by Lily Wilspur
“Do you have a parish priest?” Jack asked.
“No, but I’m just saying,” Mary replied. “I’m saying that, if I had to talk to someone, there are more qualified people to talk to than just some barfly I met outside a saloon. Just imagine what Dad would say if he found out.” She covered her face with her hands and gave vent to her grief.
“Well, I know now,” Jack told her. “You told me, and I know, and you can’t take it back. So now you can talk to me about it. Your dad’s gone, and you can move on with the rest of your life, the way you wanted to. There’s nothing stopping you.”
“You’ve been very kind and understanding about the whole thing,” Mary remarked. “I appreciate that.”
“You don’t seem very happy about it,” Jack pointed out. “You don’t look very happy about having someone to share your confidence with.”
“I’m not happy about it,” Mary acknowledged. “I wish you’d take my confidence and leave town and never show your face in Fort Collins again.”
“Well,” he exclaimed. “That’s a fine thanks for the kindness and understanding I’ve shown, isn’t it?”
“What am I supposed to do?” Mary cried. “How am I supposed to move on with the rest of my life with you hanging around, knowing things about me and my family that you aren’t supposed to know? I’m supposed to get married on Sunday, you know. I’m marrying John Webster, remember? What will he say if he finds out I told you all about my life?”
Jack studied her. “I am John Webster.”
Mary’s eyes flew open. “What?”
“I am John Webster,” he repeated. “Jack Webster. That’s me.”
“But you weren’t supposed to get in until tomorrow or the next day,” Mary exclaimed. “You said you arrived in town two days ago.”
Jack shrugged. “I thought I’d come early and have a look around. When I found out who you were, and I saw you on the street, I decided to find out a little bit more about you before the big day. I hope you don’t mind.”
“But you deceived me!” Mary cried. “You never told me who you really were.”
“I didn’t deceive you,” Jack maintained. “You deceived yourself. You never asked me my surname. If you had, I would have told you. Besides, I wanted to find out what kind of woman you were before I married you. I did, and I’m glad I did. I hope you’re not too offended, but I’m certain now that I want to marry you.”
“Weren’t you certain before?” Mary asked.
“I was pretty certain,” he replied. “The truth is, I came early to check out the town. I only got the idea of talking to you after I’d already arrived here. I’m sorry I kept you in the dark. I shouldn’t have done that.”
Mary stared at him with her mouth open. What was there to say? She hung her head and cried. Though her tears, she felt Jack taking her hand again.
Chapter 10
“Are you that upset with me, darlin’?” he asked. “I wouldn’t have done it if I thought you’d be this upset about it. I just wanted to talk to you a little bit before we got married. You don’t have to worry about anyone finding out. All we did was talk. We’ll be married soon, and then no one will know.”
She shook her head. How could she ever explain? “It isn’t that.”
“What is it, then?” Jack’s fingers traced gentle little circles on the backs of her knuckles. “Is it your dad? You’re distraught about your dad going that way. I’d be a mess, too, if that happened to my dad. You expect your parents to grow old and die, but not like that.”
Mary couldn’t make her mouth work to tell him. She covered her mouth with her handkerchief. “It’s just… it’s just…I’m happy.” The soft touch of his fingers made her cry even harder. What her face must look like at this moment—and this was her future husband!
She’d planned everything so carefully so he’d see her for the first time, bathed and combed in her wedding dress, at the church. He wasn’t supposed to see her in a mess of tears, with her hair disheveled and her face smeared with soot. Nothing about this mail-order marriage turned out the way she planned.
Jack frowned at her. “Happy? You’re happy?”
“I just mean,” she bawled. “I mean, I’m glad it’s you. I didn’t want you knowing…what you knew about me. I didn’t want someone walking around out there in the world knowing how I felt about Dad. I’m glad it’s you who knows, and not someone else.”
“I see,” he murmured.
Once she got the words coming out, they wouldn’t stop. “I didn’t want anyone to know I didn’t like taking care of him sometimes. I didn’t want anyone to know I got mad at him, and got in fights with him when he didn’t do what I wanted him to do, and all of that. Now I know my secret is safe with you. I can close you up like a treasure chest and put it away, and I don’t have to think about it anymore.”
Jack stroked her hand, but didn’t answer. Only the hiccups of her sobs filled the room. Mary covered her face with her handkerchief and cried out the last of her tears.
“He was such a fine man when he was hale and hearty,” she sobbed. “You should have known him. He wasn’t like this before. He was strong and straight, and his mind worked like a finely tuned watch. You could count on him. You could lean on him and he would support you. He was the finest man I’ve ever known.”
“You don’t have to keep it a secret,” Jack replied. “No one can blame you for getting angry at him sometimes, or for having mixed feelings about taking care of him. Anyone would feel the same way in that situation.”
Mary dabbed her eyes. “Do you really think so?”
“I haven’t told you very much about my life,” Jack replied. “I guess now you understand why I was being cryptic about myself. My mother died when I was young, and my father raised me, my brother, and my sister by himself. He had a devil of a time of it, too, I can tell you.” He chuckled to himself, remembering his past.
