by Rose Jenster
On Monday evening he took her for a buggy ride out into the countryside so she could enjoy a better view of the river and mountains. When she admired the shiny new buggy, he admitted he had ordered it with a view to taking her driving. Flattered, she asked boldly if she could drive it. Henry passed her the lines and closed his hands over hers to guide her. The horses, a spry pair of bays, sprang forward; he helped her draw back on the reins to slow them, and soon they were trotting along smoothly.
The wind made her cheeks rosy while her smile made her eyes sparkle. Henry had all he could do to keep from kissing her right there in the buggy. If driving the bays made her happy, he’d see to it that she got to drive that buggy every day until the snow flew. He had brought her his copy of Twain’s Roughing It to read in hopes that they could talk of it soon. It rested between them on the buggy seat, and he began to resent the book for the space it occupied.
He talked of his business, of how many buckboards he had rented out in the last week and the one he had sold for a profit. He also spoke of the Jane Austen novel he was reading, and found that she shared his low opinion of Marianne Dashwood as an impetuous and thoughtless creature. It was strangely thrilling to talk to someone of his books and business, and have her answer with interest and share ideas. He kissed her hand again. It was the only liberty he would allow himself, and he was taking full advantage of it.
“Why do you do that?” she asked.
“What?”
“Kiss my hand. It’s very nice, but I never thought I was the sort of girl who got her hand kissed…it’s like something out of a play.”
“I don’t mean it to be a theatrical gesture. To tell you the truth, it’s because it’s the closest thing I can have to a proper kiss until you’re my wife,” he said, looking at her hand as though he were studying it.
“No, it isn’t,” she said, shocked by her own courage.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I’ve come two thousand miles with all my books and tablecloths and I’d like a proper kiss now, please,” she said with a giggle.
Henry looped the reins on the dash to stop the horse and turned on the seat to face her. He looked at her in disbelief for a moment, surprised that she would offer him this favor, that she trusted him this far. He set his hands on her shoulders and then changed his mind. Reaching for her chin, he untied the burgundy ribbon there and her bonnet fell back, no longer shading her face. Blinking at him, Leah smiled encouragingly. He touched her cheek lightly with his fingertips and kissed her on the lips. She felt warm and happy, and had to stifle a laugh of pure joy as her arms went around his neck. When she smiled, he nipped at her lips until she gasped in surprise. She had no idea that people kissed like this, that her breath would come so fast and her pulse would race. Henry caught her in his arms and held her as her head fell back over his arm, her mouth ready for his kiss. Henry drew back, remembering himself.
“I’m sorry. I got carried away, Miss Weaver,” he said.
“You can’t call me Miss Weaver after you kissed me like that,” she protested, blushing.
“I took liberties you didn’t intend. Forgive me.”
“I’ll forgive you if you’ll kiss me again,” she said, astounded by her own wantonness.
“I think that’s a bad idea,” he told her with regret. “I’m trying to be a gentleman and I’m not doing a very fine job of it. It would be best if I get you back to Mrs. Hostleman’s now."
He took the reins and turned the buggy around. Shortly, they were back on the good woman’s doorstep, and Henry kissed her hand.
“Now you see why I do this,” he said with a wry smile. She nodded, smiling herself.
Henry lit the oil lamp at home and took up the book of sonnets she had lent him. Reading over it, he set it aside, finding that every line, every word reminded him of Leah. He was reluctant to commit, he knew, because his heart had been broken before. The last time he was so taken with a woman, the last time he allowed himself to dream of a wife and a family, he had been cruelly rejected. It was difficult, even after all these years, to let himself trust any woman.
He held the small cloth-bound book in his big hands and looked at it seriously. This woman had brought poetry back into his life, had given him her friendship and patience. She deserved to know where she stood with him and if she should expect a proposal of marriage. Still, he hesitated. If she were not what she seemed, if, like Melody, she turned out to be a woman who could not respect him, could not truly love him—he wasn’t sure if he would survive a second heartbreak.
He could see himself becoming a bitter, lonesome man who trusted no one, a misanthrope who chased the neighbor kids away from his garden. He had a choice and this one chance. Henry knew he would have to be stronger than his doubts, his fears, if he were to claim this woman for his wife. What good was this life and all he had achieved, without a good woman to share the burdens and joys?
* * *
Leah wrote to Jane, a letter full of her love for Henry and his goodness and honor. She detailed the inn, the stables, even the hunting dog, and told of their buggy ride and the talk of books they shared. She did not mention the kiss but she felt like singing at the memory of it. What would it be like, she wondered, to know she had a whole lifetime of those kisses ahead of her? She asked Jane confidentially for advice. How might she make him comfortable, help him overcome his reserve and seeming hesitation? Was there some womanly way to encourage an engagement without being forward or immodest?
She knew that the decision must be made before the letter even reached her sister-in-law, and any reply would be far too late, but it comforted her to write to Jane. She and Henry had agreed to a three-week trial period to become acquainted. When that time had elapsed, they would have to decide if they had a future together. She both longed for and dreaded that day.
