by Alice White
And how was she to tell them? How was she to explain to these sisters she loved and had spent so many late nights counseling each other in the ways of their own delicate emotions what it was that had broken her in two? Caroline had always been known for her sunny disposition and an optimism that was sometimes the subject of ridicule either openly or discretely by her peers. She had always maintained that people had too much of a propensity for a kind of a wanton disillusionment in their lives and she had made a point of striving to do something different with her life. It hadn’t mattered. She had made her best effort and yet there she was, half asleep and jilted, still in the school things she had made such a point of making lovely before greeting her fiancé. Or, to be more accurate, the man who had been her fiancé now. He was not that now. He was nothing to her now, despite all of the desperate cries her heart made to the contrary.
That first night had been the worst. She had existed in a fitful kind of in between space, one where she would cry herself to sleep and in her dreams and forget about her loss, only to wake and remember and cry herself to sleep all over again. It had been a night that felt like it would go on forever, this endless, vicious cycle that would only drive her mad in the end. Waking had been a relief, a blessing, and when she had descended the fine staircase of her beloved home to meet her even more beloved family for breakfast, not one of them spoke a word about the sobs that had acted like a lullaby for the entire household all of the night before. Nobody spoke about the dark circles beneath the usually sparkling eyes that left Caroline with a haunted look. Nobody said a word then and they would remain silent in the days to come, Adeline’s plea for information the only brave attempt to understand her woes.
“I cannot continue this way” she said to herself softly while she watched the children she loved and looked after, playing their funny little school yard games. Even that, even the job she had always loved more than anything, had lost some of its luster in the days and weeks after the event. That was how she thought about it: as the event. It was easier than filing it away in her mind as the jilting. And it was that, the realization that Jeremiah’s unfathomable decision had robbed her of even the smallest portion of the joy she felt when doing her work that brought her to the realization that she had to act. She was not a helpless woman with no means of achieving the things she wanted for herself. True, she was just on the verge of being considered too old to be married and her situation felt very different indeed as a woman unattached than it had as a woman engaged, but in the end that did not matter. It couldn’t matter. Not if she still wanted to build for herself a life she loved, which she very much did. So she began to plan, to piece together the beginning of a new life. It was nothing like what she had envisioned for herself, not even close, but she was determined, and that was not something that was easy to do away with. Curse of the Irish, that stubbornness. It couldn’t be helped, and in this case, she was glad of it. Resilience was nothing to be ashamed of, after all. Once she had it all decided and the pieces very loosely set in place, Caroline sat Adeline down for a late night cup of tea and, once they were both very sure that their parents had retired for the evening, a little nightcap of sherry as well. Caroline knew that spirits made Adeline nervous, that they clued her into the fact that things were not getting better in quite the way she had supposed, but everything was about to come to a head anyway. As far as Caroline was concerned, they might as well have a little drink while they discussed the details.
“I want to thank you, Adeline,” Caroline said softly as she took her sister’s slightly trembling hands in her own. “You have been so dear to me in these past few weeks and I know it couldn’t have been easy for you. For any of you.”
“Please don’t thank me. I love you. I think you know that. I would do just about anything for you, and I hope you know that as well.”
Caroline could feel her eyes beginning to prick with God only knew how many unshed tears and she bit the inside of her cheek, her most trusted method for keeping her emotions in check. Part of her wished that Bethany was with them as well, but she was still too young for this, still too young to hear the grisly details of how a dream could be realized and then abruptly taken away again. Caroline wanted to spare her that knowledge for as long as she could, but she also needed to tell Adeline what exactly had taken place with Jeremiah. That way she would understand why she had to go.
“Do you remember the last night when Jeremiah came to call? When the butler let him in to wait in the parlor for me to return from the school?”
“Yes of course,” she said shyly. “That’s when everything changed. That’s when the sadness began for you, underneath the sweetness.”
“Yes,” Caroline managed to choke out. “That’s the night. I’m sure you’ve already deduced this and just been too kind to say so, but Jeremiah broke off our engagement that night.”
“I thought that might be it. But why? He seemed so taken with you!”
“Because for some people, being taken with you isn’t enough. Some people need other things brought to the table, things I couldn’t offer.”
“I don’t understand.”
Money. As ugly and vulgar as it sounded in her ears even without being spoken aloud, that was what it had boiled down to. Jeremiah had come from a family that had at one time had an enormous amount of money but had, by the time the two of them met, been reduced to the wealth that came from a name only. He had met a young woman who could help to restore that wealth in a way that Caroline and her family could never have hoped to and so he had left her. Nothing romantic about it. Just business. But she would not tell Adeline that. She didn’t want to say the words, to even think them. She wanted only to focus on what path she had chosen for her future, and although she knew Adeline would find it difficult to understand, she also knew that this was the person who had always been her closest ally.
“You don’t need to. Not now. Let us just say that the two of us were not meant to be after all and leave it at that.”
