Mail-Order Marriage Promise. Regina Scott

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СКАЧАТЬ what Beth Wallin had written to her? Had she learned nothing from her terrible experience with Frank?

      Of course, none of the letters Beth had sent her or the conversation with John had been anything like talking with Frank. A salesman for a manufacturing firm in Cincinnati, with clients all over the state, he’d had a way of making people feel important. She’d needed that fifteen months ago when she’d first met him.

      Her uncle, who worked for the same firm, had brought Frank home for dinner to meet Dottie. Frank hadn’t been the first fellow foisted upon her that way. Uncle Henry and Aunt Harriot lived in a manner her parents had found worrisome—drinking with friends most nights, holding their own riotous parties at least twice a month, saying vulgar words upon occasion and never attending church.

      Though she tried not to complain, she could not bring herself to act the way they did, causing her uncle to dub her “Dottie Do-Gooder.” By word and action, they had made it very clear they wanted her out of the house as soon as possible. Only by doing all the cooking and cleaning had she convinced them to allow her to stay past her sixteenth birthday.

      Every other man they had brought home to meet her had been just like them, favoring cheap cigars and alcohol. Frank had seemed different—polished, polite, friendly. Small wonder she’d begun to fancy she had found love. Frank had known just what to say, how to act, to get her to go along with his wishes and feel terribly happy about it as well.

      Beth had also said all the right things, promising a kind, considerate husband well able to provide for Dottie’s needs. That part hadn’t been a lie. If anything, John Wallin was an even better man than his sister had described, if the way he had responded to Beth’s interference was any indication. Yet what sort of man needed a sister to fetch him a bride?

      John seemed neither stupid nor lazy. He was not crippled, and he appeared to be in good health. If he was intent on building a library, surely he wasn’t the illiterate Dottie had feared. Most women would account him handsome. Even in Seattle, where there were far more men than women, he would likely be considered a catch.

      So why did he lack a wife? Had he some flaw she hadn’t noticed on first meeting?

      She was still wondering as she let herself into the narrow hotel room with its single window looking down toward Puget Sound. Mrs. Gustafson rose from the chair as Dottie shut the door behind her. A heavy woman with button-brown eyes and a wide mouth, she exuded motherly warmth, even in the somewhat Spartan conditions of the hotel room.

      “A little darling he was,” she proclaimed in her thick German accent, looking fondly at the blanket spread on the floor. “Never once did he cry.”

      Dottie’s son gurgled at her as she kneeled beside the blanket. He waved pudgy arms and begged to be picked up. She obliged, cuddling him close and feeling the soft tufts of his white-blond hair against her chin.

      This was why she must stay strong. This was why she could not give up.

      “Thank you for watching him,” she told the older woman.

      Mrs. Gustafson waved a beefy hand. “Ach, he is no trouble. And your young man, how did you like him?”

      Dottie had confided her purpose in coming to Seattle, though she had let Mrs. Gustafson, like Beth, think she was a widow instead of a woman shamed. Now she considered how to answer. In truth, had she met John Wallin before she’d known Frank, she would likely have been willing to let him court her. Now she needed a man ready to take a chance on a woman and an illegitimate baby, a man willing to fight for family. John Wallin, for all his gentle ways, did not seem likely.

      “He decided we will not suit,” she told her friend.

      The German lady recoiled. “Vas? Is he touched in the head? Such a lovely lady you are. And who could resist little Peter, eh?” She bent closer and stroked the baby’s cheek. Peter watched her, wide-eyed.

      “I’ll simply have to find another way to support Peter,” Dottie said. “Surely someone here needs a worker and wouldn’t mind having a baby along.”

      Mrs. Gustafson nodded as she straightened. “You could work on the railroad. I saw pictures all along the street here, asking everyone to come help on May Day.”

      Dottie had seen them as well, posters plastered to any bare spot on the wall along the streets of Seattle. Come all ye adults of mankind. Nor let there be none left behind. It seemed Seattle had lost its bid to be the terminus of the Northern Pacific Railway, which would be coming to Tacoma, to the south, instead. Now Seattle was determined to build its own railroad.

      “I doubt they are planning to pay the workers much,” she told her friend. “And I don’t know how I’d be much help carrying Peter around. If you hear of anything else, though, please let me know.”

      “Oh, yah, of course,” Mrs. Gustafson promised. “But I don’t know of any places that will take a mother with child. And we leave tomorrow for the Duwamish. I would ask you to come, but it is my brother’s place, and he only has room for me and my Dieter.”

      It was the same story every place Dottie tried that afternoon. Either the business did not want to take on a woman, or they needed her to work long hours away from Peter. The shops in Seattle, it seemed, were open by five in the morning and did not close until nearly ten at night. One of the owners even suggested that she give up her son, claiming many of the farmers in the area would be interested in adopting a baby that would grow into a strong young man. Clutching Peter close, she had hurried from the store. Peter was hers, not Frank’s, not anyone else’s. He was the one good thing to come from her bad marriage.

      “You are a blessing,” she told him as she carried him back to the hotel. A passing gentleman favored her with a gap-toothed grin as if he thought she was addressing him. Peter snuggled closer.

      That night, after she’d settled her son to sleep beside her on the bed, she allowed herself a moment to pray, asking for help finding work, a safe place for her and Peter to live. But still she found no peace.

      Her mother and father had always prayed before bed and at mealtimes. They’d attended church services as well, read to her from the Bible. All that had changed when they’d been killed in a train accident. Her uncle had taken her Bible away from her, told her it was just a book of nonsense. She hadn’t seen the inside of a church in years. She shouldn’t be surprised she no longer felt God’s presence. She’d been the one to move away.

      All Dottie could hope was that John Wallin had better connections in the frontier town than she ever would, and that he’d find something that would work for her and Peter.

      * * *

      John returned to Seattle the next day on horseback, leaving his mount at the livery stable while he canvassed the town. But it seemed Dottie had been unwilling to wait for his help, for most of the places he tried reported that she’d already been in.

      “Lovely lady,” the tallest Kellogg brother said when John asked at his store about a clerk position, “but we simply could not accommodate the hours she wanted.”

      He heard similar stories at other shops he tried. Dottie seemed determined to work as little as possible. He couldn’t understand it. Had she been so tenderly raised that she had no idea what employers expected? Surely if she’d lived on a farm she knew that work went on from before sunrise to after sunset most days.

      He wished he knew more about her. He’d asked Beth as they’d ridden back to Wallin Landing yesterday, СКАЧАТЬ