Romance: Luther's Property (60 page)

That night, I hardly slept at all. My bed seemed as if it
had turned to stone; I couldn’t get comfortable no matter how I turned.
Downstairs, I could hear Father pacing back and forth into the small hours of
the night. His mind wasn’t resting easily either.

Everything was so uncertain. Iowa was a mystery to me; I
knew next to nothing about the country I was headed into. The clerk at the
train station had been very enthusiastic about all the new track that I’d be
riding on; the spur to Sioux City was barely a year old. He’d found this
wonderful. I myself would have preferred a situation with a little less
novelty.

Even the name of the town scared me a little. Sioux City.
Perhaps it had been founded by Indians. I’d read about it as one of a handful
of boom towns blossoming out west; people were moving there every day. While
these towns certainly didn’t have the population of New York or Boston, they
were crowded enough and sufficiently distant that it would be difficult for
Robert Benson to find me. Even if he did follow, by the time he arrived, I’d be
married to another man, and there’d be nothing he could do about my flight.

I wished, not for the first time, that the personal ad had
revealed more about this Iowa agronomist. I didn’t know if he was young or old,
sickly or healthy, rich or poor. He hadn’t mentioned children, but that didn’t
mean he didn’t have any: I could be getting off of this train to find myself
serving as stepmother to a brood of six!

It was entirely possible that the Iowa agronomist was every
bit as repulsive as Robert Benson. I thought of the near-encounter I’d had with
the man at the train station and shuddered. There was no way I could spend my
life that way. It didn’t matter if I was here at home in the Shenandoah Valley
or out in the mysterious land of Iowa: I wouldn’t marry a man who evoked such
strong feelings of fear and disgust in me.

What would I do if that were the case? I knew no one in
Iowa, and sneaking out of town before my wedding day surely meant I wouldn’t be
able to come home again.
 
I’d spent
almost every penny I had on my train ticket, banking on the fact the Iowa
agronomist would be able to support the wife he’d sent for.
 
If this didn’t work out, I’d be far from home
with no support, no connections, and no prospects. It was a terrifying idea. If
it idea of marrying Robert Benson wasn’t even scarier, I never would have
considered it.

But marrying Robert Benson was a scarier idea. The rumors
that he’d killed off both his wife and her purported lover had to come from
somewhere. Father took them seriously enough to ask the Sheriff – and the
lawman hadn’t said they were unfounded. He’d only said he’d not been able to
find any proof. These were two very different things, and I could find no
comfort in the lack of proof.

Another issue was the man’s appearance. We’re not meant to
judge a book by its cover, and in truth, I’d met many a homely yet honorable
person over the years. But there was something about Robert Benson’s visage
that exuded evil; his very presence seemed to taint the air around him.
 
In even a brief observation it was clear to
me that he knew the impact he made and he had clearly decided to do nothing to
mitigate it.

No matter what the Iowa agronomist looked like, I doubted it
could be nearly as bad as Robert Benson.

The skies had begun to gray with dawn’s first light when I
finally heard Father retire to bed. It didn’t take long for his snores to fill
the house. When I was certain he was fully asleep, I slipped out of bed, took
up the black satchel, and started out. I didn’t know what the future held, but
I knew what I was leaving behind: Richard Benson.

It is more than 1,200 miles from the Shenandoah Valley to
Sioux City, Iowa. This meant three days on the train. I had provisioned myself for
this by taking some cheese, bread and sausages from the kitchen, but I’d not
thought about drinks at all. After the better part of the day, I asked the
conductor if there was any water on board.

The conductor looked me up and down. He was the same man who’d
remarked on how strange it was to travel with such a small bag for such a long
journey. “We certainly have water available, Miss. It’s a dollar a glass.”

I blinked. “For that price, I’d expect you’d be serving
champagne!”

His laugh was not pleasant. “Champagne costs quite a bit
more than that.” He let his gaze drop again, slowly scanning my bosom before
speaking again. “So do you want some water or not?”

I considered my finances. “I can’t afford that.”

He smirked. “I didn’t think so.”
 
He let the tone of his voice drop, so he was
barely speaking above a whisper. I had to strain to hear him above the loud
click-clack of the train’s wheels. “But if you need a drink, I’m sure we can
work something out.” His leer let me know exactly what kind of arrangement he
had in mind.

“Sir!” I said, shocked. “I am a lady!”

He laughed. “Do you know what they call a lady with no
money, honey?”

I didn’t answer him, because I couldn’t find the words. My
silence seemed to infuriate him. “Well, do you?” he insisted.

“No,” I muttered, fearful that his temper, barely contained
now, would quickly boil over into a situation I couldn’t control. “What do they
call a lady with no money?”

