Christmas Mail Order Bride - A Historical Mail Order Bride Novel (Western Mail Order Brides: Book 1) (3 page)

Anders stalked to a side board behind his mother’s couch, poured himself a tumbler of something from an etched-glass bottle, and as he gulped the liquid down, assailed his father with complaints about the men who attended them in the barn. “I’m tellin’ you, Dad. I don’t like that Bill Olsen one bit. I think we ought to get rid of him. Him and that weasel Caleb Alexander, too.”

George gave these remarks only a cursory response. The topic appeared well-worn between the two men. “Now, son, you can’t go around getting rid of everyone. We’d have no hands left, if you had your way. Bill’s the best there is, and he’s been
workin’ for me for thirty years.”

“He’s insolent,” Anders grumbled. “He doesn’t know how to keep his place. He thinks he runs this place.”

“Well, in a way, he does,” George pointed out. “He manages this place as though it was his own, and he does a damn sight better job than I ever did.”

“That’s the problem,” Anders griped. “He thinks this place
is
his own. He doesn’t obey orders, and he sticks his nose in where it isn’t wanted. When I try to discipline Caleb, he butts in and stops me. I don’t know how I’m supposed to maintain any authority around here, if he keeps getting away with it.”

“I don’t see any problem with Caleb, either,” George pondered. “He works hard and he’s reliable and steady. I don’t understand what objection you can have to him. Has he ever said anything to you other than ‘Yes, sir’? I don’t think so. I’ve never heard him say anything else to anyone—not to you, not to me, not to Bill, and not to any of the others. He’s about the most obedient hand I’ve ever had.”

“That’s just the problem,” Anders groused. “He says ‘Yes, sir’ with his mouth, but you can see in his eyes there’s more going on. He’s thinkin’ about somethin’, somethin’ other than ‘Yes, sir’.”

“Now, come on, son,” George chided him. “You can’t control what a man thinks. If he says ‘Yes, sir’, that’s the best you can hope for, and you just have to let him think whatever he wants.”

“No, I don’t!” Anders retorted. “As long as he’s workin’ for me, I can tell him to think what I want him to think.”

“Well, he’s not
workin’ for you,” George declared. “As long as I’m still alive, he’s workin’ for me. When I’m gone, you can get rid of whoever you want to get rid of, and I hope you can get some hands who work for you the way these men work for me, because a good man is hard to find. When you find one, you have to work to keep him. You have to work to keep him at least as hard as he has to work to keep his job with you, maybe even harder.”

“That’s all wrong, Dad,” Anders lectured. “All the work should be done by them. You shouldn’t have to work to keep them at all. They should be trembling in their boots every time you set foot outside the door.”

“No, son, that just won’t do,” George shook his head.

“Well, that’s the way I operate,” Anders maintained.

“You want to have it both ways,” George observed. “You want a man to bob his head and say, ‘Yes, sir’, but you don’t want the man who goes along with it. You don’t want him to think for himself, when that’s precisely what you’re payin’ him to do.”

“No, I
ain’t,” Anders growled. “I’m payin’ him to work, not to think. Once he starts thinkin’, he’s dangerous.”

“You can buy a man’s back, but you can’t buy his mind or his heart,” George quoted. “You want men who’ll work for you, not against you, and you want them to be loyal to you and to treat your stock the same way they would treat their own. You can only get that by
treatin’ a man like a man. Take Caleb. He’s nineteen. He’s more than enough of a man for you to treat him like one, and he does a man’s job. You can’t go around beatin’ him up and shovin’ his nose in the dirt. That just won’t do.”

“I’ll do as I please,” Anders spat viciously. “
and no one’s gonna stop me.” He splashed more of the amber liquid into his glass and threw it down his throat. Then he refilled the glass again.

George didn’t reply and the crackling of the fire took the place of conversation. Matilda fidgeted uncomfortably until she directed her attention to Penelope. “You must be exhausted after your journey, my dear. Let me show you to your room.” She rose from her couch.

