Contract to Wed
Authors: Holly Bush
Tags: #Romance, #Historical, #Victorian, #Historical Romance
Contract to Wed
Crawford Family 2
By Holly Bush
Table of Contents
Prologue
Boston, October 1891
Jolene Crawford Crenshaw sat on one
of two chairs just feet from the burial plot. Graveyard attendants held the
ropes suspending the casket above a deep hole in the ground and began to let
loose their ends, inches at a time. Jolene watched the casket disappear as it
was slowly lowered into the ground. Her husband’s mother shuddered when the box
was no longer visible above the grass, then lurched forward, and sobbed aloud.
Jolene sat back in her chair and stared straight ahead while
her brother-in-law knelt on the ground to embrace and comfort his mother.
Jolene listened to the drone of the minister’s final words. The netting on her
hat whipped against her face as mourners moved away and the wind was free to
chill her.
“Come, Jolene,” her sister Jennifer said. “Turner’s brother
will attend Mrs. Crenshaw. Come away, dear.”
Jolene looked up at her younger sister, giving direction to
her, and very nearly corrected Jennifer aloud. But that would not do. No one
must think her as anything but a grieving widow. She nodded at Jennifer, stood,
and allowed her father, William Crawford, to wrap one arm about her and hold
her other arm, as if she were going to crumble at any moment. They were stopped,
almost immediately, by Evelyn Prentiss. She clutched Jolene’s hand.
“My dear, I am so terribly sorry about this, especially considering
. . . well, I’m just terribly sorry.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Prentiss,” Jolene said. “We are bearing up
as best we can.”
“Of course you are,” she said and looked away for a brief
moment. “Where is Jane? Where is your mother today?”
“Not feeling well, I’m afraid,” her father said. “We didn’t
think this chilly weather would be good for her. She is, of course, devastated
that she was unable to attend.”
Evelyn Prentiss nodded. “I will wait a few days and call on
her then.”
“She will be happy for the diversion, Mrs. Prentiss,”
Jennifer said.
Her father turned to the waiting carriage and handed her and
her sister inside. Jolene leaned her head back against the tufted leather seat
and closed her eyes.
How long until she was in her own rooms and able to
shed this façade?
“Will you be checking in on Mother before you go home to Landonmore?”
Jennifer asked. “She has letters and telegrams that have arrived for you.”
“I won’t have time to visit with Mother,” she said. “I’ll be
accepting visitors this afternoon and imagine there will be a significant
number of them.”
“There will be, I’m sorry to say,” her father said. “Even
with Turner’s sometimes curious behavior as of late, his Boston connections are
sterling. There will be some from Washington, as well.”
“What time should I arrive, Jolene? I’m going to stop in to
see Mother and then will make myself available to you. Are you coming, Father?”
Jennifer asked.
“If Jolene wants me there, I will,” he said and faced her.
“What would you prefer?”
She would prefer that she was far, far away from the
questions. That she was somewhere no one knew her. She could not take the pity,
she thought, with some anger. She could not! Jolene took deep breaths to calm
her racing heart and looked at her sister.
“You’ve no need to trouble yourself, Jennifer. Certainly
there is something you would prefer to be doing other than holding my hand, and
making dreadfully repetitive small talk.”
Jennifer stared at her incredulously. “Jolene,” she said
softly. “You are my sister, and your husband has just died. A young man, no
less, a tragedy. I will stay with you while you make your greetings to Turner’s
friends. Julia would as well if she were able to be here.”
Julia! Their sister Julia would as likely poison her wine as
comfort her or share the burden of greeting guests. “Highly unlikely,
Jennifer. Julia would pay me no kindnesses, as you well know.”
Jennifer shook her head. “That is not true.” She looked to
their father for affirmation, but he was determinedly staring out the window of
the carriage.
The coach was silent until Jolene heard Jennifer sniffle,
and she watched her sister wipe her eyes. “Turner is with little William now,
and of that, I am glad,” Jennifer said.