He sneered and I feared the worst. All my life I’d been
treated with courtesy; my Father was far from rich but we were respectable
enough. Now this conductor was going to humiliate me in front of a car load of
passengers.

“Thirsty,” he said with a nasty laugh, and walked away. I
slumped down in my seat, feeling my emotions waver between fury and a strange
sense of relief. If he had called me a loose woman, I didn’t know what I was
going to do; alone on the train without a friend in the world made me realize
how truly defenseless I was.

I stared out the window, watching the darkened landscape go
by. Perhaps this entire journey was a mistake. I was so thirsty. My head ached,
and the pain doubled every time I thought about what things must be like back
home. By now, Father had discovered my absence, and had had to explain to
Robert Benson that I was nowhere to be found.
 
The consequences of that conversation were too terrible to imagine. As
dry as I was, tears still came to my eyes. I licked my lips as they slid down
my face; their salty moisture was better than nothing.

“Excuse me, Miss?” A young girl settled into the seat beside
me. “Are you all right?”

I blinked back my tears. This girl couldn’t have been ten
years old, far too young to hear about my troubles. “I’m fine. I’m just a
little thirsty, that’s all.”

She nodded, very seriously. “Mother and I heard the
conductor being horrid to you. That’s why she wants me to give you these.” In
her small hands suddenly appeared a bunch of grapes, wrapped in a fold of
paper. “They’re from our farm. Very juicy.”

“Oh,” I said. “Thank you.” A thought struck me. “I haven’t
any money to pay you.”

The girl waved her hand, and across the way, I could see her
Mother shaking her head in agreement. “We don’t need any money. Just don’t be
sad. You’re too pretty to cry.”

The grapes were the best I ever tasted, foxy and wild like
the countryside. I ate them slowly, knowing I had more than two days ride ahead
of me.
 
The young girl and her generous
mother got off at the next station we stopped at. I thanked them as they
departed, and the mother smiled sadly at me. “It wasn’t that long ago that I
was in your shoes, young lady.” She patted her flat belly as if there was a
babe inside. “Take care of yourself. And your little one.”

Then she was gone, leaving me astonished. It was amazing to
me how many people misinterpreted why a young woman would be travelling alone.
Already I’d been misidentified as a prostitute and as a girl in trouble. Surely
something was making people think those things about me, and I wasn’t sure what
it was.

I thought about it all night long, in between fits of
uncomfortable sleep propped upright in my seat. When dawn arrived, I remembered
my Shakespeare.
 
“All the world’s a
stage,” he’d written in As You Like It, a caution that none of us are
necessarily who we appear to be. I decided then to play the role of a confident
young woman on her way to meet the man she loved very much and was looking
forward to marrying. It was time to stop worrying about what I left behind me
and look forward to what was coming. I straightened my spine, put a big smile
on my face, and tried to cultivate an aura of eager anticipation.

It made all the difference in the world. As new passengers
got on the train, they looked at me and smiled. The train crew changed, and in
the place of the foul-eyed conductor was an older fellow who, when I asked if
there was any way to get a drink of water, said “Of course!” and never
mentioned anything about a dollar a glass charge.

Someone even left their copy of the Cleveland Leader on the
train when they departed. After a quick glance around the train car, I snatched
that up eagerly and whiled away the better part of a day slowly reading it.

 
A man named
Rockefeller had apparently set up a company in those parts that other people
were calling an unfair monopoly; the editorial I read argued that Mr.
Rockefeller was being punished for being too successful. There were a number of
questions the article raised for me, and I spent many, many miles pondering
whether a man could be both financially successful and virtuous. If one
couldn’t, then which was more important? The Iowa agronomist was much on my
mind. I didn’t know if science was a lucrative field; if I was heading into a
life of poverty as a farmer’s wife, it would be good to know that going in.

Everyone who’d tried to talk me into marrying Benson had
emphasized his wealth. We’d never been a rich family, but I’d never known want
either. Dealing with the unsavory train conductor had made me acutely aware of
how little money I had. Financial concerns had never been utmost in my mind;
like any girl, I assumed that I’d marry well enough that it wouldn’t be a
worry. But now, having spurned a fortune, was I ready to deal with whatever
fortunes awaited me?

The Cleveland paper had a story about young female factory
workers, and how conditions for them needed to be improved.
 
This was an eye opener for me; I’d no idea
that women worked in factories at all. If the Iowa agronomist were not to my
liking, or if he wasn’t able to support a bride, I mused, then I had at least
one option open to me. It wasn’t much of an alternate plan, but it was a plan,
and I felt much better for having it.

