A Bride for Clark

by P. Creeden

Her brother went back to sweeping the floor without raising an eyebrow toward her again. He offered her no help or solace. With a deep breath, she turned about and stared up the stairs again.

  “Catherine! Why must you torture me so. Just let me die in peace. I cannot see any point in eating at all.” Her father’s voice carried into the narrow stairwell.

  Her mother spoke between her clenched teeth. “Why did you come back then? Was it just to torture me until you die? You need to get yourself together before your son sees you like this. What kind of example are you setting for him? Can you not just live peaceably until you go and leave Justin with a good memory of his father?”

  Winnie paused in the stairwell. Her mother never really spoke back to her father in that way, and Winnie held her breath, waiting for the response. He’d never been the same since he lost his leg in the war and come home. And mother had tirelessly cared for him without letting Winnie or anyone else do it for her. In the room, her father exhaled hard. “Fine. Fine, Mother. You win. I will eat and drink and live for the sake of my son. But I will not enjoy this life, and you may come to regret asking me to live.”

  That was the most positive her father had been since his return. Maybe he was in a better mood this afternoon than normal. Winnie hoped so as she shuffled on the steps to announce her arrival and then came around the corner of the enclosed stairwell. “Mother! Father! I have some news.”

  Both of them sat at the dining room table, bowls of porridge in front of them. They stopped and set down their spoons upon Winnie’s arrival and announcement. Both of her parents fixed their gazes upon her and Winnie took a deep breath before speaking.

  Her mother’s brow lifted. “What is it?”

  “Mother, we sold out of hot cross buns again today, and I made twice as many as normal. Tomorrow we’ll have to make three times as much, I know it.”

  “Excellent, Dear,” her mother said, her eyes growing bored. “And you’ve taught your brother the recipe so that he can make it once the matchmaker finds you a suitable husband?”

  This wasn’t going the way that Winnie hoped. She swallowed hard. “Actually, since my recipe is going so well, I was hoping that perhaps I could stay on. If we keep selling and growing like this, the bakery is making better than a tidy profit. I could keep helping and—”

  “Out of the question,” her mother said, lips growing thin. “We need to make room for the wife that Justin is going to marry. We don’t have enough room in this house for a spinster daughter as well.”

  “But Justin is only fifteen. He won’t be marrying for years yet.”

  “He turns sixteen in January and will be wed in the spring. It’s already been arranged with the miller’s daughter. It’s a perfect union.” A small smile played on her mother’s lips as she lifted a spoon toward her father to feed him. “And besides, they are ‘Christmas buns.’ That means this fashion will be over after the month is out. It’s a temporary boon.”

  Finally, father took the spoon from Mother’s hand. “I’ll do it myself.”

  Both mother and Winnie blinked at him. It was the first time he’d taken initiative to do it himself. The small smile that had been on Mother’s lips became a full-on grin for the first time in over a year. She peered back up at Winnie again. “Is that all you’ve come to us for?”

  Tears stung the backs of Winnie’s eyes, but she swallowed them back. When she tried to speak again, she couldn’t get any words past her tightened throat. So instead, she just stepped forward and placed the purple note beside her mother’s elbow.

  “What’s this?” her mother said before resuming her frown and picking up the paper. Her eyes scanned the document and both brows lifted toward her hairline. Her eyes grew wide as she set the note down and met eyes with Winnie. “A gentleman of means with a ranch in Oklahoma? My goodness, Winnie, this is perfect.”

  “What are you going on about?” Father asked around a mouthful of porridge. He swallowed, wiped his mouth, and then took the piece of paper from Mother as she offered it to him. “A sufficient dowry? How much will that be?”

  Winnie continued to stand, her hand at her mouth as she chewed on a thumbnail. Her father eyed her mother as her mother shrugged and said, “Because of the sale of the hot cross buns, we have a bit of surplus. Let’s see how much we can afford to send with her as a dowry and then we’ll do it.”

