Mail Order Annie - A Historical Mail Order Bride Romance Novel (Mail Order Romance - Book 1 - Benjamin and Annie) (6 page)

             
She smiled agreeably and put her hand out, but when she felt his pliant and limpid fingers close around hers, she stopped herself in the act of going to him. “No, I couldn’t,” she demurred. “Moran would be furious, if he found out, and I have work to do here.”

             
“Come on,” he urged. “You know you want to come. It’s only for an afternoon. Surely you don’t have so much work to do that you can’t take one afternoon to go for a ride with me. I would be terribly offended if you said no.”

             
“You’re right,” she confessed. “I would like to. But I can’t. I made a promise when I came out here, and I intend to stick to it. If I decide to leave here, then I’ll be free to go for a ride with you. But as long as I’m here, considering Moran’s offer, it wouldn’t be right to go off with someone else. I do appreciate your kindness, though.”

             
“I hope to God you haven’t agreed to marry him,” Forsythe persisted, still holding her hand.

             
“No, I haven’t agreed to anything yet,” she revealed. “I came out here to see for myself what I might be getting into if I did, and I haven’t made up my mind yet. There are some good things about this valley. It’s not all just hard work. There is a lot of beauty and serenity here that I never expected to find. I could almost say that I’ve found God here. I can hardly believe that I’m saying those words, but it’s true.”

             
“Promise me that you won’t marry him,” Forsythe begged, ignoring her comments and drawing a step closer to her, still holding her hand. “Promise me you’ll at least reconsider before you take such a drastic step into the abyss.”

             
“I am reconsidering it, and reconsidering it, and reconsidering it again and again and again,” she declared. “I reconsider it every minute of the day.”

             
“And are you praying about it, too?” he demanded. “Are you asking God’s guidance in this decision?”

             
“Of course, I am!” Anne exclaimed. “How could I not pray about such an important subject? How can you ask me that?”

             
“I only meant to remind you of your duty as a God-fearing woman to seek divine guidance in the affairs of your daily life,” Forsythe reiterated. “I would hate to think of Moran leading you astray from your devotion to the Lord with his unrefined attitude toward our Savior. More than anything else, I fear for your soul, being out here alone with that…that creature. I spoke to my dear Mother about you, and when I told her that you were a believing woman who had somehow been hoodwinked into coming out here to marry Moran, she was beside herself with desperation that I should come and fetch you instantly to our house, to rescue you from certain perdition. She and my father and I have been praying for you ever since. When I hear you speak about finding God out here, my blood runs cold at the thought that the Devil has bewitched you and tempted you into thinking you have found one thing when in fact you have found the exact opposite.”

             
“I think I know my own mind well enough to know what I have found out here,” Anne grumbled.

             
“Are you so certain of that?” Forsythe pressed her. “Remember the saying, ‘All that glitters is not gold.’ Just because something looks good, doesn’t make it good. I beg you to look beyond any beauty that you see and find the heart of the matter to learn the right course.”

             
“I am doing just that,” she repeated. “I don’t know what else I can say to set your mind at ease.”

             
“Can’t you see that Moran is a devil?” he hissed. “Can’t you see when you look at him how heavy his brow is, and how he lumbers when he walks? Can’t you tell just by looking at him that he scorns the higher thoughts of a religious mind, and that he wallows in the lusts of an animal? Look around you. Can’t you see that only a beast like Moran would live like this? How can you even consider it? You should have known the moment you laid eyes on him, if not this place, that you could not stay here, and you would have torn yourself away to the salvation of a decent home with decent, God-fearing people to help you on your way.” Forsythe now stood close enough to Anne that his breath smelled sweetly in her nostrils, and the heat from the pores of his skin warmed her face as his body glided closer still. She gazed into his eyes, into the profound pools of meaning in his pupils and the stirring meaning there.

             
“I know that what you’re saying is true…” she stammered.

             
“If you know it’s true, then turn from the path of sin and come with me now,” he breathed.

             
“But in my heart, I feel that…” she stuttered in confusion.

             
“Do not listen to the misleadings of your heart!” he interrupted. “Your heart is blinded by passion and appetite for petty indulgence. It can only lead you further astray.”

             
“Do you really think so?” Anne despaired. “I always understood that the stirrings of the heart were the voice of God speaking to us.”

             
“That is just the sort of misunderstanding that will lead you to sin,” Forsythe asserted. “You should thrust that voice away from you with all your might. That is the voice of the Devil speaking to you. Listen to me, I beg you. You must have some indiscretion in your past that Moran is taking advantage of, to convince you to settle for this horrid life of dissipation. If that is so, then you must realize that the leanings of your heart are the same ones that got you into trouble before, and you should strive to do differently in the future.”

             
“I
am
striving to,” Anne moaned. “I’m striving to, every day. I’m doing the best I can to follow God’s law and to do what I believe He wants me to do. I thought I knew what that was, and that I had a clear idea of where I was supposed to go, but when I hear you talk like this, I feel more confused than ever. I just wish I knew for certain what He wants me to do, and I would do it gladly.”

             
“I’m telling you what you need to do,” he maintained. “You are hardening your heart against the voice of salvation.”

             
“I don’t mean to,” she whined hopelessly. “I’m just so confused about it all.”

             
“Well, if you won’t listen to me, I can’t help you.” He cast his eyes down to the ground and turned away from her, dropping her hand. Desperately, she longed to take up his hand again, to fall at his feet and beg him to save her from herself and from this nightmare that engulfed her life. A sob of despair choked her, and she felt her last shred of hope slipping away as he took up the reins of his horse. “Well, I’ll be getting on,” he stated. “I’ll be back to check on you in a few days. I would never forgive myself if anything happened to you. I consider you my personal responsibility, and I won’t let you make any rash moves without doing my level best to deter you.” He swung himself into the saddle. “Good day, Miss,” he chirped. “May God give you sustenance and heal all your wounds.”

