by Rose Jenster
“Surely once something else captures their attention they’ll get over this, won’t they?” she said, half pleading.
“I’m afraid not,” her mother said gently. “Now let’s get you to bed with a cup of chocolate. I think some rest will do you good.”
“What about…tomorrow I know we were to have luncheon with Mrs. Overling and her daughter…”
“You won’t be able to attend, of course. In fact I expect the invitation to be withdrawn any moment due to, perhaps, a schedule conflict or someone having a sudden headache to avoid associating with us,” her mother said softly.
“I’m so sorry,” Jessica said in distress. She was stunned at the ramifications of her actions.
“It’s a bit late for that,” her father said with a dry chuckle.
The footman handed her down from the carriage. Suddenly the soft evening breeze that had felt so freeing earlier now seemed to hold a chill.
* * *
The next morning, the maid brought her tea on a tray with sixteen envelopes. The morning post had already been there and she received quite a number of letters to read. Breaking the seal on the first, she saw that Miss and Mrs. Overling regretted that they must cancel the luncheon due to unforeseen circumstances. Next came a withdrawal of that evening’s invitation to a card party, followed by the musicale evening at Mrs. Winters’ on Thursday. Every message held a very genteel rejection. In terms of the utmost propriety, Rochester ladies were closing ranks and leaving Jessica on the outside. She had violated their principles of good conduct and ladylike behavior and now was an outcast.
Jessica dumped the letters on the floor and drank her tea. She was torn between misery that she’d brought such disgrace on her good parents and her innocent sister…and relief that she didn’t have to attend any of the events. Jessica enjoyed the card parties but the musicale evenings were always dull and she had to wear a corset which always hurt. This was especially bothersome when she had to sit down and smile as she watched some young girl at the pianoforte. It was difficult to fake fascination when the ribs were being impaled by whalebone.
She donned a day dress that didn’t require her mother’s maid to come cinch her waist. Jessica plaited her hair and pinned it up simply. She actually enjoyed how comfortable it was dressing this way. Jessica ventured down to the library and took from the shelf the Thomas Hardy novel she had wanted to read. Curled up in a window seat with her soft slippers tucked under, she wondered why she didn’t spend every day like this. Then she heard her mother. Generally, her voice was usually modulated to low pleasant tones, but her mother could make a ruckus when she wanted.
“Not merely Jessica, but all of us have been so cordially uninvited to the Foresters’ hunt next month. Their relations from France were to be in attendance and there was a costume ball!” her mother lamented. “I already ordered Eloise’s frock from the dressmaker…she was to be a swan…”
“There, there, my dear,” she heard her father soothe. “The order can be stopped or else there will be another chance for her to dress up as birds soon. You know how these friends of yours love their fancy dress parties in winter.”
“Impossible, John! The gown is unsuitable for cold weather,” she moaned.
“Then put it in the mission barrel. We’ve money enough to pay for it and then some.. Perhaps someone else can make use of the ridiculous fabric and trimmings,” he said.
“Don’t be sarcastic, dear. I know you’re upset in your own way about this wretched scandal. It isn’t the dress I worry about really. It’s what this does to our daughters, whom we’ve worked so hard to set on the right path. When they were children, I feared that Eloise would be the flighty one. But she’s done well enough for herself. Now, serious little Jessica is in trouble…oh, John!”
Jessica heard her mother sob and it wrenched her heart. She never meant to bring her parents such grief. As she rushed in the morning room and embraced her mother, she was filled with guilt.
“I’m so sorry, I wish I could take it back. I know this grieves you so!” she said.
“You tried to do a right thing for a friend. It didn’t turn out as you planned and you’ve got to take it on the chin, lass,” her father said. Jessica saw the sense in this and calmed herself temporarily. Her mother and Eloise would surely provide enough hysterics for one household.
“Is Ellie up yet?”
“No, she’s having a lie in. She was deeply distressed when she arrived home last night. In fact, she came straight to us and pleaded that we might tell her it was only a cruel rumor,” her mother said sadly. “How she wept when we told her it was true!”
