by Montana West
She counted out her money as she sat on the bed in their room. She had written eight letters and now had two dollars. She reached for the purse that she hid under the mattress and when she opened it she frowned. She was sure she had left ten dollars in there that morning but now there were only five dollars left.
“Virginia,” she thought. “What does she need the money for?”
Elizabeth shook her head. Her sister was proving to be quite complex, but Elizabeth soon quashed the thoughts. Virginia was a child whose world had been cruelly turned upside down and it would take her a while to adjust.
She put the two dollars with the other five, intending to give the money to Mrs. Little later when she went down for dinner. Their rent was due. The room was one dollar per day and Mrs. Little had said Elizabeth could pay her every Friday. There would be nothing left over until she got the next job, but she was determined that they would always have a roof over their heads. She had promised her mother that she would always look after Virginia.
Elizabeth sighed when she thought about her sister. Virginia was a very beautiful girl, but sometimes Elizabeth thought she was vain and spoiled. She got her looks from their mother who had been a beauty in her days. Standing at five-feet, nine-inches, the girl carried herself regally and always said she would be a famous singer one day, with a rich husband to support her. She had inherited their mother’s green eyes and honey blond hair which she liked to brush and leave flowing around her shoulders. Elizabeth took after their father who had been short and stocky, with unruly, curly blond hair, thanks to his Irish ancestry.
Elizabeth was determined to support Virginia and give her all she needed, but try as much as she did the money that she got from transcribing was very little, and it was with a downcast face that she approached Mrs. Little in the third week of their arrival.
“Mrs. Little, I am sorry that I cannot give you our rent this week. Work is so hard to find.”
Mrs. Little tightened her lips. “Why not take on another job, if that one that you go to everyday is not paying you?”
“I have tried, Mrs. Little. I went to the schools to offer my services to tutor the children, but they want people who are more qualified, and besides, they also want references, and I have none.”
“Oh, child,” Mrs. Little sighed. “I can offer you a job here, and in turn you and your sister can stay here rent-free.”
“What kind of work, Mrs. Little?”
“My scullery maid, idiot that she is, ran off to get married to some miner in the west, and now I do not have anyone to wash the pots and pans, and clean the kitchen. I am willing to pay you five dollars a week, and you get your room free and you also get breakfast and dinner for the two of you.”
“How can I thank you, Mrs. Little?”
“Hush, child. What I suggest is that every morning you go to your other job, and then by three o’clock you come back here to clean the morning dishes and prepare for dinner, and then wash the dinner dishes as well.” The woman sighed. “But you will have to move out of the room you are staying in so that I can rent it out, and you can use Chloe’s old room. It has one bed, which is large enough for the two of you to share.”
By the time Elizabeth got to bed each day she was so exhausted that she stopped only long enough to take off her apron and frock, and fall into bed. She always found Virginia asleep and was glad that the young girl was getting good rest and looking happier.
But two weeks later Elizabeth was not smiling when she realized what was making Virginia happy. One night she woke up to find that she was alone in the bed, and thinking that Virginia must have gone to the outhouse, she turned over to sleep once again. However, she got up at around four o’clock when she heard the door opening, and was in time to see Virginia creeping into the room, still fully clothed.
“What are you doing up at this time?” Elizabeth struggled to sit up in bed and Virginia gave a start, dropping her purse. Elizabeth lit the candle that was beside the bed.
“You frightened me,” the young girl tried to say with a laugh. “I have a running stomach.”
“Really? Why did you get dressed then?”
“I did not want to go out in my petticoats, so I threw this dress over them.” Elizabeth looked at her sister in the lightening room and sighed.
Something troubled Elizabeth at the way her sister seemed to have changed. Elizabeth went through her sister’s things and realized that Virginia had acquired some very expensive clothes, nothing that the little money she usually took from Elizabeth’s purse could pay for.
“What is this girl up to?” she wondered as she scrubbed the pots that evening. “I must find out where Virginia is getting these expensive things.” Dread filled her heart when she imagined that Virginia might have met a rich old man who was giving her all these gifts in return for her body.
When she asked her sister about the expensive items, the younger girl told her some kind ladies at the church had given her the clothes and shoes, and for a while Elizabeth believed her. But when she found face powder and lipstick among the things, she realized Virginia was lying to her. None of the ladies in church used such items. Something else was going on.
“I will kill that girl,” Elizabeth fumed, but decided that she would not ask her because Virginia would just lie to her. Instead she decided that she would watch her and see, and her patience was soon rewarded.
One Saturday, Virginia got out of bed, thinking that Elizabeth was asleep. She dressed in the darkness and silently opened the door and snuck out. But this time Elizabeth was waiting for her, and gave her a few minutes head start before she threw on a thick coat and crept out after her.
Virginia, oblivious to the fact that she had a shadow, walked briskly down the dark street and slipped into an alley, with Elizabeth following her at a discreet distance. When Elizabeth got to the alley, she peered into the poorly lit street, not seeing her sister, and she got very worried. Was her sister visiting a brothel? Then she saw it. The sign said ‘Wild West Tavern’ and Elizabeth wondered if that was where her sister had gone. She hid in the shadows and drew closer, and soon heard a familiar voice singing.