There was a buzz in Jolene’s ear so loud that she could not
think for a moment. Did not remember that she was to be the grieving widow. She
leaned forward, the muscles in her face tight and pinched, and she was
uncertain if she would be able to speak. But she found her voice, albeit
strident and cruel, even by her own standards.
“Do not mention my son’s name in the same sentence as my
husband’s ever again. In fact, do not ever say my son’s name again, you silly,
ugly girl. Such sentimental drivel is, no doubt, why you are still unmarried.”
Jennifer blinked furiously, and her lip trembled. She looked
away, and Jolene settled back in her seat. She was surprised when Jennifer
spoke again.
“You may push away anyone that loves you, Jolene, for as
long as you want. I love you, you see, and so does Julia. And I loved little William
with all my heart. I will mourn him, choose to think of him, and speak about
him when I wish. I was not his mother and could not imagine the pain you were,
and are in, but grief is not a thing to guard jealously, as if you are the only
one to feel it.”
The carriage rolled to a stop, and Jolene barely waited for
the servant to help her step down. Her hands shook and her stomach rolled over
as she entered the marbled foyer of Landonmore. She yanked the black satin ribbons
of her bonnet and dropped it as she climbed the stairs. She entered her sitting
room, dismissed her maid, locked the door to her apartments, and tore at her
black jacket till buttons flew and it was off. Jolene dropped to her knees and
struggled for breath.
She pictured her son William, at three, running and
laughing, his chubby little legs churning. She could still feel when he climbed
onto her lap, when they were alone and held her face still with his hands. He
would say, “Mother! Look at me. Mother!” And Jolene would pretend to look
elsewhere until they both dissolved into giggles.
Jolene crawled to a trunk near her reading chair and pulled
a key on a ribbon from within the folds of her dress. With shaking hands, she
unlocked the trunk and pulled a worn blanket from inside. She buried her face
in William’s blanket and breathed deep. Jolene rocked back and forth on her
haunches and held the tattered wool to her nose.
Chapter One
Boston, November 1891
“Thank you for coming to see me this
morning, Jolene,” Calvin Billings said as he assisted her into the red leather
chair across from his desk.
“The reading of the will, I understand, is not until Wednesday
morning,” Jolene replied and straightened the folds of her black silk skirt.
“I’m curious to hear what prompted this meeting.”
“I’m not sure I should have asked you here to tell you what
I’m going to tell you,” Calvin said as he shook his head. “Turner’s will was
very specific.”
Jolene shrugged. “Don’t put yourself out for me, Calvin.”
The attorney was silent a long moment and then leaned
forward. “I wanted to talk to you about some of the details of Turner’s will
before Wednesday’s meeting so that you can process it privately, rather than in
a room full of people.”
“What details?”
Billings sorted through papers laid out before him on his
massive gleaming desktop. He settled on one and looked at Jolene over the tops
of his glasses. “The bulk of Turner’s estate will be settled on one, Jillian
Crawford Shelling currently residing with your sister in South Dakota.”
“I don’t understand,” Jolene said.
“A little over fifty million dollars will be set aside in an
estate for Miss Shelling, overseen by myself and her step-father, Jake
Shelling, as executers. Various charities will receive an amount totaling nearly
one million dollars. Family members, including Turner’s mother, brother, nephews,
and your sister Jennifer, have been gifted annual annuities. In addition, his
mother’s home expenses will be taken care of for as long as she lives. A few
servants and his secretary have been given lump sums ranging from fifty to one
hundred thousand dollars.”
Jolene stared at her gloved hands lying in her lap. She
picked at a stray thread in the crocheting and thought she’d have to correct
Alice for handing these particular gloves to her to wear. But perhaps she’d best
let Alice alone on this error. Perhaps she’d best contemplate what Calvin had just
said. She looked up at him.
“He has gifted our fortune, my fortune as well, to Jillian?