“If you wish,” Adeline responded uncertainly, perhaps already suspecting the separation that her older sister was about to thrust upon her.
“I do. I do wish, and I also wish to tell you of the correspondence I have since struck up.”
At this, Adeline sat up a bit straighter, looked just a bit more eager. Every member of Caroline’s family had noticed this new communication between Caroline and some mystery person from somewhere outside of New York. Nobody had made the move to ask her about it, however, because they were all afraid to upset the new and delicate balance that had been established once the crying had stopped. But that didn’t mean that Adeline wasn’t eager to know what this new development was. Caroline could see that she was practically chomping at the bit to be let in on the secret.
“So you’ve noticed, then,” Caroline laughed, feeling really and truly good for the first time in weeks. “And I suppose you’ve also noticed that the accompanying address is not from these parts.”
“Yes, I must admit that I’ve peeked at those letters a time or two.”
“Don’t feel bad,” Caroline reassured her blushing sister. “I would have done the exact same thing. But I do have to tell you something, something I fear you might think makes me out of my head.”
“I trust you. I think you’re the most level-headed person I know, although if you tell Father I said that I’ll swear up and down that you’re a liar. Whatever you tell me I’ll know you’ve thought through, only please go on and tell me. The longer you wait the crazier the ideas I make up on my own become.”
Caroline took a deep breath. This plan she had concocted had, up to this point, only existed on her head and on paper. But once she spoke it out loud, once she told her sister and watched the reaction on Adeline’s face, it would become real. A thing being real could be a frightening thing, especially if that thing was utterly unlike anything you had known before.
“Caroline? Are you sure you’re ok?”
“I am. I’m ok. But I’m going. I
’m going, Adeline, and I’m going to a place that isn’t anywhere close to here.”
“But where? Where will you go?”
“Where do all adventurers go? I’m going out West to discover my new life on the Ryan Ranch.”
Chapter 3
“This is just a friendly warning, folks! We’ll be pulling into our station in just under ten minutes. Ten minutes, folks, that’s ten minutes.”
Caroline sat up with a start, looking around her with a mild feeling of shock. Before getting onto the train she had been sure that she was far too excited to get a wink of sleep, but apparently she had been mistaken on that front. She hadn’t realized how tired, how completely bone tired she had been until she had finally had nothing to do other than to sit and wait.
Initially, she had sat and thought. She had been fairly certain that her thinking could keep her occupied for enough train rides to last the rest of her life. She thought about Jeremiah. She thought have his dark eyes and blonde hair, the way he had taken her hand clandestinely on their walks in the beginning and then of how cold he was on that last night when he walked out on her for good. She thought of Adeline. She could still see the tears of mingled sadness, fear and joy on her sister’s face when she had told her of her decision to leave their home and everything she knew in order to pursue the life she had always dreamed of, a life filled with love and purpose and, of course, children.
She also thought of William. William Ryan, the man she was traveling across the country to marry. A man she had never met in her life and had only had limited communication with. Never in her life had Caroline even considered, not in her wildest dreams, that she would board a train to the Wild West she had no real knowledge of to become a mail order bride. But things changed in a person’s life; paths split off in ways that couldn’t be anticipated and sometimes it really was best to take the path that seemed to be the more unlikely one. It had been soon after her gut wrenching experience with Jeremiah that Caroline had sat down to breakfast and picked up the paper, mostly just to distract a mind that had become more of an enemy than a friend. She had perused listlessly, seeing nothing that could make her feel any differently about her lot in life, and finally she had ambled back to the portion of the paper where the adverts were placed. She had thought that perhaps she might find some lonely little animal in need of a new home, something to liven her up again and pull her out of her gloomy disposition. What she had found instead was a very simple, very compelling advertisement placed by a man looking for a mail order bride who was willing to move out West and live with him on his ranch. The first thought she had was that it was crazy, but the second thought she had was that she might very well be the perfect candidate for this drastic move. Because when she read the advert more closely, she saw that one of the requirements was that the woman who came to be his bride must be able and willing to take care of children. She wasn’t at all sure what that meant and when she had written William to tell him of her love of working with children, as well as to inquire as to the exact nature of his need, all she had received in return was the message that it would be easier to explain in person. That and also a train ticket. Part of her, the little voice inside of her head that was all reason and practical planning, had screamed at her to throw that ticket out and go about her business. She would find something else, somebody else. It would not happen overnight and it might never happen exactly the way she wanted it to, but that didn’t mean she had to flee to another region entirely. But what if her life was waiting for her out there in the west? What if her real, true life was with whatever lay at the end of that train ride? Could she throw that ticket away without knowing for sure?
In the end, it had not been her voice of reason that had won out. That much was clear by her presence on this train and in a place that looked as foreign to her as another planet might. And as it turned out, she did not need to think on matters and people nearly so deeply as she had expected to and so when she awoke, not realizing she had fallen asleep in the first place, she was pulling into her destination.
