by Linda Ellen
The old man grabbed the last few papers and straightened up, his gaze now sympathetic as he turned toward her once again. “Well now, young lady. I always did think that young man was a touch addled. He’d have to be to let a sweet, beautiful little gal like you get away from him,” he stated flatly. Approaching her with his familiar uneven gait as she stood near the door, he handed her the pile and then picked up his pipe again and drew a puff as he studied her expression. “Are you all right, honey?” he gently inquired.
Beth Ann felt a rush of tenderness for the wizened old man, who had truly been like a grandfather to her and to Charise since the day they had moved into the drafty old building nearly nine years before. Flashing him what she hoped was a convincing smile, she lifted the pile of papers in her hands and shook them at him playfully, quipping, “I’m hoping to find the answer to that somewhere in these pages, Mr. Hinkle.”
He gave a nod and took the pipe from his mouth as he watched her step into the hall between their open doors.
“If that no good varmint hurt you, you just tell me where I can find him. I’ll teach him a thing or two.”
She paused at her doorway and looked back at him with a grateful smile, realizing that with friends like him, coworkers at the store, and friends at church, and God on her side, she really wasn’t alone and everything would eventually work out. On impulse, she stepped close again and gave him a resounding kiss on his crinkled cheek.
Stepping back again, she smiled at him with true affection. “No thank you, my knight in shining armor. For now, these will do.”
He let out a soft snicker and raised his pipe in salute, offering, “You need anything else, you just let me know, young lady. Anything at all, I’m here for ya.”
Beth smiled at him, sincerely touched. “Thank you, Mr. Hinkle. I’ll remember that for sure.”
He was still smiling fondly when she wiggled her fingers at him and gently closed her door.
Same day, Brownville, Nebraska
Burly lumberjack and mill owner, Samuel Maynard, put down the letter he was reading and let out a discouraged sigh as he ran a hand thoughtfully over his thick brown beard.
Alice Moreland from Philadelphia. Another young woman that sounds like she’d be a good wife and mother. Pretty face, too, he mused as he picked up and studied the small, customarily unsmiling likeness she had included with her introductory letter. The woman’s dark hair was piled in a chignon; her features were attractive, with dark, wide-set, intelligent eyes, nice lips, high cheekbones and smooth looking skin. Her dress was demure, but pleasant looking and seemed to fit well. So...why doesn’t she appeal to me? She seems smart, her letter is engaging, she has good morals and she seems to want the same things I do. She meets every detail I told myself I wanted...except long, wavy red hair...and bright green eyes...
He shook his head in an attempt to dispel the images of another young woman that stubbornly materialized on the canvas of his mind. Since that fateful trip to Louisville, Kentucky to marry his brother’s bride by proxy and bring her home to Brownville, due to the fact that Finn was laid up, whenever his mind wasn’t occupied with work or other things, memories of Beth Ann Gilmore had persistently found their way back to his consciousness. He couldn’t seem to shake them—despite the fact that he told himself each time that Miss Gilmore was already spoken for and therefore off limits. Heck, he’d even met her intended! Stanley seemed like an upright fellow. A bit on the clumsy side and not much of a man, in Sam’s opinion, but nevertheless, he obviously was man enough for Beth Ann, and that’s all that counted. So, stop thinking about her! He mentally upbraided himself with a few choice words.
“For all I know, she’s probably already married anyway, even though Charise hasn’t mentioned it...” he mumbled.
“Who’s already married?” a familiar voice asked from right behind him, causing him to yelp and tip forward in his chair, nearly tumbling off onto the floor.
Turning his head and encountering the wavy hair, wide grin, and amused eyes of his brother, he griped, “Dang it all, Finn, don’t sneak up on a body like that!”
His brother chuckled and shook his head as he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned his back against the doorway to Sam’s office above the mill.
“I called out, but I guess you didn’t hear me over that god-awful din downstairs,” Finn indicated with a nod toward the large open mill down below, where right then Sam’s new part-time helper, Frank, was busy pushing a log through the loud, screeching saw blade.
