by Rose Jenster
When he reached home, he sat down and opened the first one. Alec could not have been more surprised at what he read.
Dear #137
My father is a surgeon and it is noble work. I respect the calling to be a healer and it was for this reason that I chose your advertisement to answer. I would be an ideal wife for a doctor such as yourself.
Astonished, Alec stormed out back to the vegetable garden where Beatrice was at work tending the plants.
“What is the meaning of this, Beatrice?” He had a scowl and looked at her with impatience.
“What is it?” she shielded her eyes from the harsh sun.
“This letter from some---some stranger who is applying to become my wife. Where would someone such as that get the impression that I am number one-three-seven and seeking a bride?” He threw the letter to the ground in plain disgust.
“I placed an advertisement on your behalf,” Beatrice said bracing herself for his anger.
“Knowing I wanted no such advertisement!” Alec was astonished and did not think Beatrice capable of such an act.
“I know you need someone to take care of you and care about you…you live too much in your own thoughts and you forget to eat and—it was the last thing I could do to help you before I leave!” she sobbed. Beatrice covered her face with her hands as she worried about her brother's future.
Alec bent over and put a hand on her shoulder. “I will not need a wife from a newspaper or otherwise. I know that you meant well, that you made a wrong choice for a heartfelt reason, but I don’t want these. There are more of them I see,” he said trying to keep an even temper.
“I’m sure there are,” she said sheepishly.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I penned a good advertisement, and you are a good prospect.” Beatrice secretly felt proud of her representation of her brother and that this project still held some promise.
“What did it say?” Alec was annoyed, but curious about how she described his situation.
“It said that you were a bachelor doctor, very dedicated to your work and clever. You were seeking a wife who is educated and interested in the healing arts so she can be a true partner in life,” Beatrice summarized from memory.
“That doesn’t sound a thing like me, Bea,” he sighed.
“You ARE a bachelor doctor, and I never saw anyone so stuck on his work as you are. And you’d be miserable with a wife who only cared about wearing ribbons in her hair. You need someone serious and interested in your work.” Beatrice was confident in her observation of her brother.
“That sort of ad will only attract the most dour women, those ones who march with signs about equal rights and the vote and want to wear trousers and cut off their hair.”
“You mean the only smart women are ones who act like men?” Beatrice challenged.
“No, but the only spinsters who would want to collaborate with a doctor have their own ambitions to be doctors and no interest themselves in being a proper wife,” Alec argued.
“You admit, then that you want a proper wife?” Beatrice was hoping for a concession.
“I wish I could continue as I have, but it seems my secretary and caretaker is bent on moving to Idaho to wait on some other ungrateful man,” he said with gruff fondness, and Bea flushed with pride.
“What would you have said in an ad?” Beatrice was genuinely curious about Alec's own words in crafting his invitation.
“Let me see... Wanted: lively young wife for a grouchy doctor who works all hours. Must be able to cook, clean, and keep records, pretend to take an interest in disgusting medical problems such as rashes and abscesses,” he said teasingly, and Bea laughed.
“Because that would attract a proper wife? Maybe you should start your own newspaper service for this!” she said jokingly.
“Of course. What young woman wouldn’t want to live out west and cook for a man who comes home at two in the morning for supper?” he said. There was a sincere inquiry in that question.
“And yet you’ve a pile of letters there. Do you want me to read them and weed out the silly ones?” Beatrice was hoping Alec would agree.
“It’s either that or I’ll toss the lot of them in the stove,” Alec said.
“Are you very angry? Please don't be.” She bit her lip and hoped she hadn't injured their relationship.
“Yes and no. I don’t like having the control over my future taken out of my hands by you placing an ad, but I also see that you wanted to watch over me the best way you knew how. I know that not every patient responds to the usual medicine, so you never know how someone will react to the treatment you think is best,” Alec said philosophically.
“May I take that to mean you’ll let me stay here until I go to Idaho?”