“Thank you,” Penelope replied. “I would most appreciate that.”

She collected the items of jewelry piled up on the table nearest her and followed Matilda out of the room. The older woman conducted her up a flight of stairs to an upper landing in the house, down a wood-paneled corridor, to the door of one of many rooms communicating off of it. The characteristics of the room arrested Penelope’s movements just inside the door. It didn’t resemble a guest room, and it appeared as though someone with rather cluttered habits lived in it. “Is this…?” she bit her tongue.

“This is Anders’ room,” Matilda informed her.

“Oh,” she exclaimed, hoping her disappointment didn’t show too plainly.

“Is anything the matter, dear?” Matilda examined her.

“No, nothing at all,” Penelope hastened to assure her.

“We’ll have your trunk sent up here, just as soon as it arrives,” Matilda declared, retreating toward the door. “I’m sure Caleb will be going down to town to pick it up very shortly.”

“Thank you,” Penelope intoned. “I’ll be fine without it until he comes back.”

“Very well, dear,” Matilda shot back over her shoulder as she headed out into the corridor. “Janet will call you for dinner.” She vanished behind the door, shutting it with a click of the latch.

Penelope let her disillusionment rise in her heart with her second glimpse around the room. An ashtray on the table held the evidence of several burned-out cigars, and the ashes scattered on the floor nearby indicated to her they had been smoked that same day. Two empty tumblers with halos of amber in their bottoms sat next to each other on the windowsill. Drawing nearer to the bed, she saw tiny burn holes in the coverlet and although the bed had been made up that morning, the linens appeared somewhat less than fresh. She made a mental note to speak to the maid about it, but just as that thought crossed her mind, she realized that this was
his
room, and that if he wanted his bed linens changed, he would speak to the maid about it himself. Therefore, he must not have spoken to the maid about it, or worse, he
had
spoken to her, ordering her most emphatically not to change his bed linens. She turned her back on the bed, unable to induce herself to sit down on it. She approached the cold fireplace. The ash grate stood empty, therefore, someone cleaned it out this morning. She could only conclude that the maid, or whoever it was, had cleaned the room this morning, at least to Anders’ instructions. The logical conclusion remained that some person removed the ashes, cigar butts, and empty glasses from the room each day, only for Anders to replace them every morning, afternoon, and evening. The realization forced her back to the bed, where she sat down on the edge of the coverlet. She refused to look at the bed again but the weariness of her journey, followed by the anxiety of the wedding and the tension so evident around the farm and house, descended on her with an unsupportable weight. She almost indulged in lying back on the coverlet and drifting off to sleep, erasing all other considerations from her mind but instead, she bent down and unlaced her shoes. The warmth from the fire in the parlor made her feet tingle when she unbound them from her stiff boots. She kicked them into a corner and unbuttoned her traveling jacket and unclipped her cape from her shoulders. She considered unwinding her hair and shaking it out to relax herself completely but when she remembered that Anders might enter the room at any moment, she thought better of it. She didn’t want him finding her completely undone, reclining in his bed. Even if he was her husband now, she shuddered at the idea of exposing herself to him, or of doing anything to invite him to claim his marital rights. She hoped to prolong that occurrence as long as humanly possible, though she realized she must submit to it sooner or later. No doubt George and Matilda—and Anders, as well—expected her to submit without resistance this first night. Her mind whirled through possible strategies to rebuff Anders’ attentions, but the subject so dejected her that she thrust it away.

Her weariness overcame her so much, she could scarcely keep her eyes open but still, she declined to spread herself out on the bed. She eventually compromised by seating herself in a chair and cradling her sleepy head on her folded arms on the table. She fell asleep instantly and didn’t awaken until evening, when a faint tap at the door roused her. She jerked her head up and only then did she feel the stiffness in her body from sitting on the hard chair so long. “Who’s there?” she called out.

A female voice answered her, but she didn’t recognize it. “Supper time, ma’am.”

“Thank you,” Penelope answered. “I’ll be right down.”

