Sir Hanes was the heir to a great mansion. He had more money than anyone else in the entire region, and he had the favor of countless more. Sir Hanes was attractive, wealthy, and charming.
Brahms, on the other hand, was charming. Only charming. Some might say that he was also attractive, but any of his good looks faded out when he donned his butler apparel. Though he was as kind as his friend, and as charming as any of the fine young men in the countryside, he was constantly looked over because of his occupation in life.
The best he could hope for was that a kind young woman would gain her own employment in the house, and that he might fall in love with her, and she with him. The only trouble was, he wasn’t around the new recruits. When there was someone new in the house, it fell to the maids to train them.
Even the young men that started were trained and instructed under the women, after all, he was the butler, and as such it was his duty to mind the mansion and the family that lived in it, and not be hindered by the servants and their petty jobs.
“Ah, I say there, Brahms! Is Sir Hanes ready?”
Charles stopped to speak with Gregory. He was Sir Hanes’ uncle, and the only one standing in between Hanes and his fortune. Sir Hanes got along with his uncle well enough, but Gregory wasn’t pleased with Hanes choice of a bride. He wanted his nephew to marry a young woman with a fortune of her own, not a young woman that could take his fortune from him.
Charles didn’t care for Gregory. He thought Gregory was greedy, and two faced. He feared that there would be issues with Gregory once Hanes had a son, but as the butler Brahms knew it wasn’t his place to say such things, even though Sir Hanes was his friend. He smiled and nodded, then retired to the back room.
Charles watched the proceedings of the wedding out the window. The bride looked beautiful, and his friend looked pleased to see her walk up the aisle to him. Charles thought they made a smart match, and was genuinely happy to hear them announced as husband and wife, but he felt a pang of solitude as he motioned for the maids to make the reception hall ready.
There was something missing in his life, and he knew what it was. He wanted a wife. He wanted someone that he could love and hold and cherish, but that wasn’t going to happen here. He was a butler, and he was destined to stay a butler for all of his days. Charles glanced back out the window before he placed all of his attention back to the reception hall.
Outside, he could see his friend Sir Hanes holding his new bride, and talking to her. Though Charles couldn’t hear anything anyway, he knew that nobody outside could hear what they were saying. He wanted that, too.
Here, he had to share what he was thinking with most. Here, he had to follow rules and ensure that others did, too. Here, he wasn’t going to get a bride. Here, he was doomed to the life he thought he wanted. And right now, he was afraid he was going to be stuck in that life for good.
And he would be.
Unless something changed.
Suddenly, Charles stopped. Did he really think what he thought he was thinking? Was it possible he wanted to leave here and go out into the world to find his own way in life? Should he really take the chance of working his own home with his own wife and his own responsibilities?
“Sir Brahms! The bride is going to come in here soon, we must make ready the cake!”
One of the maids hurriedly pushed the doors of the kitchen open, then disappeared back behind them as quickly as she had been there. Charles snapped back to work. He could let his thoughts wander later on, right now he had his duty to attend to.
After all, brides weren’t something that he should be worried about. Right now, he was at the top of his world. A butler in a fine house, and now he was in charge of the wedding reception for his master. If he were to ever have his own wedding, it was going to have to wait. Right now his mind was on one thing, and one thing only, and that was his duty.
Chapter 2 – It’s Made for a Maid
“Don’t be silly, you are going to wear pink! It goes perfectly with my sash.”
Fanny sighed and held out her arms, while Miss Jasmine piled the dresses high on top of her. They were gathering the dresses for the bride’s maids, and Fanny was given the role as the most important.
It wasn’t a surprise to her, she had been a favorite of Miss Jasmine’s since she had started working for her father, and she had accompanied Miss Jasmine on many of these shopping trips. Fanny often wondered what it would be like. Not just having such money to spend on anything, but to be loved by a man, and know that you were going to spend your whole life with him.
Miss Jasmine never said much about love, she only talked about the trips she and her new husband were going to take, and the parties they were going to have, and the people they were going to impress. There were times when Fanny wondered if Miss Jasmine even loved the man she was marrying, or if she was in love with the rich life.
Miss Jasmine had chosen an elaborate gown, with a soft pink sash about the waist. It was her dream to be attended by a group of girls that were all dressed to match her own, and she felt she had found just the dresses.
The two girls had been all over town this morning, in and out of various stores, discussing various dresses with various tailors. Miss Jasmine was trying to find the perfect set of dresses, but it seemed that nobody had what she wanted. Until they had come into this store.
Fanny didn’t mind shopping with Miss Jasmine. She liked to see all of the different things that were for sale on the racks, but today it was getting old. They had been in and out of so many stores, and Fanny had seen so many things she wished she might be able to buy but knew she couldn’t.
Yet here they were in this next store, and Miss Jasmine was pulling out fancier and fancier dresses.
Fanny, on the other hand, wasn’t so sure she wanted to be up there with Miss Jasmine. Miss Jasmine liked everything to be perfect, and she wasn’t good at making everything perfect. Fanny had turned to the service part of work when she failed at being a seamstress as well as a waitress.