She could not believe that Virginia was singing in the seedy tavern, and she slipped in, praying that no one would notice her. And sure enough, there was her sister, dressed in a very tight fitting gown, her face heavily made-up, and she was dancing seductively on the stage, as men whistled and one or two joined her on the stage, pawing her, and far from being offended, the young girl giggled.
Elizabeth wanted to march to the stage and grab her sister, but she realized that the kind of crowd that was in the tavern was not the kind that would take kindly to such an interruption, and so she slipped out of the tavern and went to the rooming house, where she spent the rest of the night on her knees, sobbing her heart out in prayer.
“Oh Lord,” she wept over and over again. “Do not forsake me in my hour of need. You are our Father, we have no one else. What do I do about Virginia? Lord, I do not want my sister to go down a dark path, and end up as a ruined and fallen woman. But what do I do? How can I stop her from going to that place? Please help me,” she sobbed.
By the time Virginia crept into the room early in the morning Elizabeth was calm, and resolved not to let the younger girl know that she had discovered her secret. She knew that in Virginia’s present state of mind the girl might even take it into her head to run away. So Elizabeth continued as if nothing was wrong, but she spent sleepless nights on her knees praying for her sister, with the result that she soon had bags under her eyes for lack of sleep.
Meanwhile, Virginia went on as before, unaware that her actions were causing her sister so much distress. But not for long. She got a very bad cold and could not sing or rise from the bed, and Elizabeth silently gave thanks for this malady that had put her sister down.
The doctor came and pronounced that Virginia had an inflammation of the lungs. “This weather is not good for your sister. You need to get her to a warmer place, if y
ou can.”
“Thank you, doctor,” Elizabeth said with a sad smile. Where was she to take Virginia? Virginia had always been a sickly child, and this was especially aggravated by spring.
As Elizabeth nursed Virginia back to health, an idea began forming in her mind. While working in the kitchen scrubbing pots and pans, she had become friends with Matilda, who was the cook.
“A fine lass like you should not be scrubbing too much in someone else’s kitchen. If you could only go west, you might find yourself a mighty dandy farmer to wed you, and you can then scrub in your own home. ‘Tis a great shame,” she ‘tsked’ over and over again.
At first Elizabeth had laughed and ignored her, but then as she watched her sister tossing and turning in bed she decided that she would ask Matilda for more details. Matilda was only too pleased to pass on more information.
“Chloe, the one that was here before you, got herself a man from the west, and left.”
“How?”
“The newspapers. Men in the west are always putting ‘adverts’ in the papers to find mail-order brides. I reckon if you get hold of the Boston Daily, you might find yourself a man, my dear lass.”
And the very next day Elizabeth took some of her savings and bought a newspaper. But the adverts that were there for mail-order brides did not appeal to her. The men seemed to only want women to clean, cook and breed. Besides, none of the men professed to be Christians, and the last thing Elizabeth wanted was to be wed to a pagan. The cleaning and cooking part was not bad. It was the breeding part that irked her. She did not need a man to touch her. If only she could find a man who wanted a woman to work with him, sort of in a business way, then she would go. And three days later she saw it:
Christian widower seeks mother for his two daughters.
My name is William Edwards and I am a widower aged thirty years. I have two daughters, aged ten and twelve years. I am a rancher in Missoula, Montana. We attend the Missoula Baptist Church under Pastor Thomas Clifford. I am looking for a Christian woman to marry and be a mother to my daughters. She should be between nineteen to twenty-one years old. A widow with children is also welcome. Send me a letter if you are interested, and I promise to reply.
Elizabeth looked at the advert and when Virginia was asleep, she knelt down beside the bed.
“Father, I am your child and you know my needs and my desires and my suffering. Matilda told me about finding a husband from the west, and today when I went and bought the paper I found this advert by Mr. William Edwards. He sounds like a fine man who will not place too many unnecessary demands on me. If it is in your will, let my letter reach him and let me find favor in his eyes. You know the hearts of all men and Lord, if you have looked into the heart of Mr. William Edwards and seen a kind man, then I pray that you allow this process to go speedily, because I have to take Virginia out of this place before she loses her soul. In Jesus’ name, amen.”
THANK YOU FOR READING!
I hope you enjoyed reading this sample as much as I enjoyed writing it! If so, you can start reading Mail Order Wife here.
And if you want to get updates about future new releases from me, feel free to join my author mailing list here.
Lastly, if you have a minute to leave a review, that would be amazing! And if, for some reason, you feel this book does not deserve 5-stars (*YIKES*) please drop me a line at [email protected] and I’ll do my best to fix the problem if I can.
All the best,
Montana!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ever since she was a child watching Westerns like Hondo and the Big Valley with her dad, Montana West has always had a fascination with the Wild West. Now she lives on her Indiana farm with her husband, Jim, two cats, four horses and an elderly goat named Bluebeard. Montana and Jim are avid collectors of the work of artists of the American West, her favorites of the Hudson River School whose artists like Thomas Hill celebrated nature through their transformative works.
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