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

by Rose Jenster

  Jessica sat on the cushioned window seat for a long time, pressing his third letter between her palms and staring, unseeing, through the windowpanes at the light rainfall. Her mother and sister would be delayed by the weather, particularly because Eloise getting her new bonnet wet was tantamount to a natural disaster. An earthquake would surely cause less noisy distress. So instead of having to hide the letters quickly, she was able to sit with them and think, and pray about it.

  She wanted to believe that Lane was a good man who wanted an honorable and devoted wife. Jessica wanted to live up to being that woman. But she asked God to clear her sight and to guide her. She promised not to buy a train ticket either that day or the next. It was important to be as sure as possible—as sure as a woman could without ever laying eyes on the man she intended to marry! She vowed to wait and watch and listen for guidance. Of course, she knew perfectly well, and God did, too, she was certain—that Jessica Donnelly was going to do exactly what she set her mind to do. She wouldn’t mind some divine reassurance, though.

  So for two days, Jessica tried to act normal. When she was excited or anxious, it was impossible to even recognize what normal behavior would be. She was so jumpy that she spilled both of the cups of tea she poured at breakfast. Jessica was so distracted that she buttered her sausage instead of her toast. She had a miserable meal, thirsty and with very dry, crumbly toast to eat, and a side of inedible greasy sausage.

  The only person who seemed to notice much was her mother, who took her aside and asked if she was feeling quite well. Jessica had barely managed a nod, afraid if she opened her lips to speak that she would spill out every detail of her actions and her plan. In a way it would be such a relief to tell her mother all.

  Yet she knew her parents would never permit what she had come to think of as her escape. Not from them, not an escape from her loving family, but from society’s mandate that a woman had to marry in her social class and according to her reputation as well as her family name and fortune. These were the same dictates that made an exile to England the only recourse for her disgrace.

  So for those two nights, she carefully picked through her belongings and packed what she thought most necessary, packed those things she wanted most to keep. A daguerreotype of her family that they had taken for Eloise’s eighteenth birthday the year before was important. The diamond brooch her parents gave her for Christmas she didn't want to leave behind . Her Shakespeare and her Yeats and her Tennyson went in the trunk, along with the sensational novels of Mrs. Radcliffe and her much-read copy of Jane Eyre by Miss Bronte.

  Jessica packed her night rails and her underthings, the extra corset that laced in the front, her dressing gown. She didn’t think she would have occasion to attend balls or fancy parties out West, so Jessica left her ball dresses hanging from their wooden frames in her wardrobe. She took her day dresses and a pair that she wore to make morning visits—a sprigged cotton with puffed sleeves, a two-piece with a full skirt and a fitted jacket, gorgeous with rich embroidery. Jessica left more than she expected to, finding she could part with much of it. She didn’t need all those hats and hat pins, all those sashes and ornaments that were trappings of her Rochester life.

  When she touched her cherry red ball gown there was a twinge of regret, but she reminded herself that if she were so attached to it, she could always wear it in England to dance with some indebted rake she was being forced to marry! It made the dress a lot less appealing when she thought of it that way. Jessica packed her gloves—only the leather ones, because it wasn’t as if she’d need opera length ones any longer. Her mother could wear the opera gloves, their hands were of a size, and she was certain that Eloise would enjoy picking through her shawls and bracelets.

  Jessica finished her packing, shocked at how comparatively little she was taking with her to her new life. She sat down and wrote the most difficult letter of her life.

  For my dearest parents,

  In time, please forgive me. I am leaving in the morning train for Montana Territory. I have corresponded with a gentleman, a sheriff from Billings—a railroad town out West. I am to be his mail-order bride, if I may use the popular slang. I know you brought me up never to speak in slang, or the ‘vulgar lexicon of the masses’. But you also brought me up never to deceive my parents nor take desperate risks. I am committing those faults as well.

