Pearl of Promise (A Sweet Mail Order Bride Western) (The Brides of Carville) (6 page)

Chapter 9

As his horse trudged up the road, Arlen felt a knot forming in his stomach.  It felt as if every drop of energy had drained from his
body.

He wanted to blame Nora, just as he’d blamed
Sylvie for leaving him.  Sylvie hadn’t given him a chance, either—she had just fled their home without a word to him.  But at least
she
had left a note!  Nora hadn’t even done that.  She’d just abandoned their child with a neighbor, and gone into town for the train.

How had she even gotten to town?  All their horses had been in the barn, but the one he was riding. 
Did Louise loan her a horse?  Or did someone come to pick her up?  If that’s the case, it had to have been preplanned.
 

An image of his wife laughing and talking with Theo Erikson at the social flashed through his mind.  Could she have run off with Theo? 

He shook his head.  None of it made sense.  He’d kept her from town.  So unless Erikson had been sneaking up to their claim to see Nora on the sly, Arlen couldn’t see how they had arranged the escapade.  It was possible—but could he have missed such signs of infidelity in his wife?  And wouldn’t it have been too risky, given that Arlen had varied his schedule on purpose, at times, to make sure Nora wasn’t sneaking off to town or to trade books with Louise?

Arlen just couldn’t imagine Nora being so cavalier as to carry on a love affair with her own daughter right in the house. 
But then again…she did abandon Gwen, too, didn’t she?

His brain was muddled.  He couldn’t think straight. 

Then an image filled his mind…of Nora, sitting on the stump outside their cabin, nursing Gwen and singing a sweet lullaby.  There was no mistaking the look on her face—she loved Gwen. 

Then if she loved Gwen, why did she leave her behind?  Could it be that she planned to come back for Gwen after she bought train tickets?
 
How much of the plan did Louise know?
  He chastised himself for not taking the time to ask Louise questions before he ran off.   

Arlen clenched his heels into the horse, telling it to pick up the pace.  He’d find out from Louise. 

What’s the point?
  A petulant voice in his head piped up. 
She’ll be gone by the time you get to Louise’s, anyway.  Just let her go.

An enormous sense of loss swept over him.  His chest ached, and he realized he just couldn’t let her go.  As much as it might hurt his pride, he had to at least find out why.  Why did she leave?  Why didn’t she take Gwen?  Why hadn’t she left him a note? 

He had to find out.  He knew he’d failed her—she’d been so obviously miserable for months.  Just like Sylvie.  Could it really just be the loneliness of the mountains, or was there more?  Was it really just
him?
  Was he that unlovable?  He had to know, or it would eat away at him.  He’d become a bitter old man, and Gwen deserved better than that. 

Arlen wheeled the horse around and kicked the horse’s flank, galloping down the winding road toward Carville.

Chapter
10

Nora rubbed her ankle absentmindedly as she gazed down the platform to her right, and out onto the street
.  Perhaps I’ll get lucky and catch the doctor as he comes back into town.
  She wondered if he usually came back before nightfall.

“
Mrs.…Hunt?” 

Nora looked up, startled, as a tall, broad-shouldered man approached.  She shaded her eyes.  “Oh, you’re the new pastor!”

“I am,” he nodded.  “Reverend Holden.”

“Yes, I remember.  We met briefly after you gave your first sermon last week.”  He grinned.  “I wasn’t sure if I had your name right.  I met so many new people that day.”  He glanced down at her foot.  “Are you hurt?”

“Just a twisted ankle.”  She glanced past him, toward the street.

“Can I help you
get somewhere?”

She shook her head.  “Not unless you have a wagon, and you know where the Lathums live.
  I need Mrs. Lathum’s help.”  She berated herself for not thinking to ask Mr. Lathum his address, in case she found someone who could drive her over to his home.

“I only have a ho
rse I’ve rented from the livery, and the pastor has taken the church buggy to visit a sick church member. I think I
have
met the Lathums, but I have no idea where they live.”

“It’s alright,” she sighed.  “With my luck I’d probably miss him somehow, as he’s on his way back here.”