  Everything was happening too fast. As Winnie’s mother stood, Winnie stepped forward. “Wait. Don’t I get a say in this? What if I don’t want to move to Oklahoma? I don’t know how to live as a rancher’s wife. I don’t even know how to live as a wife!”

  Her mother’s lips thinned as she glared at Winnie. “You’ll learn. And it doesn’t matter if it’s Oklahoma or China! You’ll go where the matchmaker says there’s a suitable match. I don’t want to hear anymore about this. Right now I need to count the till and decide how much we can part with. We’ll be sending a message to the Ms. Buckland within the hour and sending you on the first train out west, as far as I’m concerned. After all, she says that time is of the essence.”

  Chapter 5

  The moment Clark got the telegram back from the matchmaker, he rushed to the inn in Tulsa to find his uncle’s lawyer. He found the two lawyers sitting in the dining room of the inn as they sat down to have tea. The moment he saw them, he headed for their table. “Mr. Sykes! I’m happy to have found you. Could I talk to you for a moment?”

  With a glance at his pocket watch, the gentleman nodded and gestured to the chair across from the one where he was preparing to sit. “If you don’t mind joining us for tea? I need to get something to eat promptly at four-thirty, or I am not quite myself.”

  Clark pulled back the chair. “I can do that. I don’t mind a cup of tea.”

  “Excellent,” Mr. Sykes said as the three of them had a seat and the servant brought them cups of tea and a plate of sandwiches. The lawyer gestured for Clark to wait a moment while he took a sip of tea. After taking a few bites of sandwich and sipping more of his tea, the lawyer finally said, “There now. What is your decision, Mr. Masterson?”

  After setting down the yellow telegram on the table, Clark said, “I’ve been in touch with a matchmaker in Maryland. She has set me up to marry a woman of reasonable means who will be bringing with her a dowry sufficient to cover the down payment on the property. She should arrive in a little more than a week—two weeks, at most.”

  The man’s brow furrowed as he leaned forward and took the yellow piece of paper from the table and read it himself. Then he nodded, but in a non-committal way. After releasing a sigh and sitting back again, the man put the piece of paper back on the table. “I’m afraid that won’t be quite good enough. Your uncle has a buyer who is ready to take possession of the property right away for fifty percent more than you are paying for it. If he tells that buyer that he will not be selling the property and waits the two weeks for you and this woman to meet and then you decide to back out, it will put the elder Masterson in a difficult position. He will be stuck with a property he doesn’t want with a buyer whose feelings about the sale have soured. Mr. Cahill is likely to either wash his hands of the whole deal or dicker Mr. Masterson down to a price below that which Mr. Cahill is willing to spend at present.”

  Clark blinked. “But this is the best I can do. How can you say it’s not good enough? Am I not promising to get married and making sure the money is available to my uncle within two weeks’ time? Is my word not good enough?”

  Another sigh escaped the lawyer. “It is not about your word, young Masterson. I am only pointing out the flaws in your plan. After all, I’m here as your uncle’s proxy, and therefore must look out for his every interest.” Then the lawyer’s brows rose. “Actually, that’s the solution! Amazing that I came up with it myself.”

  Stomach twisting, Clark narrowed his eyes at the lawyer, not liking the way the man was suddenly excited. “What solution?”

  “You and this Miss Winifred Holt will be married by proxy. You can both do tha
t tomorrow. I will witness your marriage here, and the matchmaker can witness the marriage in Baltimore. That way there is better than a promise for the two of you to be joined in matrimony. And no matter what happens, the family has forfeited the dowry and the woman who arrives on the train in a week or two will already be your wife. No need for promises or anyone’s word. If you’d agree, I can work with your man Harp and get things set up for tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” Clark swallowed at the lump in his throat. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Things had already been moving too fast for him, but he’d felt as though he’d had two weeks to prepare himself for meeting this woman before he’d have to marry her. Now he was going to be married before the two of them ever met? Sweat beaded on his brow though it was by no means hot in the dining area of the hotel.