Sam merely grunted and began stuffing Alice Moreland’s letter back into its envelope.
Finn reached forward and snapped up the small studio portrait to examine before Sam could stop him.
“Hmm, not bad, brother of mine. What’s this one’s name?” he asked, taking a peek at the back for her name and finding none.
“Noneya,” Sam groused as he snatched the small picture from Finn’s hand and stuffed it inside with the letter.
“Noneya? Hmm, that’s unusual,” Finn teased. “What’s her last name? Business?” he cackled at his own joke. Sam just sneered at him and shoved back from the desk.
“What’s got you all riled up? Gettin’ tired of looking for the right girl?” Finn ribbed, but at the glint of something in Sam’s expression, he backed off a bit and straightened as they faced one another. His demeanor softening, Finn asked, “How many ladies does this make since you started this venture?”
Sam ground his teeth together, but reminded himself that his brother truly did care about him and about the situation—they just knew one another too well and knew how to push each other’s buttons. They both did so, on a never-ending basis. It had been the same since they were boys. Deep down, however, he knew Finn would lay down his life for him, as Sam would for him, if ever the need arose.
Grudgingly, he cleared his throat and released a tired sigh as he opened a drawer in his desk, tossing the latest letter onto the pile.
Finn looked in and let out a low whistle.
At that, Sam’s lip hitched on one side and he sheepishly admitted, “She’s number ten.”
“Ten! Jeeze brother...but...none of them suited you?” Finn asked as he moved forward and leaned to scoop up the letters from their resting place.
Sam, his angst at his brother having evaporated as fast as it had arisen, flopped back down in the chair. He blew out a breath and leaned his elbows on the desk, resting his head on his hands. “Oh, I don’t know, Finny. Maybe I’m too picky.” He looked askance at his sibling and added, “Who am I to want Miss Perfect? I ain’t no prize specimen. And besides, maybe you got the last good one,” he added with a fond half grin as he pictured his sweet and beautiful sister-in-law.
Finn perched a hip on the corner of the desk as he examined the names and return addresses on the envelopes, but shot a silly grin at Sam. “Charise is pretty terrific, isn’t she.”
Sam grunted in agreement and scrubbed his face with his hands as once again, the image of a girl with wavy ruby tinted auburn hair, sparkling, clear green eyes—the greenest eyes he’d ever stared into—straight, white teeth and soft, pink lips floated across his mind.
“None of these struck your fancy?” Finn wondered aloud.
“Nope.”
“Who were you talking about when I walked in, anyway?” Finn asked as he leaned to put the letters back in the drawer. “Who’s probably married? The last one you were reading? Why would you think that?”
Somehow, Sam just couldn’t let Finn in on his unrequited longing for his sister-in-law’s best friend. Heck, if Charise found out I’m mooning over her friend back in Louisville, she’d write Beth Ann and tell her and they’d both have a big hootin’ laugh at my expense. Or worse yet, she’d be real sweet and feel sorry for me. Maybe even bake me my favorite pie or somethin’.
With a groan of self-inflicted misery, he mumbled, “Don’t matter,” as he dragged himself up from the chair and pushed past his brother. “Gotta get back to work.”
“Yea
h, sure,” Finn answered as he moved out of his way. “I, um...” he paused and waited for Sam to stop. “I came over to ask you to come to dinner tonight. Charise is trying a new recipe for meatloaf. She’s calling it the Louisville-Brownville Special and she wants us to be her first passengers.” He snickered at his own joke and added, “She said come around six...all right?”
Sam let out a sigh, but gave a nod in answer, mumbled his thanks, and moved on out the door without looking back. He could feel Finn’s concerned eyes boring into his back as he clomped down the steps. Sam knew his brother wondered why he wasn’t confiding his private thoughts to him, the way they always had since they were kids. But there’s some things a man just needs to keep to himself.
