by Rose Jenster
You ask why I am not married, and I will give you the honest answer. Daniel decided he did not want me after he moved out west. I was engaged to marry a man who moved to Wyoming Territory. He was supposed to send for me but found himself another bride who suited him better, so I received a letter stating as much a few months ago. I was studying up to be a proper frontier wife, and it seems I was preparing for an exam I’d never be asked to sit for. That is why I sought the matrimonial papers and wrote to yourself and to another gentleman who has since found a bride elsewhere. You are, as of this time, my only correspondent.
If I may be so bold, I am glad you didn’t cast my letter into the fire. Have I your sister to thank for that kind attention? I can only imagine that after she placed the ad, she also screened and selected the letters for your attention. So to her thoughtful choice of my poor letter, I thank her heartily, if that be the case.
Why would you not place an ad for yourself then? What would become of you once your sister moved away? Have you any living family? Do you read outside of medical books? Do you keep a farm? What is the nearest town to you? The only places I know in Montana are Billings and Helena, so I must tax my meager knowledge of geography to locate you on a map.
How far this letter must travel to reach you, and how slow the mail deliveries are! I wish I might have a letter back from you tomorrow or tonight even! I must be patient. It seems the men in these ads all want pretty, quiet, patient girls—the sort of girl I decidedly am not.
Best wishes for a quick reply!
Felicity
She posted it the next morning and began marking off days in anticipation of a response. In the meantime, she received an unwanted second letter from the shop clerk who offered to write to her and keep her in mind if his marriage did not work out as his chosen bride was very frugal and clever but not much in terms of physical beauty. He asked Felicity to describe her appearance in a return letter for him. Disgusted and a bit alarmed by this, she tore the letter to bits and threw it in the stove, hoping against hope that Alec did not turn out to be such a superficial toad as that clerk had proven to be.
In the meantime, Felicity read everything she could access at the library that had to do with home remedies, natural tonics, poultices and teas. She made notes as if she would have to take an examination at school on the topic. All the while, she had in mind that she could bring this knowledge to Montana Territory and use what she knew to help Alec and his patients. Even though they had exchanged only one or two letters a piece, she was convinced that this was her purpose and her place. She wanted to be his helper and for him to know that she was devoted to him.
Alec was not Daniel and would never be. He was not her great love. Yet, he was a man who would be an honorable husband and one day a father to her children. Alec was a man who would listen to her thoughts and be patient with her playfulness and whimsy and be a companion. She envisioned him as a husband to walk beside her through life on a path they both chose with their eyes open. Nothing he had said to her indicated an interest in romantic attachment---he needed a helper, a secretary and cook. Perhaps they might become very good friends as well. His idea of whom he was looking for seemed pretty practical to Felicity.
She was in part a fanciful creature, but she could respect practicality and she saw, in this case, that the castles she and Daniel had built in the clouds had been baseless. Felicity needed a man with his feet firmly on the ground, yet also someone with ideals.
When his letter came, sooner than she had thought it might, she was so excited that she had to sit down and read it right there outside the post office.
Dear Felicity,
I have not a proper farm but a field of oats, a vegetable garden and a few hens, a cow, and a horse. Most of what we need comes from the produce of the garden as well as the eggs and milk. The oats go to market and make enough of an income to pay for the keep on the livestock and next year’s planting. There is usually a bit left over depending upon the crops and weather. It’s a small place but self-sufficient.
My doctoring keeps me in medical supplies and pays the subscription to the lending library by post. I do read books other than those in my trade. I have just finished the stories of Guy de Maupassant and I am beginning a detective story that my cousin has sent me to read. Doctors who only read medical matters lack the language of conversation and tend to be dull.
What do you read? Or do you much prefer needlework or some other feminine pursuit?
I find myself wanting to write you a longer letter, but I haven’t much to say that is not about my patients and my work. As you are a stranger here, it might not be of much interest to you yet. When you know the subjects of whom I speak, when you have sat by them in church and tried to smile whilst eating the very dry fruitcake they bring you as a gift, then you will have concern for them, I’m sure.
I am ahead of myself, I suppose, in speaking as though your coming here were a foregone conclusion. I am aware (thanks in part to my sister who is suddenly tolerating none of my nonsense) that you will make a choice whether to join me here or not. I mustn’t assume you are agreeable to a move West with the promise of marriage to an ill-tempered country doctor with one horse and no carriage. I feel certain you are accustomed to ride about in an open carriage, displaying whichever beautiful hat you have trimmed at the shop recently.
Would you be willing to think of your future with me? I ask you now with more hope than a man ought to have after two letters. Would you consider, would you entertain the thought of marrying me? I would so like to continue a correspondence with you and learn more of who you are and what you want out of life, but I cannot in good faith go forward in writing letters as a bachelor to an unmarried woman without declaring my intentions and asking you to accept them.