It had been her last resort at a job, and now she was feeling even less enthused about it. All she really wanted was to get married herself, yet here she was attending another girl’s wedding, in a dress she didn’t like.
“I would think you should be thrilled to get to wear something this nice. They don’t often make dresses this nice for maids.”
Fanny looked up at Miss Jasmine in surprise. It was almost as though she had the ability to read Fanny’s thoughts. Jasmine was too busy rifling through another rack to take note of Fanny, however, so Fanny turned her attention back to the other things in the store.
Suddenly, something caught her eye. A newspaper on the counter had blown open when a customer opened the door, and the page it opened to had an interesting title printed at the top.
Wanted: Mail Order Brides
The dark print was all she could read from where she stood, so she leaned over to try to read further.
“What are you doing? I can’t reach you when you are on the other side of the store. Pay attention!”
Fanny turned her attention back to the task at hand, embarrassed that Miss Jasmine had snapped at her in the middle of this store. She was paid to be her attendant, but there were times when Fanny felt Miss Jasmine took that privilege too far.
“I’m sorry Miss. I was just looking over at what they had in the glass over there. I thought there might be a brooch or necklace that would go with your dress or something.”
Fanny adjusted the weight of the dresses in her arms, and nodded in the direction of the counter. She wasn’t surprised that Miss Jasmine loved the idea, and she was glad Miss Jasmine took no note of the paper that lay open on top of the glass display. Instead, she pushed past Fanny and hurried over to see for herself whether there were any pieces she wanted, and Fanny struggled to follow.
Fanny was glad her companion took a long time with the jewelry, it gave her plenty of time to skim over the ads that were in the paper. She hadn’t thought of this before, an
d it surprised her. Of all the things she had done, why hadn’t this come to mind?
Fanny quickly skimmed a few of the ads, hoping one would jump out at her. Her thoughts were interrupted once more by her friend, who was asking her which brooch she ought to purchase. Fanny snapped her attention back to the jewelry in the case, and pointed out a pink rose that was on display.
“That was just the one I was thinking, too!” Miss Jasmine called the clerk over, and promptly instructed him to get her the brooch. Fanny sighed and shook her head, slightly relieved that she wasn’t the only one Miss Jasmine treated that way. Her heart suddenly skipped a beat as Miss Jasmine picked up the paper.
“Would you be so kind as to wrap it in here? I don’t want to lose it on our way home.”
The clerk sighed but obeyed, and Fanny smiled. She had been wondering how she was going to get that paper back to where she could look at it further, and now that was solved for her. She gladly placed the dresses on the counter next, and promptly picked up the wrapped brooch.
“Let me handle this for you, Miss. I don’t want you to lose it.”
“You are so sweet! Thank you, Fanny!”
With that, Miss Jasmine turned on her heel, leaving Fanny to carry all of the packages as she struggled to keep up. This time Fanny didn’t mind, however, because this time she knew she had her ticket out of this and onto something better.
Chapter 3 – The Ad in the Paper
Fanny lay on her stomach on her bed, grateful she finally had the chance to sit down for a few minutes. She pulled the paper out of the pocket in her skirt. When she and Miss Jasmine had gotten back home, Jasmine eagerly tore the paper off of the brooch and ran upstairs to show her father. Fanny had picked up all of the torn pieces of the paper and saved them in her pocket for later.
Fanny knew she would have a few minutes bow before Abigail range the dinner bell, and she was going to make the most of these few minutes. All she really needed to know was whether or not there was a man out there she could see herself marrying.
Fanny had let go of the idea of meeting a man romantically in an orchard and falling in love before he swept her off her feet. Those were the things that happened in those love stories she read, not what was going to happen in real life.
After all, I am a maid. Nobody wants to marry a maid. They all want the woman that has the maids. I wish I was that woman.
At first, none of the ads looked promising. So many of them read of wealthy young men looking for a bride that also had a fortune of her own. Others read of young men that wanted an educated young woman who could work the teaching job in the town they lived. None of them made mention of anything she thought she could do until the very last one on the page.
Fanny almost skipped that one. She was feeling rather discouraged after scanning the first five ads, and she didn’t want to end the paper on a bad note, but something prompted her to read that last one, and she sat straight up in her bed when she did.
It read:
Hello,
I am looking for a bride for myself. I am in a bit of an unusual situation, as I am currently a butler in a mansion in the Pennsylvania territory. I want to marry a young woman who understands my situation, and is willing to move out west with me to start a new home, all our own.
Kind regards,
Charles Brahms
Fanny read the ad a couple of times, with her heart pounding in her chest. This was just the kind of man she wanted to marry. The man that understood what service was like, and knew how she would have to work in such a situation. If he was a butler, he was even more familiar with the job, and wouldn’t look her over due to her own occupation in life.
Fanny pulled a piece of paper out of her desk, and scrawled a note across it, she quickly made an envelope with the other piece of paper, and addressed it before slipping her note in her pocket. She wanted to mail this as soon as she could, but just then Abigail rang the dinner bell, and she knew she had to go down to the kitchen.
