Mail Order Josephine - A Historical Mail Order Bride Novel (Western Mail Order Brides)
Read Mail Order Josephine - A Historical Mail Order Bride Novel (Western Mail Order Brides) Online
Authors: Kate Whitsby
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The stout, elderly lady shuffled to the ticket counter of the railway station, her ponderous jowls jiggling, her breath panting, and her forehead beading with droplets of sweat.
Without waiting for him to acknowledge her, she accosted the clerk behind the grille at the window. “Where is your messenger service?”
The clerk lowered his balding head to peer at her over the upper rims of his spectacles. “Messenger service?” he repeated.
“Sorry, Ma’am. I don’t know what you mean.”
“You know!” she insisted.
“For sending messages.”
“Sorry, Ma’am,” the clerk shook his head, alternately lifting his face to inspect her through the lenses of his spectacles and tilting it back down to re-examine her above them, but gaining no more clarity with one method than another. “There’s no messenger service here.”
“Well, then,” she huffed. “How do you send messages?”
“We don’t,” he asserted. “I sell train tickets, and occasionally give out information on the trains. But not very often, as all the information is posted over there on the board. That’s my job. I don’t send messages. The manager comes in twice a week to reckon the till. Then he leaves.
There’s no messages to send.”
“But how do the passengers send messages?” the lady persisted.
“The passengers?” the clerk pronounced the word as though sounding out something in an unfamiliar language. “The passengers? They ride the trains, Ma’am. They come to the station, they board the trains, and then they leave.”
“And when they arrive at this station?” the lady maintained, steering the clerk toward her final point.
Sensing entrapment, the clerk narrowed his eyes but continued to shake his head in confusion. “When they arrive? They get off the train and depart.”
“And if one of them needs to send a message?” the lady sprang her trap with determined satisfaction. “If one of them—take me, for example—if one of them needs to send a message to let someone else know they have arrived, and that they require transportation to their final destination? What then? How do they send such a message?”
The clerk graced her with an indulgent smile. “Sorry, Ma’am. There’s no messenger service here, not at the station or anywhere else in town. I suggest you go over to the hotel across the street. Maybe they can help you.”
The lady compressed her lips and responded with a disdainful humph, before gathering her skirts in her two fists and stomping away from the window. The clerk smirked after her and returned to his desk. The lady sailed ungracefully across the lobby of the station to a wooden bench which resembled a church pew in its wing-backed shape and its orientation toward a towering stained-glass display set into the opposite wall of the building. In this pew sat a young woman, surrounded by mountains of luggage and gazing at the window in an attitude of meditation. Her chocolate brown tresses hung down her back in a torrent accentuating her lime-green travelling outfit and her feathered hat. Her deep green eyes shone and her cheeks blushed with the health of fresh youth. She did not glance away from the window when the elderly lady stomped over and thumped down on the bench next to her.
“I’m sorry, my dear,” the older woman sighed. “They don’t even have a messenger service in this one-horse town.”
“Now, Aunt Agatha,” the younger woman chided gently, “
based on what we saw through the train car window and from the platform, I thought it looked like a very acceptable little town. Now tell me what the clerk said, and try to be a bit more cheerful about this whole project, or I shall be forced to send you home to Papa and conduct this business by myself.”
“You’ll do no such thing!” Aunt Agatha retorted. “Your father entrusted you to my care, Josephine, and I intend to complete my commission to its proper conclusion. You always were a willful child, and you won’t override me with your headstrong ways. Not now. Your poor father quite despaired of finding you a husband, with your wild and disorderly behavior. I won’t allow you to spoil your chance this time, not when he’s finally found you a good match. I’ll watch you like a hawk until you’re safely married. Only then will I go back to New York and leave you in the custody of your husband.”
“Then you had better mind your manners, Aunt Agatha,” Josephine scolded. “If you want me to marry this fellow that you and Papa picked out, you better keep your comments about the town and its inhabitants to yourself. Now tell me what the clerk said about sending a message, because we can’t keep lurking around the train station all day.”
