CHAPTER ONE

Elizabeth wished someone would wake her up from this horrible dream. Her world had come crashing down around her, and she did not know what to do or how to face the future. Though grief washed through her, clouding her chubby, round face, she could not bring herself to cry. Her father was dead, and now Gerald Hawkins, his attorney for longer than Elizabeth had been alive, sat across from her in his lavish office, rubbing his palms on the thighs of his trousers with an expression that boded more bad news.

Elizabeth Lowell was nineteen years old, but anyone looking at her at the moment would have thought she was a decade older: her face was so lined with age, pain and anxiety. She perched on the edge of the seat and blinked owlishly from behind her large glasses.

“Is that why you called me here? You conveyed your condolences at the funeral.”

Gerald had been Elizabeth’s father Benjamin’s attorney for over thirty years, and having to give the deceased man’s daughter more bad news saddened him deeply. Benjamin had been a very astute and wealthy businessman, with a knack for smelling new opportunities and grabbing at them. In a short span of time, the man had become very rich. But all that had changed when his wife died ten years ago. It was as though the light had been snuffed out of him. He had lost his touch and died with only debts to his name. Not that his two daughters knew the latter. Not yet.

“Is this about who will be running my father’s factory? Because I cannot be of much service in that. Surely my father notated such things in his will?”

Elizabeth stared at him. A light sheen of sweat shone on her forehead, and she pulled a handkerchief from her bag, twisting it between her hands. “Mr. Hawkins. You’d best tell me.”

“If your father’s death hadn’t been so sudden, I’m certain he would have done more to mitigate things. To prepare you.” Mr. Lowell took a deep breath. “As it is, I’ve done everything I can in order to give you and your sister time for your grief.”

“But you will have to vacate your home, and there will be an auction for your father’s things—”

“Your father died a pauper, Elizabeth. You and your sister...he left nothing.”

“Nothing—” Elizabeth took a sharp breath. “Nothing! But what are we to do?”

The elderly man shook his head sadly. “I am sorry that in the last ten years your father made unwise business decisions and choices, and he got himself into very deep debt. I advised him to sell off a number of the assets that he had in order to settle some of the debts, and in that way he could have been able to at least have something left over to start again but,” Gerald twisted his lips, “you know just how stubborn your father could be.”

Elizabeth nodded. She knew her father too well. “Then what will happen to us?”

“Do you perhaps have relatives who might take you in, at least for a short while?” But even as Gerald asked, he knew this was a futile suggestion. In all the years that he had been Benjamin Lowell’s attorney, the man had not mentioned any relatives from his side or his wife’s side. His will had bequeathed everything to his two daughters, a will that, right now, was not even worth the paper it was written on.

“Papa was an only child, and Mama,” Elizabeth sighed. She shook her head sadly. “Mama as you know was from England, and when she and Papa got married her English family disowned her, for at the time she was betrothed to a lord, or something like that. Her family never forgave her for slighting them by marrying a commoner.”

“I am sorry, Miss Elizabeth.” Gerald truly was sorry, especially in the light of the other news that he was about to relay to the young woman.

“Maybe if we earn enough from the sale of his possessions, we can perhaps keep the house? Rent out some rooms so that we can have an income, and then Virginia and I can stay in the servant’s section because, of course, we have decided to let the servants go. There is not much work to be done now that Papa is gone. No more entertaining and all.” She nodded, forcing a smile. “We can run a boarding house,” she said with some hope, but this was soon dashed when she looked at the lawyer’s face.

“The house must be sold. It is the only asset that your father had not mortgaged and the bank is demanding a very hefty sum, and all the other assets that he owned will not cover it. That, together with paying off the servants, will leave you and your sister with a little less than fifty dollars.”

“I am sorry child, more sorry than you will ever know. Mrs. Hawkins and I can take you in for a while, until you are grounded again,” he offered, but Elizabeth shook her head.

“We will manage. Somehow.” Elizabeth stood up and drew her shawl closer, the cold chilling her very bones. It was more than the cold that chilled her. It was a heart that was filled with so much dread and despair that she shuddered.