Listening to someone else’s story took Mary’s mind off her own troubles, and her tears slowed until they stopped.
“Anyway, we grew up,” he continued. “We all grew up and my brother and I—we moved away. My father grew old, and when he got sick, my sister was stuck taking care of him.”
Mary stared into his face. “She did?”
Jack nodded. “She went through the same thing you did. I wasn’t there, thank the gods. My brother and I, we went into the tobacco business together, so we stayed well clear. The whole job of nursing Dad, of feeding him and bathing him and getting the doctor out to care for him—it all fell on Charlene. And what a bear Dad turned out to be! He used to call her all kinds of terrible names when she tried to feed him or clean him up. It must have been terrible for her.”
Mary’s eyes opened wide as she listened to the tale. “I never thought about it before. I never thought it would be the same for anyone else. I thought I was the only one.”
“When I think back on it now,” Jack told her. “I feel bad that I didn’t do more to help her. But I tell you what, wild horses couldn’t drag me back to that house. I didn’t want to have to deal with the old man. Charlene didn’t want to deal with him, either, but she didn’t have any choice. My brother and I ran off and dumped him on her. She stayed with him and cared for him out of the kindness of her heart until he died.”
“How long did that take?” Mary asked.
“Eight years,” Jack replied. “And do you know what? About two years before the old man died, my aunt, his sister, came to visit. Well, what do you know? She told Charlene she’d been through the exact same thing taking care of my uncle before he died. So you’re not the only one. Not by a long shot.”
Mary stared at him wide-eyed for another minute. Then she closed her eyes tight, and the tears rolled down her cheeks. “Thank you.”
Jack studied her, rolling her knuckles under his fingers. Then he brought her hand up to his lips. “I understand why you were worried about some strange yahoo from out East knowing how you felt. But I just want you to know, whatever you want to
tell me, whatever secrets you have to share, they’re safe with me.”
Mary didn’t answer. She deposited all her unspoken doubts about this marriage into her handkerchief. Jack paused, and then he drew her down, and she rested her aching heart and her burning cheek against his chest.
Chapter 11
Jack glanced around the room. “I guess I better be going. We aren’t married yet.”
“What do you mean?” Mary asked.
“Well, I can’t stay here,” he explained. “I have to stay somewhere for the rest of the night, and for the next couple of days, anyway.”
“I thought you had a place to stay,” she replied. “Where have you been staying since you got to town?”
“At the hotel,” he told her.
Mary straightened up. “That hotel?”
“Is there another one?” Jack asked.
“I didn’t know you were staying there,” she exclaimed.
“Why?” he asked. “What’s wrong with it? Or should I say, what was wrong with it?”
“It’s right next door,” she explained. “I mean, it was right next door. I didn’t know you were right next door all this time.”
“I haven’t been peeking through your windows, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Jack shifted on the sofa. “Anyway, I didn’t know it was right next door when I checked in. And like I just said, there isn’t another hotel—at least none that I know of.”
“I just didn’t realize…” Mary trailed off.
“Would it have made any difference?” he asked. “Would you have felt differently if we got married on Sunday, sight unseen, and you found out I’d been staying at the hotel for a week?”
“I suppose not,” she admitted.
“Well, there you go,” he declared. “Now, I’ll just bid you a good evening…” He tried to sit up, but he barely got his head off the pillow before he collapsed back in a fit of coughing. He clutched his ribs and doubled over in pain.
Mary watched him. “The doctor said it might be three or four days before you get back to normal.”
“That’s good,” Jack spluttered through the last of his coughs. “Three days is all I need. Then I’ll be ready to meet you at the church on Sunday.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that if I were you,” Mary replied. “Even if you aren’t fit, we can get married whenever you feel well enough to move around. Now that you’re here, and we’ve met, and we know each other, we can get married any time. We don’t have to rush into anything.”
“Speak for yourself!” Jack shot back. “I’m not waiting one minute longer than I have to. I’m gonna marry you on Sunday, even if I have to be hauled to the altar on a stretcher. And that’s final!”
Mary heard an echo from…when was it? Was it only earlier this morning that she said the same thing to her father about marrying a man she didn’t know? Oh, how her life had changed in the space of a handful of hours! And to think it all started when she spurned the greeting of a man on the street. If she’d only known !
Jack raised an eyebrow at her. “What’s the matter? Why are you looking at me like that?”
Mary shook off her trance. “It’s nothing. I was just thinking about Dad, that’s all. You’ll have to excuse me if I lapse into nostalgia about him every now and then.”
“Of course, darlin’,” Jack replied. “You do whatever lapsing you need to do.”
“But you’re right,” she continued. “You can’t stay here. We’ll have to find a place for you to stay until Sunday.”
“And I’ll need to get myself another suit to wear,” Jack mused.
“What?” Mary gasped. “A new suit?”
“You aren’t thinking clearly yet yourself,” Jack observed. “Every stitch of clothing I brought with me from Carolina was in that hotel, including the suit I planned to wear to the altar.”
“Of course!” Mary blinked, but her thoughts didn’t seem to clear at all. “I forgot.”
Jack glanced down at his clothes. “And as you said, this one is ruined. So I’ve got nothing to wear at all. I haven’t even got anything to change into when I take this one off. I’ll have to figure out what to do about that.”
