by Kit Morgan
Dear Mr. White
Mail Order Bride Ink Book 5
Kit Morgan
Angel Creek Press
ANGEL CREEK PRESS
Dear Mr. White
(Mail-Order Bride Ink, Book Five)
by Kit Morgan
© 2017 Kit Morgan
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without permission in writing from the publisher. All characters are fictional. Any resemblances to actual people or livestock are purely coincidental.
Cover design by Angel Creek Press, The Killion Group and Hotdamndesigns.com
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
About the Author
Chapter 1
The office of Mrs. Adelia Pettigrew (aka the Mad Matchmaker), 1901
Dear Mrs. Pettigrew,
My name is Oscar White. I run a stage stop with my family between Clear Creek and Oregon City, Oregon. We homesteaded here in 1849. I live with my two younger brothers, Henry and Anson, and our mother.
After careful consideration, I find myself in need of a wife. I’m not getting any younger and figured it was time. I am forty-five years of age, a simple man with simple needs. I am tall, so a woman of some height would be good. I work hard as does my family, so don’t need no wilting flower. She’s got to be strong and able to help my ma and me run things. That means cooking, sewing, mending, the usual chores for women folk. She’s also got to be good-natured. We run a fine stage stop and have a good reputation. I don’t want it sullied by some woman with bad manners and a temper.
Respectfully yours,
Oscar White
Mrs. Pettigrew’s assistant Fantine Le Blanc set the framed letter on her boss’s desk, then glanced at the walls of the office. They were covered with framed letters from mail-order brides Mrs. Pettigrew had sent off to be married. Since she was hired, her boss had taken the time to tell her the stories behind some of the letters. “I do not understand, Madame. What is so special about this letter?”
“Did you not say you wanted to hear a tale of a different sort, ma cherie? Well, this tale is very different indeed.”
“It is? And it takes place in Clear Creek, the same town in the story you told me several months ago?”
“Oui, ma petite. But only part of this tale takes place in Clear Creek. Most of it centers around Monsieur White and his family, who lived more than several days’ ride away. Even now, with better roads and good horses, one cannot make the trip in less than a few days. Or so I am told.”
Fantine’s eyes grew wide. “The Whites lived an … isolated life.”
“Not so much – they ran a stage stop, after all. How lonely could they be with people coming and going all the time?”
“Like a hotel of sorts?”
“Of sorts.” Mrs. Pettigrew’s face had a far-off look, as if she’d been to the stage stop herself. “It is a sad tale, yet a happy one.”
“Sad? But why?”
Mrs. Pettigrew smiled. “Ah, ma belle, you are so young, so innocent. You did not live through it.”
“Through what?”
For the first time Fantine could recall, her employer looked anguished. “The war, my child.” The woman swallowed, as if she could not go on.
She had told Fantine other tales of people who’d been in The War Between the States, such as Pleasant Comfort, whose family lost their plantation because of the war. But that story hadn’t made Mrs. Pettigrew look distraught. But … Pleasant had married one Eli Turner in 1877. She looked at the date on Oscar White’s letter again. “March 31, 1875,” she read aloud. “The war was ended some ten years when he wrote this.”
“Oui, cherie, so it was. Not so long at all.”
“And did not a man named White wed Eli Turner’s younger sister?”
“Oui.” Mrs. Pettigrew slowly nodded, still staring off into the distance. “She married Anson White, Oscar’s younger brother, not more than a year before Eli married Pleasant Comfort.” She took a deep breath and fingered the inkwell on her desk.
“Madame Pettigrew … why do you look so sad?”
“Because I am reminded of how cruel people can be when I think of Oscar and his bride. I was so much younger then, still so innocent in the ways of the world. So much cruelty during the war, ma douce, and then so much cruelty after.” She shoved the inkwell aside, her face back to normal.
“What sort of cruelty, Madame Pettigrew?” Fantine asked tentatively.
Mrs. Pettigrew folded her hands on the table in front of her. “The worst sort. The kind fueled by jealousy, greed, contempt.”
Fantine’s brow knit in worry. “What happened?” she asked in a small voice.
Mrs. Pettigrew sighed, opened the top drawer of her desk, pulled out a lace handkerchief and offered it to Fantine. “Take it, ma chere. You will need it for this story.”
Fantine’s eyes went round as platters. “I do not think I wish to hear this story, Madame.”
Mrs. Pettigrew smiled gently. “Ah, but you do, or you would not have asked. And though it is full of the cruelty of men, it is not only about that.”
Fantine didn’t look convinced, but she took the handkerchief. “What sort of woman did you send Mr. White?”
“One perfect for him.”
Fantine’s eyes flicked to the letter and back. “She was tall, strong and had nice manners?”
“Oh, no. She was not what Monsieur White wanted. But she was exactly what he needed – and he was what she needed.”
“Needed, Madame?”
