In Need of a Good Wife (19 page)

Over the howling of the wind, Elsa heard a creaking sound. She saw the dust cloud up before she saw the small wagon made of sun-baked wood lumbering toward the depot. One slow horse pulled it up the road. After a long time the man driving guided the horse to the edge of the platform and stepped down. He tied the reins to the post and started toward the platform, moving with the uneven rhythm of a limp. With each step, he leaned his upper body forward to compensate for the fact that he could not bend his left knee, then swung the leg forward, hopping to his right foot. He was concentrating so deeply on his movement that he seemed not to notice Elsa, but it soon became clear that he was walking straight toward her.

She took a few steps in his direction and he stopped.

“Are you Miss Traugott?” the man barked. He leaned on his good leg and struggled for breath. With one arm cocked at his hip, he squinted up at her.

Mr. Schreier had a hard, square face and a pinched mouth. Fear froze Elsa’s voice in her throat. She struggled to reply. “Yes, sir,” came the whisper, but it died in the wind. She nodded her head but couldn’t tell if he saw it. His eyes were not focused on her but on something nearby, over her shoulder, and on closer inspection she saw that his right eye was clouded with a cataract.

“Everyone calls me Elsa, sir.”

“Well, come on, then. I don’t have all day.”

He turned and began the slow uneven walk back to his wagon.

“Sir,” Elsa said.

“What is it?” He turned angrily back.

“Sir—Mr. Schreier—what will we do about my trunk?”

Mr. Schreier waved and kept on walking. “One of the boys will bring it around later.”

Elsa hesitated. In Manhattan City, only a fool would entrust her most precious belongings to a stranger. Thieves lurked in every alley.

Mr. Schreier stopped, waiting for her to follow him without turning around. “No one is going to steal your things, Miss Traugott.”

“Yes, sir,” she said. She followed him at a polite distance, understanding that though his way could be made much easier by the assistance of her elbow on his left side, it would be unwise to offer. When they reached the wagon, he waited for her to climb up first. There was only one step and Elsa doubted that she could with any dignity raise her knee high enough to get purchase. She reached up and gripped the top of the cart, feeling the seam of her shift stretch dangerously close to tearing. The toe of her boot slipped on the first try, but the second time she placed her foot and heaved up onto the step and then into the front of the cart. Her cheeks were pink from exertion and shame as she thought of the view Mr. Schreier had from down on the ground: his fat new housekeeper’s ample behind.

Mr. Schreier freed the horse’s reins and pulled himself up to the bench. The horse backed up with slow confidence, her blond tail twitching, then turned to the left and drew them along the main road. It cut straight west between the town’s six low buildings, then out across the flat land.

They passed a handful of farms along the way, each with a barn much bigger than the squat sod house or rude cabin of uncut logs that stood alongside it, an uneven fence marking the boundary of the property. The doorway to each windowless structure was draped with a blanket in place of a door. Here and there a single cow cast its mooning gaze at them as she chewed her cud. Elsa took a breath, her body nearly vibrating with a mixture of relief and fear. The dot on the map she had stared at so many times over the last six months was, truly, a
place
, with houses, with people who lived in the houses. All the while, life had been going on here.

She thought the air smelled strange, then realized she was noticing the
absence
of the scents to which she had grown accustomed in Manhattan City. Here there was no garbage along the road, no excess of dung, no overflowing privies, no clouds of coal smoke. She smelled the clean, cloying scent of manure spread recently on the fields and the sweetness of the hay lining the cart. That was all.

Mr. Schreier rode silently along, his back curved and his hat pulled low on his head. After a while they turned into a lane on the left that led to a wood-frame house, its planed wood siding whitewashed long ago but now faded to a weathered gray. It was the first two-story house Elsa had seen, larger and more permanent looking than any of the others they had passed. He pulled the cart alongside and stepped down. Elsa followed him in through the side door, which led directly into the kitchen. The house had two doors, in fact, made of solid wood and hung on iron hinges in the door frames. It was certainly the finest house in town. And that made what she saw next all the more surprising.

