BEGINNINGS: Suffragettes Mail-Order Bride (Choice Brides Agency #1)

by Kate Cambridge

  Elizabeth agreed with her. The thought of climbing onto a train and traveling to lands unknown to bind yourself to a man you’d never met seemed insane to her. She could barely tolerate the idea of marrying a man she knew in a city which was as familiar to her as the back of her own hand.

  “Do you suppose the women are coerced?” Elizabeth asked.

  “The ad said that they exchange letters with the grooms,” Lydia replied. She was sipping her tea and grimacing, staring at the spot just beside Elizabeth’s shoe.

  Lucy, who had finished serving tea and set the tray aside, shook her head. “There’s not a lot you can tell from a letter.”

  “What happens if you arrive and you don’t like them?” Susan asked.

  Lydia shrugged. “I imagine you’d have to go through with it anyway,” she said.

  Elizabeth watched Lydia drinking and grimacing, and she suddenly realized that Lydia knew an awful lot about this. “Lydia?” she asked. “Were you…why are you bringing this up?”

  The other three women turned their heads sharply to see Lydia go a shade pinker.

  “I just…read the ad,” she said. Then she grimaced again, but she hadn’t drunk anything. “And I stopped in at their offices.”

  “Lydia!”

  “Well, it’s not as if Boston men have much to recommend them,” Lydia said defensively. “You were at the election yesterday, Lizzie – you were arrested for goodness’s sake! Did any of the men in the crowd strike you as marriage material?” Elizabeth had never considered any man marriage material, but she knew what Lydia was getting at. She thought of the man with hate in his eyes as he’d scratched at her ankle and shuddered at the thought of him marrying one of the women here. “I wasn’t going to do it,” Lydia added hastily. “I just…I suppose I was just curious. Surely there’s got to be a better way of staying secure than marrying one of your father’s anti-suffrage friends?”

  Elizabeth didn’t know what to say to that, and neither did any of the other women. They sat in uncomfortable silence for a while until Susan mercifully changed the subject to the election the day before. They had a lively discussion after that, but the ghost of Lydia’s curiosity laid over them, and Elizabeth was still thinking about it when she bid her goodbyes and left with Captain Sharpe. She mulled it over on the ride back home. Surely there had to be a better way for her friends to find husbands than to sell their souls to a Mail-Order Bride service?

  She thought so long and hard about it that she didn’t even realize that she’d arrived home until the cab pulled to a stop. It was nearing lunchtime and she was hungry. She knew that George would get something to eat in town before he returned home in the afternoon, but her father would likely go hungry if she didn’t force him to take a break and eat something. Captain Sharpe opened the cab door for her again and she stepped out.

  “If you don’t mind me saying, Miss,” he began as they walked up the driveway to her father’s house. “I know a thing or two about those Mail-Order Bride services.”

  “You do?” Elizabeth asked, forgetting that she was supposed to be indifferent to him. She froze in the middle of the drive and turned to look him in the eye. “How?”

  “Soldiers are targeted, you see,” he replied. He looked a little bit uncomfortable, rubbing his hands together but meeting her gaze. “Soldiers, farmers – unmarried men who might have trouble finding wives.”

  “You’ve – you’re saying that you would buy a wife?” she demanded.

  “No, never,” he replied firmly. “I wouldn’t marry for anything less than love.” Elizabeth didn’t know why she was relieved to hear that and decided not to examine the feeling too closely. “What I mean is, I’ve seen how they run things. Seems to me that they’re more interested in keeping the men happy than making sure that the women are happy, and I’ve heard rumors about folks mistreating their women once they get them.”

  Elizabeth’s heart sank – she thought of Lydia, beautiful, clever Lydia, trapped on a farm somewhere with a brute of a husband and nowhere to run to.

  “That’s…horrible!”

  He nodded. “It is,” he agreed. “If you don’t mind me saying, it might be a good idea to warn your friend off. At least until someone comes along who’s got her best interests at heart.”