  I know I disgraced our family with my rash behavior at the Overlings' event. However blameless I thought my motive, my actions were wrong. I hope very strongly that the action I am about to pursue will set things right for us all. Except for Rosella, of course, and I cannot say I am much worried about her because she seems well able to look out for herself—there, that was ungenerous of me to have said, and I’ll be sorry for it later I’m sure.

  Only know that I have chosen to answer an advertisement for a bride because I believed it to be my last and best hope for happiness. I don’t want to go to England. I don’t want to marry some baronet with gambling problems who only wants my dowry. I don’t want to be separated from all my relations and friends by exile overseas. At least, with the railroads, I might see you and Eloise once in a while, if you’ll permit me to visit.

  I hope you’re not so furious to vow to never to see me again. Please don’t decide to do that. It would break my heart to be parted from you forever. I pray that you will understand what I’m doing and consider that I’ve put thought into this. I know this man to be a kind, Christian gentleman. Trust that you have instilled in me better judgment than what I showed at the Overlings. I have learned to let my head rule my emotions and this course seems the best one open to me.

  I do not want the grief of an unhappy marriage, an unkind husband and I don't want the misery of that for you who would grieve in your hearts for my sad fate. His name is Timothy Lane. You may direct correspondence to Billings, Montana Territory and I’m assured that it will make its way to me directly. I know I should have told you, have listened to your very reasonable arguments, but I couldn’t bring myself to face you. I am a coward, but I hope not a stupid one. Rather, I'm a coward who knows what she can survive…a strange frontier and marriage to a man I’ve never seen, yes. Being sent to live out my days overseas in a marriage arranged to preserve my reputation at the cost of my freedom, peace of mind, and not inconsiderable dowry would make me feel like a prisoner.

  I love you both tremendously and I am sorry for the pain I know this parting will bring you, and especially for the ignominious and (again, forgive the slang) awful way I’ve run away. I go with every faith that I shall find happiness and a place in the world where I can be of some use and comfort to others, and where the stain on my reputation can hurt no one.

  With love,

  Your errant daughter Jessica Donnelly

  Jessica tucked the letter into her pillowcase until the morrow and cried herself to sleep. She wanted to go to Montana. She just didn’t want anyone to be angry at her or get their feelings hurt. In truth, she felt very childish and that it was all unfair. She could not, in that moment, see how blessed she was to have both a loving home to flee and a compassionate, honorable man awaiting her at the end of her escape.

  There was enough money for a private berth in the train, and plenty to make herself comfortable in Montana, as well as funds for a ticket home if things went badly awry in Billings. Jessica had a good family, money enough, and a good man waiting for her. But, she felt quite sorry for herself all through that long night. She got up, having slept but little for her weeping and her regrets, and was ashamed of her self-pity. There was gratitude that she had resources and a plan, which she knew was more than most people had.

  Jessica asked a housemaid to tell her when the butcher’s boy came to the kitchen and then gave him a dollar to carry her trunk to the rail station without asking questions. She herself set out a few minutes later with only her reticule and a small valise. It could easily have indicated that she was returning books to the lending library, so ordinary was her appearance. She kissed her m
other’s cheek told her she loved her, keeping the tears from her voice. Then she made herself walk with measured steps out the door and down the wide, tree-lined street of their gentrified neighborhood.

  Jessica hailed a hackney and rode to the train station. Once she was possessed of a ticket, she settled in to her single occupancy section with its broad tufted cushions and accepted a steaming mug of coffee from the porter. As she selected a roll from the tray, a sugared bun, she looked out the window nervously. Surely no one had found the letter she left on her neatly-made bed yet.

  It would be dreadful if someone showed up to stop her. It was a tense quarter of an hour before the cars pulled safely away from the Rochester station. She watched the familiar buildings slide out of view, perhaps for the last time. With mixed emotions she laid aside her sugared bun and dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief.

  Jessica spent days on the train, reading her books, reading and rereading Lane’s letters, and having long arguments with herself about whether she was taking a just and capable action. Perhaps she was just completely juvenile and running away from home.