“Miss Elizabeth, the bank’s representative will be by the house later today to do an inventory of all the items in the house. And you will have to leave the house after that, because I will be handing the keys over to him.”

“I am sorry, child.” Gerald took out his handkerchief from his coat pocket and wiped his face. It was a chilly day but he was sweating. “I wish there was something I could do, but this is beyond my control.”

Elizabeth stepped into the cold Boston streets. Her five-foot, three-inch frame stooped so much beneath the weight of her grief and this terrible news that she looked like an old woman. It was drizzling, but she did not feel it as started for home. The house! It was not her house anymore. And worse, she had to tell her sister the news. Elizabeth had not wanted Virginia to accompany her to the attorney’s office because her sister was more interested in her personal appearance than business. And now Elizabeth was glad her sister had not come. Virginia had a flair for the dramatic, and in her emotional state right now the last thing Elizabeth would have wanted was to cope with her swooning sister.

The sounds that usually cheered Elizabeth now sounded like death knells to her young ears. The cries of the newspaper boys made Elizabeth hurry. Obviously the state of her father’s misfortunes would be splashed all over the papers and she needed to get away from the house and hide before the neighbors and other acquaintances showed up with their pitying faces.

Another reason for her hurry was so that she could get some things out of the house before the bank representative swooped in and grabbed everything.

When Elizabeth got home she stopped for a moment outside the gate and looked at what had been her home for all her life. She seemed oblivious to the fact that she was now drenched, and the water ran in rivulets down the sides of her head, making her hair even more curly than it usually was. She had been born in this house, as had her sister. She had thought it was a happy house, but now it looked like a doomed house. Her mother had died in this house, her father had died in this house, and now everything they owned was being taken away, leaving them with nothing.

“It must be a cursed house,” she thought as she opened the gate slowly and walked up the short pathway, and climbed the three steps wearily. She sat for a moment on the porch seat and looked around, noticing the wilting flowers in the garden that had been her mother’s joy and pride and which Elizabeth had tended to lovingly in memory of her dear mother. Since her father’s death she had not been near the garden and now never would be.

“Oh, Mama,” she whispered, then blinked rapidly so that she would not cry. It would not do to cry at this moment. She still had to tell Virginia the dreadful news.

And true to form Virginia swooned, and Elizabeth rushed to her room to get some smelling salts which soon revived the fifteen-year-old girl.

“What are we going to do? We are ruined and will be the laughing stock of all Boston. Oh, I cannot bear it, I cannot bear this,” her normally strong voice rose shrilly, and Elizabeth longed to slap her face.

“Pull yourself together. I suggest that you go to you room and grab everything that you want to take out of this house before those vultures come and take everything away.” Elizabeth walked to the door. “Mr. Hawkins told me the bank representative will be coming this afternoon, and we have to leave the house immediately after the inventory is done. No doubt they do not want us to ‘steal’ anything that now belongs to them.”

“Virginia, if you do not get off that couch and do as I have told you, I will come over there and slap you silly.”

“You are just mean,” Virginia started crying, and Elizabeth sighed. She walked back and sat down next to her sister.

“I am sorry, Ginnie. I wish all this was not happening. But it has happened, and we have to make the most of things, and salvage whatever is left of our lives. We will be alright, you will see.” She pulled her sister close and hugged her. Virginia clutched on to her sister as though she was her lifeline. She was terrified.

“We will be alright, little girl,” Elizabeth murmured soothingly. “You will see.”

But later that afternoon when Mr. Hawkins and the bank’s representative, who had introduced himself as Richard Slip, had gone through every one of the rooms in the house and locked each door after doing the inventory, Elizabeth felt her strength waning. It had humiliated her to walk through the house that she had loved, pointing out all the items that were in each room. She remembered all the parties they had held when her mother was alive, which had become fewer after her death. The holidays and celebrations and her coming-out party, which had been the talk of the town for many days.

