by Ember Pierce
* * *
“Doesn’t my working at the school make our lives easier? I can write a letter to the county asking for a raise in wages. Would that help? I’m due for a raise now that I think of it.”
* * *
Mr. Andrews shook his head slowly. “No, Mae. You have to marry Bill. It’s the best way. The only way. The taxes on the farm have gone up. We don’t have the money to pay them. Bill has offered to pay the taxes and take care of any other financial needs we have. You’ll understand one day why I consented to this marriage.”
* * *
“I refuse,” Mae said, knowing that her father had every right to expect her to marry Bill. “I will not marry Bill Masters. This is the end of the conversation.”
* * *
“You’re going to marry Bill and that's the final word on the matter,” her father said, not angry, just steadfast.
* * *
Mae looked to her mother who dropped her eyes. Her sister, Sarah, was just eighteen. Sarah didn’t know the ways of the world. The girl sat there silent with wide eyes, looking as if she wanted to run.
* * *
“I won’t do it.”
* * *
“If you don’t you’ll be turned out of this house, Mae. You’ll be on your own, alone. I’m sorry but that’s just the way it will be. Do you understand?”
* * *
Mae stood from the table and ran outside grabbing her satchel as she did so. She wondered if she might stay in town at the boarding house that night.
* * *
She ran from the house until she could run no more and up ahead the river glistened in the late afternoon filtered grey overcast. Her foot stumbled on a newspaper, but she kicked it off and continued.
* * *
When she reached the river bank she sat under a tree and let the tears fall. The ground was wet and a breeze was whipping up. There might be rain the next day. She leaned back against the tree and tears rolled down her face.
* * *
How dare her father tell Bill she would marry him. It was unfair. She sighed and gazed out at the river, lost in thoughts. Something damp, a newspaper actually, blew up against the side of her leg, startling her. She reached down to get the paper off of her hem.
* * *
It was the same one she’d kicked away from her a moment earlier. There was an illustration of a young woman on the page. Hmm, what was this? She lifted the damp periodical to her lap.
* * *
It was a marriage chronicle. A newspaper that rallied women to go west looking for their heart’s desire. Mae had always thought it an odd practice regardless of how popular it had become. It seemed a great risk to her to pick your life and move to a faraway place to marry a man you didn’t know. But many women had done it successfully. At least that’s what she’d always heard.
* * *
Slowly an idea formed in Mae’s mind. If she didn’t marry Bill Masters, her father was going to turn her out. She had her teaching but if she was in Havenshire, Bill would only keep on harassing her. There was no way she could stay in Havenshire and not marry Bill. She glanced at the newspaper again. She wondered… Her hands trembled as she smoothed the periodical against her lap.
* * *
What if Mae found a man she could marry out west? She’d heard that these kind of marriages were often business arrangements. Marriages of convenience. Each individual brought something specific to the relationship to barter. Usually, from what she’d heard, it was cooking and cleaning in return for a secure life and children.
* * *
It was a tempting thought. If May were to enter into correspondence with a gentleman in the west, it would only be a matter of a short time before she could get away from Bill Masters. And her father. She could fend them both off for a month or so. Then she would have an opportunity to live her own life. But only if she left Havenshire.
* * *
There was nothing to keep her in Havenshire, except the schoolhouse. And her family. She would miss them. And, again, she had to firmly remind herself. If she stayed in her hometown, she would be forced to marry Bill.
* * *
This way, she would have to marry but at least it would be her choice. And if he was terrible, she could run away and get a job teaching out west. She wasn’t without options. But not if she stayed here.
* * *
Carefully she pulled the pages of the paper apart until she came to the advertisements. She scanned down the columns and didn’t see anything intriguing. She turned the page over and was about to cast the periodical away from her when a short ad, at the very bottom of the column on the other side, caught her eye.
* * *
Former sheriff seeks a woman to be a farm wife. Kind man with a lot to give. If looks are your top concern, do not apply. Scott Henderson, Fable Springs, Texas.
* * *
Hmm. He sounds good. Maybe I should write to him, she thought. Mae opened her school satchel and took out a sheet of paper and a pencil.
* * *
The possible opportunity seemed like it could be the perfect answer to her current problem. She licked the tip of the pencil and began to write.
* * *
She only hoped it wasn’t too late for her to respond to the advertisement. She said a little prayer that Mr. Henderson hadn’t found his mail order bride yet. Because it was going to be her.