Jessica bit her lip to suppress a very disrespectful roll of her eyes. Her sister wept passionately if her ribbons were wrinkled, so her dramatic reaction to Jessica’s ruination could just as easily have been about a burnt slice of toast. Still, she knew she did her sister an injustice. It gave her pain, knowing that she herself was at risk of being viewed as improper as Rosella herself. Thinking such thoughts about the sister she had wronged. Jessica lowered her eyes.
“May I go speak with her, Mother? I must try and make amends. I know my choice will taint her by association,” she said with forced meekness.
Something in Jessica was starting to rebel against the humble apologies. She had made a foolish choice, but nothing she had done was immoral. Her sister was bound to harangue her as if she had been doing something really bad in that garden maze. In reality, she was only being far too nosy for her own good. It wasn’t a very nice character trait, but it was certainly better than immodesty and flirtation! Jessica would have to bite back excuses, take her sister’s scolding and believe she deserved it. I wasn’t bad, only stupid, she wanted to say miserably. But, she must not defend her actions.
She rapped on Eloise’s bedroom door and turned the knob in one motion. Her sister lay beneath the silky coverlet, her blond ringlets done up in curl papers, her nightgown nearly covered with twists of palest blue ribbon. She sat up at Jessica’s entry and scowled at her. Eloise was even pretty when she scowled.
“Oh, how could you!” Eloise began, her lovely pink lips trembling with rage and disappointment.
“I’m sorry, Ellie. I hope Stewart will be steadfast and—“
“Stewart isn’t going to throw me over, Jessica. It isn’t that at all. It’s how ridiculous you’ve made our family look, and on the cusp of my engagement party, too! How selfish of you to do something so horrid with no thought of how it could hurt me, your only sister!”
“I didn’t think at all. That was the problem. If I’d thought about it properly I would have kept to the ballroom and stayed out of the whole situation. I’m sorry that I was so impulsive and brought this on us. Forgive me, Ellie,” she said.
“Someday I hope to, but now the wound is far too fresh! To think that my elder sister, who is supposed to set a good example for me to live as a Christian woman and conduct myself modestly has exposed herself in such a way. Why, no decent family will receive you in their home now. There will be no more invitations. There’s no question of you standing bridesmaid for me now,” she said.
There was a gleam in Ellie's eye at that last statement, as if it were the final stroke of a sword. She was kicking Jessica out of the wedding party. Jessica simply nodded. She’d be lucky if they didn’t make her keep to her room while the wedding guests breakfasted, up in a tower like an old witch with the door bolted to keep her prisoner. For her sister’s part, she was sure Eloise would prefer to exile Jessica on some remote island or set her adrift on a boat at sea to punish her for the disgrace. Jessica’s mother was concerned with what was good, what was right, not merely the appearance of it. Her sister was the opposite. Keeping up appearances was very important to Eloise, which was why she would fit in so nicely with the Overlings. Not that Eloise was an inveterate sinner, but she cared more for the appearance than the crime itself.
Jessica sat with her sister and listened to her rave and weep for half an hour before she decided she�
�d suffered enough and excused herself. If she hadn’t, Eloise would have wept until her pretty face was swollen. They couldn’t have that. Even now, Mother’s maid rushed to her with cool cloths soaked in lavender water to soothe her feverish appearance. Jessica wondered privately if Stewart Overling knew how her sister carried on this way.
“And don’t you go tell Mother that I said you can’t be in the wedding because she knows!” Eloise said as a parting shot.
Jessica went to her room and felt a bit sorry for herself until lunchtime. Then she ate with her family, finding herself to have quite a healthy appetite despite all the tension. Eloise, however, made a show of only nibbling at her portion of fish and giving little gasping sobs, dabbing at her luminous, tearless blue eyes with a handkerchief for effect. Jessica and her father both did justice to the fish and potatoes while her mother discussed the necessary changes to their plans.
