Romance: Luther's Property

by Laurie Burrows

  “I know, Papa.” I leaned over and hugged him, squeezing his shoulders gently. It struck me that there weren’t many more times when I’d get to embrace my Father – the train for Iowa was scheduled to pull out of the station shortly after first light. Tears sprang to my eyes, hot and quick. “I know.”

  His eyes searched my face when I stepped back. Perhaps a tear drop or two had slipped onto his shoulder, alerting him to my distress. Perhaps the timbre of my voice wasn’t as steady as it might have been. “You will be happy,” he said. “I am sure of it.”

  I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand and nodded. “Of course,” I agreed. I didn’t want to lie to Father, so I chose my words carefully. “I just have to get used to everything being different.”

  He nodded. “It was only yesterday that you were this high,” he said, holding out his hand at knee-height. “Always sticking your hands in the ink and getting prints on everything.” He reached out for another embrace. “And now you’re a woman grown.”

  He hugged me tightly, squeezing so hard I could feel that affection and anxiety were coursing through his body in equal measure. “Oh, my darling. I am going to miss you.”

  My tears came back, in greater quantity than before. “I’m going to miss you too.” Then I took a deep breath and stood straight, smoothing my skirts until I composed myself. “But we’ll have to put the best face on it.” I took another breath, feeling the air shudder its way down into my lungs. “Who knows? Before too long, there may be another little girl running around who can’t keep her fingers out of the ink.”

  “Give him a son first,” Father said, “and I’m sure Benson will let you have as many daughters as your heart desires.” He shook his head. “A man in his position needs an heir. Someone to leave his legacy to.”

  “A heir and a spare,” I said, forcing a smile back onto Father’s face. “And more besides, should the good Lord will it.”

  “I’m glad to see you’ve come around to the idea,” Father said.

  “What choice do I have?” I shrugged my shoulders, feeling a sour surge in my stomach. It felt wrong, so wrong, to deceive Papa, but if I told him of my plans – much less the fact that I’d cabled Iowa, announcing I was on my way with Shakespeare in tow – I knew he’d do everything in his power to stop me. “Did Mr. Benson send a message for me?”

  “No.” Father shook his head. “I expect that he’s waiting to greet you for the first time in person.”

  I nodded, as if that seemed sensible. More likely to me was the possibility that it never occurred to Mr. Benson that there was any need to communicate with the woman destined to become his bride; after all, I’d already been purchased and paid for. “I’d best go get my attire for tomorrow sorted out,” I said, stepping toward the front door. “And begin to pack my things.” My voice wavered more than I wanted it to, but there was nothing that could be done about that. “I have just one question for you, Papa.”

  He turned toward me, with more than a little fear in his eyes. “What’s that, darling?”

  “What’s an agronomist?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Having learned that an agronomist is a farmer who is also a scientist, I retreated to my room with my emotions a whirl. I knew nothing about this man in Iowa – not even his name! – but already he seemed infinitely more appealing than Robert Benson could ever be.

  A scientist, if nothing else, came equipped with a curious mind. Being similarly equipped myself, I found this comforting. I could imagine life in a household equipped with a laboratory; it would be like living with the pharmacist, with a room filled to bursting with jars full of mysterious ingredients and glassware.

  For as long as I could remember, a small trunk stood at the foot of my bed. It was meant to hold my trousseau, and in there, I had long treasured a precious few items that I’d inherited from my Mother. There were linens she’d embroidered and a French chemise made of linen so fine you could see the sunlight through it when you held it up to the window.

  I took that out and stared at it. This was always intended for my wedding night; one of the very few things I actually remembered about my Mother was her telling me how happy I would be when I became a bride.

  It was a blessing that Mother hadn’t lived long enough to see what a travesty my life had become. I carefully folded the chemise and laid it on the bed; I knew I wouldn’t be able to bear leaving that behind.

