Still waiting, she reread an article about two skeletons discovered recently in Idyll Wood. After finding the advertisement last week for help needed at this hotel, she scanned back issues of any papers available to her for any information about the town. She found very little, except for another article about the arrest of a woman in connection with those skeletons.
Periodically, as she waited, she glanced at the man behind the front desk. He seemed to spend his time reading a newspaper. She wished she had the courage to ask him for it when he finished. Who knew what she might find in it to add to her collection of clippings.
This time when she looked the man was speaking to an older gentleman wearing a dark suit. He pointed her way and the man’s eyes locked on her before walking in her direction.
Once the man was in front of her, Carlene jumped to her feet. The man was tall, making it difficult for her to look into his face. Standing at barely five feet, Carlene often had a difficult time looking men in the eye. They didn’t intimidate her; they were just too tall for her.
“Silas says you’ve come in response to my advertisement for maids.” He paused as if waiting for her to answer a question even though he hadn’t asked one.
She bobbed her head. “Yes sir.”
“And you did not bother to send a letter of inquiry as directed in the advertisement?” His tone censured her. She needed the job and wouldn’t let herself be intimidated.
“No sir. I needed a job quickly. The employment arranged for me by the nuns fell through.” She didn’t know how much information he wanted and didn’t want to prattle on so she shut her mouth after saying that and waited.
“Nuns? Are you an orphan, by chance?” An odd, almost satisfied, tone in his voice made Carlene crane her neck to look into his face.
He wore a calculating expression. “Glad to be of help to you. Of course you can work for me.”
“Should you like to see my letter of introduction from St. Rose’s Orphans Asylum?” She took the reticule from around her wrist and made as if to open it before he stopped her.
“Not necessary. I can see by looking at you that you have all of the qualifications I am looking for in a new girl.” The leer he directed at her sent a shiver of fear down her back.
This is a reputable hotel and Sister Magdalena told me it would be a good job for me.
She reassured herself with the thought and followed the man who had yet to introduce himself. Come to think of it, he hadn’t even asked her for her name. How odd to be hired by someone who didn’t even know her name.
Later that evening she paused outside of the office door. Earlier the man behind the desk, Silas, directed her to a room at the very top of the hotel and left her there to settle in. A meal was even sent up to her. For all of her misgivings after speaking with the owner, she was starting to feel hopeful again. She had a room to herself, a job, and a full belly.
All she needed to be content was something to read before settling in to sleep. That’s when Silas’s newspaper came to mind. Deciding to see if it was still behind the front desk, she crept down the backstairs.
It was a relief for her to see that no one was behind the counter. She was able to look around. Not seeing the paper, she looked around the lobby, hoping someone had left a paper on one of the small tables that sat by the sofas. It was then that she spotted a folded newspaper left on the chair next to the office.
Hearing voices behind the door, she moved to quickly pick up the paper and leave. When she made out the words “the new girl” she couldn’t help it. She stopped to listen.
“…weren’t planning to make another trip to Hurley this month. LeClaire won’t be down for at least two weeks. Since that trouble with the Fuller girl, we can’t leave her with Shirleen. You’ll need to take her up to Hurley tomorrow.”
The response was given so quietly that Carlene couldn’t make out the words. What she did hear next chilled her. “Don’t leave her without getting the money from LeClaire. He’s sure to buy her, but might try to cheat you because we didn’t arrange the details ahead of time. I wish she had written like the others did so I could have the brothel owner here.”
Carlene cowered into the darkness of the corner and pulled the plant directly in front of her body as she recognized footfalls heading close to her location. A maid knocked on the door and called Mr. Halderson’s name. Carlene curled into a ball and hoped she was hidden well enough to go unnoticed.
“Sir, are you wanting me to take a uniform to the new girl’s room?” the maid asked.
“No, I’ve decided she won’t be staying with us Gretchen. If you’ve finished your jobs you may go to bed now.”
