The Mail-Order Brides. Bronwyn Williams

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      Chapter Two

      Once she had brewed a pot of strong tea, which more or less exhausted her culinary talents, Dora looked about for her valise and remembered that she’d left it out in the yard. She would tell someone at the docks—that nice red-haired man, perhaps—about Mr. Meeks’s ankle. Surely he would see to sending someone along to do whatever needed doing.

      “So you’re one of Grey’s brides,” Meeks repeated. “Who’re you going to marry?”

      Who? Well, no one, it seemed. Dora sat back down and stared at the man reclining on an old-fashioned settee in the tiny parlor. Pride alone kept her from telling him she’d been found wanting. He’d thought she was too pretty? Absurd, she told herself, feeling a rising inner heat that had to be anger. “Well…that remains to be seen, doesn’t it?”

      “My Sal was the first,” Emmet confided wistfully. “Grey ordered her out special for me. Couldn’t have done better if I’d picked her out myself, and that’s the Lord’s truth. St. Bride deeded me an acre of land and the lumber to build us this home. Helped build it with his own hands, he did.” It was as if once the man began to talk, he couldn’t seem to stem the flow. “He builds one-room cabins for the single men, but he don’t deed ’em over until six months after they marry. So far, none of ’em that’s married has stayed that long. That makes me the only man on the island besides St. Bride to own so much as a grain of sand.” Pride was evident in his pale face.

      But beneath the pride, there was loneliness. Dora understood grief and loneliness all too well. Somewhat to her surprise, she was tempted to pour out her own tale. What would it matter? He was a stranger, someone she would never meet again after today.

      But telling wouldn’t change anything, it would only open the wounds again. The time for grieving was past. She had her future to secure now.

      “Mr. Meeks, I really do need to leave now if I’m to catch the boat. I promise, though, I’ll send someone back to look after you.”

      In a younger man, his smile might have been called teasing. “Call me Emmet. Been a while since I heard a lady speak my name.”

      “Then, Emmet, I’d better hurry. It’s been—well, of course, the circumstances weren’t the best, but I’m truly glad I met you. Perhaps one of these days…”

      What could she offer? Not friendship—there wasn’t time. “Perhaps Mr. St. Bride will find you another wife. Not to take the place of your first wife,” she added hurriedly. “I know no one could do that, but someone—a companion…”

      “A companion,” he echoed wistfully. “Should’ve thought to tell him before he left.”

      Before he left?

      “Is Mr. St. Bride leaving, too?” If his high-and-mightiness was sailing on the same boat she was, she just might end up shoving him overboard to see if he could walk on water.

      “Gone a’ready. Saw him set off across the ridge while you were helpin’ me to the house. Probably all the way out past Pelican Shoal by now, with the wind where it is.”

      “He’s gone?” Dora didn’t know whether to rejoice or despair. At least he wouldn’t be sharing the cramped passenger cabin with her all the way across the Sound.

      “Then I’d better—”

      “Settle down, child. If you were fixin’ to sail with Cap’n Dozier you’re too late. He’s halfway out the channel by now, won’t come about for nobody, so you might’s well settle yourself in for a spell of waiting. Mail boat’s due in day after tomorrow. You could catch a ride out then if you’re still set on leaving. Dozier’ll be back the day after that.”

      Settle herself in how? Where? She would like to think she’d begun to mature in spite of her father’s indulgences—the events of the past six weeks had surely hastened the process. But panic was her first reaction. What was she supposed to do, build herself a sand castle? Throw herself on the mercy of the first friendly face she came across?

      Hardly. Foremost among the hard lessons she’d been forced to learn was that the world did not revolve around the Suttons. If she was to survive, it would be up to her to find a way.

      “The—Mr. St. Bride, that is—um, happened to mention that my passage was paid on the Bessie Mae & Annie. What about the mail boat? Is it very expensive? Where would be her next port of call?”

      “Well now, as to that, Grey owns the Bessie Mae. Mail boat’s a different matter—she don’t have much room for passengers. Won’t cost you much for deck space, but if I was you, I’d wait.”

      Wait for what? Dora thought with the first fine edge of panic. Wait to be sent back to Bath, where women she’d known all her life would turn away and even cross the street to avoid embarrassment when they saw her coming? Where the men would look her up and down with a certain speculative gleam in their eyes that made her feel as if she’d wandered outside in her drawers and corselet?

      No, thank you.

      Where she would have too much pride to beg and too few resources to keep from starving?

      No, thank you indeed!

      “I don’t suppose there’s a—um, a boardinghouse here?” Where she could wash dishes to earn her keep until she could think of something better to do.

      Emmet shook his head. “No need for one. There’s a longhouse for the pilots up at North End. Been inlet pilots here long’s there’s been a good inlet, ready to go out and meet incoming traffic, guide ’em across the shoals. Come August, there’s mullet fishermen, but now we got more of a permanent population. Like I said, St. Bride built cabins for them that don’t stay in the barracks.”

      “What about the—the women? Where do СКАЧАТЬ