by P. Creeden
They had been home for two days before Mabel’s father called everyone into the parlor to discuss something of importance. Mother stood behind his wingback chair and gestured for Mabel and her two sisters to sit down. The grave look on her face juxtaposed with the grin that their father had. Somehow, that made Mabel’s heart pinch in her chest and her stomach lurch. She didn’t think that they had good news ahead of them.
“My three beautiful daughters. You know that you are the lights of my life. I’m so very blessed that each of you have come to me and your mother. I want you to know how much I love each of you.”
Marsha, the eldest sister, leaned forward and took hold of their father’s hands. “We love you too, Father. Truly. You didn’t need to call us in here to tell us that.”
He smiled a bit wider and coughed as he shook his head. “I didn’t. I’ve called you in here to let you know that the doctor has informed me that I’m dying.”
“No,” Mabel gasped, and tears sprung to her eyes. The pinching in her chest grew to a spreading ache.
“Father! How can you be sure? Surely you must—” Maude started, but her father held up a finger at the same time that their mother gave Maude a sharp glare.
“I’ve seen the doctor both here in Fort Kearny as well as the one in Fort Laramie. The doctor in Laramie sent me out to a farm to see a medicine man—a healer—who knows about weak hearts. It’s what I was doing the day of the blizzard,” Father said as he met eyes with Mabel.
Inside Mabel’s chest, her heart shattered into a million pieces. Her vision blurred as hot tears filled her eyes and blinked down her cheeks. A lump formed in her throat that choked her. She couldn’t possibly say a word.
Her father continued. “Before this illness takes me, I believe that the Lord has given me time to settle my affairs. I want to be sure that each of you has a suitable husband so that you are well taken care of by a godly man while I’m gone.”
Maude gasped. “No, father. You must be mistaken. We cannot leave our mother alone like that.”
He shook his head. “Your mother is making plans to move back east to Boston. She will stay with her sister. There is also a very kind, godly gentleman in Boston who is willing to accept one of you as a bride. He’s an older gentleman. A widower and a professor at the college there—”
“I’ll go,” Marsha said with finality. “I’ll go to Boston. I want to stay near mother and as the oldest, it’s only right that I take the older gentleman as my husband.”
“No!” Maude shook her head, tears still spilling over her cheeks. “I don’t want an arranged marriage, Father. I’m in love with Michael, the pastor’s son.”
A small smile played on their father’s lips. “I know that already, Maude. I made arrangements with the pastor. Michael has already agreed to take you as his wife.”
The tears stopped flowing in Mabel’s eyes as she blinked at her sisters. How could they accept this so easily? How could everything in their lives be changing so fast? She could scarcely breathe. Her gaze traveled across her two sisters, to her mother and then, finally, to her father. He smiled softly at her, and the look on his face pulled at her heart.
He shook his head. “My lovely, dearest Mabel.”
She nodded, the tears filling her eyes again. “Yes, Father.”
“No man is good enough for you. I don’t want to let you go to anyone. If I wasn’t pressed for time, I’d hold onto you as long as I could.”
The smallest of smiles tugged at her lip. Both her sisters were favored by their mother because they fared better at needlepoint and singing, and doing the things that their mother loved to do. But Mabel was her father’s daughter. She was the one who liked to read the same books he read, dreamed of exploring the world with him, and imagined the insides of train engines with him. And now he would soon be gone. Her heart shattered again.
Her father coughed and then finally said. “I found the perfect, godly man for you if you will accept him. He’s the man who I told you about. The one who took care of me when I was sick with fever during the blizzard.”
Mabel’s eyes went wide. “The mountain man?”
Father nodded. “He’s kindhearted, brave, and strong. He reads his bible and cares after strangers without expecting payment in return. Being the wife of a mountain man wouldn’t be easy for a delicate woman, but you’re not a delicate woman—are you, Mabel?”
She laughed at her father’s jest. He’d often said that about her when comparing her to her sisters. “No, I’m not.”