  She took out a small leather notebook and kept a running list of reasons why life in England was wrong for her. A life of card parties, tea visits, the round of hunts in the summer and balls in the winter just did not suit her. She did not want to be sitting in stiff taffeta and a corset in a cane chair along the wall watching young girls dance with their beaus as her own husband squandered her fortune at the baize table upstairs in the card room. A stifling society lady existence, paying calls and leaving cards at people’s houses when one knew them to be riding in the park—just to have the duty of the visit done without having to see anyone- seemed false to her. She did not enjoy the manipulations and gossip.

  Jessica might even be left to molder in her gambler/golddigger/aristocrat husband’s desiccated family manor in the country, chasing the pigs out of the scullery while he passed the time in London with wine, cards, and (she shuddered at this improper thought) a mistress. No, England, far from everyone she knew and stifling in its social rounds, was not for her.

  The list of why Montana was right for her was shorter and less complete. Lane seemed nice and he wasn’t after her money because he didn’t know she had any. Plus, it wasn’t an arranged marriage, a dowry-for-title transaction the way any match brokered by Cousin Agnes would be. She was going West because no one there was after her money and she liked the sheriff’s three letters. Doubts came marching in, battalions of them, because three letters did not seem like that much to hang her future on. She chewed her lip and went decisively to the dining car for a plate of their very good pot roast.

  All in all, Jessica slept remarkably well on the train. It was a combination of the soothing motion and the deep cushions of her sleeping berth that helped her. The porters always provided extra blankets and a glass of water beside her bed. It was really terribly comfortable. So ,she was quite refreshed when she arrived in Billings at last. Jessica had freshened up and sponged her dress. As her mother would have advised, she didn't wear her best dress, but the full skirt and fitted jacket. She had her jet pin at the collar and the straw bonnet in place.

  Sheriff Lane failed to meet her at the Billings platform. The reason was simply that she had neglected to inform him of when to expect her. She was quite able to make her way to the respectable boarding house the station agent recommended, and she gave some coins to a passing youth as payment for bringing her trunk along to the boarding house later.

  The town itself was quaint, she thought, quite simple and wholesome looking with its wide dusty streets, its proud row of square buildings on either side and the chestnuts and bays tied to hitching posts before the various businesses. Her first thought was, How quaint, just like a little old pioneer settlement! Her second thought, to be fair, was, I really should have brought more books. There’s no possibility of a library here.

  Soon enough she’d be rapping on the door of that innkeeper’s wife Lane had mentioned, the one who had all the books. Perhaps, she thought as she carried her valise down the street, bowing her head as men tipped their hats to her, perhaps she could offer the good wife a monthly sum like a subscription to be able to take out several books at once from the private collection. Why, she might even start a fashion of subscribing to a lending library, and order huge boxes of new books to stock for the eager residents of Billings. Though there probably weren’t many eager readers in such a little town if everyone was bent and focused on pure survival.

  The boarding house was a plain, three-story structure, the proprietress of which was called Mrs. Hostelman. She was a widow who welcomed Jessica as if she were a long-lost daughter instead of a new tenant. She settled Jessica by the fire (although it was warm enough outdoors) and pressed a cup of tea upon her as well as some truly horrible little cakes. They were hard and crumbly and not at all like the petit-fours that Cook made back in Rochester.

  You’re not in Rochester. You ran off to the wild west, she told herself, now eat your frontier cake and like it, too! She didn’t have to give you anything. She’s being kind! Show your appreciation.

  “I’m only just learning to make them fancy ones. This batch didn’t turn out quite…too much salt I guess,” the good lady said, disappointment showing in her face.

  “No, they’re…wonderful!” Jessica said, taking a big bite and smiling as if delighted. There was, in fact, way too much salt in the cakes, but she was no cook herself either.

  “I made them specially because you wired that you were coming and I knew you to be a fine lady. Do you really like them?”

  “Of course, I do. What woman wouldn’t be thrilled with a warm fire, a cup of tea and fancy cakes after a long journey?”