Aunt Agatha sighed again. “He said we should go over to the hotel across the street. He said he couldn’t help us, but maybe they could. Oh, it’s enough to make a body despair, to think they haven’t got a messenger service in the whole town! You deserve so much better than this, my dear girl! To think you’ve been raised in such a metropolitan city as New York, and now you’re reduced to this! It isn’t right!” The elderly aunt sobbed and touched the corner of each eye with the edge of a handkerchief she pulled out of her sleeve.
Josephine observed her dispassionately. “For my part, I’m quite glad to get out of New York. I could live quite happily for the rest of my life without a messenger service—and at least half of the other amenities of city life, for that matter. If Papa hadn’t arranged this marriage for me, I’m sure I would have run away to the Wild West on my own, as I found every aspect of our life in New York absolutely suffocating.”
“Then it’s just as well you’re coming out here to get married,” Aunt Agatha rejoined, “as you would certainly have fallen into trouble if you came alone, and you would probably have come to a very unpleasant end. This part of the country is crawling with unsavory and dangerous characters—outlaws, bandits, and murderers. An innocent young girl like you wouldn’t last five minutes out here by yourself.”
Josephine laughed, and her voice tinkled around the high rafters of the station, which rang silent and empty between the tides of passengers coming and going from the different trains. “You talk like you know something about it. You’ve never been West in your life, Aunt Agatha! You’re just repeating what you’ve read in romance novels. You wouldn’t know an outlaw if one came up to you on the street in a tailored coat and tipped his hat and said ‘Good morning’. You call me an innocent young girl. Well, you’re nothing more than an innocent old girl!”
“You call me old!” Aunt Agatha fumed, but Josephine cut her off.
“Now, let’s stop arguing about it,” she commanded. “Look, the sun is getting lower behind that window. It’s already late afternoon. We don’t have time to send a message now, and we need to find a place to spend the night. Let’s take the clerk’s advice and check into the hotel. We can spend the night there while we figure out what to do next. If we can find a convenient way to do so, we’ll send a message to the Stocktons tonight, but either way, they won’t be able to send anyone to collect us until tomorrow anyway. If not, we can leave it until the morning and have a comfortable place to stay while we wait. That will give us a chance to look around the town and maybe do some shopping. Now, come on. We don’t have time to wait any longer. Let’s get over to the hotel, get checked in, and order our supper. That’s all we have time to do.”
Josephine stood up from her bench and lifted her skirts as she faced the exit of the station. Without watching to ensure her aunt complied with her directive, she swept out of the lobby onto the street outside. Aunt Agatha rose likewise and followed after her. A dilapidated wooden sidewalk ran along the front of the station building but ended abruptly at the corners of the building, leaving Josephine and Agatha no choice but to step down into the dirt and dodge mounds of horse manure on their way across the street to the hotel. Gusts of brisk wind tore through their clothing and disheveled their hair, while wagons and horses clipped past them in every direction. Voices of every tenor shouted from the windows and street corners. Housewives emptied tubs of murky water into the gutter, where it mixed with the general slurry of refuse to harden into the surface of the street. Agatha almost sobbed in horror at the smells and visions of soiled destitution evident on every side of her, but Josephine maintained her jaunty demeanor and even smiled as she turned her face into the wind to blow her hair back out of her face. She almost admired the scene for its crude vivacity, and she rejoiced that she would soon join it as a full participant.
The two women mounted the steps of the hotel’s sweeping veranda, pushed through the main entrance door, and Josephine led the way to the desk inside. She brushed her hair back from her forehead with a sweep of her hand and sighed contentedly, the rosy glow of happiness shining on her skin and in her eyes. The clerk returned her smile involuntarily as he stood up from his chair to address her. “What can I do for you, Miss?” He scanned her outfit and judged her as a valuable paying customer. He completely ignored Aunt Agatha.
“Good afternoon!” she breathed. “My aunt and I wish to check in for the night. We’ve just arrived by train, and we haven’t been able to send a message to our hosts in this town to come and collect us. Do you offer any messenger service we could use to let them know we’re here?”