Fanny sighed as she looked out the window at the street below her. She wanted desperately to ask Abigail if she might have a few minutes to run back into town for something, but she knew there was no way for Abigail to keep that kind of secret, so she put her apron on and headed back downstairs.
The next few days were a blur for Fanny. She eagerly watched the post to see if there was a reply to her letter. Living in Georgia meant that it would take a few days for her letter to get up to where Brahms was, but it shouldn’t take more than a few days to get a reply if he was interested.
Part of her worried that he already found a bride, and he was on his way out west right now with her. Part of her worried that Miss Jasmine found the letter and hid it from her, making it impossible for her to reply to him once more. She didn’t say a word about the affair to anyone, knowing that it would have caused problems for her in her occupation.
She had signed a contract stating that she would be here for a year, but 2 months had already gone by and she wasn’t happy. Being a maid wasn’t what she thought it was going to be, and she was ready to be out. It wouldn’t be good for her to leave and stay in town, however, so she knew if she were to break the contract, she would have to head out for good.
Two weeks went by before Fanny got a reply in the mail, and the answer was both exhilarating and discouraging, all wrapped into one. She scanned the letter as quickly as she could in her free time, and what she learned was that Brahms was already out west. He hadn’t stayed with the family long due to the fact his employer had recently married, and he couldn’t bear the situation now.
He had packed his bags, and was now out in the Dakota Territory, trying to make a house a home. He really liked Fanny from the letter she wrote, and he had scraped together enough money to get her started on her way out to him. Fanny looked at the money in her hands. It wasn’t much, but it would get her out of the state at least.
She knew she had a few more dollars in her box upstairs, and if she were to combine that with the money Brahms sent, she ought to make it out there just fine.
Fanny looked at the letter, then back at the money, then at the letter again. She felt light headed and dizzy, but she shook it off.
You aren’t a maid anymore, you are a bride. Your husband is waiting.
Chapter 4 – The Western World
Fanny had to admit that she didn’t know what to expect when she reached the Dakotas. She hadn’t corresponded much with Brahms before she was on her way, and she was more nervous about getting caught and taken back to Miss Jasmine than she was about meeting him.
Something told her she needed to relax, and that it was all going to be ok, but her thoughts were a mess. All she could think about was what she would do if she were stopped by a sheriff or if anyone asked her why she was in such a hurry. She knew she had a right to leave, but she also knew she had to contest that with Miss Jasmine before she did.
The way Miss Jasmine works, I would be stuck there until the wedding, the honeymoon, and probably until she started having babies herself!
Fanny wasn’t proud of the way she had left her employer, but she felt the time was right for her to go, and she knew Charles would be waiting for her.
“The ends justify the means, anyway.”
She said this out loud without even realizing it, when suddenly the woman on the other side of the stagecoach asked her what she was talking about. Fanny looked up in surprise, then blushed when she realized she had been talking to herself out loud.
“Oh nothing. I am on my way out West, and I was trying to convince myself that I’m not nervous.”
She smiled at the woman nervously, and felt relieved when the woman smiled.
“Oh yes, I can remember when I was young like you. I traveled from New York all the way out to California to marry a man I met in the newspaper. I was convinced it was the best thing in the world for me, but I can still remember how nervous I was that entire trip out.”
Fanny was intrigued by this woman’s story, and she leaned i
n closer to her. They were the only two traveling in the stagecoach, but she still felt as though she needed to keep her voice down.
“What happened? Was he everything you hoped he would be and more? Did he give you that fairytale life you think you are going to get?”
The woman chuckled as she looked Fanny over from head to toe. She shook her head, and chuckled again as she turned her attention out the window.
“It was a real surprise. I have to say that much. I arrived in town, and we were married straight away. I didn’t know it then, but it wasn’t love that I felt so much as excitement. I don’t know that he was feeling love either, but away we went to his house.”
A look came into the woman’s eyes, and she looked down at her gloves.
“Things went very well I would say for a few months, but then I began to see him less and less. He would always be around to tell me to do the chores in the house, or to ask me to run an errand into town for him, but there was no love. I spent many a night in bed alone, wondering if I had made a mistake.”
Tears glazed over her eyes, and she shook her head, brushing them away.
“Anyway, I shouldn’t tell you such things when you are on your way to your own happiness. I am sure you know what you are doing. Let me guess, you have been talking for months now and you are very much in love?”
Fanny was caught off guard with the question, but she still nodded. There was something about this woman that made her feel uncomfortable, and like she wanted to turn around and head back home. Sure, there was going to be a lot of problems for her back there, but at least she wouldn’t have to live her life wondering if she made a mistake.
The woman watched her carefully, and smiled when she saw Fanny nod. She sat back in her chair and clasped her hands together, and sighed.
“That’s the way it ought to be. I am sure you are going to do just fine. Probably have a few children, and live to a grand old age together. Trust me, my dear, when you marry, make sure you are marrying for love!”
[2016] Widow Finds Love Page 44