The Sioux City train station was far larger than I expected.
The brown brick building dwarfed the train station back home; the platform was
long, wide, and almost completely empty when I got off of the train, clutching
my black leather satchel.

There were two elderly women there, clad in black and
clucking to each other.
 
Beside them, a
haggard looking woman tried desperately to keep control of four rambunctious
children. Further away, near the train station building, stood two gentlemen.

One was tall and well-dressed; he had a suitcoat and waist
coat on. My heart sank when I saw he was nearly Father’s age. Of course, it
took some time to become a scientist, I should have expected this. He was clean
and his affect seemed kindly enough.
 
The
other man was incredibly handsome, tall and broad with short blond hair the
color of wheat in the sun. He was wearing dungarees and a white shirt with a
denim vest over it; his pockets bulged and even at a distance, I could tell his
eyes were an incredible blue.

I started walking toward the older man, plastering a bright
smile on my face. First impressions matter, and I wanted my husband to be to
know me from the first as a cheerful, good hearted woman.

As I approached, the younger man stepped forward and smiled.
“Abigail?” he said.

“Yes…” I paused, not quite believing what this might mean.

“Hello!” he said, extending his hand. “I am William.” He had
a bit of an accent; he sounded almost German. “It is such a pleasure to meet
you at last!”

When I took William’s hand, a spark passed between us, an
electric moment that caused us each to pause and look at each other with fresh
eyes. I saw that he was older than me, but not by much; at the very most, he
was thirty years old. It was clear he spent a great deal of time outdoors.
Despite his fair hair, his skin was very tan. He wasn’t nearly as big as Robert
Benson, but there was no question he was a strong working man.

“You have brought the Shakespeare?” he asked with a smile.

“I have,” I said.

“Then it will be welcome in our library,” he said, taking me
by the hand and leading me off the platform. “And you are very welcome to come
to my home.”

You would think that two people who had never met before
would be awkward with each other, but William and I were comfortable right from
the start. The fact that his dog loved me immediately helped: the small brown
hound leaped from the wagon seat and danced all around me, wriggling his butt
and barking joyfully as I approached.

“Shotsi! Stop that!” William said, with a laugh. He beamed
when he saw I bent to pet the hound. “You like dogs?”

“Absolutely,” I said. Shotsi was licking my hands and face,
and I laughed. “They aren’t shy about saying how they feel about a person,
that’s for sure.”

“Shotsi certainly isn’t,” William replied. “She likes you,
but there are those…well.” He shrugged. “She will show you her teeth and then I
know maybe this is a person who isn’t so kind.”

“Your horses are beautiful too,” I said. His team wasn’t
matched; there was a gray and a paint, but
 
both looked hale and hearty.
 
I
scratched the gray between the ears.

“So you’ve been around animals,” William said. He held out
his hand to help me up into the wagon. “That’s good. I wasn’t sure if an East
Coast girl would truly be ready for farm life.”

I cocked my head. “An East Coast girl?”

“It is all cities out that way,” William announced. “New
York. Philadelphia. A different world.” He spoke very confidently, as if he’d
spent every day walking the streets of the towns he named. “If that is what you
are used to, it may be hard for you to be happy here.”

“The Shenandoah Valley’s not like that,” I said. “We have
plenty of farms. And woods. And mountains.” Father and I had lived in a
relatively small town, certainly nowhere near the size of Sioux City. “It’s not
even like this.”

William smiled. “Well, I do not have the mountains for you.
But the farm, you will see.” He looked at me out of the corner of his eye ,and
I could see he was nervous that I wouldn’t like him. “There are no woods, but I
am doing a project with plum trees; there are 120 of them.” He frowned.
“Although there are four that aren’t doing as well as I might have hoped.”

I laughed and reached for his hand. “120 plum trees! That’s
wonderful. Tell me about your project.”

I must have said the magic words, because William was off to
the races. As we drove through Sioux City and into the countryside beyond, I
learned more about plum trees than I ever believed possible. There is a disease
called plum pox, he told me. “It travels from tree to tree the way a cold will
go from person to person. But not every tree will get the pox. Some cultivars
are stronger than others; the pox can touch every other tree in the orchard but
these ones grow untroubled. I am trying to figure out why.”

“Are there some types of plums that are naturally immune?” I
asked.

William’s face lit up with delight. “There are individual
trees within the species – the type of plums – that will succumb, but yes, some
species are more resistant than others.”

“What do those species that are more immune have in common
with each other, I wonder.” I said.

“You did not tell me you are a scientist also!” he
exclaimed.

“I’m not,” I protested. “I’m just a girl. I’m ordinary.”

William shook his head. “In the little time I know you, I
can tell you you are not just a girl. And you are far from ordinary.”