It would be ignoble to find amusement and solace in the letters of a woman I had no designs upon making my wife, and I am not, I flatter myself to say, such a man. I want to write to you, and have you write to me, whatever thoughts and plans you may have, with the knowledge that after a few more letters, there will be a train ticket in the envelope as well, and I will want to be your husband and have you for my wife.
Do you give me leave to hope? Could I be that fortunate?
Alec
Chapter 5
It was with a heart full of hope that Felicity carried the letter home to show her mother. It seemed the right time to tell her about her daughter’s venture into correspondence with a man from the matrimonial advertisements. She steeled herself for her mother’s disdain, her father’s disappointment and her brothers’ ridicule. Felicity went first to the kitchen where her mother cut up carrots for soup.
“Mother, let me do that. Please, just read this letter I’ve received.”
“Is it Daniel changed his mind again?” Her mother scowled with a disapproving look.
“No, it is—Alec. He is a doctor in Montana Territory,” Felicity said cheerfully.
“How did you come to know such a man? Is he the brother of a friend from church?” she asked suspiciously.
“I answered his ad for a bride in the newspaper,” Felicity said boldly.
Her mother sank into a chair and covered her eyes with her hand as if stricken.
“My only daughter,” she said hoarsely, and when she looked up there were tears in her eyes.
Felicity could not remember ever seeing her mother cry. Mother was strong and mostly uncomplaining---although in recent years she had shown a certain bitterness that made Felicity think that motherhood was, perhaps, not as great a joy as it was reputed to be. It shook her to see her mother in tears, and it was doubly painful to know that she herself was the cause of such anguish. What warmed Felicity's heart and stopped her grief was the reason for her mother's sadness.
“Felicity Ann,” she began, “I knew from your babyhood that you’d be a pretty thing as my sisters were. You’d have no trouble getting a man or ten if you wanted. So I set out to teach you steady ways and to keep your head about you—but you�
��ve ever been the flightiest little piece. I’m afraid you took after my sister Saffy. She was always so impulsive, poor thing. Ran off and left her husband and baby to go be on the stage, or so she claimed.”
“But, Mother, I’m not abandoning a family to go be an actress! I’m to be married, to a fine doctor, a respectable man,“ she said with great sincerity.
“Don’t you talk to me about respectable, girl!” her mother snapped. “I know how respectable girls behave, and you have always wanted people to look at you and admire you. When you said you were marrying Daniel it was a relief on my mind because I’d feared you’d go bad and get yourself in trouble. When he jilted you, I can’t say I was awful surprised. He found himself a good, traditional girl to marry,” she said with her hands on her hips.
“What—Mother, is this really what you think of me? That I’m vain and a flirt and only shallow?“ Felicity broke off, chewing her lip in an equal mix of hurt and shame. She had been those things—perhaps not as bad as her mother thought her to be, but vain and silly nevertheless. Still, that was not all of her and she knew that Alec could help her cultivate her deeper aspects. Wouldn't her own mother also be aware of all that she could be?
“It won’t do you no good for me to pretend I didn’t worry about you every minute. That you’d bat those eyes at the wrong man and wind up in a heap of trouble. If you think this doctor will really marry you and not just get you out there before you find out he’s married or a criminal or something worse, go right ahead,” she said with the air of a woman shaking the dust of a place off her feet rather than a mother giving her blessing. She eyed Felicity with glaring disappointment.
“I’d hoped for better. I’d hoped for you to say you wanted me to have a family of my own and not to give up just because Daniel didn’t think I was worth marrying. I understand why you don’t have much faith in me. Just know that I have plenty of faith in myself and in Alec, enough hope to share if you can’t muster any for me,” she said and stumbled back upstairs to cry in her room.
It rent her heart that her mother held her worth so cheaply, but she supposed that she hadn’t made much effort to be the sort of daughter her mother wanted or would be proud to have. Felicity had always followed her own interests and never given much thought to her mother’s disappointments.
It made her more than a little curious about this bad Aunt Saffy she’d never heard about before. In fact, she sounded odd and interesting. Felicity wondered if it was worth the trouble to try and find out what name she used—her maiden name or her deserted husband’s name—and see if she might write her a letter. Too shocking, she decided, and too hurtful to her mother.
Still, she wondered if there weren’t worse things in life than being remembered as the "bad" sister. She had a strong suspicion that she was about to be cast in that role, once her father and brothers knew her intentions. Her heart was telling her to keep her faith and trust that Alec was not a scoundrel.
At supper, Felicity waited until most of the meal was eaten before she launched her topic. The preview with her mother did not give her much hope for her news being received well by the rest of the family.
“I’m considering a proposal of marriage,” she began brightly.
Her father’s eyebrows went up, but he waited without remark.
“A doctor in Montana Territory placed an advertisement, or rather his sister did on his behalf, and I answered it. He threw all the other letters in the stove and kept only mine. We’ve been writing to one another, and he wishes to make his intention to marry known before we proceed further with our correspondence,” she managed to say. Her heart was racing and she could wait no longer.