  Something about the way he said that struck a chord with Elizabeth. “Yes,” she said, nodding. “Thank you, I will.”

  He nodded once and waited for her to lead the way up to the house. She did so, thinking over and over about what he’d said.

  Chapter 4

  In the wake of an election, Elizabeth always felt a sense of dissatisfaction and almost manic energy. She felt as though she were standing on the edge of a cliff or leaning on the back legs of her chair – constantly poised on the edge of the consequences to her actions, but never knowing if she were going to fall or land safely. As though all of the negative energy she’d taken in over the year had no outlet, and so it was burning her from the inside out.

  During this period of nervous, anticipatory energy, Elizabeth was at a loss for what to do with herself. There were no elections to prepare for, no rallies to organize, and her friends would often be working too hard to meet with her every day. Not that she begrudged them that responsibility. If she’d had her way, she would have worked as well. But she could not.

  So she would spend her days haunting their house like a ghost, moving from room to room and looking for something to occupy herself with. She would wake George up every morning and send him to walk, run the house and make sure that the maids and Christopher always had something to do, and that her father didn’t forget to eat. Running the household kept her occupied to an extent, but it was not particularly fulfilling.

  Elizabeth supposed that it was a good thing, in some ways, that she had nothing to do in the wake of the last election, because it meant that Captain Sharpe had nothing to do as well. He came to the house every morning and lingered in the dining room while she and George ate breakfast together. Her father had given him permission to use the library when he was there, so he would loiter about in there while Elizabeth went about her day. Elizabeth wasn’t sure whether he actually read any of the books in there, but she would often find him staring at the wall with a book in his lap.

  “Are you going out today?” he asked Elizabeth hopefully after a week of being cooped up indoors.

  Although Elizabeth would have liked to keep him bored, she was actually starting to claw at the walls herself.

  “I need to have a dress made,” she said.

  Captain Sharpe jauntily snapped the book in his lap shut and pushed himself to his feet. “When are we off?”

  “Give me an hour.”

  His face fell and he settled back down in the chair. He opened the book reluctantly. Elizabeth left the library with a grin on her lips, thinking that if a life of idleness was making her crazy, it could only be worse for a former soldier.

  She headed upstairs and did her hair in a simple chignon, enjoying the way that it seemed to frame her face without drawing too much attention to it. Her mind wandered, as it often did when she was alone nowadays, to Lydia’s talk about Mail-Order Brides and the warning Captain Sharpe had given her. The thought of Lydia trapped on some farm in the middle of nowhere with a husband who mistreated her filled Elizabeth with horror. She’d considered sending a telegram to Lydia immediately, but she couldn’t risk the woman’s parents reading it and finding out about her plans. She would have to warn Lydia off at their next bakery meeting.

  Elizabeth wished that there was a way for her to make sure that her friends were happy. Aside from splitting her inheritance between them, which would help to alleviate their problems but would not be enough to make them independently wealthy, there was really nothing for Elizabeth to do. She never felt more powerless as when she was confronted with how little she could do to keep her friends happy and healthy.

  After an hour and a half, Elizabeth got bored of keeping Captain Sharpe waiting and went downst
airs to fetch him. He was actually looking at the book when she came into the library.

  “What are you reading?” she asked.

  “Around the World in Eighty Days,” he replied, closing the book when he heard her come in.

  “Do you like it?” Elizabeth asked. She’d gobbled it up when she was a child, enjoying the vicarious adventure from the confines of her bedroom, unable to really appreciate the foreign adventures of Phileas Fogg, Jean Passepartout and Aouda because there was always a lingering sense of jealousy in her readings.

  The captain shrugged and stood up. “He got a few things wrong about Hong Kong,” he said.

  “Really? That’s –” She stopped herself. “Well, that’s to be expected. I’m sure Verne did the best he could with his limited knowledge.”

  She turned and left the library before she could be tempted to ask him what his experience of Hong Kong was like. Captain Sharpe followed and hailed a cab for her, climbing up to sit next to the driver as was customary.