  “I’m so happy you like them. I was afraid they were too salty. I’ve never been much of a hand with baking. Now my dinners are good, though I do say so myself. Folks come from all around the town to get my cooked cabbage,” she boasted eagerly. Though Jessica was no great fan of cabbage, she vowed to eat every bite while she stayed with her, rather than hurt the feelings of such a warm-hearted lady.

  Her room was very simple but clean, the sheets starched and pressed. Jessica liked the place very much. Partly this was due to the adventurous thrill of being off on her own in a new place, someplace where no one knew her family, her privileged upbringing or her soiled reputation. It was a fresh start with only the essentials—shelter, a soft bed, a lamp and a washstand. Jessie hung her bonnet on the peg by the door and washed her face and hands in cold water. It was, quite possibly, the first time she ever had to use wash water that hadn’t been warmed by a servant first. She hoped it would build character.

  Jessica wrote a note to Sheriff Lane and took it downstairs for Mrs. Hostelman to send by a messenger boy. Then she waited, hoping he would come. The note had told him of her arrival, her arrangements to stay at the boarding house, and invited him to come call upon her this very evening.

  All aflutter, she unpinned her hair, brushed it till it shone, and put it up again more artfully, with twists and little braids in her chignon, as was the fashion. She saw Eloise fix her hair this way a hundred times, but Jessica had always preferred something simpler. Now she found herself wanting to look as pretty as possible to meet her correspondent.

  With that, Jessica hurried downstairs to the parlor, a book in hand to keep her from appearing to be waiting on anyone. She sat in the parlor by the front window, peeking out the glass every few minutes in hope of seeing a gentleman hurrying toward the boarding house. Perhaps he'd carry a bouquet of flowers just for her. No such man appeared. She managed to read nine chapters of Jane Eyre while she was waiting. The perils of Lowood school and the typhoid epidemic did little to improve her own hopes.

  When dinner was served, she sat at the long table and served herself some sort of greasy meat with noodles and cabbage. She ate it and remembered to smile, though her stomach cramped for an hour afterward. Jessica helped clear the dishes—a service she’d never perfor
med before in her life—and offered to dry the dishes. She was relieved when Mrs. Hostelman shooed her back to the parlor to read.

  The next thing she knew, she was nodding over her book, dreaming something about mad women and draperies, when Mrs. Hostelman shook her by the shoulder.

  “Dear, you must go to bed. You’ve sat up past midnight. You must be real fond of books to spend so long reading that one. I’m putting out the lamps, so do take this candle and go upstairs. You’ve had a long journey and a body needs rest,” she said.

  Jessica, supplied with her candle, made her way blearily upstairs and set the candle on a plate by the bed. Thinking, he didn’t come to meet me, she sadly removed her boots. Disappointed, she undressed, put on her night rail and slept heavily, with fear running after her in her dreams.

  Chapter 6

  Lane saw the horses settled at Henry’s stable. Then he went to the rain barrel out back and scooped water into a washtub. He scrubbed his hands, arms, face and neck with the cake of soap one of the stablehands gave him. The water in the washtub was black with soot when he was done. He tried to use a bit of toweling to get the blackened grime from around his nails. Even through the sharp smell of the yellow soap, Lane could still smell the smoke. The odor of fire never seemed to leave him.

  As sheriff, he was also head of the fire brigade in Billings. When the Satterfield’s barn caught fire last evening, he’d thought it a simple job. Lane had gone in and led the horses out and put them out on picket lines a safe distance away. He rounded up a few of the men and they ran a bucket line from the pond. When it was clear the fire had reached the hayloft, all that dry straw went up like tinder.

  The fire made a roaring sound and started to devour the building. The buckets were no good any longer and Lane had sent men back to town to bring the wagon with the tank. It was too late and they fought for hours to stop it spreading to the house, the fields and the neighbors’ place half a mile down the road. They saved the horses but lost the barn. No other structures were damaged but it was a long night keeping it so. In the early hours of dawn, he and Henry checked the horses for injuries and found them sound. The Satterfields were unsure whether they would stay in Billings and they put their stock with Henry until they decided.