Mail Order Promises
Page 24
Tremont Street was a narrow lane lined with three-story row houses. Groups of young children ran about playing ball, skipping rope, laughing and having a fine time, until they were called in for supper or for chores. Elinor had once called Tremont Street home, too—her old house stood just across the street, with a nearly identical layout to Addie’s. The new owners hadn’t kept up the old house as well as her mother had, and it looked both familiar and strange at the same time.
They’d grown up together since the girls were five years old, when the McGilvray clan moved in across the street. Adelaide McGilvray and Elinor looked so much alike that people who didn’t know them often mistook Elinor for yet another McGilvray daughter. Addie and Elinor would giggle, and never corrected the mistake, because they both talked often of how much they wished they were sisters. When they played “house”, they would often pretend they were sisters, who had grown up and married handsome twin brothers. “Someday,” Elinor remembered saying, “we’ll have houses right next door to each other, and we’ll have babies at the same time, so they can be best friends too. And they’ll look alike, and they’ll tell everyone that they’re sisters, just like we do!” Both girls had giggled at the thought.
They had been inseparable. Now a gulf existed between them—a chasm forged by the inheritance money and her parents’ greedy ambitions. Elinor had been too absent from Addie’s life to see her increasing burden of responsibility, and Addie had never been privy to Elinor’s home life—even when they were neighbors, Elinor’s mother hadn’t cared for “that little Irish girl across the way,” and didn’t want Elinor to bring her in the house. Though they tried to maintain a friendship after Elinor moved, sometimes it felt like they were strangers, instead of the “almost-sisters” they used to be.
Elinor hated the life she’d been forced to live for the last two years. She shivered, thinking of all the times she’d been taunted by the rich girls at her school, or when she’d overheard adults tittering behind her parents’ backs at the Boston Art Club events. The Travers family had never really been accepted in the Back Bay, but Mama didn’t care. They had “arrived”—in her mind—and that was all that had mattered.
Once Papa was a partial owner in the shirtwaist factory he once helped manage—and where Elinor had begged him to get Addie a job as a seamstress—he had made many business contacts at the Club, and had somehow finagled the son of a textile mill owner to marry his only daughter, much to his own delight. Papa had missed his calling—he would have been a brilliant salesman.
In two years, Mama and Papa had taken away her home, her school friends, and her very best friend in the world…and then they had taken away Elinor’s dream of marrying a man who truly loved her, and living her life on a picturesque little farm.
Elinor laid her head against Addie’s bedroom window. The glass felt almost cool on her forehead, a welcome relief in the sweltering unfinished attic room that the McGilvrays considered to be a bedroom. Mama had finished and decorated their own upper story for her tenth birthday.
“What’s really bothering you?” Addie’s voice broke into Elinor’s thoughts. “You’re far more out of sorts than usual.”
Elinor sighed, then looked down at the letter still clutched in her hands…the letter that said all the things she had been longing to hear someday from a man who loved her more than life itself. The letter that said things that she now knew she would never hear from any man. Ever.
Because the letter hadn’t been written to her.
It was written to Addie.
“I…I suppose I’m just jealous. Dreadfully jealous. Insanely jealous.” She laughed, turning to hold the letter aloft. “He has horses. And chickens. And sheep. Oh, how I adore sheep!”
“You’ve never even seen a real sheep.”
“I don’t care! And he has his own farm—acres and acres of land. I’ve always wanted to live on a farm!”
“I know.” Addie’s voice was soft with sympathy
Elinor recalled the times she had pestered Addie with tales of the perfect little country farm she hoped to have someday in Roslindale, and begged Addie to consider a country life as well. Now Addie was getting the life she had never shown an interest in. And she’d be left behind. Mrs. Walter Newell.
Her stomach flopped, threatening to revolt.
Elinor paced, skimming through the letter’s contents, each word making her heart soar—then dash like an injured bird to the ground. “He wants to take you for walks in his hay fields,” she recounted with bitterness, “and watch the sunset with you. He told you that you looked beautiful in the miniature that you sent him, and he can’t wait to hold your hand in his. This should be my life.” Elinor shook the letter in the air. “It’s the life I dreamed of. And I’m glad you’re getting it—I truly am. I’m so happy that you won’t be stuck as a spinster, or working in a factory until you catch the eye of some boy who barely earns more than you do. I’m glad that you won’t be stuck here, and that you can board a train and have an incredible cross-country adventure and spend the rest of your life with a man who loves you…who knows you, and loves you for who you really are. Truly, am so very happy for you…”
“But…?”
“But it was supposed to happen to me!” she cried, flailing her hands upward in exasperation. “You never cared about animals, and you’re fond of the city, with your library books and your big family Christmases, and…”
“I know. I understand.” Addie stepped closer and took Elinor in her arms. “You’re right, it doesn’t seem fair.”
Elinor laid her head on her best friend’s shoulder and sobbed, hugging her close. She knew she should be thinking about how lucky she was to have a friend like Addie…but all she could think about was Gideon Cartwright’s letter, still clutched in her hand.
And how she didn’t want to let it go.
***
Mail Order Runaway, Book 3 in the Montana Mail Order Brides series, is available NOW!
About the Author:
Julianna Blake is a historical romance author who was born in the wrong century, and enjoys creating worlds where she (and her readers) can walk around in a lovely silk day dress and feel right at home!
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