“Yes, of course. Unless I hang on your skirts and beg you to stay,” he said good-naturedly.
“I forget sometimes what a sweet little boy you were. You’re such a serious man, sort of a hard temper now. But now and again, I see that boy that laughed easily and had many less cares than today.” Beatrice smiled at her brother and hoped their conflict was mended.
“Let me know if there’s a lively young woman in that stack of letters who wants to learn more about the infected appendix,” Alec joked and went back indoors.
Chapter 4
Felicity tugged the folded paper out of her reticule secretively, eyes darting left and right to make certain she was unobserved. She had slipped away on her luncheon break and purchased a matrimonial newspaper. Furtively, she settled herself on a bench to look at it thoroughly. Felicity had been considering it for days and finally bought a paper to peruse. It had tugged at the back of her mind, the knowledge that she had been fully prepared to move West and start a new life as a bride. She still had her trousseau, still had the notes she’d made on weather and supplies with now additional writings on cookery, herbalism and housekeeping.
Because she had no prospective husband it seemed possible that, with the shortage of women on the frontier, she might find a man with a similar search for someone. She had beauty to recommend her, polite manners and skill working with customers—perhaps a nice shopkeeper in Wyoming would want a wife, and she could sell the dry goods and lengths of ribbon and lace to ladies on the range. Of course she knew she would have to adjust the goods to match the surroundings and needs of the residents
Scanning the advertisements, pencil poised at the ready in order to mark any likely candidate, she read:
Portly widower would like to correspond with a proper lady who likes children as he is father of six and enjoys good cookery. Must be able to can and preserve fruits and vegetables.
Well, that counted Felicity right out, she knew. She hadn’t the foggiest idea how to preserve anything in a jar safely and tidily. This would not be a suitable match but she did note that she ought to look the process up at the library.
Farmer with dark hair and eyes searching for pretty female who knows how to drive horses and oxen and can plow a straight row. Experience birthing calves and foaling a plus.
Felicity laughed a bit at that one, making a faint x with her pencil to show that animal husbandry was not in her wheelhouse of skills. Researching this was not a burning interest.
Tall pastor seeks beautiful, godly woman to be a bride and serve the parish with patience and selflessness all the days of her life. Must be a quiet, pretty sort of lady with fine manners, not afraid of hard work and not the complaining sort.
Well, she thought huffily, he must think a lot of himself to demand patient and selfless women who were also beautiful, quiet, and uncomplaining! An awful lot of these men placing ads seemed preoccupied with getting hold of a good-looking bride. With the shortage of women, one would think they’d be glad to secure anyone at all, much less a celebrated beauty who didn’t complain!
Pretty wife sought, prefer fair hair and blue eyes, slim figure. Must know how to cook and keep a house, and know her Bible and live as a modest, virtuous bride. No soiled doves or
widows, please. Only young ladies who have never been attached.
So, pretty and blond and religious, she thought, as well as forbidden to have looked sideways at a man before. He would probably be waiting a good long while for a woman who’d find that ad appealing. Plus, he seemed like he’d be very difficult to live with, all those high expectations, she mused.
Clerk in mercantile seeks wife. I have a room behind the shop that I rent, and it has a little kitchen all its own. We could live very cozy there and have a cat if you like. I want to start my own store one day, and I’d like a wife who will work alongside me.
Felicity liked that one and circled it. He wasn’t making pretenses at being prosperous yet, but seemed pleased enough with his lot in life and had decent ambition to become a good provider. He wanted a wife to partner with him working in his store which suited her fine. Felicity would write to him later. She read on to see if there were other candidates worth consideration.
Rancher with sixty head of cattle seeks bride who can ride a horse. Must be pretty with quiet manners and not be afraid of animals.
Felicity marked that one off without hesitation. She’d live in a tiny room behind a shop, but she’d not be set on a horse and expected to round up cattle like a cowboy in one of those sensational novels! How do cattle react when they are rounded up? She knew that their restraint was not an easy task. Felicity chuckled thinking about how her mother would react if she told her she'd be working with cattle!
