Authors: Rose Jenster
Your home together is a place of solace from life’s sorrows, and my wish for you is that you will not have your head turned by a handsome young face but that you will look beyond it to the heart within, daughter. If a man makes you nervous, makes you count your words too carefully to avoid his anger, if he be jealous or suspicious of you, then he is not a man to marry. Think well on this, even in the first flush of affection, when you’ve been flattered and cossetted, and choose well.
Her sweet mother had expected she’d be fending off suitors by her seventeenth year, not languishing in her brother’s spare bedroom for months on end, plain and unwanted at twenty-four. It was sound advice at any rate, but there was nothing to make her anxious about Henry, about
her
Henry. He was so open, so welcoming, so romantic.
They would build a life together among those mountains, true partners and friends who knew each other completely. She fell asleep with her mother’s book pressed to her heart and a smile on her face, not knowing the changes to come, never dreaming that a man in life might be different from one she knew on paper alone.
* * *
Leah sealed the letter to the board of education with a pang. She would miss her students, but she had to keep faith that one day soon she would be married to Henry and they would have children of their own together. The idea of things not working out in Montana was too fearsome, too dreadful to think of. She posted the letter and went home to tell her family. She had told Jane in whispers of course, confiding her regard for Henry, but had sworn her to secrecy.
Anxious and blushing, Leah told them at supper just as she was dishing up the soup she’d made. She had relied on the Irish maid to do the cooking for herself and her father when they lived alone, but even she could manage a simple soup.
“I’m to be married, Walter. I know you didn’t quite approve when I told you I was corresponding with a gentleman out in Montana, but I hope you will soften toward the idea when I tell you that I am to make my life there.”
“You have been writing to him all these weeks? Leah, I thought this was a whim, some odd turn of yours. I’d no idea it was still going on.”
“We’ve exchanged many letters. I know you would like him if you knew him. He’s an innkeeper and he trains horses and has a stable with sixteen horses in it—“
“Give me the letters,” Walter demanded.
“No!” Leah said, her voice trembling.
“Now, now, dear,” Jane cautioned. “We want you to be happy, but Montana Territory is very far away and this is quite a desperate hazard. I’d no idea you’d taken it this far myself. Just let Walter read the letters so we can protect you and make certain this man is honorable and sincere. What would you do if he were cruel or a drunkard and you were out there alone with no family to help you?”
Leah’s face crumpled. She had counted on Jane for enthusiastic support of the scheme. She couldn’t show Walter and Jane her letters from Henry. They were too personal, too private, meant to be kept between a man and his bride. For Walter, her prosaic and practical brother, to intrude in those words and take them apart to judge the man who wrote them felt so wrong, such an invasion.
“If you had seen his letters you would know what sort of man he is, that he would never be cruel. He does not take strong drink at all,” she murmured, growing quieter in her desperation as tears crowded her eyes.
“You won’t let me see the letters, so how would I know that?” Walter snapped, brushing past her toward her room.
Leah trailed after him, horrified. He would search her things!
Oh
, she thought rashly,
I wish I’d burnt the letters rather than allow him to ferret them out and paw through them!
He lifted her pillow but found only the composition book of her mother’s. Rifling through a drawer, he dug around in her gloves and handkerchiefs carelessly.
“Now, Walter. You mustn’t get angry,” Jane said in her conciliatory way.
“My sister is keeping secrets from us in my own home!” he thundered.
Jane looked apologetically at Leah, who was weeping now. Leah sat on the edge of her bed, trembling, not knowing how to stop him, afraid to argue any more. Nothing, nothing in Montana could be worse than this! A bullying brother who didn’t understand her, a search of her room as if she were a criminal.
Walter opened another drawer but, seeing his sister’s underthings, had the sense to turn away in embarrassment.
“Just give them to me. This whole shameful display could have been avoided if you weren’t so secretive. Where are the letters?” Walter demanded again.
“I can’t, Walter. Please. I’m going tomorrow. Just leave me be. I’ll be no more trouble to you,” Leah said in her soft, courageous voice.