  “Yes,” Mr. Sykes said, lifting a brow. “Do you agree to those terms?”

  Clark’s throat had become dry and tight. What if he agreed and Miss Holt balked at needing to get married before she even left Baltimore? What if everything fell apart because of his uncle’s haste? Would he really be losing everything to the hands of a man like Cahill? Everything the lawyer had said was convincing so far. Maybe he could make these arrangements and somehow be charming enough by telegram to get the Holt family to agree. All Clark had to do was say yes and agree to the terms himself. But not one word would make it past his throat. He picked up his tea and took a sip. It had cooled quite a bit while they’d been talking. He swallowed it, but still didn’t feel able to speak. So, he nodded instead.

  The lawyer tilted his head. “I need to hear at least an oral agreement to the terms before I get started with setting this up. I need to contact the justice of the peace, the matchmaker through Mr. Harp, and then wait for word back from the family and then make sure that there is a notary present at both locations to note the timestamp on both documents simultaneously so there is no question about whether the marriage is legitimate. Then we need the price of the dowry guaranteed.”

  The strength and fight that Clark had in him drained from his body as though he were a basin of water with a hole in it. He nodded again. “I agree to the terms. I will marry Miss Winifred Holt by proxy tomorrow, if she agrees to it, and permit you and Mr. Joe Harp to make arrangements on my behalf.”

  A smile spread across the man’s lips as he nodded and clapped his hands. “Excellent.”

  “But I don’t understand why I have to do this now,” Winnie said in a panic as her mother dressed her in the blue and white dress her mother had been saving since her own wedding day. “Can’t I just take these things with me and get married in Oklahoma when I get there?”

  Everything in the room seemed to spin. Overwhelming fear petrified her so that she stood stiffly on the stool while her mother pinned back portions of the dress so that it fit better. “No, dear. The gentleman needs a real and true commitment now. You should be happy about this. It doesn’t matter how plain or simple you are if he’s willing to marry you without meeting you. It’s a blessing, really—two-fold! I get to witness my only daughter’s wedding this way as well. I couldn’t be happier about it, actually. Now take your hands from your mouth so I can check the sleeves.”

  Winnie did as her mother said and pulled her fingernails from her teeth. If she thought of it that way, maybe her mother was right. What if she’d gotten all the way to Tulsa only to find out that Mr. Masterson didn’t want her because she was too plain or too simple? At least this way, it was already done and there’d be no turning back. That would be better for her, right? Still, Winnie couldn’t stop the quivering in her gut. She didn’t like the idea of not having time to get used to a person before marrying him. Only just a day ago she’d been happily a spinster with hot cross buns to sell— but by the end of this day, she’d be someone’s wife. It made her shiver again. Then her mother stabbed her with a pin. “Ow!”

  “Well, I keep telling you to sit still, child.” After putting in the last two pins, Mother leaned back and stood there, looking at Winnie.

  Under her mother’s scrutiny, Winnie grew nervous and fisted her hands to keep from chewing her nails in front of the elder Holt.

  “I have one more thing for you,” Mother said, holding up a finger. Then she turned about and opened a small box that she had in the top drawer of her chest of drawers. Once her mother opened it, she pulled out a long chain of pearls and approached Winnie again. “You can wear your grandmother’s pearls today. I hired a man to take a photograph of you as well. I’ll keep the photo with me and you can take the pearls with you.”

  The sudden emotion in her mother’s face surprised Winnie. Her mother was not an emotional person, and never showed any weakness. There were often times when Winnie wondered if her mother ever loved her at all, but as her mother swiped at her eyes, Winnie finally knew that her mother did love her, even if she didn’t show it the same way as she showed it to Justin. Winnie pushed past the lump in her throat to say, “Thank you.”

  After wrapping the pearls around Winnie’s neck four times to make it short enough to look handsome with the dress, the two of them went downstairs to the bakery, where her brother and father sat in chairs with the matchmaker. They’d closed the bakery right after they’d sold out of Christmas buns and when Ms. Buckland had come, she’d brought with her a notary and the justice of the peace. Nervously, Winnie swallowed against her dry throat. The notary noted the time on his pocket watch before lifting his head. “We have a few moments before we can begin the ceremony.”