She wasn’t staying? So the two men had been talking about her. Tomorrow she would be in trouble if she stayed here. What was she going to do?
Since she read every newspaper she could get her hands on, she knew about the white slavery rings in Northern Wisconsin and Michigan. She’d read many editorials criticizing Governor Rusk for refusing become involved with the problem. Reading about it was very different from being trapped in it like she was now.
Sister Mary Boniface had spoken to her about this. “You answer an advertisement at the risk of your virtue,” she’d warned. That was why Carlene had asked Sister Magdalena to look through the job notices in each paper with her. She wanted wise counsel on what would be safe.
Both women knew that white slavers used the promise of theater jobs to lure young women. That had been reported in more than one paper. Carlene had never heard of advertising for maids to entrap young women. What a pickle she was in now!
The lobby was quiet again and Carlene decided it was time to leave the camouflage of the potted plant. Poking her head out to be sure no one was there, she moved first to the chair to get the paper.
Drats! The man took it with him. She needed it to look at the job notices it was sure to have.
She sneaked back up the rear stairs and to her room. Moving swiftly, she filled her carpet bag with her few possessions, things she unpacked only a few hours ago. Then she opened her door and looked out into the hall. Seeing it empty she went down the stairs and into the kitchen. She was sure there would be a back door to the hotel in that room.
Slipping into the room, she stopped. A maid stood directly in front of her. The girl looked at Carlene holding her bag and gave her a pitying glance. She nodded her head and pointed at the door.
Breathing a sigh of relief, she exited into a small garden in the back of the hotel. Keeping close to the building, she inched along in the shadows until she was on the boardwalk that ran along the street.
She needed a disguise and a ride to the lumber camp.
Manny Strong paused with his hand on the door of the biergarten. The tavern was his second home and the drunks inside were his friends.
This had to stop.
His hand shook. Oh how he wanted to pull that handle and go in. Behind him a rough voice egged him on.
“Go on and open that door. We’re wantin’ to go in!”
Manny turned. By the light from the tavern’s windows, he saw three men waiting behind him. All were dressed in dirty work clothes and looked tired and angry with him.
Mumbling a quiet sorry, he stepped away from the door. The one who spoke shook his head and gave Manny a shove as he passed him. The other two chuckled at that shove and followed the man into the tavern.
He didn’t want men like that to be the only friends he had. He wanted to escape.
Returning home, Manny hoped to find refuge there. Idyll Wood’s largest house, the Strong family’s home, sat not far from the bank his father owned. As Manny approached, he noted the windows of his father’s study were lit. Since his mother’s death, the parlor rarely was used so light shown from no other windows of the large house except that one.
The only other person who lived in the house, aside from the housekeeper and the cook, was his brother Ram. He was in jail though, so his room was dark as well. Manny was still ashamed that he hadn�
�t gone to the sheriff when he realized Ram had kidnapped Zelly Fuller.
My own friend’s girl and I didn’t snitch on my brother. Well, Manny was ashamed about a lot of things so what was one more.
After passing through a garden archway, he walked carefully on the path that led through Cook’s kitchen garden. Then he let himself in by the back door. In the kitchen, he breathed in the aroma of fresh bread. Still he didn’t stop to eat.
He didn’t have much appetite for food lately. All he had was an incredible thirst he fought continually against to be free. He wanted to “man up” like his father often told him. It was hard, however, to be more than you believed yourself to be.
Manny wanted his father to see he had chosen to come home rather than spend the evening drinking. He went to the partially opened study door and raised his hand to knock. Behind the portal, his father said Manny’s name, making him freeze.
“…and all they’ve left me with is Manny. Dear God, but I wish he’d live up to his name and be a man. I don’t believe someone like me could produce such a sniveling weakling for a son. Do you see my reasoning Amos?
So his father’s attorney, Amos Ledbetter, was in the study also. That made sense, considering the legal help Ram needed.