Bachelor doctor, 29, devoted to his profession and very clever, seeks a wife to keep house for him, talk with him, and cook. A woman interested in the healing arts will find herself in charge of records and billing and be able to consult with the doctor on puzzling medical cases.
Felicity circled that one twice! She could instantly envision sitting across the table from this somber physician and enlightening him in the arts of herbalism to soothe his patients. Felicity could read his medical books and find out about all sorts of maladies so they could have long conversations about his patients. She could cheer him up because he sounded terribly earnest. Her enthusiasm returned and she would write to him as well.
That night, she wrote her two letters.
Dear #291,
I have worked three years for a respected milliner in Albany and know how to trim hats and the best price points to set as well as how to deal with customers. I would be a help to you in your future shop. I may as well be honest and tell you I was engaged until recently and find myself a spinster still. I would be interested to hear about your life and your personality and tastes.
Sincerely,
Felicity Baxter
Dear #137,
Although I have no formal medical training, I have an interest in herbalism and naturalistic healing, particularly the use of teas and poultices passed down from my own grandmother. I would find your patients’ cases of interest, and I believe my study of herbal healing could complement your own background and experience. Of course I would not presume to have the capacity to treat and diagnose anyone due to my lack of proper training.
I can be serious but also enjoy laughing and have been a bit spoilt actually. I am the only girl among four children and my father’s favorite. I like pretty things and have worked in a milliner’s shop these three years since leaving school. In truth, I divide my time between the shop and the lending library. I have read a great deal about the exploration and settlement of the western territories and their weather patterns and resources. For a fundamentally silly creature, I am interested in more than just novels of sentiment.
If you don’t find me too flighty, if you think we might suit, please write to me. I would like it if you would write to me.
Sincerely,
Felicity Baxter
She posted both letters and endeavored to forget about them. A few weeks later, she received a missive from the shop clerk stating that he’d found a bride and engaged himself to her. Nonetheless, he thanked her for her kind letter. Annoyed, she threw the letter in the rubbish. It wasn’t enough that she’d stooped to beg for a reply from a man without means to keep a proper home, only a rented room behind someone’s store—but to be rejected by him.
She thought of Daniel and how he had jilted her, and she pressed a hand to her stomach as if to hold in the grief. Felicity missed him, his curt newsy letters, and before that, the strolls they took with the long talks about the life they’d share. Memories flooded her about the ice cream sodas they’d enjoyed and the time he bought her carnations for her birthday. The flowers had been white, she remembered, and she had saved one, pressing it in the pages of her Bible, which she was fairly certain now had been a blasphemy.
Felicity resolved to pluck it out of the book of Proverbs and toss it away. When it came to that point, her fingers trembled as she held the fragile dried stem and she returned it back between the pages. Throwing herself on the bed, Felicity wept again, a storm of tears and sobs that passed.
She went downstairs and made cornbread under her mother’s watchful eye. The cornbread turned out a bit pale, but it tasted fine. Internally she made a note to add it to the list of things she could cook credibly well. The list was growing! She wrote down scribbles of her recipes of tricks that worked and additions that didn’t work well at all.
At her work in the shop Felicity added small, delicate blue-green feathers to a bonnet, creating a dashing spray of fluff on one side, curving up above the brim. She set the pins neatly and brushed the lint from the fabric of the hat before placing it on the display case. Mrs. Rochester patted her arm and complimented her on the work quality. That night, Felicity gave her mother the week’s wages and proudly laid the dishes out on the new white tablecloth.
Four days later, she received a reply to her letter addressed to #137, the doctor.