  Elizabeth gazed out the window at the bustling sidewalks and tree-lined streets of Boston, and at the women and children going about their days while their men were working. The results of the election had been posted – the candidate she would have voted for did not get his seat. Elizabeth and her friends never spoke about who they wanted to vote for when they took to the polls because they considered such things to be entirely personal. Besides, who they were voting for was ultimately secondary to the main aim of the endeavor, which was to vote. Simply to have the right to vote.

  What had Verne gotten wrong about Hong Kong? The thought plagued as they drove and she wished that she hadn’t made up her mind to bore Captain Sharpe into submission because she desperately wanted to know the answer. She’d used that book to build herself a picture of the world inside of her head, and if the picture was wrong then she would have liked to know about it.

  They arrived at the dressmakers in no time. Elizabeth told Captain Sharpe to wait outside while she went in, and although he looked a bit troubled he did as she asked. No doubt he would have been just as bored in the dress shop as he was standing outside of it, but there were some things that Elizabeth didn’t feel the need to share with the man – like her measurements, for example, and what sorts of lace she preferred. She didn’t know why she felt the sudden urge to hide such things. She’d never bothered to do so when Christopher accompanied her to the dressmakers. But then, Christopher was not young and handsome. Taking Captain Sharpe into the dressmakers with her would feel much too intimate for Elizabeth’s tastes.

  When she came out of the dressmakers and found Captain Sharpe waiting for her, she had a sudden thought.

  “You said that Mail-Order Bride agencies target soldiers?” she said without preamble.

  He raised an eyebrow at her. “I did,” he replied, hesitantly.

  “Do you happen to know where I could find their offices?”

  He frowned. “You’re not thinking of joining up, are you?” he asked. “Because I meant what I said – I don’t think that they have women’s best interests at heart.”

  “I remember,” she replied firmly. “I would just like to see their operations for myself.”

  Captain Sharpe gave her a long look, as though he wasn’t quite convinced. Elizabeth felt herself growing annoyed – he was her bodyguard, not her father, and he had no business disapproving of any choices she may or may not make.

  “Do you know where the offices are, or not?” she asked.

  Finally, he answered: “Yes.”

  “Good, then hail a cab.”

  He did so and opened the door for her to climb in. Then he climbed up to the driver’s seat and gave the man an address which took them to the very edge of what Elizabeth considered ‘town’. As they got further away from the centre, the buildings were not as fine as the ones she and her family lived in but they were newer and more modern. The cab pulled up in front of one and Captain Sharpe opened the door for her.

  “Here we are, Miss,” he said evenly. “Would you like me to wait outside?”

  “Yes, thank you,” she replied. She wanted to pose as a potential bride, and she couldn’t do that with a handsome man at her elbow.

  When she entered the offices, she was confronted by the sickly smell of new carpet and ink. It reminded her of every bland, nameless office she’d ever been to. There was a desk set up against a white wall with a clerk typing at a typewriter. His shirt was untucked but his hair was nicely combed. He looked up when she entered and gave her a once-over which made her feel uncomfortable, as though she were produce at the market and he was deciding whether or not he would buy her.

  “Welcome to Brides Across Borders,” he said. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m just here to enquire,” she said, feeling a creeping sense of dread run up her spine. She suddenly wished that the captain had accompanied her after all.

  He stood up and moved around the desk to knock on the door on the opposite side of the room. “New girl!” he called out. Elizabeth really wished that she’d brought Captain Sharpe with her.

  The door opened and an elderly woman came out, and Elizabeth felt her fears ease a little bit. The woman gave her the same look that the clerk had, but she smiled afterwards.

  “Welcome,” she said, tottering over and shaking Elizabeth’s hand. “What’s your name?”

  “Elizabeth…Sharpe,” Elizabeth replied. She decided at the last moment to change her last name. It wouldn’t do for this woman to be able to track Elizabeth down in the future.

  “Miss Sharpe, you may call me Aunt Dashwood.”