The sink overflowed with dishes, caked hard with food and attended by a colony of flies. A line of empty cans stood on the butcher block, each with a spoon propped up inside it. Something had spilled on the rough planks of the floor and been left to dry into a sticky blob. The table was covered in newspapers.

Mr. Schreier passed through the kitchen without comment and into the sitting room. A bucket of coal sat on the floor beside the hearth, which was covered in a thick layer of dust and ash. Dried scrub leaves had blown in with the wind and settled in the corner. The room’s one window was draped with a filthy curtain.

“I know it doesn’t seem like much, but I have worked the last ten years and more to make this place what it is.” Mr. Schreier set his hat on the table beside the armchair. “I have worked hard for every single thing that I have. I promise you that you will not want for anything—food, clothing, books, if you are interested in books. But the one thing I will not tolerate is dishonesty or theft or furtiveness. If you want something, ask for it. If you take things behind my back, I will have no more use for you here, understand?”

He crossed the room to a door and pulled it open. A rush of warm, stale air came down the stairs.

“Your rooms are up there,” he said. “I meant to get up there and air them but …” He gestured to his leg.

“Of course,” Elsa said.

“Well, aren’t you going to have a look?” he said irritably.

She nodded. “All right.” She stepped past him and made her way up the steep staircase. Airing was unnecessary since the wind seemed to be blowing right through the walls. Elsa braced herself for more filth—perhaps a family of raccoons or mice—but as her head rose above the floor she felt her heart swell with delight.

The room was dusty, yes, but there was, as there had been in her dreams, a large window that looked out over the land. There was a bed piled with quilts that, once laundered, would be cozy indeed. An armchair sat next to a small fireplace and a braided rug. Elsa walked from one end of the long room to the other. It was as large as the quarters for all ten of Mrs. Channing’s laundresses.

“Well, is it all right, then?” Mr. Schreier called from the bottom of the stairs.

Elsa had to clear her throat to steady her wavering voice before she answered.

“It’s just fine, sir. Just fine.”

The men who had accosted Clara once all the women had left the depot with their partners now ushered her across the street to a building with a sign that announced it was the Town Hall. She might not have known otherwise, given its ramshackle state. With its unfinished wooden steps and porch and grease-clouded windows, it looked just like the tavern next door.

“Miss Bixby,” one of them barked at her as they crossed the road, “you need to know you aren’t going to get away with running a swindle like this on us. We have the law here, just the same as in New York.”

Clara wrested her elbow out of his grip and smoothed the sleeve of her traveling dress. “Sir, you need not rough me up—I told you I’ll be glad to go see the mayor and Mr. Drake. And this is
not
a swindle. It’s just a big misunderstanding.” They reached the double doors and Clara stopped, but neither of the men pulled it open for her. She grabbed the handle and threw the door open, nearly hitting one of them in the face with it. “After you,
gentlemen
of Destination.”

The men strode through the small foyer and toward Mayor Cartwright’s office. They hadn’t introduced themselves, but Clara felt sure they were Bill Albright and Walther Luft, whose Cynthia and Bethany hadn’t made it out of Chicago because of the blasted soup tureens.

Clara’s eyes widened when she saw the man sitting behind his desk taking notes on a long document. He was entirely different than she had imagined. His letters were written in such neat, careful script that she had pictured a diminutive man with soft features. But the mayor was enormous, broad- shouldered, with a great wind-tangled mane. His left- handedness had never been corrected, and he wrote with his arm curved awkwardly across the top of the page. Beside the desk, a brown-and-white dog dozed, then cracked one eye when they entered the room.

“Gentlemen,” the mayor said, looking up. “I was just about to come to see how you all were getting on over at the depot.”

“We’re not getting on at all, sir,” said the angrier of the two. He stepped up to the front of the desk. “And you need to do something about it.”

Mayor Cartwright raised his eyebrows and appraised the man for a minute, then set down his pen. “Now, let’s just slow down there, Bill.” The mayor put his palms on the top of the desk and stood, slowly. Bill’s head seemed to shrink down into his shoulders as Cartwright’s full height revealed itself. The mayor had a thick beard and dark blue eyes, which he turned, now, to Clara.

“Hello, there,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m Randall Cartwright.”

“Yes, sir, I know. I’m Clara Bixby.”