“Oui. And her name, ma petite, was Lily Fair …”
Denver, Colorado, March 1875
Lily Fair Olson sat across the desk from Mrs. Pettigrew, the newest matchmaker in town. She couldn’t be much older than Lily Fair herself, perhaps not older at all. What had drawn the widow into the matchmaking business? Lily had always looked down on such enterprises before – what kind of woman had to resort to answering advertisements from men looking for brides? Now she knew – desperate ones. Like herself.
“I am afraid I have only the one applicant, ma cherie,” Mrs. Pettigrew told her in a French accent, or at least an attempt at one. Heaven only knew which.
“Is he … a nice man?” Lily asked, her eyes darting to the man’s application on the desk. “A tolerant man?”
Mrs. Pettigrew sat across the huge desk and studied Lily like a wise old owl. With her bright blue eyes, dark lashes and eyebrows, charming face and raven-black hair, Adelia Pettigrew was a stunning woman. Not to mention a rich one, and a recent widow at that. Why would she take to matchmaking instead of marrying again? Undoubtedly she could have all the suitors she wanted.
Lily tried not to fidget. She was nothing like the elegant woman on the other side of the desk – probably older, with ordinary brown hair that only gained streaks of red and gold in summertime. Her eyes were brown and somewhat dull, though they hadn’t always been. She was slim, nowhere near as shapely as Mrs. Pettigrew either.
She fought a sigh under the matchmaker’s scrutiny. Why was she staring instead of answering her questions?
“I do not know,” Mrs. Pettigrew finally said.
Lily closed her eyes and nodded. So she had no idea what sort of man this was, or what she was getting herself into. Still, it beat the alternative: abject poverty and utter destitution. “His name?”
Mrs. Pettigrew glanced at the paper. “Oscar White. He hails from Oregon.”
“Where in Oregon?”
“I am sorry, but there is no town listed. Only that he is between someplace called Clear Creek and Oregon City.”
“I have heard of Oregon City,” Lily replied. Mostly she’d heard it was small, a speck compared to her native Charleston, South Carolina. That was a real city, even after the war’s deprivations. But she’d been living with her aunt in Denver for years, and memories of Charleston were fading. And these days, her mind was so muddled from lack of food and sleep that she didn’t care about them anyway. She just knew she had to survive.
She reached for Mr. White’s letter and read it. “He runs a stage stop,” she whispered to herself. Her eyes widened and a small smile formed on her lips. “This man and his family must live off by themselves.”
“Quite right,” Mrs. Pettigrew agreed. “It would mean isolation for you, in a way. Still, there would be no shortage of people.”
“No, I imagine not,” Lily muttered, her eyes still scanning the letter. She finally set it down and once again shut her eyes a moment.
“Are you quite all right, mademoiselle?”
She opened her eyes and stared at the matchmaker. No, she’d heard real Frenchmen in Charleston, and Acadians from New Orleans and Quebecois from Canada, and “Madame” Pettigrew didn’t sound like any of them. That accent had to be fake. How odd. She shook off the notion and tried to concentrate, a hard thing to do when faint from hunger. “I will take him.”
“Are you sure? You do not sound convinced.”
Lily felt herself sway to the left and gripped her chair.
“Are you all right?” Without waiting for an answer Mrs. Pettigrew stood, went to the pitcher on a sideboard and poured Lily a glass of water.
She took it gratefully from her and drank. “I’m sorry, it is just that I have not eaten … in …”
Mrs. Pettigrew clapped her hands twice. The same young woman that saw Lily into the office – a maid of some sort, but without the usual uniform – hurried in and curtsied. “Tea, quickly,” the matchmaker ordered, and the woman left.
“You do not want to wait for other prospects?” Mrs. Pettigrew asked and retook her seat.
“No, I can’t. I must marry now.”
Mrs. Pettigrew nodded in understanding. “He has sent stage and train fare. After you refresh yourself, you will write him a letter.”
“Actually, I think it would be best if I simply went.”
Mrs. Pettigrew assessed her a moment, but not cruelly. “No, ma petite. You must write him a letter so we may send it with your answer. He should at least know something about you before you arrive, oui?”
“But I don’t have … that is to say…”
“And you will stay here until it is time for you to leave.”
Lily stared at her in shock. “How did you know?”
“It was not hard to divine. Your dress is careworn, patched in several places. You have dirt on your nose …”
Lily immediately rubbed at it in embarrassment.
“You have already said it has been some time since you ate. Conclusion: your money is gone and you have no home, or not an adequate one. You seek a husband to survive.”
Lily stared at the woman in shock. She had said it so matter-of-factly, without the judgment most people carried along with it. “Yes. I do.” She licked her lips, already dry despite just having had some water. “I’m desperate, you might say. And …”
Mrs. Pettigrew leaned forward, her big blue eyes full of compassion. “And what, ma belle?”