“Will you become his wife? He’s a lonely man and needs a wife like you to strengthen him and make him whole.”
She straightened in her seat and swiped at her face. “Yes, Father. I will become the mountain man’s wife.”
The following Sunday at the church in Fort Laramie, the pastor asked Harper to see him after services. In his chest, Harper’s heart pinched. It had been ten days since Mr. Brown had left. Harper feared that word had finally come, and he swallowed down the feeling as he followed the pastor to his office at the back of the rectory. Once they were alone, the pastor sat at his desk and smiled. “Please, Mr. Jones, have a seat.”
Harper let out a slow breath, smoothed his hair down and then sat in the chair across the desk from Pastor Greene.
Pastor Greene pushed a piece of paper across the desk toward Harper. “It seems that Mr. Brown has made arrangements with the church in Fort Kearny to have a small service today, and we’d like to do the same. One of our ushers has stayed behind with his wife as witnesses, and my wife will stand in proxy of yours so that you may exchange vows.”
As tight as Harper’s chest felt, he didn’t understand how there was enough room for his heart to beat so hard and heavy. Before him, a marriage certificate sat. It had already been signed by both Mr. Brown and his daughter, Mabel. He blinked back up at Pastor Greene. “Is this truly the right thing to do in the eyes of God? A proxy wedding just doesn’t seem right, does it? She doesn’t know me. She hasn’t met me, and yet is she truly willing to join in a heavenly union with me?”
Sympathetic eyes met his as Pastor Greene nodded. “Several men out here in the west get married by proxy or by post. It’s no longer uncommon. Arranged marriages have been in use since biblical times.”
Still, Harper couldn’t bring his hand up to accept the pen that the pastor offered him.
The pastor released a sigh. “Mr. Brown told me about his condition. You are doing him and his family, and even your future wife, an enormous favor by accepting this. But if you don’t want to, if you have doubts, then maybe I should send word back that you decline.”
The thought of doing that pained Harper worse. He wanted a bride. He hoped that she would fill the emptiness in his life that Jack failed to. And he didn’t want to let Mr. Brown down. Harper wanted to help the friend he’d made in just a few short days. Finally, he swallowed down the lump and reached up his hand. “No need. I will sign it.”
After signing the marriage certificate, the pastor swept Harper out of his office and back to the rectory where the pastor’s wife waited in the first pew with one of the ushers and his wife. They all stood when Harper appeared.
“Congratulations,” the usher said with a wide smile, patting Harper on his back.
The two ladies said similar platitudes, but Harper hardly heard them. Did he deserve congratulations? He felt selfish. He felt wrong. He was marrying a woman who might fear him once she’d seen him. He was tying her to a life where prejudice against her husband would be a regular occurrence whenever she went to town. Though Mr. Brown had made him almost forget that he was different, the truth came back to haunt Harper. He wasn’t good enough to be marrying Mabel Brown, but here he was, standing at the altar, repeating the vows as the pastor gave them to him.
It all happened so fast, in a whirlwind, and Harper didn’t seem to come back to himself until Jack barked at him from his front porch where he’d been tied. How had Harper even gotten back home? Had he really walked the three miles back from the ch
urch in Laramie in such a daze he couldn’t remember it?
His stomach churned. What had he done? He regretted it immediately. He shouldn’t have signed the paper or said the vows. By doing so, he’d chained a woman to a hard life, much harder than Mr. Brown could have imagined. If Mr. Brown had truly known what he was tying his daughter to, would he have ever made the offer to Harper? Now it was too late. They couldn’t change their minds.
Or maybe they could. Maybe they could petition the church for an annulment.
Relief spread across Harper’s shoulders at the thought. Once the woman saw how hard this life was, she could return to her mother’s house after they had it annulled. Then Harper wouldn’t have rejected Mr. Brown’s offer. Then his daughter could truly know what she was getting into. All Harper needed to do was wait until she arrived. He’d show her the life she had in store and give her the option of getting out. He hoped inside that Mr. Brown would continue to live well past a month so he could spend as much time as possible with his daughter. And in the meantime, Harper would make arrangements for his move to the north before summer hit its peak.