“It might be best, Jessica,” she began not unkindly, “if you went to stay in England for a few months. I have relations there you might stay with and it would only be until after the wedding. You could stay in the country, attend dances and card parties there and make some new acquaintances that way.”
Jessie was surprised. Her mother nodded her head decisively and when Jessie looked at her father, he wouldn’t meet her eyes. He stared studiously at his second helping of potatoes. They were sending her away.
Chapter 2
Billings, Montana Territory
Sheriff Timothy Lane gave Cyrus a packet of sandwiches to take on the train.
“You fried me bacon?” Cyrus said in disbelief, “as in you saved it for me and didn’t eat it all out of the skillet yourself?”
The sheriff laughed and earned a smile from his young charge. Cyrus had come a long way in the months he’d stayed with Timothy Lane. He’d learned discipline, good habits and manners. He’d been a thief when the sheriff met him. Instead of throwing him in jail, Lane had listened to him and taken him in. A second chance was given to make something of himself. This lawman had already showed Cyrus Whipple the guidance of a father—the father Cyrus never had—and now he’d made him bacon sandwiches, too. The boy was moved beyond words and thankful that the sheriff had come into his life with so much Christian mercy and kindness. Now he was boarding the train to San Francisco for a job and a new life.
“I couldn’t have done any of this without you, Sheriff. I hope you know that. I’m grateful to you. Any other man would’ve stuck my sorry hide in jail for thieving,” Cyrus said earnestly.
“If I’d thought you were an ordinary thief I would have. But you looked like you were lost and I thought I wouldn’t be much of a man if I didn’t try and help you. If you’d stolen from me or given me any reason to distrust you since that day, I would’ve put you in a cell faster than you can snap your fingers, boy,” Lane replied.
“Don’t think I don’t know it. I knew I had one chance and I had better not step out of line. You told me that first day that you’d forgive me as many times as I needed but you’d only trust me once. That stuck with me.”
“I’m glad. You better get on that train. Write once you’re settled, you hear?”
“I will. Thanks again, Sheriff,” Cyrus said. He tipped his hat to his mentor and boarded the train.
Timothy Lane stood on the railroad platform in Billings, dust blowing by in a puff as the train chugged to life, and stuffed his hands in his pockets. He watched the train roll away, and stared after it for a long time. Timothy Lane didn’t have a family of his own and he’d certainly never had a son. At twenty-eight, he wasn’t nearly old enough to be seventeen year old Cyrus’ father anyway, but having the boy stay with him had made him a lot less lonesome. Just now he was thinking how empty that house would feel when he got home.
The sheriff walked along the main street and down to the jail where his deputy waited. His deputy was an older man, Dewey Harris, who was good with record keeping but not so good with self-restraint. Robert Harris once tried to arrest a man for singing too loud down at the saloon, just because the man got on his nerves. Sheriff Lane was more for keeping order and safety, not for bullying the townspeople into silent submission. Since then, he hadn’t let Harris arrest anyone on his own. He had too many questions about Harris's judgment.
“How’s things?”
“Dull as ever, Lane,” his deputy said, “I’m about to head on down to the saloon, see if trouble’s brewing over there.”
“Just don’t go looking for trouble, Dewey,” Lane said sternly.
“Right, right. I won’t fill the jail cells if it ain’t warranted,” Dewey promised.
Lane looked over the record book and made a note of a fine paid earlier that he’d already deposited in the bank. He liked to keep his bookkeeping up to date himself, although there was a clerk over at the mercantile who did bookkeeping for a number of local businesses. Lane just liked to keep track of it himself. That way if the law enforcement team was called into question by the mayor up at city hall, he’d be ready to answer for anything to do with his department. Even if his department was only one grouchy old cuss named Dewey.
Lane put in an appearance at the saloon to make sure all was well and walked the main street a few times, looking in at the stables and the shops, the inn and the city hall. He headed on home, lighting the oil lamp and feeding his dogs. The smell of bacon was still in the air from when he fried up the last of it for Cyrus. He had half a loaf of bread left and some beans, and he heated them on the cookstove without enthusiasm. Lane wished he’d stopped by Frank’s office and picked up a newspaper.