Did he not understand that he would have still been a clerk in my father’s bank
had he not married me? Did he forget what I did for him? He would have been
nothing without me. I made him!”
The office was silent while Calvin stared at his papers.
Jolene’s palms and hairline were sweating, and her hands shook. Calvin looked
up at her then and continued.
“An annuity in your name has been established with an annual
income of seventy-five thousand dollars. The summer home in New York is also
yours.”
“Seventy-five thousand dollars? Turner makes his point even
from his grave gifting me with an amount somewhere between his char woman and
his secretary,” Jolene said and leaned back in her chair. “What is the value of
my personal wealth?”
Calvin shook his head. “I’m not sure you understand, Jolene.
You have no personal wealth of your own other than an account set up long ago
by your grandmother. There is, perhaps, one-hundred-thousand dollars, or so, in
that account.”
“What of the money that I brought to the marriage?”
“It was all combined and invested years ago. Turner had
full-control of your family’s finances.”
The color drained from Jolene’s face, and her lips went dry.
The depth and breadth of her situation were slowly descending on her. She
would be poor. Jolene could not think of anything that could be worse, other
than living through the days after her son’s death again. In fact, her own
death would be welcome, rather than deal with what was coming in her life and
all the unpleasantness and humiliation that would surround it.
“What of Landonmore? What will be said about me?” Jolene
whispered and looked up at Calvin. “What will I do?”
Calvin Billings stood and came around his desk. He knelt
beside her and held her hands. “You will be fine, Jolene. Things will change
for you, but you’re a survivor. You will find a way to march through this with
your head high. I hope that you are able to find some peace when your life has
settled into a routine.”
Jolene was uncertain that she would make it through this.
But Calvin Billings was nothing if not a very smart man. And while Calvin and
his wife, Eugenia, would never be on her social level, she recognized that he
was nonetheless an honest and honorable man, and he’d always been kind to her,
even when she was unkind to him.
“Why did you do me the favor of telling me before Wednesday?
You could have very easily left it till then, Calvin. You and Eugenia and I are
certainly not bosom bows, although I do know you were a friend of Turner’s.
Which by all accounts would make anyone more prone to let me flounder through
this announcement publically,” Jolene said. “I’ve been a target of that sort of
thing before because of jealousy.”
Calvin shook his head. “You are right. You and I will never
be close, but that does not mean that I would want to see you put in such an
awkward situation. And while I know that you and Turner weren’t in perfect
harmony in the last few years, I can assure you that he never said one
unflattering word about you to me or to anyone in my hearing.”
“But let us agree that Turner did, indeed, gain the last
word,” she said.
Calvin nodded. “I will see you Wednesday then.”
Chapter Two
“What are you talking about?”
William Crawford asked over the noise and tittering of the crowd gathered in
Calvin Billings’s office that Wednesday morning.
“Calm down everyone. Quiet, please,” the attorney said. “My
secretary is handing out paperwork for you to read and sign.”
Jolene’s father stood. “What do you mean that his wife is
not the foremost beneficiary? There must be some mistake.”
“I don’t believe there is a mistake, Father,” Jolene said.
“How can you be so calm?” he asked her. “After all you’ve
been through. All you did for him? And this is the outcome?”
Turner’s mother was sniffling into her lace hanky. His
brother, Elliot, though, was staring at her with a faint but noticeable smile.
He
must be in his glory, the self-righteous ass,
Jolene thought
.
Elliot
had never approved of her, never made any concessions to her family situation
and wealth, yet the Crawfords had raised the fortunes of the Crenshaws immeasurably.
She wondered if Elliot realized he would have never been preaching at the
venerable First Boston Baptist Church had it not been for Turner’s, and
therefore her, influence.
“It is his will. It is legally binding.”
“And you’ve trusted
Turner’s
attorney to tell you the
truth of the matter? I will have our family attorney review this,” her father
said, and the room erupted in accusations.
