Would-Be Mistletoe Wife

by Christine Johnson

  All three girls begged to return home.

  Louise had convinced them to wait until she spoke with Fiona. Her friend was so busy at the hotel that she didn’t have an opportunity to speak to her until Sunday evening. They gathered in Fiona’s office at the school while Sawyer took over the registration desk at the hotel.

  “Are you ready for the week’s classes?” Fiona asked, rubbing the bridge of her nose, which she did whenever her head ached or she was tired.

  “Would you like a warm compress or a cup of hot tea? I find the vapors help clear the head.”

  “No, thank you.” Fiona offered a wan smile. “Nothing will clear away the fatigue except rest.”

  “Then I won’t keep you long, but I do have a pressing question.”

  Fiona dropped her hand and lifted an eyebrow. “What happened? Is Priscilla acting up again?”

  “No, at least not any more than usual. It’s about their letters from home.”

  “Oh, yes.” Fiona sighed. “Forgive me. I should have asked how their families were.”

  “You were busy, and you must have been very relieved that Sawyer’s family all survived the blaze.” Louise covered her friend’s hand with her own.

  “Yes, we are. Though their homes were damaged, it could have been much worse. But you are concerned about the students. Did they receive bad news?”

  “All are well.”

  “That’s good news.” Fiona relaxed. “I did fear the worst.”

  “No one suffered injury, but both Adeline’s and Esther’s family homes were damaged. Their families have gone to their summer cottages for the time being.”

  “Understandable. And the Benningtons?”

  “Unscathed.” It didn’t seem fair that the most troublesome family had escaped without the slightest effect, but Louise kept that thought to herself. “All three girls have asked to return home through the Christmas holiday.”

  “So long? That’s over two months. If the families are well, what’s the hurry?”

  Louise hated to reveal this part. “Each girl has shown me her letter. The parents have requested their daughters’ return for the remainder of the year.”

  Fiona’s jaw dropped for a moment before she pulled it back and her expression hardened. “The calendar year or the school year?”

  “They didn’t specify.”

  Fiona sighed. “This isn’t about the fire, is it?”

  “I can’t be certain. I don’t know what the girls wrote to their parents, but it’s clear they are all upset.”

  Fiona slumped, bracing her head with one hand. She looked defeated, and Louise had never seen her that way. Even when she feared what Sawyer’s father might do to her, she had fought back. At this moment, the fight was gone.

  “It’s all right.” Louise grasped her friend’s hand. “God will provide.”

  Fiona lifted her head. “I’m sorry.”

  Louise circled the desk that stood between them and hugged her friend. “It’s at times like these that we realize what is most important in our lives. Sawyer and Mary Clare need you most right now. Perhaps this is a blessing, for you won’t be torn between the school, the hotel and your family.”

  “We still have Dinah and Linore’s education to consider.”

  “I can teach them at the boardinghouse. With the displaced families staying there, Mrs. Calloway is delighted to have their help. There’s no need to keep the school building heated for just the three of us.”

  Fiona appeared to accept Louise’s explanation. “But where will you stay?”

  Louise pushed forth a smile that she didn’t feel. “I’m sure Mrs. Calloway will accept my help in exchange for room and board, now that a couple of the families are moving into the vacant cabins. Remember, Roland predicted we’ll soon see a lot of lumberjacks coming through to work the camps. After that will come more sawmill workers. We will all be busy, including the hotel.”

  Fiona managed a weak return smile. “Thank you for being so understanding. I would keep the school open if I could.”

  “I know you would.”

  “We will reopen after the New Year,” Fiona said with determination.

  Louise hoped the paying students would return, but that wasn’t something she should voice. Instead, she clasped her friend’s hands. “It will all turn out for the best.”

  Somehow. She didn’t know how quite yet, but God would provide. She had to believe it.

  * * *

  Jesse decided to wait to approach Louise until after he received word from his father that the customs collector was considering him for the post. Pa agreed to write, but he didn’t have much hope that Jesse would get the post without providing sufficient “incentive.” Jesse couldn’t stomach the thought of a bribe, not after what he’d witnessed in Vicksburg. Bounties and cuts of bounties had wrought disaster. Call it whatever a person wanted, but it was still wrong.

  Pa had snapped and snarled and more or less called him a fool, but Jesse wouldn’t budge on that point. Better to continue here than to pay for preference.

  As the days passed, he began to doubt that decision. Blackthorn kept him on the midnight watch and withheld the rest of the daily chores. Jesse had memorized the manual by now, but book learning was one thing. Experience was quite another. Midnights he had no chance to see the ebb and flow of the waves and their effect on incoming and outgoing ships. The full pattern of daily operation eluded him thanks to Blackthorn accomplishing even more of the tasks during the hours that Jesse slept.

  If Jesse changed his sleeping hours, the timing of the chores changed also. Anyone could see that Blackthorn was deliberately preventing Jesse from learning the full operation. It had gotten even worse since Pa’s visit. Had someone overheard their conversation and reported it to the keeper? Even if that was the case, Blackthorn shouldn’t have been threatened by the prospect of Jesse leaving...unless the keeper didn’t want a different assistant assigned to him.

