Mail Order Love (Sweet Mail Order Bride Historical Romance Novel) (Oregon Mail Order Brides)
Authors: Amy Blakelear
Mail Order Love
By Amy Blakelear
Oregon Mail Order Brides Series
Book 1
Text Copyright
©
2013 Amy Blakelear All Rights Reserved
Copyright registered and filed electronically. Published by Edo Press. Cover Design © 2013 Amy Blakelear
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Chapter 1
Boston, 1886.
Ellie froze in the shadowy corridor and strained her ears to listen, holding her polishing cloth and copper kettle still for a moment. Her ex-sister-in-law Ursula was speaking to the visitor in the front room.
“We are much obliged to you sir, for taking her off our hands. I think you will find she is a diligent worker and quiet.”
“Hgrrumph … well, I think this should be satisfactory … heh!”
The man had a strange way of expressing himself, clearing his throat as he spoke. Ellie stole a look at him through the half open door.
He looked as strange as he sounded. His eyes were constantly in motion, darting about as he assessed his surroundings. There was an oily, self-satisfied air about him.
He wore a black formal suit with a limp almost translucent shirt that had once been white. There was a silk cravat knotted around his neck and the chain of a watch looped out of his waistcoat pocket. His thin hair grew past his collar, cut to one length. It hung in sticky-looking pieces that swung forward when he moved his head. His skin was yellowed, with a leathery and greasy texture.
He gave a smug smile.
“Heh … harrumph … you need not worry, ma’am. Once we are family there will be no more mention of the sum that is owing me. I would have excused you as a friend, hehgm, but I’m sure you understand, with my important work as a clerk by day and my money-lending in my spare time, I am a busy man and I need a wife. You are most kind to offer your Elizabeth’s hand in marriage … hehgm."
Marriage?
Ellie dropped the kettle with a clatter and smothered a yelp. Ursula’s ears pricked up. She was not going to let an opportunity for humiliation go.
Ursula spied Ellie in the corridor. Ellie hovered, unable to escape as Ursula fixed her cold sharp eye on her.
“Oh! If it’s not our Ellie now, making a noise in the hall. She is prone to dropping things as you know, Mr. Gergmins, and it is only a decent nature such as yours that will forgive such failings. However I can assure you she will make an excellent wife.”
Ursula stretched her face into a sickly grin directed at Ellie and raised her voice.
“Come in, Ellie my dear, and meet Mr. Gergmins.”
Ellie had learned long ago to keep her feelings hidden from Ursula. It was better that way. Ursula seemed to enjoy playing off Ellie’s reactions to cause the maximum amount of pain possible.
Ellie picked up the kettle and placed it on the hall table. She kept an expressionless face as she advanced into the front room with small neat steps, her eyes lowered.
Ursula was wearing her Sunday best, with her visitor on one side and her new husband Martin on the other. She had married Martin three months after Ellie’s brother had died. They had been married for a little over two years.
A Boston cream pie sat heavily on the table in front of them. It was covered in glossy chocolate icing which gently sweated from the heat of the fire. Pale yellow creamy custard oozed out from between the layers of sponge. Martin had been holding a knife over the pie, about to cut. When he saw Ellie come in he placed the knife down and sat back as if in anticipation of a show.
Martin had a look in his eyes as if he were laughing at Ellie within himself. A look of contempt. Ellie wondered if he took a special dislike to her because she was the sister of Ursula’s ex-husband.
Ellie stood there in front of Ursula, feeling desperately self-conscious and unsure of what to do with her hands and feet. She kept her eyes down.
Ursula let out a tinkling laugh. “Your marriage will be five weeks hence, you lucky girl!”
Ursula directed an eyelash flutter in the direction of their oleaginous visitor. “Mr. Gergmins, this is Elizabeth Bates. Ellie, she is known as.”
Their visitor was watching Ellie with scheming eyes while Ursula spoke. He had the look of a man sizing up a prize heifer at a farmer’s auction. He was not much interested in her face. Instead his eyes traveled up and down Ellie in a calculating manner.
Having sized Ellie up he remembered to rise and he bowed slightly in Ellie’s direction, regarding her with a thinly disguised leer as he spoke.
“It is with pleasure that I agree to this arrangement, ma’am.”