Jane Crawford was seated beside Jolene and leaned close to
tuck a stray strand of hair behind her daughter’s ear. “I would suggest to your
father that you live at Willow Tree with us, but I can’t imagine that would
suit you, and Jennifer, of course, still lives with us. At least Julia is no
longer at home.”
The affectionate gesture belied her mother’s words. “No need
to trouble yourself,” she said.
“I cannot believe that Turner included me in his will. I
will happily give it to you, if you need it, Jolene,” Jennifer whispered in her
ear as she leaned forward from the row behind. “I do hate all of this arguing.
I wish Father would sit down.”
“If Turner granted you a portion, it is yours. You’d best
keep it, Jennifer. One never knows when one’s circumstances may change,” Jolene
said.
“Well, it is your money, Jolene,” Jennifer said. “You worked
very hard to make sure that Turner knew the right people and that Landonmore .
. .”
“If you expect to be rewarded for your life’s work, Jennifer,”
Jane Crawford said, “you’ll be sadly disappointed. You’d best begin to
understand a woman’s place in the world, your place in the world. Your father
and I will not always be here to feed and clothe you.”
Jennifer was silenced and looked away.
Jolene turned her attention to Calvin Billings when he
rapped a book down on his desk. “You’re more than welcome to have your attorney
come here to review any and all of these documents. In fact, I welcome it.”
“That is good because that is exactly what will happen
within the next day or two,” William Crawford said. He picked up his top hat
and gloves and motioned to his wife and daughters. “Come along. We will see
what is said by Harton and Burberry.”
“I’ll be going straight to Landonmore, Father,” Jolene said.
“Lenora is joining me for luncheon.”
Jolene waited as the room began to clear and watched until
her parents and Jennifer were gone. She took a deep breath and thought to
herself that what she was about to do was uncommonly out of character for her;
however, she felt oddly obligated, even with the likelihood of an unpleasant
scene that may proceed from it. She walked across the room to where Calvin was
speaking to Turner’s mother and brother. Elliot looked at her in some surprise,
Mrs. Crenshaw looked at her well-worn hanky, and Calvin nodded at her and
turned away. She waited until Mrs. Crenshaw looked up at her.
“I did not say it at the funeral or at any of the at-homes,
and I believe I have been remiss in not telling you that I am terribly sorry
for your loss. I know that you loved Turner and are grieving most deeply,”
Jolene said.
“If you’re trying to get any of my mother’s money, you’d
best think again, Jolene. You have done nothing but bring misery and snobbery
and hatefulness to this family,” Elliot spat out.
Mary Crenshaw laid a shaking hand on her son’s arm. “Please,
Elliot. No more angry words.” She stepped close and took Jolene’s hand in hers.
“I thank you for saying so, Jolene. Whatever happened between you and Turner is
in the past and was between the two of you anyway. I believe you made Turner
very happy, but above all you gave him, you gave us, the most precious gift,”
she said and dabbed her eyes, “those most precious, short years with our little
William.” She looked away and then back at Jolene and squeezed her hand. “The
death of a child is the most grievous thing a mother can face. We are,
unhappily, both of the same situations.”
Jolene was terrified. Years of misery and grief threatened
to be unleashed with tears and hysteria. She had made it her habit to remain
unemotional during life events. It would not reflect well on her to release a
torrent just when others understood that she had not inherited Turner’s estate.
Women of her social standing were stoic and cool without regard to those
problematic emotions such as love and tenderness and passion and anger. However,
she had loved. She had loved her little boy with every bit of being and with a
tenderness that she didn’t think she was capable of. And Mary Crenshaw had,
undoubtedly, loved Turner as well.
Jolene had not said anything and realized then that it had
been moments, minutes rather, that she had stood hand-in-hand with Turner’s
mother, as they stared into each other’s anguish. She could not trust
herself to speak. Eventually the lump in her throat softened, and she looked
away to gather her wits. “You are right, Mary,” she said in a halting whisper.
“It is the most grievous pain a mother can face.”