“Is he fetching a doctor for you?  The way you’re rubbing that ankle, it looks painful.”

“I’ll be fine.  I’m more
worried about my daughter.  She’s just a baby, and she’s sick.  The doctor is out of town on Wednesdays, and I’m hoping Mr. Lathum’s wife has a good home remedy we can use, until the doctor gets back.  He just left for his house, to fetch a remedy from his wife.”  She bit her lip, anxious to do
something
to help her daughter, other than sit and wait. 

“Why don’t I stay with you until Mr. Lathum gets back?”

She nodded, grateful for the distraction, and moved aside to leave plenty of room on the bench.  “What brings you to the train depot?  Do you have relatives coming to visit?”

He looked away
as he sat on the opposite end of the bench, and she thought she detected a blush creeping up his neck, beneath the white collar of his grey clerical suit.  “Uh…no…just buying a ticket.  For…a friend.”  He cleared his throat.  “Would you like me to pray with you?  For your daughter?”

She gave a half-hearted nod.  “I suppose so.  Maybe God will listen to you.  He doesn’t seem to be hearing
my
prayers, lately.”

“Mrs. Hunt, God always hears our prayers.  We may not always get the answer we want, or in as timely a fashion as we’d like, but I promise you, he always answers somehow.”

Nora sighed, staring off at the mountains beyond the railroad tracks.  “I used to believe that.  I thought coming out to Carville was an answer to my prayers.  I dreamed for so long to have a chance at an adventurous life, like I read about.  Then I came across Arlen’s advertisement.  He was seeking a wife out west.  It seemed like the perfect opportunity.”

“You’re a mail order bride?” Reverend Holden asked, surprised.

“Yes.  I know most people must think that I was desperate, or that I was fleeing some unfortunate circumstance to consider marrying a stranger.  But I found it exciting.  I could have married one of several men back home, but I didn’t want the boring life of a simple housewife.”

“You wanted adventure.”

“Yes!  But instead I got a life of isolation and loneliness.  Of drudgery and sameness, day after day.”

“If you don’t mind me asking,” he hedged, “what is so bad about being a housewife?”

“I…I don’t know.  I’ve just read so many exciting stories: Indian raids, stagecoach robberies, bank robberies, plagues, droughts, wildfires. The lives of the pioneers in my books are so filled with all manner of unexpected events. But life out here isn’t like that.  Not at all.”

“Isn’t it, though?”

Nora turned to him.  “What do you mean?”

“All those things you mentioned—the raids, the robberies, the illness, the wildfires.  Don’t those things happen out here?  I heard there was a fire at the far end of the valley at the beginning of summer.”

“Yes,” she said slowly.  “But it never went anywhere.  We never even saw the smoke—just a light haze over the valley.”

“That’s not what I heard.  Two families lost everything.”

“They did?  I didn’t know that.  Then again…I was trapped at home, at the time.”

“I also heard there was a diphtheria epidemic over in
Verdant Springs last summer, or thereabouts.”

“That’s true.  But it was limited to Verdant Springs.  I asked Arlen if I could go volunteer to help, but he was worried I’d get sick.”

“So how can you say those things don’t happen out here?”

“I…” she trailed off, speechless.

“You don’t think it’s the same, because you weren’t there to experience it.  But don’t you see?  If you had, it wouldn’t have been like those books you read, where the heroes always prevail.  In real life, sometimes the heroes and heroines get sick.  Or shot.  Or die in fires.  The things that make books so exciting are the very things we want to avoid in real life…because in real life, the endings to our stories are unpredictable.  Sometimes our stories end in sadness.  I don’t think that’s the kind of excitement you want.  Is it?”

Nora thought of Gwen, sick and in need of a doctor…and no doctor to be found.  It was the makings of a great fictional story—but a horrible life experience.”

“I never thought about it that way.  I just…I didn’t want to end up like my friends—married and stuck at home, before they’d ever really lived.”

“Nora, if you spend your whole life chasing the next adventure, you end up missing some of the most beautiful, wondrous parts of life.  It’s not that fun and excitement are bad things, in and of themselves—but if you’re so busy chasing after what you don’t have, you’ll miss the things that are right in front of you.”