  Jesse wished he could speak with Louise, but he seldom saw her, and when he did, she was either surrounded by friends or hurrying in the opposite direction.

  By the time Jesse lay down to sleep each night, he was frustrated and exhausted. Then, a good week later, Pa’s letter arrived.

  Jesse tore it open before he left the store. Oblivious to customers, he scanned the few scrawled words.

  Talked to the collector ’n got you on the list even without no incentive. He said yer chances would improve if’n you had a wife. You kin thank me later.

  Pa.

  After the thrill of knowing the keeper’s position could be his came the dread. To guarantee he received it, he needed a wife. Louise. Would she agree? She would be a wonderful companion and a pretty sight every morning. The children would arrive soon enough. Surely that would be the case, even though eight years of her previous marriage had failed to produce any offspring. The memory of her disappointed look when he stated he wanted a large family popped into his mind, but he brushed it away. She had been concerned about the number. He could settle for fewer. Once he made that clear, surely she would agree to marry him.

  On the first Friday of the month, he dressed in his Sunday suit and made his way to the boardinghouse. With every step, his throat tightened a little more. Dozens of words ran through his head, but none of them were nearly as eloquent as the speeches he’d made up while lying in bed after his watch.

  Would she accept? She came from a more distinguished background than he did. He could offer a decent life, though not as privileged as what she had known as Mrs. Smythe. Would it be enough? He would promise to cherish and care for her the rest of her life. She wouldn’t have to work for hire, though a lighthouse keeper’s wife would know hard labor.

  He paused at the bottom of the boardinghouse steps, where Louise had returned after Mrs. Evans’s school closed. There
were only five steps up to the porch, but they seemed like twenty. His mouth was dry as dust. His heart pounded faster than the slamming of the pistons on the great saws at the mill.

  Mrs. Calloway came out to shake a rug. “Hi, Mr. Jesse. Did you come to see Miss Louise? She’s in the writing room givin’ lessons to Linore and Dinah.”

  Oh, no. Louise was busy. “Maybe I’d better come back later.”

  “Nonsense!” She surveyed him, doubtless noting that he wore his Sunday best. “She’ll be right upset if you don’t stop in and say hello.” She held open the front door. “Go on in, now. Don’t want to be lettin’ out the heat.”

  Jesse began to protest, but she cut him off with a cluck of her tongue.

  “Hurry on up, now,” she added.

  Jesse dragged his feet up the steps. Why did his legs feel leaden? Why couldn’t he quite get a breath? Fear. That’s what it was. No one should have such a hold over a man, but Louise clearly did.

  “There you go now,” Mrs. Calloway said as she closed the door behind them. “Now don’t you go worryin’ about your shoes and coat and all. Go down that hallway to the right.”

  With Mrs. Calloway prodding him forward and pointing the way, Jesse couldn’t very well refuse. He pushed forward, just as he had during his interview with the Lighthouse Board, until Mrs. Calloway held him back at the entrance to the writing room.

  “Louise, dear, you have a visitor,” the woman called out in a voice loud enough to alert the entire boardinghouse if not half the town.

  The lovely object of his attention lifted her face from the book she and the two students were examining. Her dark eyelashes curved away from those luminous gray eyes. Her expression was so serene that his nerves vanished in an instant.

  “Louise, er, Mrs. Smythe.”

  “It’s all right,” she said softly. “We have been studying many hours. A break is in order.”

  The two girls, pretty though obviously less well-off than the three who had returned to Chicago, gave him a second look before darting from the room and disappearing with Mrs. Calloway. That left him alone with Louise.

  Jesse took a deep breath. Somehow he’d expected a lot more people to be here.

  “I thought the boardinghouse was full with those who lost their homes.” The minute he said that he regretted it, for her expression fell.

  “You came here to note how many are staying?”

  “No.” He stared at his boots, embarrassed that he’d forgotten to clean them. “I, uh, wanted to ask you something.”

  The words stuck in his throat and took a monumental effort to force out.

  “I see.” She rose and placed the now-closed book on the nearest writing desk. She then motioned to the desk that Linore had abandoned. “Please have a seat.”

  Jesse started for the dainty chair but changed his mind. Even though his proposal was more of a marriage for convenience’s sake, a man should still stand when giving it.

  “No, thank you. I, uh, prefer to stand.”

  “Very well.” She continued to stand as well.

  That woman could certainly frustrate him. He searched for something to say. “Did you find any unique plants lately?”

  Her eyebrow arched. “You want to talk about plants?”

  It was preposterous, given he was dressed in his best and only suit. “Small talk.” He cleared his throat. “Women like that, I understand.”

  “I’m not overly fond of that social predilection.”

  Jesse got more nervous. Her expression told him she was not pleased. He searched his memory. When had he last spoken with her, and what had he said to annoy her? Oh, on the dock. When his father arrived. Perhaps she had not heard.

  “My father had important news to give me.”