Chapter 7
Sadness still hung on Mabel’s shoulders. It had been a week since they had buried her father, but she still missed him every moment of the day. Her eyes might have been dry at the moment, but she never knew when something in her environment would strike the nerve in her and she’d start crying again. As she stepped off the stagecoach in Fort Laramie, she took a deep breath to steady herself.
The first thing she saw was the church standing in front of her. What would it have been like to have been married there? What would it have been like to have her father and husband present for the wedding? Jealousy sprang in her chest. Maude had had a proper wedding with a man whom she’d already loved, and father there, to give her away.
Afterwards, with only her family present, they had a short ceremony for Mabel to say her vows to a man she’d never met. At least her father had been there for that, more than a month ago. How had so much time passed so quickly? How had it become May already? Her pastor had sent word to Pastor Greene, here in Laramie about the day of her arrival, but as she looked about, it seemed the military town went about its own business, and no one was there, waiting for her. She frowned and stepped up to the stagecoach driver. “Are we late, sir? What time was our arrival scheduled here in Laramie?”
The driver lifted a brow and smiled at her. “No, Miss. We’re about forty minutes ahead of schedule. If you need to await someone, you can do it in the stage coach office. If you like.”
She nodded as the men set her steamer trunk upon the wooden slats of the covered porch in front of the office. She sat upon the trunk and waited. Horses were coming and going out of town, and any one of them could have held her mountain man, but as each one passed her with a gentleman doing little more than nodding her direction, her heart began to sink. How would she know Mr. Harper Jones when she saw him?
A barking dog caught her attention as the sun began sinking in the sky to just the right height that she had to shade her eyes to look to the west. A brown and white setter came bounding up ahead of a man walking on the road with a sled behind him. Blue eyes flashed in her memory as she thought of the man who’d opened the door for her at the general store six weeks ago. The dog was the same as was the sled. The man came, pulling the sled covered in furs behind him, but he wore a suit instead of the furs she’d seen on him that day. His longer brown hair was tied back, exposing his strong, square jaw. She wondered if he was going to the general store again as he continued toward her. When his blue eyes met hers, her heart fluttered. And then he stopped, right in front of her, and her eyes grew wide.
“Mabel Brown?” he asked when he finally caught his breath. She sat on her trunk with her pale pink dress spread around her and when her green eyes fixed upon him, he lost his ability to breathe.
It was her. The beautiful young girl who’d smiled up at him that day, six weeks ago, before he’d found Mr. Brown in the snow. Was it possible that she was Mr. Brown’s daughter? Was it possible that she was now Harper’s wife? His heart pounded in his chest as he drew near, looking around for another woman, another possibility, but no one else waited in front of the stage coach office. If he didn’t see the stage heading toward the livery, he would have wondered if it had arrived yet. Was it possible that this was just a coincidence? Was it really her?
Her eyes were wide, but she blinked twice, seeming to get a hold of herself and then she nodded. “Yes, I’m Mabel. Are you Mr. Jones?”
He swallowed the lump in his throat. “Yes, Ma’am. I’m Harper Jones.”
All manners he’d been taught by his father went to the wayside. He couldn’t remember how to introduce himself to a lady, so he gave her a bow at the waist. He could scarcely breathe still. And when he straightened and looked into those emerald green eyes again, he grew weak in the knees.
Then Jack jumped on her.
“Jack!” Harper admonished the dog.
But the woman just giggled, even though the dog has his front paws on the front of her dress. She patted him and allowed the dog to lick her chin as she laughed so me more. “It’s okay. He’s a good dog. Aren’t you, Jack?”
If Harper thought he couldn’t breathe before, now his heart had stopped beating for half a second. He’d always thought that Jack was a great judge of a person’s character. Did Jack really like this girl so much? It shouldn’t have been surprising to Harper at all, since she’d seemed like an angel the day that they’d almost met.