“Like Gwen.”

He nodded.  “And your husband.”

Nora looked away.  “I’m not so sure I even have a husband.  He’s more like a parent.  Or a jailer.”

“Why do you say that?”  Reverend Holden leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands. 

“I don’t mean to speak ill of my husband, Reverend.  I’m sorry—”

“You’re upset—and you’re confiding in your soon-to-be-pastor.  That’s not the same thing as complaining, or idle gossip.”

Nora bit her lip.  “It’s just that…things started out wonderful with Arlen.  But then over the winter, things changed.  He wanted me home all the time.  He didn’t want to go to church—he said the roads were too dangerous, and I was pregnant.”

“That’s not uncommon for first
time fathers, from what I hear.  They can become quite overprotective of their wives when they are expecting.”

“It’s not just that.  Even when summer came, and I’d given birth, he made excuses.  It got to the point that people at church were asking where we’d been.  He doesn’t even like me to go visit my friend down the road, anymore.”

“Is it possible he thought you were shirking your duties at home?”

Nora shook her head.  “He tried to claim that, but I always made sure to do my work before I went to see her.  Reverend, I’m up on that mountain all alone every day.  It’s not what I wanted, and not what I expected, but I resigned myself to it.  But this…being deprived so often of church, of my friend, of my books…”

“Your books?  Has he forbidden you to read?”

“Not exactly.  But I used to trade with other women at church, or buy a new book once in a while…and now, Arlen seems to be doing everything he can to stand in the way.  He’s gone so far as to remove the books from my bag that I had wanted to trade in town.”

“Mrs. Hunt, is there any chance he doesn’t approve of your books?”

“I…I don’t see how.  There’s nothing lurid in them, whatsoever, I assure you.  As I said, it’s mostly adventure stories about the Wild West.  My mother was quite strict with what she let me read, and she’d never have allowed me to read them if they were immoral or un-Christian, in any way.  Honestly, I can’t help but wonder if this kind of behavior is what drove his first wife away—”

“Wait—Mr. Hunt was married before?”

“Yes—I’m sorry, of course you wouldn’t know. He and his first wife, Sylvie, moved to
Carville ten years ago.  About five years ago, Sylvie left him and took a train back home to her family in Missouri.  But she got sick on the train, and died not long after she arrived.  Arlen claimed it was because she hated living out west—but what if she really just hated being cooped up by Arlen?”

Reverend Holden paused, his fingers to his lips, frowning in concentration.  “The books you read—the ones Mr. Hunt has been keeping from you—
they were about exciting pioneer life, correct?”

Nora nodded.

“Could it be that he felt he couldn’t measure up to the heroes in those books?  That he felt the books raised your expectations of him, and your life here?  That he feared you’d become unhappy here, as his first wife did, and leave?”

“No, that’s not—”  She stopped. 
Was
it possible?  “But why would he think my books would make me want to leave?  They were the same books I’ve always read.  And what good would keeping me from the books do?”

“Is there any chance you expressed dissatisfaction with your life here?” 

“I don’t think so.  But…I suppose I
was
unhappy.  Maybe I didn’t hide it as well as I thought.”

“Mrs. Hunt, if you don’t mind me saying so, I’d recommend you talk this over with your husband.  I suspect that the loss of his first wife has a lot to do with your current situation.  If that turns out not to be the problem, I’d be happy to meet with both of you, to help you work things out.”

“I don’t know if Arlen would agree to that…but I don’t think I’d get any worse reaction if I ask, than I did when I asked to go to the festival.”

“Try talking with him.  It couldn’t hurt.  But pray, and ask for God’s guidance before you do.  And ask the Holy Spirit to give you the right words.  I find that helps quite a bit, before undertaking a difficult conversation.”

“I will.  Thank you.”  For the first time, she felt hope—and for a moment, she forgot her fear over her daughter’s illness.  “Can you pray with me?  For Gwen and for my marriage?”

“Of course.” 

They bowed their heads, and Nora listened as the young pastor-in-training murmured words of hope, consolation, and blessing.