* * *
“How very well you look, all things
considered,” Lenora Gladfoote said as she kissed Jolene’s cheeks. “I want you
to know that you have Martin and my deepest sympathy. I do not know how you
have borne it all.”
“Thank you,” Jolene replied. “I’ve had Cook lay out some
nibbles in the sunroom rather than a formal luncheon if you don’t mind.”
“Of course not!” Lenora said as she hooked her arm through
Jolene’s. “That sounds like just the place for us to chat.”
“Tell me what has been done in preparation for the Guild’s
Christmas Ball? I have been bereft of my duties as chairwoman,” Jolene said
after they had filled small plates and seated themselves on flowered settees.
“Hardly, Jolene,” Lenora said. “No one expects you to
continue on this year, especially with such a heavy heart. Vivian has offered,
of course, to take over the chairwoman’s seat, but as I’m sure you are aware,
once she has it, you will never get it back. Best to allow me to fill in for
you this year.”
Jolene did not reply. Her public persona of a grieving widow
conflicted with her true feelings. It had not occurred to her that she would not
chair the Ball to its conclusion. “Perhaps you can take some of the workload
from me. I will muddle through as best as I can and hold Vivian off at the same
time.”
“Brilliant!” Lenora said. “What shall I do?”
The two women talked for an hour about the details of the Ball
until Lenora called for her carriage and stood to leave.
“Let me know what you want to do about the Europe trip,”
Lenora said as she pulled on her gloves. “You will be not quite out of mourning,
but who will know once we are in France? But perhaps this is something you
cannot bear to do alone or without Turner, although I doubt that, but still the
ship sails in just three months.”
Jolene had met Lenora Smithy Gladfoote at the Ramsey School
for Young Ladies when they were twelve years old. They had been fast friends
immediately, and within a short amount of time had many of the young girls in
their class, and even classes ahead of them, doing exactly as they told them to
do. Lenora’s family did not have the type of wealth that the Crawfords did but
she had married the investment advisor to Andrew Carnegie. She was Jolene’s
closest, and perhaps, her only friend. There was no way Jolene could keep her
change in fortune a secret from Lenora.
“I may not be doing our European holiday,” Jolene said.
“Oh. I am so sorry. I’ve been insensitive. Of course, you
will need time to feel yourself again.”
“That is not it.”
“I know you are not fond of the Cartwrights, but they will
be doing whatever it is they wish to do, and you will spend as much or as
little an amount of time with Martin and me as you wish.”
“I am not overly fond of Felicity Cartwright, but that is
not it either. Do sit down for a few more moments, Lenora. I must speak to you
about something,” Jolene said.
Lenora sat down beside her. “What is it, my dear?”
“Turner’s will did not read as most would have expected it
to.”
“Really?” Lenora said with a frown.
Jolene took a deep breath. “The bulk of the estate was
settled on my youngest sister, Jillian.”
“Jillian? Isn’t she the one living with Julia on some God-forsaken
prairie?”
“Yes,” Jolene said. She had no intentions of sharing
that
family secret with anyone. “And I have no idea why he did it.”
“What does it all mean?” Lenora asked. Her eyes opened wide.
“How has he provided for you?”
“I very well may not have the means to tour Europe for a
month. I’m meeting with my man of business tomorrow morning,” Jolene said.
“Well, Martin will be happy to finance your trip. All you
must do is say.”
Jolene shook her head. “No. I believe this will require a
significant change in my lifestyle, I’m sorry to say. I have no intentions of
borrowing money I have no way of repaying, although it is very sweet of you to
say.”
Lenora looked away uncomfortably. “You know how hard it is
for us to talk about anything as crass as money. Let me know, of course, if
there is anything that we can do.”
Jolene rose and Lenora followed her to the door. They kissed
each other’s cheeks, and Lenora said, “Do not become overly worried or discouraged.
Perhaps everything will work out in the end and all will be the same as it
always has.”
Jolene nodded. “Perhaps.”