When Jack got down from her dress, Harper’s heart sank. Muddy paw prints smeared across the front of her skirts. Harper tried to hand the lady a handkerchief while he stammered, “I... I’m sorry. He shouldn’t... He shouldn’t have jumped on you like that.” And then he hissed at the dog.
She shook her head and smiled up at him. It was a wide, unencumbered, genuine smile. Her eyes crinkled when she did. His heart skipped a beat again as she took the kerchief. “Thank you, but it’s all right. I’d never have been able to keep a dress clean for long. Don’t be mad at him.”
How could she be so understanding and so forgiving? Harper knew one thing for sure, Mabel Bro—Jones was unlike any woman he’d ever met before.
“Could we stop for a moment?” Mabel asked, looking up at her very tall, very strong husband. They’d been walking for more than a mile since they’d left town, and her feet were killing her. Even though she’d been doing her best not to limp, her stride had been short and slow. After offering for her to ride on the sled, and her turning it down, Harper had stayed right with her, matching his considerable stride to hers without complaint.
Though he didn’t seem to mind, she did. Once they stopped, she let out a breath and leaned against the trunk while she pulled her shoes off and set them down on the sled beside her trunk. Harper lifted a brow at her, but when she began to remove her stockings, his eyes went wide and he turned away to give her a bit of privacy.
“I hope you don’t mind if I go without shoes?” she asked, suddenly feeling a bit self-conscious. “I’m not terribly used to these shoes, since I only wear them on Sundays, and my everyday shoes are packed somewhere in the trunk, and I’m not sure if I can find them right away.”
He cleared his throat, his face still turned away from her. “No, Ma’am. I don’t mind.”
She tilted her head at him. “I don’t believe anyone has ever called me Ma’am in my life. You know that I’m only seventeen? My eighteenth birthday isn’t until the end of this month.”
He suddenly turned to her with wide, terrified eyes. “You’re only seventeen?” he croaked out.
Mabel nodded. “Almost eighteen. But anyway, please call me Mabel. And do you mind if I call you Harper?”
The terrified look in his wide eyes didn’t abate, but he turned his head away and nodded. “I’d prefer it to Mr. Jones.”
“Good. And I’d prefer Mabel to ma’am, especially from my husband.”
His hands gripp
ed the rope he’d been holding harder, and his knuckles turned white. She frowned at him as he began walking again, pulling the sled behind him. Jack ran ahead of them, but never more than about twenty feet or so, sniffing the ground to both sides of the trail. Harper was definitely upset to hear her age. Mabel wondered why. Although she was a bit young, she wasn’t too young for marriage. She’d seen girls as young as fifteen in weddings and most of her cousins were married around her age. And even though Harper had darker skin and a rougher appearance, he didn’t seem to be much older than her by her estimate.
“How old are you?” she blurted. And then she realized how rude she was and covered her mouth with her hand. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
“I’m twenty-two.” He continued walking without turning around.
She blinked at him. He was older than she’d thought he was, but still not very old. She shrugged and kept walking with him. The red clay beneath her feet was soft and just a slight bit squishy. It made it easy for her to spread out her toes and walk along, and the cool temperature was helping numb the pain she’d had earlier.
Her father had told her what he knew about the mountain man. Apparently, he’d had no family. And though he was large, he seemed to be kind and gentle. When Harper’s fingers went up to his collar and tugged at it, she wondered if he wasn’t used to wearing a suit any more than she’d been used to wearing her dress shoes.
“Is that your Sunday best suit?” she asked and quickened her pace a bit so she could get ahead of him a step and peer back into his face.
His brow furrowed as he peered at her, but he didn’t answer the question.
Jack barked and then took off after something into the woods. Mabel stared after him, though Harper didn’t seem to hesitate, but kept walking.
“Is it okay to let him go tearing off like that? What if he gets lost or doesn’t come back?” she asked, still watching for Jack among the trees.