Elizabeth was more uncomfortable at the leering way in which Mr. Slip was looking at her. His beady eyes had seemed to undress her, never mind that she was very decently dressed and had a thick shawl around her shoulders. Once or twice, when Mr. Hawkins had not been looking, he had patted her bottom and she had hissed in disgust, and thereafter made it a point to walk as far away from him as she possibly could.

Virginia was seated on the porch, refusing to enter the house. She wept silently, clutching her small purse, in which was a paper that she held onto dearly. She had not even picked one dress or pair of shoes from her bedroom, forcing Elizabeth to hurriedly pack both of their clothes into her portmanteau which she had then dragged out of the house, and which was now lying in a rooming house just down the street from their house. From time to time the younger girl slipped her hand into the purse and took the paper out and looked at it, bringing on a fresh outpouring of tears.

It was the program for her coming-out dinner, scheduled to be held in two weeks’ time but which had been cancelled when her father died. She had been looking forward to being presented and hopefully would have found herself a suitable husband. Now that would never happen. No one in their circles would want to be associated with them now that they were poor and being turned out of their house.

“Is that all there is to see?” Mr. Slip asked when the trio once again assembled in the sitting room.

“Yes, sir,” Elizabeth said quietly, wishing this would all end and she could leave the presence of this man who made her skin crawl.

Elizabeth looked at Mr. Hawkins who nodded silently, and she led the way out of the sitting room and into the corridor to the kitchen. Mr. Slip looked around and noted all the items in the kitchen, checked all the cabinets and wrote down in the notebook he carried, and then motioned for her to lead the way once again. As Elizabeth had said there was nothing of much value in the four servants’ rooms, save for the metal beds and cabinets in each room.

When the house was secured and the keys handed over to Mr. Slip, Mr. Hawkins took his leave because he had to go home.

Mr. Slip smiled lecherously at Elizabeth. “What a fine young woman you are!” He reached out a hand and pinched her cheek, and she hissed at him.

“I could make you a very happy, girl.” He licked his lips, and reminded Elizabeth of a fat, ugly toad, and she almost giggled. “I can put you and your sister up in very fine quarters, and take good care of you always.”

“I would rather starve on the streets of Boston than be wed to a toad like you.”

Richard laughed loudly. “Who said anything about marriage? No, woman. I want you to be my mistress.”

“In your nightmares,” she hissed and walked to her sister. “Virginia, let us go.”

“I don’t want to go,” Virginia whined, and Elizabeth felt all the patience run out of her.

“Get up this instant,” she barked and Virginia, who had never heard that tone in her sister’s voice, scrambled to her feet. Elizabeth pushed her down the steps.

“If you change your mind, which I know you soon will, seeing as you have never done an honest day’s work in your life, you know where to find me.”

Elizabeth’s response was to grab her sister’s hand and quickly walk away, trying to block out the man’s mocking laughter which followed her down the street.

Elizabeth ran her hands lovingly over her violin. Her father had bought it for her when she turned seven, two years before her mother had died, and Regina Lowell, who had been a good violinist, had taught her daughter the basics of playing the instrument. After she died Benjamin had paid for an Italian immigrant to teach Elizabeth, and by the time the girl was thirteen she could play the violin very well. Whenever they had guests she entertained them, and everyone agreed that she would be a professional violinist one day.

Elizabeth had wanted to play in an orchestra from the time her father had taken her and Virginia to see ‘Swans on the Lake,’ a production by the Boston Orchestra. This was on her fourteenth birthday and she had dedicated her time to practicing seriously, dreaming of the day when she would walk on to a stage and be given a standing ovation for her expertise.

Now all of that was a distant dream. This violin, and her mother’s Bible and prayer book, were the only items that she had thought valuable enough to take from the house, apart from some clothes. This was her papa’s gift to her, and it was made by a skilled craftsman and could have fetched a tidy sum of money, but she would never part with it. And she had taken it out of the house because no one had a right to it. It was hers, her property.

She wished she could play and soothe her hurting heart but the rooming house had strict rules. No children, no animals, no instruments, no noise.