Lily met her gaze. “Broken.”
Lily lay in the huge bed in one of Mrs. Pettigrew’s guest rooms, staring at the crocheted canopy overhead. She’d had other lodgings, but had been forced to leave the drafty boardinghouse the morning of her interview due to lack of funds. At least she didn’t have to live in the street her few remaining nights in Denver. Late March wasn’t exactly the dead of winter, but with the “Mile High City’s” position just east of all those snow-capped mountains, it was still too cold to sleep outside in a worn-out coat.
She fingered the frayed lace of her nightdress. She hadn’t had new clothes for years. She’d led a life of privilege before the war – she and John had both come from prosperous plantation families. But the war took all of it, and then some. John was shot by a Union soldier at Chancellorsville, mere months after they’d wed. Her father, father in-law, brother and two male cousins all died in the infamous Battle of the Crater in Virginia, and her mother was felled by a heart attack when she got the news. She, her mother in-law and John’s aunt were all that were left.
Then she lost John’s mother to a fire when the soldiers came and ravaged South Carolina. What the Union soldiers didn’t take or burn, the looters did, wiping them out. By then, there were no men to marry in Charleston save for the lame and infirm and a few Yankee carpetbaggers. Moving in with John’s sickly aunt in Denver – she’d gone there due to tuberculosis shortly before First Manassas – was her only real option.
But what did it matter? she’d thought when she headed west to Colorado Territory. Her pain was too great. She couldn’t marry again, not even to survive. Then Aunt Hortense coughed her last breath away, Lily at her side, without a penny to their names … and marriage became her only chance to survive, short of selling herself on the street. No money, no home, no food. Nothing.
And it was all her fault. She was Lily Fair Olson, daughter of generations of Carolina planters – too proud to work, too much a Southern Lady to get her hands dirty like common people. Oh, she did clean, cook and mend, as Hortense could afford no servants or slaves to do those tasks, but she’d made a hash of each task. And to work outside the safe confines of her aunt’s home was unthinkable.
Looking back on it she should have handled things differently. She should have worked when she had the chance, done something, anything to take in money and tuck it away. At least now she’d have enough to start again someplace else. But no, she’d let her pride starve her instead, not to mention her aunt. She’d lived off Aunt Hortense’s money, having none herself, until it was all gone. She’d held out for a miracle that never came.
Hortense had passed just as the money ran out. Her aunt always had been punctual.
She sighed and continued to stare at the intricate lace overhead. This time would be different. She was different – hunger did that to a person. And finding work in Denver wasn’t a choice – what was she qualified to do save sit around, drink tea and waste money? If she didn’t wed – and she had no prospects in Denver – the only other choice was becoming a “soiled dove,” and at her age it was probably too soon to start even if she could stomach the prospect.
But then, would getting married to a complete stranger in the back of the beyond be any better? She’d still have to work – that was a fact of life that, before the war, she hadn’t given a thought to. She hadn’t considered it much afterward either, not until right before Aunt Hortense died and her precarious situation was staring her in the face. Now she had no skills unless you counted being scared out of her wits. She just hoped that by the time she got to Clear Creek, she found some of her old moxie.
Oh, she missed her old life. Her family and John’s had fought for that old life, when not a day went by that she didn’t have a myriad of slaves at her beck and call. Her father had owned dozens. But that life was gone, as were the now-freed slaves.
After, many a Union soldier blamed South Carolina for starting the war – they’d been the first state to secede, a founding member of the Confederacy, and the bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor was considered by many the first military engagement of the conflict. No wo
nder that near the war’s end, when General Sherman marched his troops up through the Carolinas from Savannah …
Lily shuddered as a chill went up her spine. By the time Sherman and his armies were done, she was lucky to be alive.
She sent up a silent prayer for those left behind, families and friends she’d known whom now, years later, were in no better shape than she was. Perhaps she was doing the right thing after all. At any rate, it was the necessary thing – that would have to do.
Chapter 2
Clear Creek, Oregon, April 1875
Oscar White wiped his sweaty hands on his trousers for at least the twelfth time before sticking a couple of fingers into his shirt collar to loosen it.
“If you don’t stop fretting, Oscar, you’re gonna worry yourself sick!” Irene Dunnigan looked at him with her signature beady-eyed glare, her face scrunched up. She’d told him that three times already that day, and at no point had it helped. “You know I’m right!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Is that all you can say when a person’s talking to you?” she barked back.
“No, ma’am.”
Mrs. Dunnigan rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I’m gonna start on your supply list. You and that bride of yours gonna get hitched today?”
“Most likely.”
“Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat – you done said something besides yes or no!”
He glanced at her with a tight smile. “Told ya I could.” Truth was, he was so nervous that not even the cantankerous Irene Dunnigan helped. He found it hard to concentrate on anything, like remembering what time the stage was coming in. He kept looking at his watch every few minutes …