  “Good,” her mother said, nodding to the man with a camera set up. “We’ll take two daguerreotype photographs. One as a family and then one with Winnie, alone, if you please.”

  The photographer nodded and then set his camera up in position. Winnie stood beside her father’s chair and her mother stood beside her brother. While the photographer set up his camera, Father set a hand on the one Winnie had set on his shoulder. She peered down at him while he looked up at her with a loving glance. “I’ll miss you, Winnie,” was all that he said.

  Tears stung the backs of her eyes as the photographer said, “Ready? Hold still!”

  She swallowed it all back and attempted to stand perfectly still and school her expression for the photograph. Why had she spent so many years wondering if her parents had loved her at all? Why had she always looked at her parents’ relationship with her brother and felt the twinges of envy? She knew that she and her brother were different. She knew that her parents always provided for her and never neglected her needs, but she wished that they’d been more affectionate as a family. As she looked forward to what it might be like with her new husband in Tulsa, she only hoped that the same sort of distance that she had between herself and members of her family might disappear. Maybe she’d find the love and acceptance that she’d always longed for. But would she really find that with a man she was marrying before she even left Baltimore? A man she’d never laid eyes upon much less met. How could that even be possible? Could she dare to hope for such a thing?

  “That’s it,” the photographer said and then began setting up for the second photograph. “Give me just a moment. If you’ll all step aside and leave the bride alone.”

  Justin helped Father to stand and walk away several feet before settling back into the chair that their mother had moved for him. Winnie’s family stood to the side with the matchmaker and the two officials who would witness the proxy wedding. Her brother planned to stand in for the groom. But right now, Winnie stood on display for everyone. She could feel their eyes upon her as they measured her. Would they find her wanting? Most likely. She fought herself to keep her hands still and clasped in front of her.

  “Ready? Hold still!” the photographer called out again.

  As Winnie stood there, she’d never felt quite so alone as she did in that moment. Her family, which she had felt a bit of warmth from for the first time in over fifteen years had left her, and soon after the ceremony was over, she’d be leaving them. She’d travel fo
r the first time in her life alone, as well. She drew in a breath and held it for a long moment before releasing it again. And then she prayed that God would help her to be strong and keep her company in her time of need. And right away, she felt just a little bit better.

  Chapter 6

  With satisfaction, Clark received the promissory note from Western Union so that he could get the dowry from the bank and then use it to make the down payment. Once he received the money, he took it directly to the hotel, where he met with the lawyers in the lobby. “Here is the down payment in full and I believe I have now met the terms of my uncle’s sale of property. Have we finished our business, gentlemen?’

  Even though Clark was elated that he’d avoided the loss of his property to his neighbor Mr. Cahill, he was still quite angry that he’d needed to make so many accommodations in such a short time to do it.

  Mr. Sykes nodded as he took the money and placed it in his briefcase. Then he offered Clark a document. “Excellent. This is a copy of the deed with a lien attached to it. We trust that you will send the remainder in the spring after the cattle are sold, and then we will send you the full deed without a lien. And your uncle would like to hear word once you have a bundle of joy on the way.”

  Heat rushed to Clark’s cheeks as his hands fisted. No one had said that that was part of this deal, but what was to stop his uncle from deciding to sell the eastern land tract if Clark didn’t do what he commanded again, next time. Slowly, Clark let out a breath and consciously relaxed his fists. He consoled himself with the fact that he now owned nearly three-quarters of the property that he’d been using to run his ranch. The eastern tract was the smallest of the three at only thirty acres. If he had to do without it, he could. Though he’d rather not, he wouldn’t let anyone put him through this kind of wringer again.

  When he gave them no answer, Mr. Sykes tipped his hat and started for the door. “Good day then, Mr. Masterson. We have a train to catch.”