Sam exited the building and took a deep breath of brisk autumn air, filling his lungs several times as he rifled his hands back through his hair and flexed his muscled arms above his head and behind his back, intent on doing a little wood chopping. Nothing like good old manual labor to keep one’s mind in check...at least, that was the plan.
Hopefully it would block from his mind things like a forbidden, unrelenting passion for a woman he would not be allowed to take for his own.
Chapter 2
“Y es, Miss Gilmore, I think our agency will be able to find a beauty like you a good match in no time,” Lloyd Fetterman of Fetterman’s Marriage Brokers commented as he looked up from perusing her documentation.
Something in the oily tone of his voice made Beth Ann’s skin crawl. It brought to mind something a childhood friend from the orphanage always said about men up to no good being slicker than a peeled eel.
She turned away from his piercing gaze and mumbled, “Thank you,” as she tried not to run her hands over the sudden gooseflesh erupting on her arms.
“In fact, I do have a prospective groom in mind,” the man added as he sat back in his chair and continued his unabashed appraisal of her physical attributes. She glanced back at him in time to see his eyes traveling down her body, stopping at the level of her chest in a decidedly too familiar manner while he absently fingered his ridiculously long, waxed mustache. His eyes, dark brown and intense, flicked back up to hers and what she saw in them sent a chill clear down to her toes. It was all she could do to sit still, willing herself not to bolt from the chair and flee the room.
“Th...that’s wonderful, M...Mr. Fetterman,” Beth Ann managed as she slowly began to gather her cape and reticule to make her escape. Why did I come here? Impatient for results, that’s why. Always impatient, Beth Ann, that’s your trouble. You should have waited more than a mere week for answers to your first batch of letters instead of hopping a streetcar and coming here to sign up!
She forced herself to look back at the man who was still speaking, entreating her to call him Lloyd. Funny, the man wasn’t bad looking, with his smoothly combed dark hair kept in place with Rowlands’ Macassar Oil—she would know that pungent odor of coconut, palm and ylang-ylang oil anywhere, as she had sold many a box of it from her counter at the store. His impeccable suit, crafted from the finest wool, was obviously expensive and tailor made—not something one would find even at Fessenden and Stewart—and dark brown silk cravat that complemented his white shirt and starched, stand-up collar. But, something about his whole persona made her decidedly uncomfortable and she found herself regretting her decision.
“Let me look over the prospective grooms that I have in my dossier and I’ll get back to you,” he was saying. Then, glancing down at the information she had reluctantly provided, which Beth Ann had found uncomfortably full of overly personal questions—nevertheless, she had answered each one—he went on, “This is your home address?”
She squelched the desire to snatch the papers off his desk and run. Swallowing, she gave a hesitant nod and mumbled, “Yes.”
As if he sensed her unease, he smiled at her with exaggerated solicitation and finished, “I’ll send a message when I have news.”
“Thank you,” she murmured as she hastily rose to her feet and fled the room.
The meeting had left her with a feeling of foreboding and she found herself hoping against hope that the man would forget all about her application and never send the promised message.
That evening alone in her apartment, she once again wrote to her best friend, who was so far away, pouring out her troubles just like they had done with one another since the first day they had become roommates so many years before. Beth Ann told her friend in detail of her concerns about the unsavory marriage broker even as she worried about the personal nature of the questions on his supposed application.
Perhaps one of the men I wrote letters to will respond before I have to have more dealings with the mustached Mr. Fetterman. One thing I resolve...I will not call him by his Christian name, no matter what he says, she wrote.
Finishing up her letter with a funny thing that had happened at work, and a few greetings from fellow co-workers who had asked after Charise, Beth Ann folded and placed it into the envelope, readying it to go out in the next day’s post.
Two quiet weeks went by, during which Beth Ann did receive several replies to the letters she had written the first night of her monumental decision, but none of the men seemed compatible.