He looked directly into her eyes, showing his slithery soul. Ellie managed not to flinch.
Their visitor spoke proudly, throwing out his words as if he were making a grand announcement.
“Hehgm … it is a fortunate day for you, Elizabeth. I look forward to having you in my house to fulfill your duties there. As you might not know, I am not yet even five decades old, so God willing we will enjoy a long and satisfying life together.”
If Ellie had not missed breakfast today she might have needed to rush for a place to be ill. She looked steadily at Ursula.
“Might you require any other provisions at the store beyond the list you gave me, ma’am?”
A look of anger flashed through Ursula’s face before the shutters came down again. Ellie had defied her by refusing to acknowledge their visitor.
“How adorable, you cannot even speak to him! What a virtuous reserved young lady you are. Pick up what is on the list dear, and don’t go buying ribbons or other pretty things to impress Mr. Gergmins, do you hear? You are just enough as you are. Go along now.”
Ellie dropped a curtsy and ducked out of the room. She heard Ursula simper, “She’s such a shy girl you see. We surely do appreciate all you are doing for us, sir. Saturday five weeks hence shall be the date then, and arrangements will be made …”
Ellie heard no more as she picked up pace, grabbed her bonnet and shawl, and hurtled out through the front door without looking back, left or right.
Chapter 2
“Hey!”
Ellie heard their household manager Briggs calling after her. She turned around to see him hurriedly pulling on his black three-quarter length coat. Briggs closed the front door and ran to catch up with her.
“Let me come with you, miss, I have some errands to run.”
He shot her a sympathetic look as they walked fast, side by side. Briggs had been a member of staff since before Ursula was born. He had experienced the wrath of her temper his entire working life and knew what Ellie had to contend with. He knew that Ursula dished out a special cruelty to Ellie.
Briggs had become a trusted friend for Ellie, though she hardly had a moment to talk to him with all the work she was given. Lord knows she needed a friend. Briggs was the only person she had in the entire world.
“What are you going to do, miss?” Briggs regarded Ellie with concern as they sped along the street.
Ellie could not trust herself speak at that moment. She felt that if she opened her mouth she was liable to scream. A cold rage shook through her veins. She flicked her head to the side in an angry flounce by way of an answer.
As Ellie walked she tried to process what had just happened. Her eyes were dry. She was too angry to weep. She stared directly ahead, hardly blinking, with her mouth set in a straight line.
Briggs waited for her to speak, looking at her repeatedly to check she was all right. She was walking so fast that even long-legged Briggs had to hurry to keep up.
Ellie pulled her shawl close against the late winter Boston chill. The sky was a dirty swirling gray and the cold air brought soot with every lungful. They raced past the rows of grimy terraced houses. The houses were higgledy-piggledy, jumbled together as if they were jostling for position.
Eventually, Ellie spoke. She had a tremble in her voice.
“I feel disgusted, Briggs. I thought these people were decent underneath it all. I see now they are not. I am some kind of
thing
to them. I am a useful
thing
to do their cleaning, scrubbing, washing, polishing and hauling. And now they are marrying me off for money. I denied the evidence right in front of me. It seemed as if they were laughing and sneering at me, but I told myself I was imagining things. It was not my imagination. They are not good people. They truly despise me. I have no home there.”
“Miss Ellie, I … I don’t know what to say. You are a wonderful girl. They deserve to go to hell for how they are treating you.”
“I will not marry that greasy drip.”
“Miss, you are right to stay away from him.”
Ellie turned to Briggs as they walked along. “I don’t know what I’m going to do Briggs, but they have underestimated me.”
They had reached the provisions store, an imposing wooden building six stories high. In front of them the road curved into a bridge over the Charles River.
“Miss, let me take that list from you and get the supplies. You can walk around here and calm your heart a little until I come and find you.”
Ellie looked up at Briggs with her bright deep blue eyes and gave him a grateful smile. “Thank you.”
She watched him step up into the store. Then she turned her face to the bridge and kept on walking. Mid-way across the bridge she leaned over and watched the dirty river rushing beneath her, the color of milky coffee. Ellie’s eyes came to rest on a swirling eddy and as she stared into the vortex, her eyes glazed over.