Jane sank down on the bed beside Leah and put a comforting arm around her.
“You must understand that your brother is trying to protect you.”
“You’re my responsibility now that Pa is unable—I won’t allow it, Leah. If you don’t let me see those letters, give me the satisfaction of knowing that you go to meet an upright Christian man, I’ll forbid you to get on that train!” Walter threatened.
Aghast, Leah shut her eyes. She’d never dreamt that her family would be less than happy for her to start a new life. The idea of Walter forbidding it, of having to either give up her dreams of life with Henry or go against her family’s wishes to travel to Montana—it was daunting, frightening, and so very sad.
She was too grateful to her brother for all his attentions to their ailing father, and too sensible of the trouble he’d taken to clear out the business and see that she had a place to stay, to defy him outright. He deserved her respect despite his rude outburst. Leah was horrified that she must choose between Henry and her family. Dissolving into tears, she wept into Jane’s shoulder until Walter left the room.
“What must I do?” Leah sobbed.
“You must do what you know to be best. Your brother wants to keep you safe, though his methods might be a bit heavy-handed,” Jane explained. “If you had been more open with us—perhaps it would be best to leave off this Montana scheme and even, in time, answer a different advertisement and share your correspondence with us over dinner as I do my sister’s letters, and we could all be a part of your friendship and your decision…” Jane coaxed.
“I can’t do that!” Leah said vehemently. “I want something of my own. I won’t have my private letters talked over at dinner! You want me to give up Henry, a life with him, because I kept it secret?” Fresh tears poured down her face.
“Of course you want your own home and family. I know that. It’s the way you’ve gone about it that makes it seem you have something to hide, something improper in the letters themselves or something—wrong with the man,” Jane said gently.
“I—I won’t. Tell Walter I won’t. I’m going to Montana. This is my one chance, Jane. You helped me find the ad. You must understand how I love you both but—I must go.” Leah broke off, weeping into her hands.
“Don’t do this, sister. Give me one letter to show him—I can smooth this over for you both. Do not let there be a breach with your only brother as you start this new life!” Jane pleaded.
Leah shook her head, adamant for once. Jane left her. Leah had already given her letter of resignation to the board of education that morning and had begun packing her things. She wiped her face with a handkerchief, wondering if she’d known all along that Walter would oppose this, if that was why she had waited until the day before her journey to tell him. There was nothing for it now but to follow through.
She folded the last of her things and closed the trunk, brushed the fabric of her traveling dress, and tucked Henry’s letters into her reticule with the train tickets and her money. Unpinning her hair and brushing it with her mother’s silver-backed hairbrush, she put on her nightgown and lay awake, waiting for the sunrise with a heavy heart.
In the morning, Walter would not speak to her, would not help her get her boxes to the train. She walked to the station and gave some of her precious coins to a porter to come with a wagon to carry her books, her hope chest, her trunk of clothing. Jane rushed after her with a parcel and a dishcloth.
“Here is something to eat on the train and—and something for your new home,” Jane said, tears in her eyes. The women embraced and Leah fled.
The train ride was loud and dirty. The monotonous rocking made her feel sleepy, but she struggled against it because it would be improper to sleep in a public train car…as improper as it was for her to travel alone and unprotected to begin with. Eventually she gave way and slept. When she woke, a young woman had taken the seat beside her. She had bright red hair framing her pale, wide-eyed face. She looked questioningly at Leah.
“I’m Rose. I am going to Helena in the Montana Territory to be—married.” She flushed.
“Hello, Rose. I’m glad you’ve come to sit beside me. My name is Leah and I am going to Billings for the same reason,” Leah said kindly.
“Oh, thank goodness!” Rose smiled. “I was afraid you would think ill of me for such a thing. I’ve got a sweetheart out there. His name is Eugene and he has a farm. His wife died from a fever and left two little ones behind. I grew up taking care of my little brothers, so it’ll suit me just fine,” she said, smiling bravely.
“That’s wonderful. I’m happy for you, Rose. I answered an advertisement myself. The gentleman owns an inn and a stable.”
“Oh, he must be very successful! Is he a good Christian man, then?”
