13
Love’s Broken Dreams
Nellie often pondered the miner’s wife’s fate—Mrs. McGregory, grieving mother and put-upon wife; Mrs. McGregory, aspiring fashion designer and failed shopkeeper; Madame Cyrette, self-invented socialite undone by a scheming flatterer. At what point had her life taken a turn that sent her hurtling to the grave? Life is like working the mines, Nellie wrote in her journal. We labor in the dark, never knowing how close we may have come to tapping gold or triggering disaster. Only God knows.
“Only God knows,” her mother used to say when Nellie asked questions Amanda did not care to answer. Surely to dream about employing one’s talent to rise above a bad situation was not unworthy of God’s blessing. But if broken dreams are not God’s way of derailing us from the tracks to hell, might they be His way to test our mettle for the journey ahead? Nellie shook that thought from her head. Before she could acknowledge that she did not believe in such an interfering God, her thoughts jumped the rails. It came to her that it was not fashion design Mrs. McGregory had failed at, it was love.
A deep sadness wrapped soft fingers around her heart. She had always supposed that her dreams were born of a hunger similar to Mrs. McGregory’s, not for bodily sustenance, but for nourishment that satisfied a curious mind and fed an adventurous soul. In truth, she was living that dream, but at its core, it was cold comfort. When had she stopped believing in love? She knew exactly when.
R
Kansas, 1878
When Nellie was sixteen, Eustace made good on his promise to visit Kansas. The elegant young man arrived by train with no entourage or fanfare. Nellie accompanied her father and oldest brother to the train stop, putting a calculated distance between herself and the two men as they stood waiting beside the tracks.
At the sound of the distant whistle, her heart beat wildly against the steel stays of her corset. Clanging and clattering filled her ears. She didn’t hear her brother’s admonishment to stand back from the tracks. Everything on the ground receded from her awareness until the train came into view. The tug of a stranger’s fingers on the sleeve of her dress caused her step back, throwing her off balance.
The train pulled into the station and settled on the tracks like an overlarge person sinking into a chair, weary from exertion. Nellie raised herself on tiptoe so she could see above the heads of those who crowded in front of her. Disembarking passengers were greeted with handshakes or embraces.
Did she get the date wrong? Did he miss the train? Nellie stared at the recessed doorway. There he was! A slight gentleman carrying one piece of luggage stepped lightly from the train and made straight for the men. He introduced himself and shook hands, first with her father and then her brother. Nellie waited quietly, shifting from one foot to the other while the men exchanged pleasantries. She strained her ears to catch his words. Surely he was aware of her presence. Finally, her father pointed in her direction, and Eustace turned to stare blankly into the small group of people who were rapidly dispersing around her.
Dressed in her Sunday best, Nellie pulled herself up to her full height of five foot two inches, raised her chin ever so slightly, and composed her lips in a practiced smile—warm but not too wide, welcoming but not immodest. The young man’s face lit up. He bounded over to her and chucked her under the chin!
“You must be Nellie.” He flashed his perfect white teeth in a grin appropriate for artless children or cute puppies.
How dare he! Even John didn’t treat her like a child. Nellie took a step back and extended her hand. “I am very pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Carver.”
The young man bowed his head, brought his lips together, and brushed them lightly over the back of her hand. He raised apologetic eyes to hers. “Please, call me Eustace.”
“And you may call me Nellie.” She allowed her hand to rest briefly in his before pulling away.
Back at the ranch, Nellie’s father quickly exhausted the topics of conversation he was prepared to discuss with gentry and excused himself to attend to fence repair. Her mother settled their guest in the spare room and then left it to Nellie to entertain the gentleman in the parlor. Buck up, buttercup, he’ll come around, Nellie told herself, and she began her campaign to win his affection.
While her mother worked her garden in the mornings and devoted herself to a women’s club literacy project during the afternoons, Nellie and Eustace sat on the front porch watching the road, talking about the suffrage movement—he was for it—and the demise of the thirty-cent coin—he was against it. When the heat of the day drove them inside, they read to each other and played cards.
On the third day of his visit, Eustace reached into his pocket. “I almost forgot, Nellie; I have something for you.” He handed her an elongated velvet box.