Then he would have been able to read the latest edition over supper instead of counting shadows in the corner and missing people who weren’t ever coming back. Missing Cyrus, for one, and Talbot who’d been the boy he helped out last year. Talbot’s father had died of a fever and Lane had given him a place to stay until spring thaw when he could take the train back east to his mother’s relatives.
Mainly, he missed Meredith, his wife. It had been four years since Lena passed away. He had been settling a land dispute that had gone as far as fistfighting when she was thrown by a horse she was trying to ride. By the time he returned home, it was too late. She was already gone. He found her on the ground, her neck broken, the horse cropping grass close by.
They’d only been married a few months and yet Lane still thought of her all the time. There was a fancy ormolu clock on the shelf above the fireplace, the clock she’d chosen for her engagement present from him. He special ordered it from a catalog and she’d been delighted. She loved to wind it each night, keeping the key in a small porcelain dish she painted when she was a girl at school. He hadn’t wound that clock one time. The key lay where she left it the night before she died. The truth was that he never really forgave himself for being away when she needed him most.
He was lonesome, there was no other word for it. It was probably about time he did something about it, too. His house was bigger than most in town, four bedrooms plus the kitchen and sitting room. Lane had room to take in a boarder. Some dull old bachelor like himself (though, please, not someone like Dewey) to talk with and share supper. He rubbed his dog’s ears fondly and gave him a crust of bread. He loved his animals but they weren’t much for conversation.
The next morning he went to the newspaper office to buy the latest edition from Frank and to place an ad for a boarder. Lane knew the newspaperman pretty well and considered him a friend. He shook Frank’s hand and asked after the man’s family.
“Everyone’s well. Baby’s just getting over a cold. Poor mite was miserable,” he said .“What can I do for you, Lane?” he added in a gruff tone, as if he’d been caught waxing sentimental.
“I’ve need to place an advertisement. Maybe you can help me with the wording, Frank. I want to rent one of the rooms in my house and take in a boarder. I know the ladies have Mrs. Hostelman’s but surely there’s bachelors about who could use a room to board when they first arrive,” he said.
“A
re you short on funds, Lane? I never knew you to take a boarder before now.” Frank was a bit surprised by this.
“Not at all. Young Cyrus left for San Francisco and it’s mighty quiet out at my place without another person under the roof. I miss having someone around, I reckon,” he admitted.
“Then you don’t need a boarder. You need a bride,” Frank chuckled.
“I already had a wife, and a fine one at that. I don’t have the heart to go courting again and marry again and hope for a family. I had the chance of it and I lost it all,” he said, more sadly than he meant to show.
Sheriff Lane stuffed his hands in his pockets and shifted awkwardly, wishing now that he had never come into the newspaper office. He’d intended to write out an advertisement for a boarder and instead stood by and talked about his deepest feelings of loss and loneliness with the newspaper editor—perhaps one of the most gruff in town. Lane shook his head, feeling a bit embarrassed.
“I know you’re a skeptic. I was, too. I can’t recommend it high enough, though. For any man who’s lonesome or could use a hand with his business!” Frank had more warth and enthusiasm in his voice than Lane had ever heard in the past.
“Help with my business? I’m not keen to have any bride running around town with a pair of six shooters, hunting down stagecoach robbers!” he chuckled.
“Do it, Lane. Place an ad in the matrimonial papers and see who writes to you. I think you’ll be mighty surprised to find a quality young lady or two with a good head on her shoulders and ready to be a wife and a mother, if you’ll pardon my saying it.”
“I’ll think on it, Frank, but in the meantime, I just wanted to advertise for a boarder at my house…”
“Never mind all that. You’ll not want any boarder under roof when your mail order bride steps off that train. You’ll want to marry her as soon as you can and have her living in your home. You don't want not some stranger who works on the railroad or the like living with you. I’ll just set the boarder ad aside for now, until you’ve come to your senses,” Frank insisted.