“Sorry, Miss,” the clerk apologized. “The hotel doesn’t offer that. But if you care to wait, I could arrange for one of the blacksmith’s boys to take a message for you. Of course, it being so late in the afternoon, you’ll have to wait until they finish work, and then you won’t hear back from them until the morning, at the earliest.”
“That’s why we want to check in,” she affirmed. “I would very much appreciate you making the arrangements.”
“Certainly, Miss,” the clerk lifted his pen and held it suspended over his great book on the desk. “Now, who shall I say is checking in?”
“Agatha and Josephine Parker, of New York City,” she informed him.
“To stay one night?” the clerk inquired.
“As a matter of fact,” Josephine clarified, “please leave the date of our departure open, as we don’t know how long we shall have to stay before moving on to our final destination.”
“Very well, Miss,” the clerk agreed as he wrote their names in his ledger. “And now to the business of the message. Who do you wish to send it to?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Paul Stockton,” she returned.
The clerk stopped, his pen arrested over the blank paper on which he intended to write. “Paul Stockton?” he repeated.
“Yes,” she confirmed. “Mr. Paul Stockton, Sr.”
“Oh, I see,” the clerk let his pen fall with a scratch onto the surface of the paper, and he scribbled out the name.
“Is there a problem?” Josephine asked.
“None at all,” the clerk hastened to reply. “I just didn’t know which Paul Stockton you meant.”
“Oh, I understand!” she declared. “His son is also named Paul. Paul Stockton, Jr. Is that what you mean?”
“Quite right!” the clerk rejoined. “Now, what message would you like to send?”
“Simply that we have arrived,” she instructed him. “And that we are staying here and awaiting communication from them about how to proceed.”
“Very well, Miss,” the clerk completed the transcription of the message, folded it, and slid it into an envelope. “You may not realize this, Miss, but the Stockton homestead is several miles outside of town. It will take the blacksmith’s boy several hours to get there and back, and that assumes the Stocktons will send you a message in return. I suggest you have some supper and go to bed for the night without waiting for a reply to this message. If you receive one in the morning, all well and good, but it may be a day or two before you hear back from them.”
Josephine smiled at him to reassure him. “Thank you, sir. I expected that. We are prepared to wait here until we hear from the
Stocktons. I would appreciate you informing the kitchen that we will be down for supper, and I would also appreciate you arranging to have our luggage brought over from the train station. You need not bring all of it up to our room. We will take our travelling valises up with us. The rest of it can stay in the barn.”
“Very well, Miss,” the clerk acknowledged again. “Consider it done. Now, if you will follow me, I will show you up to your room.” He rounded the end of the desk and conducted them up a curved flight of stairs to the upper level of the hotel. He ushered them to a sunny room at the front of the building and, after opening the door for them, left them alone.
Josephine surveyed the room approvingly before moving toward the balcony overlooking the main street of the town. She threw back the double doors and proceeded all the way to the farthest rail, where she leaned over and once more enjoyed the sights and sounds of her new home. She inhaled the scents of horses and wood smoke rising from the bustling business below her. The clang of the blacksmith’s hammer in the forge behind the hotel and the shouting of men quickened her heart with the excitement of new experiences. She longed to cast off the restrictive uniform of a city lady and dive into that tough, rigorous world of hard work and earthy simplicity, to roll up her sleeves and work until sheer fatigue induced her to stop and sleep. Never in her life had she completed a day’s work, and her physical being longed for some outlet for its great youthful energy.
Behind her, Aunt Agatha groaned despondently. “Come inside and shut the door, Josephine. I can’t stand that wind!”
“I like it,” Josephine returned, hoping her voice remained too soft to be heard and Aunt Agatha would conclude Josephine hadn’t heard her, either. The wind rustled through her long hair and bathed her eye lids with its cool touch. She closed her eyes into it, savoring the distant aromas of sagebrush and cedar trees floating towards her from somewhere out of sight.