The Mail-Order Brides. Bronwyn Williams

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СКАЧАТЬ in. Didn’t stay long, poor woman. Lit out on the mail boat two days after she come. Since then, if the circuit preacher’s not here, they stay at the parsonage. If he’s here, he moves up to Grey’s house, let’s ’em have his place until things is settled one way or the other. Like I said, so far none of ’em’s stuck more’n a month or two, ’ceptin’ for my Sal.”

      “Do you suppose—?” She hardly dared voice the question. If it involved the cooperation of Grey St. Bride, she knew in advance the answer. Having ordered her to leave, he would expect her to be gone. Instead she’d stopped to help someone in need and missed the boat. He could hardly blame her for that…could he?

      “Now, if you was to want to stay here until the Bessie Mae gets back” Emmet said thoughtfully, “reckon there’s not much Grey could say about it, seein’s he deeded this place to me, fair and square.”

      Dora looked about the small cottage. There appeared to be several rooms, including the kitchen off the back. There was also a narrow, steep stairway leading to what must be more rooms or an attic. Altogether, compared to Sutton Hall, Emmet’s cottage was scarcely larger than the servants’ quarters out behind their carriage house.

      Odd that it should feel so…safe. Did she dare stay here long enough to plan her next move? No matter how despotic he might be, St. Bride could hardly chase her off his island as long as she remained on the part of it that Emmet owned.

      Stalling for time until she could weigh her options, Dora said, “Would you like more tea? Perhaps I could—” Cook his dinner?

      Hardly. She wouldn’t know how to start. She’d been no more truthful in her application when she had claimed to be a capable woman than she had when she’d called herself a widow.

      Heaven help her if she had actually married St. Bride, as she had naively expected to, and he’d discovered the extent of her lies.

      Fortunately, Emmet seemed more interested in talking than in dining. “Did I tell you about Sal? I buried her out by the fig trees. Sal used to race out there of a morning to beat the mockingbirds to the ripe figs.” His smile was for another woman, another time. Dora started to speak, but he continued, and so she leaned back in the uncomfortable spindle-backed chair, determined to be the audience he so obviously needed. She might be shockingly inadequate in most respects, but she could certainly listen for as long as he wanted to talk.

      “Now’n again I haul a chair out there by her grave and study on the way things turn out in a man’s life. Planning don’t do much good, not when there’s a Master Planner up there with his own notions of how things is going to turn out.”

      “Fate,” Dora murmured. She knew all about the way life’s chessboard could tilt with no warning, sending all the pieces crashing to the floor.

      He nodded. “Some calls it luck—some might call it fate when a young woman happens by an old man’s house just when his sand’s about to run out. Does she stop and help when the old fool climbs up a ladder and takes a fall, or does she walk on by?”

      Inside her flimsy kid slippers, Dora’s toes curled. What was he trying to say? That fate had directed her to his gate just as another door slammed shut in her face? Whatever it was he suggesting, could she afford not to listen? If she’d already missed the boat, what choice did she have?

      “St. Bride, he signed up the circuit preacher before he sent for the first brace o’women. My Sal was one of ’em. With our own preacher on the line, we could send for him whenever there was any splicin’ that needed doing without having to sail o’er and hitch up on the mainland.”

      Dora waited. She had a feeling he was leading up to something, only she couldn’t imagine what it could be. Surely he wasn’t about to ask her to marry him.

      “Works out real good. Course, there’s not a lot for a preacher to do here less’n there’s a marrying. Not much sinnin’ to preach at, not like some of his other charges where they have saloons and wild women. Grey won’t tolerate sinnin’ on St. Brides—says if he allows sinnin’, first thing you know he’ll have to bring in a sawbones and a sheriff.”

      Most of the color had returned to his weathered face. Dora murmured something to the effect that a doctor might be useful, but Emmet, now that his initial discomfort had lessened, seemed more inclined to talk than to listen.

      “Now, Preacher Filmore, he’s a good man. Give you the shirt off’n his back if you need it. The Lord sort of slowed up his talking so folks wouldn’t miss any of his words. Trouble is, I listen a whole lot faster than he talks, and besides that, he don’t even play checkers. Not even for black-eyed peas. Calls it gambling, and gambling’s a sin in his book. So you can see the fix I’m in.”

      She couldn’t, but she was beginning to see where the conversation might be headed. Evidently, the slow-talking minister would be expected to take care of Mr. Meeks and keep him entertained until he was on his feet again.

      And just as evidently, Mr. Meeks’s patience would be sorely tested.

      “Now Grey, he’s a meddler, for all he means well. Long as they’re living here on his island, a man don’t have no choice but to go ’long with his notions, ’specially since they generally turn out right good. I reckon he told you about the plans he has to pair up the single men with wives and start raising younguns?”

      She wasn’t about to admit that she’d come here believing St. Bride meant to marry her himself.

      “Used to be families living out here back in his pa’s day. Storms run most of ’em off. Shoreside washed in near half a mile. Since then, sand covered up just about everything left standing. He tell you about that?”

      She shook her head. The man had told her little except that life on his island was hard, and that she would never be able to survive here. He could hardly know she had survived far worse than wild winds and raging seas.

      He had also told her she was pretty. No one had ever told her that before—at least, not without wanting something from her.

      “Won’t be easy, finding a schoolteacher. Finding the preacher and getting him to take on another charge was hard enough. Poor man can’t hardly keep up with things as it is. Like I said, he talks so slow it takes him two hours to get through a one-hour sermon.” He chuckled, and Dora felt some of the tension that had gripped her ever since she had recklessly answered the advertisement begin to ease.

      “Licensed to marry folks, though, that’s mainly what he’s here for. Married Sal and me, right and proper. We was older than some, but when Sal came out, St. Bride, he thought we’d suit, set a good example, he said.” Nodding, he added, “Said words over her grave when I buried her.” He paused as if, satisfied with his summary, he was searching for his next topic. He had told her several times over about his wonderful Sal. The poor man was obviously starved for companionship.

      So much for the wonderful Mr. St. Bride.

      Dora leaned to one side to peer through a window, wishing she could see the docks from where she sat. What if Emmet was wrong and the Bessie Mae & Annie hadn’t actually sailed yet?

      But even if by some miracle she mananged to catch the boat before it left, would she be any better off? There were few jobs available for women who’d been coddled all their lives. When the time came, no matter what their personal inclinations, they were expected to marry men of their fathers’ choosing—men who would continue to pamper them. As far as Dora was concerned, even that door had been closed.

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