“The very best, I believe,” Leah admitted bashfully.
The two women chatted about their hopes, and Rose shared some cold chicken she’d brought for a meal on the train. Having such companionship on the train made the journey less painful for Leah, who had little time to grieve over the breach with her brother with the excitement of her new life ahead. Rose was quite young and had worked in a factory for four years already. She wanted to be quit of the noise and dirt of the city. She wasn’t very well prepared, Leah thought, so she shared some of the advice from her mother’s book, and Rose was grateful for the guidance.
BILLINGS, MONTANA, 1884
After long, monotonous days on the railroad, Leah stretched as she stood up when the train stopped at Billings, Montana. The train platform was nearly empty when Leah struggled to disembark with her bags. A porter deposited her trunk and boxes beside her and she looked forlornly around. A family was greeting an older woman and a young couple made their way down the steps, talking excitedly about finding the inn. Leah wanted to follow them, knowing that the inn would belong to Henry, but she had those boxes, that trunk, and she could not leave them. She stood, feeling color creeping into her face as she waited like a parcel that hadn’t been picked up.
Slowly, a man stepped forward out of the shadows.
“Are you Miss Weaver?” He asked in a low voice. He had a taciturn manner, his eyes not meeting her own.
He was tall and strong, as he had promised, but this could not be the same man she had written to. He was handsome as the sun itself, his beautiful face not at all the craggy or hawklike sternness she had expected from a frontiersman. He looked out of place, as if he ought to have been clad in a fine suit and striped waistcoat, checking his gold pocket watch on a busy boulevard…not waiting in homespun on a train platform.
“I—I am,” she stammered. “You are—Henry, then?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said shortly and reached for her bag.
She let him have it but felt strange, off-balance. He loaded her boxes and trunk into a barrow, heaving the massive trunk alone with the strength of his wide shoulders. She had expected the warm greeting of old friends, not this stilted formality, this meeting of strangers. Leah told herself to be strong, to have faith.
“This way,” he said gruffly but not unkindly. He walked on in silence without looking back even to see if she trailed behind him.
Leah held her hem clear of the thick dust and followed him, head bowed modestly beneath her straw bonnet. She had only to be pleasant and claim her room at the boarding house, and then she could retire to that room to cry. The fatigue of the long train ride made it easier for doubts to assail her now, and she kept thinking of how she had thrown off her family and been disowned by her brother only to come here and be met by a grim Adonis, a man who acted as though he knew nothing of her true heart and felt no friendship at all toward her.
As they walked, Leah saw that this was a bustling, prosperous town, with two feed stores, a general mercantile, a hardware store, a dry goods store, a millinery shop, and a bank. The buildings were neat and well-kept, and Leah knew she would like to see more of the town at a point when she hadn’t spent days on a train. There were two saloons, one of which advertised that food was served at noon and six. She knew it was a settlement that served the railroad as well as ranchers and a number of miners, so it made sense that some of these men—rough, unmarried working men—would take their meals in a saloon, she supposed.
At the end of the long street stood a tall, narrow building with warm light coming from the window where a crude placard declared it to be Mrs. Hostleman’s Rooms to Rent. Mounting the stairs to the door, Leah waited for Henry to knock, and the door swung open. A stout woman in widow’s black, hair parted precisely down the center and drawn back into a tight knot, greeted her—the picture of Christian respectability—and Leah felt herself relax slightly. This woman’s wholesome presence was a comfort in itself.
“Come in now, child. It’s getting on toward dark and you needn’t be loitering in the street!” She bustled about, taking bags and placing them in the hall as Henry unloaded the barrow. “Thank heavens I’ve put you on the ground floor with all this baggage!” the woman said in a jolly tone. “Now let’s get you a cup of tea.”
Mrs. Hostleman took charge of Leah, hanging her cloak and bonnet on a peg and ushering her into a plain but cozy sitting room and pouring a cup of hot tea for her. Leah cradled the blue and white cup in her hands and sipped gratefully.
“She don’t say much,” Mrs. Hostleman observed to Henry.