A few stray thoughts managed to fit together in Mary’s head. “You could wear one of Dad’s suits. You look about the same size.”
Jack’s eyes flew open. “I wouldn’t dare!”
Mary waved her hand. “Never mind about that. Think about it. After Sunday, you’re going to be moving in here, to my house, and I have all his clothes to sort through and get rid of. It makes perfect sense. You have no clothes, and I have a stack of men’s suits with no man to go with them. You should take them. He might even have a suit you could wear on Sunday.”
“But I was hoping to wear something really fancy,” Jack explained. “I wouldn’t want to show up to marry you in something belonging to a dead man. I’d feel like I was coming to my own funeral.”
Mary laughed. “Listen, Jack. A suit is a suit. It doesn’t change the man inside it. My dress is simple and plain. It’s nothing fancy. Unless you know something I don’t, no one will be at the wedding but you and me, so you have no one to impress. I know the man I’m marrying. You don’t have to make an impression anymore.”
Jack rubbed his chin. “The proposition does have an element of sense to it, doesn’t it? All right. I can live with that. Why don’t you pick something out for me? You’re the only person I care about impressing. If there’s anything of his you think is appropriate, I’ll wear it. You’re my wife after all.”
Mary patted his hand. “Just about.”
“And that will save me having to wire the bank for some more money,” Jack continued.
“More money?” Mary asked.
“Yeah,” Jack replied. “All my money was in that hotel, too.”
Mary gasped. “How much?”
“Oh, not that much,” Jack told her. “Maybe five hundred dollars.”
“Five hundred dollars!” Mary cried. “Burned to a cinder? Oh, heavens!”
Jack shot her a quick look. “That’s not that much. I have another five here in my wallet in my pocket. I never carry more than that. You never know when something might happen.”
“Five hundred dollars!” Mary gasped again. “All lost!”
“Why?” he asked. “What’s the matter? I have a lot more than that in the bank. I can have it wired whenever I want.”
“I’ve never had five hundred dollars to my name in my life,” Mary declared. “I’ve never even seen five hundred dollars.”
“Well, what about this house?” Jack asked. “It must have cost a lot more than that.”
“This is Dad’s house,” Mary told him. “He was posted to this house when Fort Collins was a log stockade in the middle of a wilderness infested with Natives. He lived here almost his whole adult life because he couldn’t afford to move anywhere else.”
“But you said it was his house,” Jack reminded her. “He must have owned it.”
“He did,” Mary replied. “When he retired, the Army made him a gift of the house.”
“And now it’s yours,” Jack pointed out.
“I don’t think much of it,” Mary told him. “I wish I didn’t have to live here. I don’t like living next door to the hotel.”
“There is no hotel anymore,” Jack reminded her.
“They’ll probably rebuild it,” Mary replied. “And anyway, I don’t like living in the middle of town. I would move if I could.”
“Where would you like to live, if you had your choice?” Jack asked.
“I’d like to live somewhere outside of town, up in the mountains,” Mary told him. “Somewhere up where the air is clear and cold. That’s where I would live if I could live anywhere. Maybe when I marry John Webster….” She stopped herself.
Jack laughed at her. “Guess what?”
Mary blushed and looked down at her hands. “I’m sorry. I’m just so used to thinking about this mysterious John Webster, and you as plain old Jack
. I forgot.”
“Just plain old Jack,” he repeated. “That’s me. I’ll never be anything more.”
“I just hoped we might be able to move somewhere else,” she told him.
“We will.” He pressed her hand again. “We won’t live here if you don’t want to. After the wedding, we’ll ride out into the mountains and start looking for our dream spot. When we find it, we’ll sell this house and move out of town.”
“We shouldn’t squander your hard-earned money, Jack,” Mary insisted. “We have the rest of our lives to live together. We shouldn’t be less than prudent right at the start.”
“I have enough money to buy a house,” Jack told her. “Even if we don’t sell this place, I have enough. And I don’t consider setting down our roots in a place you feel happy about squandering my money. If you aren’t happy here, we’ll move.”
Mary caught up his hand in both of hers. “Do you really mean it, Jack? You’re not just playing around, are you?”
“Of course, I’m not playing around,” he replied. “That will be the first thing we do Monday morning. We’ll hire a gig and drive out into the mountains. In fact,” He put his head on one side. “I just met a man the other day who tried to sell me some land out in the mountains. Tomorrow morning, I’ll hunt him up.” Without thinking, Jack tried again to sit up and fell back, choking and spluttering. “Maybe I’ll do it day after tomorrow instead.”
Chapter 12
“Mrs. Mallory,” Mary called. “Are you there?”
“I’m here.” That portly lady bustled up the hall and stood just out of sight beyond the threshold of the door.
“Could you help me please?” Mary called again. “I can’t seem to get my collar buttoned.”
Mrs. Mallory swept into the room and found Mary standing in front of the long mirror in the corner of her room. Her full length dress of robin’s egg blue trailed across the wooden floor, hiding her tiny slippers from view, and tiny pearls decorated the coiled braids on top of her head.