  The woman coaxed Elizabeth into the inner room. It was decorated in more lace than Elizabeth had seen in her entire life and the air had a cloying scent of unwashed hair. Aunt Dashwood showed Elizabeth a seat next to the desk and sat down on the opposite side.

  “Now, what brings you to Brides Across Borders?” she asked.

  “Well, I was curious really,” Elizabeth said. “I read an ad in the paper about Mail-Order Brides and I thought I might look into it.”

  Aunt Dashwood nodded, her jowls wiggling with the motion. “I can see that you come from money,” she said, eyeing Elizabeth’s dress and gloves. “So why go out west for a husband when you could probably find one in the city?”

  Elizabeth tried very hard not to fidget under the scrutiny of Aunt Dashwood’s gaze. “I’m not…I don’t want a city man. I would prefer someone more…” She thought hard, but all she could think of was how much she’d wished that Captain Sharpe would tell her about Hong Kong. “Experienced. Adventurous, I suppose.”

  Aunt Dashwood pursed her lips and nodded. “Well, some of the farmers are like that, but it sounds to me like a soldier would suit you nicely. There are a few who’ve returned from war recently.”

  “Oh, I know,” Elizabeth replied.

  Aunt Dashwood took a sheet of paper off of the pile at the corner of her desk. “If you will kindly fill this out, Miss Sharpe, I can put you on the roster.”

  Elizabeth took the paper, feeling her brow crease without her permission. “May I ask what you mean by that?” she asked.

  The other woman steepled her fingers and looked over them. “You see, dear, when a man contacts us to find a match, he will provide us with a list of required traits. We then go through our roster and select the girls who match the man’s specifications and send him a selection to choose from. If he likes you, he will write you.”

  “And then what happens?”

  Aunt Dashwood smiled. “Well, then you woo him, my dear. And when he’s decided he likes you, you can travel out to meet him.”

  Elizabeth frowned down at the paper in her hands. There were several questions which she would be expected to answer, each more personal than the last. It asked her for her education, family background, how many children she would expect to have, and what kind of dowry her husband could expect if he chose her. There was also a question about whether or not she supported women’s suffrage, which Elizabeth would
have found encouraging if she didn’t suspect that answering in the affirmative would send any application plunging to the bottom of the roster.

  “What sort of screening process do the men go through?” Elizabeth asked.

  Aunt Dashwood cocked her head like a dog who didn’t quite understand what its master wanted. “What do you mean?”

  “Do they fill out forms as well?”

  “Heavens, no,” Aunt Dashwood replied. “Most of these men work long hours, they cannot be expected to waste their time with this. Besides, they are the ones who are making contact.”

  “Do you ever approach men?” Elizabeth asked, remembering what Captain Sharpe had said about the agencies which had approached him.

  “We put our cards in the welcome home packs that soldiers get,” Aunt Dashwood said. “And we take out ads in rural communities.”

  Elizabeth considered that. “Alright, but what if I don’t like the man who writes to me?” she asked. “What if I get his letter and I don’t like what I see.”

  Aunt Dashwood pursed her lips, looking at Elizabeth with a hard expression. “Well,” she said. “Any girl who was ungrateful enough to turn down an offer would have her application removed from the roster.”

  Elizabeth leaned back in her chair. Captain Sharpe had been right – this agency, at least, was completely uninterested in the needs and wants of the women it represented. She knew now that even if Lydia did get desperate enough to want to put her name down at a Mail-Order Bride agency, she wouldn’t make it past the screening process. Lydia, bless her, was too self-possessed for this.

  It bothered Elizabeth that a woman would be expected to accept whichever man wanted her, but that did not bother her nearly as much as the thought that the men were not properly vetted before they could use the agency. What was to stop a drunk from purchasing a bride? What if a woman answered a man’s letter, travelled out to meet him, and then discovered that he was completely different from the way he’d portrayed himself?

  Aunt Dashwood could clearly sense Elizabeth’s hesitation, because she reached forward and plucked the form out of her hands. “Perhaps you should take some time to decide if this is the service for you,” she said sternly. “I’ll not waste my time on someone picky.”