He smiled and shook her hand. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you in person, Miss Bixby. I trust these men have welcomed you to Destination.”

Clara bit her lip. “They are understandably distressed, sir.”

“And why is that?” Mayor Cartwright asked, turning back to Bill.

“All these months I have been writing to a girl in New York named Cynthia. But there’s no Cynthia on this train. I’m starting to wonder if she exists at all.”

“Oh, of course she does,” Clara spat at him, losing patience. “You think I have time to sit around making up eight different women and keeping them all straight?”

“Not eight—obviously the ones who showed up on the train today are real.” Bill turned to Cartwright. “But we’re certainly short a few wives.” Behind him, Walther Luft nodded, his thumbs looped through his suspenders.

Clara closed her eyes and took a breath, then began again in a softer tone. “Mr. Albright, I am very sorry about what has happened. Miss Ruley was keen to meet you—she told me so herself just a week ago—but when we arrived at the train station in Chicago she had second thoughts about leaving her family and decided to turn around,” Clara fibbed. “I’m sure she will write to you to explain.” She looked up at the mayor. “Sir, as I’m sure you can understand, there are limits to what I can do to compel these ladies to follow through on their promises.”

Bill laughed. “Well, isn’t that just what you
would
say, now that things have gone awry. You promised plenty, but now you can’t deliver.”

Clara heard boots on the wide planks of the floor behind her and turned to find a scowling man with a black mustache.

“Jeremiah Drake,” he said with a curt nod. “And you must be Miss Bixby.”

Clara tried to straighten her back. “Yes, sir. I am.”

“Sorry, gentlemen—I got held up at the brewery.” He turned back to Clara. “So what’s my bride’s explanation? A sick relative? Fear of Indians?”

“Mr. Drake,” Clara sighed, “I worked very hard—
very
hard—to find a bride who met your specification for hair color. If you’ll recall, you exchanged letters with several young women.”

He laughed. “So I was too particular?
That’s
your claim now that my … what was her name again, Bill?”

“Pauline, sir.”

“Pauline. That’s right. Now that my Pauline has failed to show up as promised?”

“Mr. Drake, I promise you—there’s no deceit here. We’ve had some bad luck in choosing some young women who have not kept their word. But I certainly never set out to keep you from finding brides.”

Drake ignored her and turned to Cartwright. “Mayor,” he said, mockery in his tone, “this is
your
fault. You found this woman. You arranged all this. Now I see why you didn’t throw your hat in the ring.”

Mr. Cartwright’s voice was steady. “Drake, you know that’s not how it happened.”

“Ever since Samuel and Terrance got killed, you’ve tried to use it for your own gain.”

Mayor Cartwright groaned. “Got themselves killed, you mean. And what gain? They made it into newspapers across the country for the spectacle they caused, no disrespect to the dead. They’ve made Destination the wrong kind of famous. The only good that came out of it is that it brought us to Miss Bixby’s attention. You all wanted wives. When Miss Bixby wrote to me, you asked me to pursue it.”

Walther had crept toward the door, little by little, as the confrontation thundered on. The mayor’s voice froze him in midstep. “You’re awfully quiet over there, Walther. I suppose you been left in the lurch too?”

Walther nodded, his hands curling nervously in his pockets. “Seems that way. I’m told Miss Mint stayed behind with Bill’s bride.”

“What are you going to do, Mayor?” Drake said. “How are you going to fix this?”

Cartwright held up his hands and shook his head. “What do you expect me to do? Gentlemen, I’m sure you understand that life, and, for that matter love especially, offers us no guarantees. Miss Bixby can’t be held responsible for the fickle nature of womankind.”

“Maybe not,” Bill said. “But she
can
be held responsible for taking my money.”

The mayor’s eyes widened and he turned back to Clara. “Ah. I see.
Now
we’re getting down to it.”

Clara looked down at her hands.

Drake hooted with laughter. “Boy, you really aren’t that bright, are you, Mayor? Did you think we all just had broken hearts?”

Cartwright’s cheeks pinkened and he turned to Clara, keeping his voice steady. “It is always, at the last, about the money. Don’t you find that to be true, Miss Bixby?”