It hurt to hear his father say that to someone outside the family. Manny’s father, Ezekiel Strong, snarled similar things to Manny’s face. For some reason, Manny had believed that his father wouldn’t say them to an outsider, though.
“…no one to leave the bank too without him. What can you do to get Ephraim out of that jail? I do pay the sheriff’s…”
Manny walked away silently. He was a clerk in his father’s bank, nothing more.
There had to be a reason his father disliked him and there had to be a way to impress his father. He had to show his father that he was his son.
Grabbing a lamp, Manny lit it with the matches kept in the drawer of the hall table. Taking the stairs two at a time, he ran to his room. He grabbed the saddle bags that had been a birthday present from his father last year.
Maybe he was hoping I’d use them and move on.
Determinedly Manny stuffed a few changes his most durable work clothes into the saddle bags. He’d need warm weather items too so he added gloves, hat, and a muffler. Grabbing up his winter coat along with the saddle bags he left the room.
At the bottom of the stairs Manny thought about telling his father that he was leaving. Standing in the dim light of the oil lamp, he heard footfalls approach from the direction of the study. Amos Ledbetter was letting himself out the front door.
When Amos neared the door, Manny spoke quietly and approached him from his spot near the stairs. “Mr. Ledbetter, I’m leaving town. Please, let my father know, but wait until tomorrow.”
Amos didn’t say anything. In the weak light, Manny thought he saw pity in Mr. Ledbetter’s expression. He didn’t want pity. He just wanted to leave behind his father and to outrun this god-awful thirst that road him.
Setting the lamp down on a table by the door, Manny shifted his items. He could carry them more securely now that he wasn’t holding the light. Without saying anything else to Amos, he went out the door and headed to the livery.
No one was around to saddles Brownie. Manny rested his saddle bags against the outside of the stall and grabbed the tack himself. As he was tightening the girth, a voice from a dark corner startled him.
A short dark-haired boy suddenly appeared out of the darkness of the stable and approached Brownie’s stall. “Going north mister?”
Having no idea where he was going, Manny decided to agree. There was a desperate edge to the boy’s voice that made Manny want to help him. “Sure am. Want a ride?”
“I’d…” The boy’s voice started out high, like a girl. Then the kid broke off what he was saying.
Must be going through that time in a boy’s life.
The kid started again, forcing his voice to sound deeper. “I’d appreciate it mister. “Got to get up there real soon.”
Manny saw this as his own opportunity for a new life and a new name. Might as well have a name that reminded him of his goal. “Call me Manly, kid. Where’re we headed?”
About Marisa
Marisa Masterson and her husband of thirty years reside in Saginaw, Michigan. They have two grown children, one son-in-law, and two old and lazy dogs.
She is a retired high school English teacher and oversaw a high school writing center in partnership with the local university. In addition, she is a National Writing Project fellow.
Focusing on her home state of Wisconsin, she writes sweet historical romance. Growing up, she loved hearing stories about her family pioneering in that state. Those stories, in part, are what inspired her to begin writing.
Find her on Facebook, in the Chat Sip and Read Community or on her Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/marisa.masterson.33.
If you like this book, please take a few minutes to leave a review now! Marisa appreciates it and you may help a reader find their next favorite book!
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Charlene Raddon for the beautiful cover. You can see more like it at https://silversagebookcovers.com.
Also, I owe a huge thank you to Christine Sterling. Without Christine Sterling’s Courageous Author Program, I would have never written a book, much less published one.
Hart’s Longing
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are all products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblances to persons, organizations, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
The book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. All rights are reserved with the exceptions of quotes used in reviews. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage system without express written permission from the author.
Hart’s Longing ©2019Marisa Masterson
Cover Design by Charlene Raddon, www.silversagebookcovers.com
Editing by: Amy Petrowich
Formatting by: Cordially Chris Author Services
Hart's Longing (Secrets In Idyll Wood Book 1) Page 10