“So much brown,” she said to herself in one long exhale, not caring if the passengers around her heard her or not. There was so much space in this new place! She was used to buildings crammed one after the other so that they were practically on top of each other and the people were practically on top of each other as well. She could already see as she struggled off of the train car and out into a sunny midmorning that she had not packed appropriately for the lifestyle this land would necessitate. When she looked up into the sky, it was so vast, so clear, that she felt as if it could easily swallow her up. She stood that way, in absolute awe, and probably would have done so until the day turned into night had she not heard someone calling out to her. At least she thought it was to her, and so she snapped back to what constituted as her new reality and squinted in the shockingly bright sun.
“Miss? You’re looking a little bit lost right now. Could it be that you’re looking for some place?”
“It might be” she said uncertainly, not sure as to whether this person was someone she should be talking to or not. That was the problem with a move like this. She didn’t know anything of her surroundings, and that included the people.
“Could it be that you’re looking for passage to the Ryan Ranch? Because if that’s the case then I’m the one you want to see.”
“Oh! Oh my, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. Are you Mr. Ryan? Mr. William Ryan?”
“Lord, no! No, I’m not the boss. I’m just one of the hired hands, sent to bring you home. You don’t mind it, do you? I know I’m not the kind of welcome wagon a proper little lady like yourself would choose to be greeted by, but this is about as fancy as I get.”
“Please,” she said warmly, nodding gratefully as the now blushing man hurried to move her things into the back of his wagon before getting back in and offering her a hand up. “Don’t you worry a thing about that. I was a school teacher before I came here. I’ve had all sorts of welcomes to places and not many of them were fancy. I prefer interesting. And kind, which you seem to be. So let’s not have another word about it, shall we?”
He nodded, his whole face still a deep, flushed red, and started the horses moving. Caroline had to grip the side of the wagon so as to avoid being thrown backwards, but she wasn’t bothered by that, either. She was afraid, that much was true, but she was also so incredibly excited. There was only a little part of her that wondered why in the world a man who was supposed to marry her would send his ranch hand to pick her up instead of coming himself. Just what exactly had she gotten herself into here?
*
“Lovely! Simply lovely!”
Caroline had spent the entire, not inconsiderable, ride to the ranch preparing herself to come up with impromptu compliments about the Ryan Ranch regardless of what she actually thought. Not that she was a liar, not at all, but she knew that it was important to make a good impression and it seemed like doing so with the home she was to call her own was of particular importance. All of that time worrying about what she would say and one look at the sprawling property showed her that she needn’t have worried at all. It really was the loveliest place she had ever seen, at least from the outside. The large home was built entirely out of wood that had been whitewashed and was peppered with a healthy helping of windows. There were flowers planted under many of those windows and cats roaming in many of those flower beds. It looked like a place that was entirely alive and it made Caroline’s blood sing with excitement and expectation. She took a deep, satisfied breath and it was the cleanest air she had ever breathed. She shut her eyes and turned her face up to the sun, trying desperately to soak in the promises this place could hold for her. True, she hadn’t yet met the man who was to be her husband and she had all sorts of nerves over what he would think of her and whether or not they would be properly suited to one another, but she could still feel the depth of possibility and it was truly invigorating. All of that already coursing through her veins, and then she hear
d the laughter of several children. It sounded like it was moving towards her rapidly and she wondered whether the pressure of her move had gotten to her nerves. Or perhaps she was still asleep and this entire experience was a dream. Perhaps she was still on the train and she hadn't yet seen the Ryan Ranch at all. But then she felt tiny little arms wrapping themselves around her knees and then a slight push as another small body collided with the first. From the sound and feel of it, there were three children now crowding around her thick skirts and it was with the knowledge that this had to be too good to be true that she opened her eyes, wanting to see and not to see all at the same time.
“Come on now, children, let’s not crowd her before she’s even had a chance to get a feel for the place. We don’t want her to turn around and catch the first train out of here, now do we? And besides, didn’t Mr. Ryan say for you three to stay inside? I don’t think he’d be too pleased to have had you disobey him this way. That’s no kind of first impression to give the lady.”
“But Bo, we want to meet the lady too! She’s to be our new mother, right? So then we should get to meet her! She’s the most important for us to meet.”
“Woah there, Celia, let’s take it one step at a time. Run along inside and watch after your brothers.”
Celia, who looked like she was probably nine or ten years old, looked for a moment like she was going to argue her point further, but after glancing at Caroline she seemed to think better of it. She took the two little blonde boys, twins who Caroline would have guessed were around the age of five, by the hands and began to lead them back towards the house. Caroline wanted to cry out for them to stop, for them to stay so that they could get to know each other a little better. There might have been women who were frightened off by seeing three children and learning with so little preparation that they were to play mother to them, but Caroline could not have been happier. It was everything she had dreamed of. It was proof, she told herself, proof that this had indeed been the correct decision. She hardly knew this place at all but she could already feel it taking root in her heart.