended I was back East. Well, I never said I wasn’t back East still. This is a lie of omission as your dear father and my dear uncle would have said, and is as much a sin as if I’d stood in the church and told a boldfaced lie.” Verity shook her head mournfully, “I dissembled. I didn’t want him to think I’d moved out West because I was crazed to get married. He might mistake my reasons for moving here.”

  “But Verity, you just said that you moved here for the job and to find a husband. What could he mistake?” Charlotte was not going to let her cousin squrim out of this one.

  “I only mean that I don’t want him thinking that I want a husband,” she said sheepishly.

  “If you didn’t want a husband, Verity, why in the world did you go answering an ad for a bride in a matrimonial newspaper? Why did you even READ a matrimonial paper at all if you didn’t want to be married?”

  “I do want to be married. I just don’t want it to seem like I want to—I want to be coy and be pursued and courted and—“

  “And be a debutante in the upper crust of New York society? Come now, we’re neither one of us from that background, Verity. We make our own way. Both of us have worked for our keep since we were small. We didn’t have conventional lives, so how could we expect traditional courtships? Any man who wanted a coy and proper woman wouldn’t waste his time looking twice at the pair of us, cousin,” Charlotte said bluntly. She was not one to be subtle.

  “I know you’re right. I do wish you’d say it more delicately, though. It makes me feel as if I’m immodest and improper to live as I have—working for a living and never being quite the frivolous creature I’d have the world believe,” Verity confessed.

  “I never thought you were. No matter how many new hats you claimed to buy, I knew you were giving drawing lessons or music lessons for pocket money on top of your salary. When we were younger, before—before Father passed away so suddenly—you always wore pretty clothes, but when you came to visit us, you never had too many of them if you know what I mean. You had two dresses, one for every day and one for best. Maybe you have more now, I don’t know. But I know how you grew up and it was far leaner than the parsonage where I spent my days.”

  “I’d rather not speak of it so ill. It seems disrespectful to my parents who worked terribly hard all their lives—as if they couldn’t provide a home ,“ Verity broke out crying. Appalled at her own indiscreet weeping, she buried her face in her gloved hands.

  Charlotte rushed her back to the boarding house lest she be seen crying in the open street.

  “I’m sorry. Forgive me, cousin. I miss my parents so and I never quite succeeded well enough that I could even get them a better place to live and they just—“ She fell to sobbing again and Charlotte patted her shoulder reassuringly.

  “Now now, Verity,” Charlotte said a bit uncomfortably, “What has you so upset?”

  “I miss my parents, Charlotte. I miss having a place as a revered instructress of literature and poetry. I was replaced by a teacher who spoke French. She had the kind of education and upbringing that the wealthy people would want their daughters to be in contact with instead of a pretender like me! I’m here now and I’m only a pretender still. I didn’t come out and say I was in Montana when I wrote my letter of introduction and now if I tell him, if I tell Adam, I mean, Mr. Rexing that I have been here all along, he’ll think I’m deceitful! Should I ask him to address all correspondence to the matrimonial paper address and they could be forwarded to me ?”

  “And keep up a lie? No, Verity. You mustn’t. I’ve done my share of keeping secrets and everything would have been so much simpler and I would have been happier if I’d only been up front with Mother and my brother Roger all alon
g,” she said softly. “

  Instead, I hid things from them to protect myself from being scolded and thought immodest or even forbidden from writing as I did—it all came to nothing,” Charlotte confessed. “They both knew anyway. No one cared much what I was doing, they only cared I didn’t trust them enough to speak the truth. I feel very badly about it and I would counsel you to be honest. Make a clean breast of it and if Mr. Rexing has a kind and forgiving heart, he will accept your explanation and get to know you better. If not, then he isn’t right for you,” Charlotte stated in all sincerity.

  “You’re right,” Verity said miserably sniffing, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief, “I’m sorry I troubled you so about my mistake. It’s all my own doing and I suppose I’ll have to admit to it.”

  “It wouldn’t do you any good to pretend and have him send letters to the newspaper anyhow. They’d arrive too quickly and he’d figure out you were nearby. There’s also the fact that you gave him your real name, of course, and it isn’t as if Verity Kemp weren’t a memorable name.” Charlotte spoke frankly to show her cousin all sides of the situation.

  “Yes, there is that,” Verity sighed, “Thank you for your advice and for listening to me. I know I can be a trial—I get dreadfully emotional at times, I believe,” she said in a rare moment of vulnerability.

  “Yes, you do. But I love you anyhow,” Charlotte smiled and embraced her with a strong squeeze.

  Verity sat down and wrote to Adam Rexing without stopping to wonder why, when she obviously disliked him, she would be so anxious that he should forgive her and think well of her.

  Dear Mr. Rexing,

  I regret to say that I am no stranger at all to you, but a passing acquaintance lately moved to Billings myself. I did not tell you I lived in Montana because I was afraid that you would think I was forward and desperate to marry as well as unladylike. I hope I am none of those things, but that will be for you to judge. I am sorry I did not tell you the truth in my first letter.