             
In her last pathetic effort to keep him from leaving, Anne found herself leaning against his horse’s shoulder, looking up at him with beseeching, tear-moistened eyes. “Please, pray for me,” she pleaded. “Please tell me that you and your mother and father will continue to pray for me. I could not live with myself if I thought that good people like you had turned away from me in my hour of greatest need. The thought that you are praying for me will give me so much comfort! I would lose all hope otherwise. I feel that you are the only people in the world that really care about me.”

             
“I will continue to pray for you, my child,” he replied. “And I will ensure that my parents do likewise. We would not dream of leaving a tender soul such as yours in distress without at least supplicating to the Lord on your behalf. We consider it our sacred trust.”

             
“Oh, say that it is so, and I will throw myself at your feet in gratitude!” she wailed. “I cannot survive without it!”

             
“Fear not, Miss,” he tightened his hold on his reins to make his departure. “You may count on us. We will keep watch over you and intercede for you to the utmost of our ability. But you must do your part and strive to extricate yourself from this dreadful trap in which you find yourself. We can do nothing if you don’t do that much. Now I must go. I will keep you in my heart and I will return soon to help you again.” He wheeled his horse away and cantered off.

             
Anne watched his silhouette recede into the horizon with a flustered and aching heart. The heat of the horse’s body still warmed her shoulder, and she clung to it desperately. Instead of going back to her work, she staggered down to the clearing by the creek and collapsed onto the soft grass of the verge by the glassy pool. She buried her face in her hands and tried to pray, but tears welled up in her throat instead, overwhelming any words that came to her mind. She broke down and sobbed to the depths of her heart, the choking bursts of broken sound tearing from her mouth and falling like droplets between her fingers. She covered her face with the corner of her apron, and struggled to banish Forsythe’s words from her memory.

             
When the tears subsided and she opened her eyes, even the miraculous enchantment of the creek appeared cheap and nasty to her, tarnished with the finger of the Devil’s temptation. She ran from it to the gloom of the cabin and stretched herself out face down on the bed, hiding her eyes and all her knowledge from the environment of the homestead. She dreamed she still lived in her father’s house in Massachusetts, that she just came up to her own room for a quick nap, and that she would stroll down the street to the library later and peruse the new books. She might give some orders to the cook, and check up on the maid’s work in organizing the linens in the guest house.

             
When she succeeded in calming her fluttering heart sufficiently to sit up on the edge of the bed, her first glance around the dingy, horrid little cabin sent her into a fresh flood of weeping. She covered her eyes again, but the image still hung before her clenched eyes, troubling and taunting her with the horrible truth of the depths to which she had sunk. She forced herself to open her eyes and look at it as a form of self-torture for the crimes of her past.               The shade of her buried demons clouded her eyes, and swept her away to the memory of that faraway event that drove her from her home.

             
In the whirlwind of society and culture surrounding her upper class family, Anne enjoyed the attentions of several enviable suitors, all eager to marry into the wealth and status surrounding her. The glow of self-assurance and security attended her whenever she ventured out, either to society functions, parties, or concerts, and she looked forward to nothing but more sensational triumph with the prospect of an advantageous marriage. After consulting her parents, she settled on one particularly impressive young entrepreneur as the most advisable candidate, and the pair confirmed their betrothal with several illustrious announcement bashes, at which the dignitaries of the town toasted their future and congratulated them in long-winded speeches. Anne basked in the limelight of her own distinction.

             
One day, some few months before the agreed-upon wedding date, her betrothed appeared at her parents’ door and asked to take Anne for a ride in his buggy alone. Seeing no danger, she agreed. He first drove her out into the countryside under the pretext of wanting to discuss their future plans with her. He conducted his vehicle to the shores of a lake outside of town, and stopped under the shade of whispering elm trees. He massaged her hand and subdued her mind with flattery, until at length he kissed her impetuously and thrust himself upon her. His protestations of undying love and the impending finality of their nuptials initially retarded any resistance in her, but without asking her permission and before she could rally herself to protest, he collected his reins and drove onward to his own house, where he conducted her into his drawing room. Befuddled by the combination of his affections, his fawning adoration, and her promise to marry him, she stayed with him a single night. The following morning, she woke to find her reputation in ruins and all her prospects dashed. Eventually, even her own parents insisted that she leave town to preserve the character of the family. They sequestered her in a boarding house, operated by an old widow, in another town. The widow introduced her to the redemption offered by Christ, and in her imposed isolation, Anne earnestly studied her Bible for any promise of salvation from her misdeed. In the same confinement, she began her correspondence with Moran, after answering a newspaper advertisement seeking women willing to travel to the Frontier West. At the time, she ignored his warnings about the raw hardship and grinding toil of frontier life in favor of the promise of a respectable marriage and a viable future.

             
Now, she confronted the consequence of her own folly. She deserved nothing more, nothing less, for transgressing the laws of God and man the way she did. This existence, if she could call it that, was nothing other than her just due. She swallowed the bitter pill, and drove herself out to the woodpile to carry in an armload of fuel.

             
Moran returned at dusk to find his supper on the table, but Anne less than delightful company. She sulked through the meal and toiled away at her mending afterwards without looking at him. She bore every sight and sound, from the smell of the food to the clods of dirt fallen from Moran’s boots onto her swept floor, as a brand of persecution and torment for her indiscretions and past frivolities. She let him depart from her without returning his salutation of “Good night.” She did not want to sleep, but after tossing around in distress for a few hours, her tired body and aching heart subdued her into sleep.