The next morning at the quilting circle, she joined Mrs. Gibson and four other ladies in the tidy sitting room of the rectory. The minister’s wife took out the quilt top they were piecing and each woman fell to work. Leah looked over the pattern and took up some cut pieces. Threading her needle, she made laborious, crooked stitches that were far too wide. Becky Quinn leaned over and helped her remove her row of pitiful efforts, and suggested that she hold her needle differently.
Even with Becky’s help, Leah felt she was hopeless as a quilter. As the talk drifted to a letter from one of the ladies’ married daughters, Leah took her embroidery out of her sewing basket and set to work on some French knots to add dimension to the vivid red and pink geraniums she was crafting on the tablecloth from Jane.
“Oh!” Becky Quinn exclaimed. “That’s so beautiful! Look, Mrs. Gibson. I never saw the like!”
“Truly, Leah, that is lovely handwork. You said your mother taught you some embroidery but I had no idea. Delia, isn’t that exquisite?” Mrs. Gibson addressed Delia Wilford, whose husband owned the dry goods store in town.
“Certainly. I noticed in church, if you’ll forgive the fact that my thoughts were not on higher heavenly things, that you had some embroidery on your reticule. Did you do it yourself?”
“Yes, I netted the purse and also embellished it with the vine pattern. I did a similar trim on my walking dress. I had it made up plain and I added the embroidery myself,” Leah said.
“Do you think a vine embroidery would look nice on this quilt? Just here and here on the pattern?” Delia asked, indicating the area of the quilt block. Leah nodded and began to stitch a simple stem stitch and some couching for texture, with leaves in satin stitch.
“Like so?” she asked. The women all nodded in unison.
“Could you show me how to do that?” Becky asked, and Leah smiled.
“I was a schoolteacher back in Albany. It would be a joy to teach you, and even better to share something my dear mother taught me to do,” Leah said warmly. Becky beamed.
“Are you busy tomorrow?” Becky pressed.
“Tomorrow would be fine. Can you come to Mrs. Hostleman’s? I beli
eve she will let me use her sitting room."
“Yes. I will. Do I need to bring anything special?”
“I have embroidery silks we can use to start with. What about tatting? Do you know how to make lace with thread like that?”
“Make lace? No. Lace comes very dear. I’ve never had any, though I have a cousin who had some on her wedding gown,” Becky said.
“You use a little metal tool called a shuttle and make knots. There’s a knack to it but I’d be glad to show you. It makes a nice lace collar or even lace for cuffs, and it’s better than paying the prices they ask for point lace,” Leah said knowledgeably.
“My grandmother did tatting,” Mrs. Gibson admitted. “She made doilies. I was never interested in it when I was growing up but I would dearly love to learn now.”
“Perhaps on Mondays I could have a sort of learning circle. I could teach Becky to embroider and show you a bit of tatting.”
“I believe that we carry shuttles at the shop,” Delia put in.
“Put one back for me, dear. I’ll be in to pick it up before Monday’s class. Ten in the morning?” Mrs. Gibson said. Leah nodded, excited at the prospect of doing something useful and applying her instructional skills to help the women of the town.
The next day, Becky came to Mrs. Hostleman’s and learned the satin stitch from Leah. By the end of the hour, Becky could make a creditable tight and smooth petal or leaf, and was quite proud of herself. She intended to go right to the dry goods shop and get some embroidery thread to add leaves to her tablecloth straightaway. As Becky departed, Delia Wilford stopped by the boarding house.
“I was wondering if you had some more samples of your stitchery I could see,” Delia asked.
Leah retrieved a few handkerchiefs she had worked with flowers and initials, as well as a set of napkins with a larkspur design. Impetuously, she grabbed the nightdress she had been working on; she was stitching a chain of blooms in white thread on the white fabric for a delicate and feminine texture without the boldness of color. Delia fingered the fancywork with admiration and nodded.
“I spoke with Mr. Wilford about your talent and we wondered if you might like to do some embroidery for us to stock in the shop. We will pay you a fee to decorate pillowcases and table linens and supply all the silks."
“Oh, I would love that! I am accustomed to working for a living, you see, and I am not used to having so much idle time. I would be delighted to have a refined employment and earn some money at it. Thank you, Mrs. Wilford,” Leah enthused.
“Please, call me Delia, dear. For your first assignment, I’d like you to embroider a design of pansies in pale lilac on a set of pillowcases for myself. I’ve always been partial to pansies,” Delia said cheerfully. “Stop in at the store later to pick up the linens and any thread you need.”
They shook hands, and Leah fairly danced back to her room. She spent the rest of the week doing fancy work for the dry goods shop. It kept her hands and mind occupied while Henry was busy with his inn and stable. It also kept her from fretting over the progress of their relationship as the week passed and she saw but little of him since their Monday drive.
* * *
Henry sat on Wilford’s back porch listening to the man talk about how his wife had asked Leah to do embroidery for the shop.
Wilford was Henry’s closest friend in Billings, and he always went to the older man for advice when he was needful. In return, he’d trained a pair of handsome bays and given his friend a good price on them the year before. Outside of Dionysius himself there was not another such example of horseflesh in the entire territory, and Wilford was suitably proud of his acquisition.