“You’re a mail order bride!” Tom hooted.
“If you must put a crude name to it, I suppose that’s what I am.” Felicity was unsure how to defend herself.
“So if I open a catalog from the post I may expect to see your picture beside all the sketches of tools and boots?” Tom laughed and enjoyed poking fun at his sister.
“No, they’ve not found a way to mass produce copies of me,” she said waspishly and sipped her water, waiting for the fury to subside. Of course, she’d known her brothers would ridicule her—it was a bit of a fantastical choice even for her. They mocked her for much smaller actions than this.
“Now, Fliss, I don’t’ want you to be thinking you’re not welcome here at home. Sure, we was counting on you being wed to that Daniel but you needn’t jump in to another situation just to get out of the house,” her father said. In fact, it was the very opposite as he hadn't wanted her to go to Wyoming.
“Thank you, but it’s because I want to have a home and family and a life of my own. You and Mother can have a life of your own with more time and money for yourselves if I’m gone as well,” she said.
“We would never want you to risk unhappiness, Fliss,” her mother said gruffly and squeezed her hand.
“I know,” Felicity said, her voice thick with emotion and moved by her mother's hand squeeze. “I don’t think I’m risking that. I’m not leaving tomorrow, you know. We’re writing letters, getting to know one another, planning to wed.”
“So you’re courting?” her father asked.
“In a manner of speaking, yes, we are,” Felicity said, pleased that he’d struck on a word that suited her to describe the relationship.
“Then he’d best consult your father,” he remarked.
“I’m sure he will,” she said, making a mental note to suggest it in her next letter. “May I be excused? Now that I’ve spoken to you all, I’d like to write to Alec,” she said, color rising to her face.
“You’ve dishes to do, girl,” her father said. He checked his emotions and remained outwardly steady.
Felicity helped clear the table and set to scrubbing plates and spoons, humming absently to herself. Her mind was hundreds of miles away in Montana Territory, gazing out a different window with trees and mountains for a vista instead of a grim back lot with the house behind theirs.
Mentally, she freshened the paint in the kitchen and replaced the plates, hung new sprigged paper in the sitting room, and dressed her mother in something smart and new. She wondered how she could bring about such improvements before she moved West to marry to show her parents her appreciation. The thought made her giddy. Felicity wondered if she hadn’t try to save some of her wages against privation on the frontier, but since Alec stressed the self sufficiency of his small farm and his doctoring, she reckoned they would be fine on his income.
After the dishes were wiped and stowed away, Felicity returned to her room and wrote to Alec.
Dear Alec,
Do not think me too fast, too forward, when I admit that I want to be your wife. I know my mind and what I wish to have and that includes a home and family, a husband who will talk with me and be interested in what I have to say. Your letters indicate that you are such a man as who might win my regard with little effort. Do not think me so easily conquered then but think yourself so beguiling instead.
I have spoken with my parents of our correspondence just this evening. My mother is quite dismayed, and my father is worried. I think you could set his mind at ease if you have leisure to send him a note. I am unsure what would put my mother’s mind at ease, as I’ve spent one and twenty years never thinking much of anyone but myself. She thinks of me as impulsive and immature. I am above half sure that she is right. Nevertheless, they did not forbid me to write you, to receive your letters, to anticipate a match with you.
I give you leave, therefore, to hope all you like. I shall hope as well, and together we may be able to create a life together through that hope and our faith. I can tell you are a man of fine caliber and with many talents.
While you are all cleverness and insist you care nothing for my appearance, I would like to know what you look like. I have told you I have brown hair and I am about average size, but I did not tell you that the reason, the only reason, Mrs. Rochester, my esteemed employer, hired me was (she told me as muc
h herself) because I looked well in her hats. I am through no merit of my own other than the accident of birth, appealing enough that people come into a shop looking to purchase hats I have modeled while promenading arm-in-arm with Mrs. Rochester down the main street of commerce in Albany.
My looks have done me no great service. My face attracted Daniel, who held little regard for my brain or my wishes. My face got me a post in the millinery shop, and I’ve learnt a great deal there, but I know that I’m little more than a seamstress’ dummy to place a hat on to show it to advantage most days. My skill with a feather or a ribbon is second to the value of my appearance in a hat. It is humbling to own it, but you ought to know that I was not hired for my arithmetic skills nor my taste.
That being said, my work with the customers and Mrs. Rochester has improved me in responsibility if nothing else. I have had people depend on me and need me to do a good job staying later at my job to fulfill the obligations. I have learnt to be useful in some capacity and enjoy helping customers though improving appearances cannot compare to curing someone's illness.
Recently I've asked my mother to teach me to cook, though you will laugh to know that at this late date I had no cookery skills to speak of. Your sister must be much more talented than I in this area.