Good things come in small packages, her mother often told her. Her head buzzed with delicious anticipation. Of course, it wasn’t a ring, but in her imagination, she could feel his gentle hands fix the clasp of a promise necklace around her neck. She lifted opened the box.
It took every ounce of will she had to hold back the tears that wanted to come. In her chest, a burning ball of lead settled where once her heart had beaten. Widening her eyes, she forced a smile. “I love”—she rolled the slim tool between her fingers and the palm of her hand, feeling the weight and smoothness of it—“the pen. Thank you, Eustace.”
That night, Nellie unpinned the hair she had so carefully arranged on top of her head. The next morning, she drew her hair back in a braid, looped it low on her neck, and fastened it in place. At breakfast, she asked her mother to purchase a bottle of India ink when she went to town.
R
Nellie began to observe Eustace, making notes in her journal about amusing mistakes he made trying to adapt himself to his new surroundings. Dressed in a Norfolk suit more appropriate to a round of golf, he asked John about hunting conditions in Kansas.
“I am most interested in a recently relocated herd of elk I have read about,” he told the ranch foreman, who gave a surly grunt in reply but saddled a horse for Eustace nevertheless. Eustace proved to be an excellent horseman. They didn’t find elk, but at the interloper’s insistence, John took him to visit Helen. After that, Eustace did not require so much of Nellie’s company.
Nellie set her thoughts to paper.
Dear Diary,
Eustace is the most elegant man I can imagine. As hard as I have tried, he fails to notice that I have the wit and winsomeness a man of his stature requires in a companion. He spends all his time with a girl who has not eyes to see what manner of man stands before her. I will give him credit for his compassion for poor Helen. If I were a good Christian, I would have to confess a querulous spirit over his attentions to the mite. It is not in my nature to be so grouchy, but there it is.
It was not until many months after Eustace returned to the East that Nellie learned the young man had set himself the task of making a new life possible for Helen. It was all the buzz at church. He had enrolled her in a school for the blind near his home and sent her a train ticket.
How was it possible? What did Eustace see in a sightless girl that prompted him to offer her a new life, where the most he had been moved to confer upon Nellie was a fountain pen? Her wound was deep, the pain like a poisoned arrow, personal and penetrating. Never—never, she vowed—would she allow herself to be hurt like that again. The callous young man had stolen her innocence without touching her body.
Nellie trailed her parents as they left the Sunday morning service. Her father pumped the pastor’s hand and congratulated him on his sermon. Her mother managed to scoot past, but Nellie was not so fortunate. Trapped behind her father who had stopped to lecture the pastor on a fine point missed in his retelling of the Prodigal Son, she tried to get around them both. She lost her balance and stumbled directly into the big man’s path. The pastor reached out and took her elbow to help her regain her balance. Turning his attention toward her, he kept hold of her elbow and addressed her so all could hear. “No good deed goes unrewarded, does it, my girl?”
Nellie straightened and tugged her elbow from his grasp.
“I was surprised to learn that you located the book we spoke of and took it upon yourself to facilitate its return without allowing us the pleasure of congratulating you on your good deed.” He buttered his rebuke and served it to her with flourish.
“Oh. No need.” She lowered her eyes.
“Such modesty.” His booming voice held an edge that belied the sentiment. “You must be so pleased that our Helen has a bright future, thanks to your charitable action.”
Nellie raised her eyes to his. “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow. Isn’t that right, Pastor?” And she took herself off after her mother.
The day Helen boarded the train to travel East, Nellie once again mourned her lost hope in her diary.
Dear Diary,
As I have no disability with which to attract the attention of a benefactor, I shall have to consider my parent’s wishes that I marry John. I have cried all the tears I have. This is God’s punishment, I suppose, for my wanting to rise above my station and for being so churlish about Helen.
The truth is, I miss Eustace terribly. He is the first man I could ever really talk to. He spoke to my secret self and made me smile inside. I will miss him every day for the rest of my life.
I am not enough of a romantic to spend my days dreaming that Eustace will one day return, the way Mr. Darcy came back for Elizabeth. I must be practical and look ahead. From this day forward, I will place no faith in the love of a man.