“Quite a girl you have there, it seems. Della’s taken with her needlework. I’ve got to have flowers on all our linens now, and done by none other than your intended.” Wilford chuckled over his pipe.
“I wouldn’t call her my intended just yet. We’re not formally betrothed,” Henry said.
“Then get your courage up and ask her, boy. By all accounts from the reverend’s wife and mine, she’s as fine and patient a woman as you’ll find. And you want patience in a wife, I can tell you. Don’t delay, or some other buck will snap her up.
I believe when I convinced you to post that advertisement that you understood there are not such a lot of women to be had out West. Yet here you are sitting on the porch with me instead of courting your sweetheart.”
“I want to make the right choice.”
“You always have been a thinker, Rogers. Time to stop thinking, I say, and act. There’s nothing better than having a good wife to come home to every evening. Have a nice supper, talk over the day’s events, raise a family.” He elbowed Henry.
“I know. I didn’t come here for counsel. I came to find out the date your cousins are coming to visit so I’ll have rooms set aside for them at the inn.”
“The nineteenth, and it’s glad I am you have an inn; otherwise they’d be staying with us, and that would be unpleasant, considering my cousin’s personality and his obnoxious wife. There’s a woman will send you screaming into that schoolteacher’s arms!” Wilford chuckled again.
“I do want a wife, but you know what happened—“
“With Melody? I’m probably one of the few who does know. She was a fast little piece and you’re better off without her. This is a different girl, a different situation. Stop dallying,” Wilford said.
Henry got up off his chair and walked the few blocks home. Instead of going into his empty rooms, he headed for the stable to take Dionysius for a long bareback ride out into the foothills. Maybe a ride would clear his mind.
Chapter 5
BILLINGS, MONTANA, 1884
He picked her up for church on Sunday, and she found herself stealing glances at him, trying to discern his feelings, his interest in her. After services she talked with Becky for a few minutes before joining him for another buggy ride. She flushed at the memory of their kiss but found him oddly silent on the long drive. They went further out toward the mountains than they had driven before, and she made a few remarks about the scenery that were met with quiet nods. She played with her mother’s locket, wishing her mother were alive to give her advice on how to put him at ease.
Henry reached into his pocket for perhaps the thirtieth time that day to feel the box the pearl ring was in. He had ordered the engagement ring from the mercantile before she even arrived in Montana Territory. The ring was silver and set with a creamy white pearl. It was perfect. He just had to work up the nerve to give it to her and ask for her hand in marriage. He drove further than he’d intended to, trying to get his courage up. He resolved to stop for the horses to drink from the stream up ahead, and shifted in his seat nervously.
“Stand and deliver!” A gruff voice came, and a figure seized the bridle of one of his bays.
Pulling the reins up short, Henry narrowed his eyes. Highwaymen in broad daylight besetting them on a Sunday afternoon! It angered him, and his fists clenched.
“Here now, we have nothing worth stealing save the horses, and if I loose them you’ll never catch them,” Henry said lightly.
Leah clutched at his arm as one of the highwaymen dragged her from the buggy. She screamed and kicked, struggling against the bandit, and the man slapped her face. Henry leapt from the buggy and dragged the bandit to the ground, striking him with powerful blows. Leah backed away from them, terrified, as the second highwayman attacked Henry. She watched as Henry turned and subdued the bandit with a single blow. Shaking the first bandit, the one who had struck her in the face, Henry took him by the throat and shoved him back like rubbish.
“Run,” he said coldly, and the men scrambled to their feet and fled.
Henry rushed to Leah’s side where she crouched in the weeds, teeth chattering with fear. He knelt beside her and she clutched at his arm, gripping his sleeve in her fingers. Wide frightened eyes met his as he took her in his arms, stroking her hair and letting her weep on his coat.
“Are you hurt?” he asked
solicitously.
Leah shook her head, her hand going to her throat as fresh tears sprang to her eyes. “My locket. My mother’s—” she said, her voice breaking.
“Did they take it?” he demanded. She shook her head.
“I—I don’t think so. I think it came off in the struggle.”
“Wait here. I’ll see if it can be found.” He returned to the buggy where his bays stood obediently, and searched the surrounding road and weeds, but there was no glimmer of her lost locket. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I couldn’t find it.”
Leah stood and brushed the dust off her dress dejectedly.
“Thank you for saving me,” she said softly. “I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.”
“I hate that the bandits attacked us, but I liked protecting you, Leah,” he said. “I know I can’t bring back your mother’s locket. I’m sorry it was lost, but maybe, perhaps in time you’ll grow to treasure this as much,” he continued, producing the ring from his pocket.
Kneeling down, he held the silver circlet between his calloused thumb and forefinger, and held it out to her like a knight with a tribute for his lady fair.
Tears glinted in Leah’s eyes as she touched the pearl reverently with her fingertip.
“You got this for me?” she breathed.
“Yes, I ordered it the same day I mailed your train ticket.”
“It seems like such a long time ago,” she mused.
“May I, then?” Henry took her hand and slid the ring on her finger. He kissed her hand softly.