  The trunk was another question. It was stout and strong – perfect for travelling – but it was also quite heavy. My departure from Father’s house was going to have to be stealthy. There was no one to help me carry a trunk, and I’d not the ability to do it myself.

  The black leather satchel I’d used to use to carry my school books would have to do. It wasn’t particularly spacious, but it was large enough to contain the essentials: the Shakespeare, Mother’s chemise, and my most practical dresses. I didn’t see life on an Iowa farm affording many opportunities for dancing. The prettier dresses were consigned, one by one, to the trunk. One pale green ensemble I couldn’t bear to leave behind; people always said I looked fetching in it, and it wouldn’t be amiss to have something attractive to wear for my new husband.

  Father appeared in my doorway just as I was tucking the skirt into the satchel. He didn’t say anything. Instead, he stood staring at the trunk, which now held a modest rainbow of finery.

  “Papa?” I asked, after a time. “Are you all right?”

  He shook his head. “Every Father knows that this day will come. And you ask the Lord to let it stay a distant possibility rather than a present reality for as long as possible.” His voice broke. “You are my only child, Abigail.” His shoulders shook and he choked back a sob. “When you are gone, what will I have left?”

  I froze. My Father was already grieving, and the magnitude of the loss he was about to experience was even greater than he knew. Marrying Richard Benson meant moving to the other side of the Valley; while we’d be apart, Papa had every right to expect that he’d see me now and again.

  Going to Iowa meant we’d be apart forever. This night would be the last one we’d ever spend under the same roof; there would be no visits. He would never see his grandchildren. He would indeed be truly alone.

  I burst into tears, sobbing intensely. I was crying so hard there was no sense in talking, but of course I tried anyway. “I don’t know, Papa!”

  He took me in his arms. “Abigail. Stop.” Father squeezed me gently, and sounded like himself again, the reliable source of comfort and strength I’d always known him as. “You needn’t worry. Everything is going to be all right. I shouldn’t have troubled you.”

  “I don’t want you to be unhappy,” I said to him. “And who is going to take care of you when I’m gone?”

  He laughed. “I’ll manage,” he said. “One way or the other.”

  “I need to know that you’re going to be all right,” I said to him, grabbing his arms and staring into his eyes. “No matter what happens.”

  Father paused for a moment.

  “Kitty Benson didn’t survive this, Papa. I might not either.” I squeezed his biceps, hard. “Promise me that you’ll be all right.”

  He nodded and gulped. “But you make me a promise too, girl.”

  “Anything, Papa,” I said.

  “If it comes to it…if things go badly between you and Mr. Benson…” Father steeled his voice. “You do what you need to do to survive. You stay alive. No matter what.” It was his turn to insist. “Promise me.”

  “I will, Papa,” I said. “I promise.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  That night, I hardly slept at all. My bed seemed as if it had turned to stone; I couldn’t get comfortable no matter how I turned. Downstairs, I could hear Father pacing back and forth into the small hours of the night. His mind wasn’t resting easily either.

  Everything was so uncertain. Iowa was a mystery to me; I knew next to nothing about the country I was headed into. The clerk at the train station had been
very enthusiastic about all the new track that I’d be riding on; the spur to Sioux City was barely a year old. He’d found this wonderful. I myself would have preferred a situation with a little less novelty.

  Even the name of the town scared me a little. Sioux City. Perhaps it had been founded by Indians. I’d read about it as one of a handful of boom towns blossoming out west; people were moving there every day. While these towns certainly didn’t have the population of New York or Boston, they were crowded enough and sufficiently distant that it would be difficult for Robert Benson to find me. Even if he did follow, by the time he arrived, I’d be married to another man, and there’d be nothing he could do about my flight.

  I wished, not for the first time, that the personal ad had revealed more about this Iowa agronomist. I didn’t know if he was young or old, sickly or healthy, rich or poor. He hadn’t mentioned children, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have any: I could be getting off of this train to find myself serving as stepmother to a brood of six!