  “So I understand.”

  Jesse took another stab at it. “I’m sorry I couldn’t continue our conversation that day.”

  “Were we conversing? I thought you’d merely helped a friend who had stumbled.”

  His words rushed back to mind. No wonder she was perturbed. “I’m sorry, but my father can be an insensitive man.” That sounded better than speaking the truth, that he was a rough dockworker who frequented taverns and never turned down a fight.

  “I see.” Though the tone of her voice indicated exactly the opposite.

  He let out his breath. Louise expected nothing less than the truth, even when it was hard. He supposed he owed her that, if he hoped for her to accept his proposal.

  “I have never gotten along with my father. He is a drinking, brawling man and very much unlike my late mother.” He bowed his head rather than see her expression.

  She didn’t speak at first. When she did, each word was laden with compassion. “I understand.” Her voice trembled ever so slightly. “I have known men who preferred spirits and violence to reason.”

  Was that sadness in her voice? Was she speaking of her late husband? He had gotten rid of her dog.

  Jesse searched her face but she turned away before he could see how that exchange had affected her. Though he longed to hold her in his arms and promise she need never experience pain again, he didn’t have the right, except as her husband. That brought him back to the task at hand.

  “I—I have a proposal,” he stammered, halting at the pitiful beginning.

  “A proposal?” she echoed tentatively.

  He licked his lips. “You are—or at least were—looking for a husband. I will need a wife should I be appointed as keeper of the South Manitou Island Light.”

  She stared, mouth agape.

  He was botching this.

  “I’m sorry,” he said hastily. “I’m not much of a romantic.” He glanced at her book. Pride and Prejudice. That figured. “But I do care for you. A lot. And we can make a good life there. The island is bound to have unique species of plant life. You would have time to examine it all.” He was sounding frantic now, so he halted.

  Her mouth moved, but nothing came out. She swallowed, looked away, swallowed again, and then looked back at him.

  “I care for you too.”

  His heart leapt, and he took a step toward her. But she put up her hands, warding him off.

  “There is something I need to tell you first, something I should have told you long ago.” Her voice cracked with emotion. Then, in the softest voice, she killed his dreams. “I cannot have children.”

  * * *

  Louise watched Jesse’s hopeful expression fade into shock and then harden. Just like Warren. She instinctively stepped back. Her heart pounded. The urge to flee beat in her mind. But where to go? With a shortage of rooms at the boardinghouse due to the displaced families, she shared a room with Dinah and Linore, both of whom had retreated to give her privacy.

  Nowhere to go. He could easily prevent her from leaving the writing room. No escape. She must face him.

  His jaw clenched.

  She backed away again, this time jostling the table, images of Warren so vivid that she nearly cried out. Only by silently repeating that her husband was dead could she calm the fear blossoming out of control.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Jesse said, the pain evident.

  She swallowed, trying to gather some semblance of courage. “Since you insisted we could be only friends, I didn’t think it necessary.”

  “Only friends? Couldn’t you tell how things had changed between us?”

  Had they? She stared at him. Her heart hadn’t changed one bit. If anything the attraction had grown stronger, and, yes, his tender care in lifting her from the dock gave her hope, but then he’d crushed it with his impersonal introduction of her to his father.

  “Generally when a man is ready to propose marriage, he is willing to acknowledge his beloved to his parents.” Her courage grew with each word, until she spoke the last with
force. After all, he had acted as if he barely knew who she was. Moreover, he hadn’t apologized or explained in the weeks that followed. She hadn’t even seen him. “I believe you referred to me as a friend.”

  Jesse cringed at her words. “My father would have picked you apart.”

  “Then I embarrass you.”

  “No! My father embarrasses me. Not you. Never you.”

  “Yet you denied me before him.”

  “I was protecting you,” he protested.

  “I don’t need that sort of ‘protection.’ I have encountered rough men in my day. And worse.” Such as those, like Warren, who appeared perfectly civilized in public but were monstrous in private. “As you can see, I am still alive.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “But I am unable to have children.”

  He swallowed and looked away. “I wish you had told me.”

  “You know now.” Though her heart was breaking, she would not allow a tear to fall. “I won’t hold you to your proposal.”

  How those words hurt! Her throat ached from holding back the emotion, and her knees were beginning to tremble.

  “If I’d known earlier...” He looked away. “You know how much I want a large family.”

  “Yes.”

  His jaw steeled again. “That would have been a good time to tell me.”

  “But you insisted we were only friends.”

  Moreover, how does a woman admit she’s barren to a man she is growing to love? In Biblical times, it was considered a curse, a sign of the loss of favor. Hannah and Elizabeth had prayed without ceasing for a child. Sarah had laughed when told she would bear a child in her advanced age. God had answered their prayers, but not hers. As Warren’s violent tempers grew, she came to consider it a blessing, but now? Her heart ached.

  “Friends share important things about each other.”

  “I thought you would have surmised it,” she said as softly and calmly as she could manage. What was the point of arguing over something that could not be changed? “I release you from your offer.”