“Your trunk’s downstairs, ma’am,” the disembodied female informed her. “The boys are waiting for you to come down before they bring it up.”

“Thank you very much,” she replied. “Please tell them to bring it up now, because I’m coming down.”

“Will do, ma’am,” the voice rejoined, and a soft footstep tripped away down the corridor.

Penelope cast another discriminating glance around the room.
Well,
she thought to herself.
I’ll just have to show him what it means to have a wife around the place.
Not even a mirror on the wall to check her hair. She trusted her hand to smooth her hair and dress, and she pulled her boots onto her aching feet, reluctantly lacing them up again. At least she could now respectably remove the last traces of Matilda’s accoutrements, leaving the veil, the broach, and the silk rosebuds on the windowsill with the empty tumblers. She could return them to her mother-in-law with feigned gratitude and never see them again. Satisfied with her appearance, she quickened her step onto the landing and sailed down the stairs to the parlor, where the three members of the West family awaited her. When she entered the parlor, they moved as one company into the adjacent dining room. George and Matilda took chairs at the head and foot of the table, and Anders took the seat nearest to the fire, leaving one chair vacant for Penelope.

The meal passed uneventfully, with almost no conversation between the new
family. The only remarkable occurrence that stuck in Penelope’s memory happened when the door opened and a stout woman with coal-black hair and sparkling eyes glittering out of her moon face entered to serve the soup. Matilda addressed her as ‘Janet’ when she gave the woman directions. Janet didn’t speak to anyone but when she noticed Penelope observing, she returned her sharp look and even nodded kindly at her. Penelope remembered Anders’ comments about Caleb, that his mouth said ‘Yes, sir’, but his eyes told a different story, and the same observation applied to Janet. Some other, deeper process worked in Janet’s mind that never heard expression in the presence of any person by the name of West but unlike Anders’ revulsion at seeing this depth in Caleb, Penelope felt an instant connection with this woman and determined to know her better. Janet served each course of the meal meticulously, moving silently and inconspicuously from one place to another, anticipating the needs of each person and attending to them without being asked, as the West family made every effort to completely ignore her. Only Penelope made eye contact with her, but she dared not speak to her in the presence of her parents-in-law.

After dinner, the four
Wests lounged in the parlor before the fire. George and Anders discussed the cattle business over glasses of brandy, until Matilda happened to mention, “It will be time to get the Christmas decorations out and set up the tree.”

“Oh!” cried Penelope. “May I help you? I love Christmas, and decorating the tree and the house is my favorite part of the whole holiday. Please, let me help you!”

“Alright, dear,” the older woman acquiesced. “I usually do everything with only Janet for help but you’re more than welcome to join me, if you want to. We can get the boxes of decorations out of storage and start sorting through them. The boys will bring the tree down in the next couple of days, and they bring some boughs for making wreaths, too. We’ll get started with the rest of it then.”

“Oh, I would love that!” Penelope clapped her hands in delight.

“You are more than welcome, my dear,” Matilda bestowed an indulgent smile on her daughter-in-law. “It will be a joy to have another Christian to celebrate the holiday with?”

“What do you mean?” Penelope fumbled. “Doesn’t Janet like to help you?”

“Oh, she’s willing enough,” Matilda explained. “It’s just that she doesn’t understand the nature of the holiday as well as she might if she was a Christian.”

“What do you mean?” Penelope repeated. “How can she not be a Christian?”

“She’s a heathen, my dear,” Matilda returned mildly.

“What do you mean?” Penelope heard her own voice parroting the same line and flushed awkwardly.

“She’s an Indian, my dear,” Matilda answered. “Didn’t you know?”

“Oh!” Penelope bleated in surprise. “No, I didn’t know.” Anders guffawed at her from the fireplace.

“But, my dear girl,” Matilda rejoined. “it’s written as plain as day all over her face. How could you not see what she was just by looking at her?”

“I’ve never been around Indians before,” Penelope argued. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen one before.”

“What?!” Matilda gasped. “Never seen an Indian before?!”