  It was entirely possible that the Iowa agronomist was every bit as repulsive as Robert Benson. I thought of the near-encounter I’d had with the man at the train station and shuddered. There was no way I could spend my life that way. It didn’t matter if I was here at home in the Shenandoah Valley or out in the mysterious land of Iowa: I wouldn’t marry a man who evoked such strong feelings of fear and disgust in me.

  What would I do if that were the case? I knew no one in Iowa, and sneaking out of town before my wedding day surely meant I wouldn’t be able to come home again. I’d spent almost every penny I had on my train ticket, banking on the fact the Iowa agronomist would be able to support the wife he’d sent for. If this didn’t work out, I’d be far from home with no support, no connections, and no prospects. It was a terrifying idea. If it idea of marrying Robert Benson wasn’t even scarier, I never would have considered it.

  But marrying Robert Benson was a scarier idea. The rumors that he’d killed off both his wife and her purported lover had to come from somewhere. Father took them seriously enough to ask the Sheriff – and the lawman hadn’t said they were unfounded. He’d only said he’d not been able to find any proof. These were two very different things, and I could find no comfort in the lack of proof.

  Another issue was the man’s appearance. We’re not meant to judge a book by its cover, and in truth, I’d met many a homely yet honorable person over the years. But there was something about Robert Benson’s visage that exuded evil; his very presence seemed to taint the air around him. In even a brief observation it was clear to me that he knew the impact he made and he had clearly decided to do nothing to mitigate it.

  No matter what the Iowa agronomist looked like, I doubted it could be nearly as bad as Robert Benson.

  The skies had begun to gray with dawn’s first light when I finally heard Father retire to bed. It didn’t take long for his snores to fill the house. When I was certain he was fully asleep, I slipped out of bed, took up the black satchel, and started out. I didn’t know what the future held, but I knew what I was leaving behind: Richard Benson.

  Chapter Fifteen

  It is more than 1,200 miles from the Shenandoah Valley to Sioux City, Iowa. This meant three days on the train. I had provisioned myself for this by taking some cheese, bread and sausages from the kitchen, but I’d not thought about drinks at all. After the better part of the day, I asked the conductor if there was any water on board.

  The conductor looked me up and down. He was the same man who’d remarked on how strange it was to travel with such a small bag for such a long journey. “We certainly have water available, Miss. It’s a dollar a glass.”

  I blinked. “For that price, I’d expect you’d be serving champagne!”

  His laugh was not pleasant. “Champagne costs quite a bit more than that.” He let his gaze drop again, slowly scanning my bosom before speaking again. “So do you want some water or not?”

  I considered my finances. “I can’t afford that.”

  He smirked. “I didn’t think so.” He let the tone of his voice drop, so he was barely speaking above a whisper. I had to strain to hear him above the loud click-clack of the train’s wheels. “But if you need a drink, I’m sure we can work something out.” His leer let me know exactly what kind of arrangement he had in mind.

  “Sir!” I said, shocked. “I am a lady!”

  He laughed. “Do you know what they call a lady with no money, honey?”

  I didn’t answer him, because I couldn’t find the words. My silence seemed to infuriate him. “Well, do you?” he insisted.

  “No,” I muttered, fearful that his temper, barely contained now, would quickly boil over into a situation I couldn’t control. “What do they call a lady with no money?”

  He sneered and I feared the worst. All my life I’d been treated with courtesy; my Father was far from rich but we were respectable enough. Now this conductor was going to humiliate me in front of a car load of passengers.

  “Thirsty,” he said with a nasty laugh, and walked away. I slumped down in my seat, feeling my emotions waver between fury and a strange sense of relief. If he had called me a loose woman, I didn’t know what I was going to do; alone on the train without a friend in the world made me realize how truly defenseless I was.