She went to work everyday and came home on the same trolley route, stepping off on Friday at Haupt’s Bakery down the street from her apartment for her customary payday treat of a Bavarian cream-filled pastry. She sent a grin toward the trolley driver who teased her about feeding her sweet tooth. She couldn’t wait to get home, eat a quick supper of her special potato soup that Mr. Hinkle promised to keep an eye on for her, and then curl up in her overstuffed chair to read Charise’s latest letter, along with two others from prospective grooms.
Humming happily, she walked along the street, despite the chilly, early October breeze blowing briskly through the funnel made by the long rows of two and three story brick apartment houses that were situated side by side on the narrow boulevard. Just as she reached the front stoop of her building, a boy of about twelve, expertly riding a penny-farthing, arrived from the other direction. Beth Ann abstractly wondered how anyone could keep their balance on one of those high wheel contraptions. She said a quick, silent prayer that the youngster would not fall off and break an arm or leg—or worse!
“Miss Gilmore?” the boy asked.
Beth Ann glanced at him as she stopped and gave a nod. “Yes.”
“I have a note for you.”
Puzzled, her brows furrowed. “A note? Do you mean a telegram?”
“No ma’am, a note,” the boy insisted, producing a folded piece of paper from his pocket as he hung onto the edge of the tall front entrance steps to keep the bicycle upright. He handed the note to her and then beat a hasty retreat before she could say anything more.
Beth Ann watched him go and then shrugged a shoulder, slipped the paper between two of the envelopes to read later, and continued up the steps to her apartment.
Later, after a pleasant supper, in which she had asked Mr. Hinkle to join her and he had accepted, Beth Ann bid her friend and neighbor a good evening and then made herself comfortable in the big chair with her letters and treat.
It was then that she saw again the curious message the boy had given her. Breaking the wax seal on the tri-fold note and unfolding it, she saw it was written on stationary printed with the sender’s name, causing her to read it with a bit of consternation:
Beth Ann, please come to the agency tomorrow. I believe I have found the perfect match for you.
Regards,
Lloyd H. Fetterman, III
A shiver ran down her body as she read his name, written with flourishing penmanship. Then, a wash of irritation followed in which she chastised herself.
Oh Beth Ann, get a hold of yourself! The man is a businessman. He’s not going to do anything unseemly in his place of business. Besides, maybe he truly has found your perfect match. I’ll just go and see, simple as that.
With a nod, she placed the note on the t
able next to her chair and then opened the first of the two new prospects. Then, taking a big bite of her pastry, she settled down to read.
However, the two letters were in a word, unremarkable. Beth Ann didn’t feel any inkling of a connection to either of the men. One admitted he was a widower twice her age, with a daughter only a year younger than Beth, and four sons. The other described his life in Colorado as a silver miner who toiled in a mine six days a week for the mine owners, and desired a wife to, as he put it, keep him warm on the cold Colorado nights. His cabin was near the tiny mining camp of Eldora, which contained very few women, no church, and nine busy saloons. His letter didn’t draw her interest either.
With a shrug, she put them aside, finished up her pastry with a moan of decadent delight, and opened the several-page missive from her friend. Soon, she was pleasantly submerged in Charise’s familiar handwriting.
Dear Bethie,
I got your letter today and just had to write you right back. Oh honey, please be careful—I don’t one bit like the sound of that Mr. Fetterman or his agency. Can you just not go back? I have a very bad feeling about him, just from what you told me in your letter. A girl can’t be too careful. Now I will worry about you until I receive your next letter!
Beth Ann smiled and shut her eyes for a moment. In that instant, she missed her friend more than ever and wished she were in Brownville with her. A strong yearning swept over her as she sniffled softly before wiping the corners of suddenly misty eyes as she continued to read.
I’m serious, Beth. Please do not be foolish. This man could be a knave or worse. Do you know anything about him or how long his agency has been in business? I read your letter to Finn and he said if you feel yourself in danger in any way, you are to contact us immediately and we’ll do everything we can to help, even to the point of paying your fare to come to us.