4
One week after she sent off her introductory letter to Mr. Scott Henderson, Mae received a response. Life had been tense in the house as her father and mother began to prepare for her marriage to Bill, which was to be next month.
* * *
Mae, on the other hand, was preparing to go west.
* * *
The gentleman wrote of his pleasure at having heard from her. He’d been impressed with her letter and wanted to waste no more time. Included in the letter was a formal marriage proposal.
* * *
Mr. Henderson had also sent money for the journey. Mae was ecstatic and dashed off another letter accepting the proposal and saying she was leaving Virginia the following day.
* * *
It seemed too good to be true. At last she would be away from the lascivious eye of Bill Masters. Her plan was to write to her parents when she arrived at her destination and then go about living her life the way she wanted.
* * *
Her mother would miss her greatly, she knew. But there was nothing else to be done. She couldn’t stand Bill’s attentions any longer, so the timing of her departure was perfect.
* * *
She’d used the school as the return address on her first letter to Mr. Henderson. No one but her best friend Patricia knew about her plans. Patricia would take over at the school and tell the students that Mae had gone west. Then, at Mae’s suggestion, they would have a lesson about it.
* * *
Mae knew she was going to miss teaching the children, all of whom she’d gotten close to, very much. Leaving them and her family behind was the only really sad part about leaving Havenshire. She would miss Patricia as well, but she knew she had to do what she’d planned. She felt lucky that her friend understood.
* * *
Mae intended to write to Patricia and the kids, just not until the time was right. Meaning, she couldn’t contact anyone at home until she was legally married. It was the way it had to be. Bill Masters wouldn’t come after her if she was married. That, she knew.
* * *
There was also the matter that Mae was the primary wage earner in the family. Her mother kept the house and her father and brothers ran the farm. Her sisters picked up odd jobs and fill in work while on their searches for permanent domestic positions.
* * *
Mae had always taken a bit of the wages owed to her father and given them to her mother. And her mother, like so many women before her had put them away somewhere for a rainy day.
* * *
After five years, Mae was sure her mother had a nice amount
of cash squirreled away somewhere in the farm house in the valley. So she didn’t worry too much about their situation. And if she could find a way to send money back from Fable Springs, she would.
At the end of the school day and with a somewhat heavy heart, Mae said goodbye to her students. She’d left a letter with Patricia for her to read to the kids the following day. A letter that explained why Mae had left. A letter that told the children she’d gone to be married. She didn’t want them to feel as if she’d abandoned them. It was important to her.
* * *
After cleaning the schoolroom as she’d done almost everyday for the last five years, Mae turned around a final time in the little schoolhouse.
* * *
She whispered a thank you to the place that had been her livelihood and the most important place she’d known other than her home. She walked out on the tiny porch and closed the door on her old life.
* * *
When she got home, she took the horse to the barn and rubbed her down. She fed and watered the animal and then Mae thanked the filly for all the days she’d brought Mae to and from the school house.
* * *
The animal gently whinnied and rested her soft muzzle on Mae’s shoulder by way of goodbye. Mae left the barn before she started crying. She would miss the horse more than anyone.
* * *
Her father was still out in the fields when she left the barn and went up to the house. Her mother was getting supper. Mae hurried upstairs to her room and hastily packed her carpet bag with as many articles of clothing as she could.
* * *
Then she dropped the bag out the window and hid it in one of the outbuildings where she could easily get it when she left. There was a train leaving at midnight and Mae was going to be on it.
* * *
During supper, the family was quiet as they’d been every night since Mae had become engaged against her will to Bill Masters. He had been to see her once the week before with the promise of returning the following week. It had been an awkward evening in the parlor by the fire.
* * *
Mae chuckled to herself. It was too bad for Bill that she would be long gone by tomorrow night when he came to court her. She didn’t even care if his feelings were hurt. He’d been so smug when they’d sat on the sofa, pointing out inadequacies in the furnishings and the handmade rug.
* * *
She knew he was doing it to point out that he could give her much better than what she had but it hurt her feelings anyway. Her family couldn’t help that they didn’t have as much money as Bill.
* * *
But when he’d tried to take liberties with her and give her a kiss, she had been furious and gone upstairs immediately. The experience only strengthened her resolve. She would not be trapped into a life with Bill. And she knew he wasn’t bad but he wasn’t a good man either.