  I stared out the window, watching the darkened landscape go by. Perhaps this entire journey was a mistake. I was so thirsty. My head ached, and the pain doubled every time I thought about what things must be like back home. By now, Father had discovered my absence, and had had to explain to Robert Benson that I was nowhere to be found. The consequences of that conversation were too terrible to imagine. As dry as I was, tears still came to my eyes. I licked my lips as they slid down my face; their salty moisture was better than nothing.

  “Excuse me, Miss?” A young girl settled into the seat beside me. “Are you all right?”

  I blinked back my tears. This girl couldn’t have been ten years old, far too young to hear about my troubles. “I’m fine. I’m just a little thirsty, that’s all.”

  She nodded, very seriously. “Mother and I heard the conductor being horrid to you. That’s why she wants me to give you these.” In her small hands suddenly appeared a bunch of grapes, wrapped in a fold of paper. “They’re from our farm. Very juicy.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Thank you.” A thought struck me. “I haven’t any money to pay you.”

  The girl waved her hand, and across the way, I could see her Mother shaking her head in agreement. “We don’t need any money. Just don’t be sad. You’re too pretty to cry.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The grapes were the best I ever tasted, foxy and wild like the countryside. I ate them slowly, knowing I had more than two days ride ahead of me. The young girl and her generous mother got off at the next station we stopped at. I thanked them as they departed, and the mother smiled sadly at me. “It wasn’t that long ago that I was in your shoes, young lady.” She patted her flat belly as if there was a babe inside. “Take care of yourself. And your little one.”

  Then she was gone, leaving me astonished. It was amazing to me how many people misinterpreted why a young woman would be travelling alone. Already I’d been misidentified as a prostitute and as a girl in trouble. Surely something was making people think those things about me, and I wasn’t sure what it was.

  I thought about it all night long, in between fits of uncomfortable sleep propped upright in my seat. When dawn arrived, I remembered my Shakespeare. “All the world’s a stage,” he’d written in As You Like It, a caution that none of us are necessarily who we appear to be. I decided then to play the role of a confident young woman on her way to meet the man she loved very much and was looking forward to marrying. It was time to stop worrying about what I left behind me and look forward to what was coming. I straightened my spine, put a big smile on my face, and tried to cultivate an aura of eager anticipation.

  It made all the difference in the world. As new passengers got on the train, they
looked at me and smiled. The train crew changed, and in the place of the foul-eyed conductor was an older fellow who, when I asked if there was any way to get a drink of water, said “Of course!” and never mentioned anything about a dollar a glass charge.

  Someone even left their copy of the Cleveland Leader on the train when they departed. After a quick glance around the train car, I snatched that up eagerly and whiled away the better part of a day slowly reading it.

  A man named Rockefeller had apparently set up a company in those parts that other people were calling an unfair monopoly; the editorial I read argued that Mr. Rockefeller was being punished for being too successful. There were a number of questions the article raised for me, and I spent many, many miles pondering whether a man could be both financially successful and virtuous. If one couldn’t, then which was more important? The Iowa agronomist was much on my mind. I didn’t know if science was a lucrative field; if I was heading into a life of poverty as a farmer’s wife, it would be good to know that going in.

  Everyone who’d tried to talk me into marrying Benson had emphasized his wealth. We’d never been a rich family, but I’d never known want either. Dealing with the unsavory train conductor had made me acutely aware of how little money I had. Financial concerns had never been utmost in my mind; like any girl, I assumed that I’d marry well enough that it wouldn’t be a worry. But now, having spurned a fortune, was I ready to deal with whatever fortunes awaited me?

  The Cleveland paper had a story about young female factory workers, and how conditions for them needed to be improved. This was an eye opener for me; I’d no idea that women worked in factories at all. If the Iowa agronomist were not to my liking, or if he wasn’t able to support a bride, I mused, then I had at least one option open to me. It wasn’t much of an alternate plan, but it was a plan, and I felt much better for having it.