Dear Ms. Baxter,
I received your letter of the sixteenth and felt honor-bound to inform you that I did not place the advertisement myself. My sister authored and published the ad without my knowledge. She is soon to marry and worries that I will have no one to keep house for me or tend my medical records. Since that time I have had numerous letters from would-be potential brides seemingly eager to take on a gruff and impatient physician in the wilds of Montana with, I suppose, the aim of reforming or civilizing me. I am beyond either effort, I assure you.
That being disclosed, I must further admit that yours is the only letter I am answering personally. Most of them have gone in the stove without a second thought. I am the sole doctor for all of the residents of a thirty-mile radius from my homestead. I have little time to squander in corresponding for the sake of politeness. I am not a man who sets much store by civility as I have said. Yours, however, I did not consign to the embers. Something in your tone, your expression of interest in herbal remedies and complementary treatments, made me wonder if you had not the sort of dexterous mind that could provide not encouragement but insight to me in my work which is of a lonesome sort.
I do not think we would suit. I think for all your teasing about being a silly creature you would turn out instead to be a clever and highly sensitive one, one whose feelings would be oft trod-upon by a preoccupied doctor more concerned with his work than with compassion for a wife. I think I would run mad within a fortnight of our meeting, for you would be compelling, by turns incisive and playful, and I would be driven to distraction and begin misdiagnosing patients for thinking only of yourself. I think, in short, we as a pair would be a catastrophe. I am taken with you already, with your turn of phrase and your personality. Tell me something of yourself, and tell me why you are not yet married. I am not married because I am a solitary man who cares more for books and science than for society. I have not the niceties of many men who would humor a woman into marrying him because he liked her face. I don’t much care what you look like. You could be big as an ox and have whiskers on your chin if you have half the amusing manner and curious mind that your letter indicates.
Write to me, then, if I’ve not put you off of me
with my wild, irrational ramblings. I am a man who lives inside my head much of the time, and it is furnished, I fear, with a bit of fancy as well as science.
Hoping for your reply,
Alec Walsh, MD
Felicity giggled. The sound bubbled forth from her, and she clasped a hand to her lips to silence the unaccustomed sound. She had been so glum these past weeks that it was a revelation to be actually, truly happy. She brushed away tears and set to work on a reply.
Dear Dr. Walsh,
I feel that by addressing the salutation I am entitled to a medical consultation of some sort and ought to tell you I’ve a toenail that has been troubling me sorely. I joke but you take my meaning. I mustn’t be expected to call you Dr. Walsh if you are to be my correspondent or yet my husband. Alec, then, it must be, and I shall be Felicity to you, or Fliss if you prefer as that is what my family calls me.
In my family, as you ask about me, is my father who works in a factory, my mother who keeps the house and my three brothers. Tom is eldest and about to be engaged. Charlie and Max are both still in school and are absolute buffoons as boys of fifteen and sixteen must, by nature, be. Tom works at the same factory as our father and Charlie is the most contrary person in Christendom. Max is forever bringing frogs and lizards in the house. Mother said he would outgrow it but he has been collecting odd creatures since he was six…so nine years on I hold little hope that he’ll give up the practice. I’m always finding some animal swimming in the wash basin. I do not even bother to scream any more. I simply fish it out with a ladle, drop it in a cup, and get clean water to wash with. You may laugh, but it is far from funny on a cold morning and my body shudders on this.
I am sorry to disappoint your altruism by destroying your ideal woman down to the chin whiskers, but I am not in point of fact the size of a bull nor of any larger livestock that I’m aware of. I’m a normal size for a girl of one-and-twenty with dark hair and inquiring eyes and no whiskers to speak of at all. If whiskers be important to you, I find you interesting enough that I might seek an herbal poultice that might help me grow some just for your benefit! I am reading a book about making preserves which seems to involve a good deal of boiling and heating processes. It seems like the glass jars might burst and be quite dangerous, but one does like to have fruit in winter. In the West, I understand, one hasn’t the access to tinned fruit that the East enjoys. I know how to dry apples and apricots now as well. I’m making note of many useful skills to put into practice .