* * *
She’d always known, since the first day she’d met him four years earlier, that Bill Masters was full of himself. He’d just gotten back from the war which, miraculously, had spared him from injury of any kind, physical or mental. And he’d been confident enough to bid handsomely on the cherry pie she’d made and entered in the pie contest.
* * *
Needless to say when he came to the table to pick up the pie and pay for it, Mae, because it was hers, had to present the dessert to Bill. There began Bill Masters campaign to court her and, ultimately, marry her.
* * *
On this night, after the supper dishes had been washed, Mae’s father read and her mother was working on some mending in the parlor. Mae’s sister and brothers were playing a game of cards at the table in the middle of the room. Mae sat on the other end of the sofa from her mother.
* * *
The clock said eight o’clock. Every minute seemed to stretch out interminably as Mae pretended to read. She was on edge, excited, and a bit nostalgic. She was going to miss her mother. But she had to get away. Tonight. If she didn’t, her life would no longer be her own.
* * *
At nine o’clock her parents went upstairs to bed, followed in short order by Mae’s brothers and sisters. Mae followed on their heels and after bustling around, pretending to get ready, she sat on the bed staring into the dark of her bedroom, her satchel resting on her knees, until it was time to go. It was the hardest task she’d ever attempted. But when the clock struck eleven, she was sure everyone was sleeping soundly.
* * *
Carrying her shoes, she turned the knob on the door slowly and stepped out into the hall. Mae padded down the back steps to the kitchen. Then she went into the pantry to gather some food to take.
* * *
She stuffed some slices of ham into two biscuits, grabbed a couple apples, and a piece of cheese, tucking it all in her satchel. She left some coins in the place of the cheese, turned to the kitchen door and opened it, holding her breath and praying for the hinges to stay quiet.
* * *
She stepped out into the night, quickly laced up her shoes and snuck around to the front of the house and the road to town. She’d have to hurry. She sneaked in and out of yards and alleyways and when she got to the train station, the stagecoach up to Winchester was just about to leave.
* * *
She breathed a sigh of relief that she hadn’t missed it. A ticket was procured and she was inside the crowded vehicle that was soon on its way. She marveled that so many people were traveling, considering the late hour.
* * *
But it was common knowledge that the night coaches were faster because the roads and highways were quiet at night. With no traffic they were able to fly down the road. There were six passengers including herself inside, all thankfully ladies, and four men up above.
* * *
Mae pretended to be asleep so as not to find it necessary to interact with the women. The coach pitched and careened this way and that. She had all she could do to stay upright in the seat. Thankfully it was over in less than an hour. At the train station, she bought a ticket for first-class travel accommodations. That had been Mr. Henderson’s sole instruction to her.
* * *
Mae had been on a train only twice before in her life. She’d absolutely enjoyed it despite the fact that she’d been in a third-class compartment. It had been comfortable enough in the sleeping berth that was divided from the corridor by a curtain. It was still fresh in her memory how she could hear the night porters in low-toned conversation at either end of the car.
* * *
She boarded the train and was shown to her seat. She gasped. It wasn’t a seat. Mae was to be ensconced in a sleeper car in her own compartment for the two and a half day journey to Texas.
* * *
A compartment with a door and a wall that separated the area from the corridor. It had been generous indeed for Mr. Henderson to send enough money for her to travel in style. He certainly was as kind as his advertisement stated.
* * *
Her heart was pounding as she looked out the window. She watched the moon and the ghostly forms of the trees as the train sped across the countryside. She imagined what Mr. Henderson must be like.
* * *
She was excited at the prospect of meeting him, despite a mild apprehension that she couldn’t get rid of. They’d only shared two letters. It concerned her that possibly she’d jumped the gun. She didn’t know very much about him at all.
* * *
She had no idea of his age or his profession. For the first time she wondered if she’d made a mistake. If she went to Fable Springs and didn’t find Mr. Henderson, she would still owe him the money she had used for the tickets.
* * *
Of course he would be there. But who would she find at the end of the journey?
* * *
That he’d sent the money to Mae said quite a bit about his character. He was trusting. He didn’t imagine that his money might be stolen. It seemed to Mae that it would be safer, for the gentleman to send a tic
ket to the lady in question.
* * *
Mae had made it a point to discreetly find out about mail order brides before she left Havenshire. She’d heard tell of women who carried on intimate correspondences with men in the west. The women would be courted over the course of months, sometimes a year.