Indeed it felt like a prison, but Elizabeth was glad they had a roof over their heads. As much as Mrs. Little was strict, she was also very kind and looked after the girls. In the one week that they had been here she had ensured that the male boarders did not bother them at all. And she provided breakfast and dinner for the two girls and did not charge them anything extra. Elizabeth thanked her over and over again, but Mrs. Little always brushed her gratitude aside.

“It is the Christian thing to do, seeing as you have no home,” she would respond. But unknown to the two girls, Mr. Hawkins had promised to pay her a dollar each week to ensure that the girls had food and that they were well taken care of.

The fifty dollars that Mr. Hawkins had given them after the sale of their house was slowly dwindling as Virginia demanded for things and Elizabeth, filled with compassion for her sister, did not want her crying so much. She catered to her sister’s every whim.

The young lady stood up and put her violin back in its case. “One day soon,” she kissed the tips of her fingers and touched her violin. “One day, you and I will go places and be happy again.” She adjusted her glasses.

She was going to see Mr. Hawkins because he had promised to find her some work to do. He had suggested that she use her education to help transcribe letters and other important documents for people who could neither read nor write, and had told her that he would get her customers.

“Come in, Miss Elizabeth.” Gerald smiled fondly at the young lady. “Mrs. Hawkins sends you her love and says that you and Virginia should come to the house for tea on Sunday, after church.”

“Right away,” Gerald said as he stood up. “Mrs. Summer is an elderly lady whose husband died a few weeks ago, and her only son went to the west in search of gold. She wants to send him a message to return home, but she cannot write. I told her that you would do the work for her for twenty-five cents.”

Elizabeth soon settled into her work and she was glad that she at least had some money coming in because it kept her and Virginia off the streets. But after two weeks she realized that the money was not going to be enough to cater to their needs, especially now that spring was coming. They had left the house with winter clothing which would be unsuitable for spring, not to mention summer. She had managed to get only one suitcase full of clothes for them. Their father had bought them expensive gowns, and Elizabeth knew those would be sold off to settle some of the debts. Most of them had been almost new, because each time Mr. Lowell had entertained he bought his daughters new clothes.

She counted out her money as she sat on the bed in their room. She had written eight letters and now had two dollars. She reached for the purse that she hid under the mattress and when she opened it she frowned. She was sure she had left ten dollars in there that morning but now there were only five dollars left.

Elizabeth shook her head. Her sister was proving to be quite complex, but Elizabeth soon quashed the thoughts. Virginia was a child whose world had been cruelly turned upside down and it would take her a while to adjust.

She put the two dollars with the other five, intending to give the money to Mrs. Little later when she went down for dinner. Their rent was due. The room was one dollar per day and Mrs. Little had said Elizabeth could pay her every Friday. There would be nothing left over until she got the next job, but she was determined that they would always have a roof over their heads. She had promised her mother that she would always look after Virginia.

Elizabeth sighed when she thought about her sister. Virginia was a very beautiful girl, but sometimes Elizabeth thought she was vain and spoiled. She got her looks from their mother who had been a beauty in her days. Standing at five-feet, nine-inches, the girl carried herself regally and always said she would be a famous singer one day, with a rich husband to support her. She had inherited their mother’s green eyes and honey blond hair which she liked to brush and leave flowing around her shoulders. Elizabeth took after their father who had been short and stocky, with unruly, curly blond hair, thanks to his Irish ancestry.

Elizabeth was determined to support Virginia and give her all she needed, but try as much as she did the money that she got from transcribing was very little, and it was with a downcast face that she approached Mrs. Little in the third week of their arrival.

“Mrs. Little, I am sorry that I cannot give you our rent this week. Work is so hard to find.”

Mrs. Little tightened her lips. “Why not take on another job, if that one that you go to everyday is not paying you?”

“I have tried, Mrs. Little. I went to the schools to offer my services to tutor the children, but they want people who are more qualified, and besides, they also want references, and I have none.”

“Oh, child,” Mrs. Little sighed. “I can offer you a job here, and in turn you and your sister can stay here rent-free.”

“My scullery maid, idiot that she is, ran off to get married to some miner in the west, and now I do not have anyone to wash the pots and pans, and clean the kitchen. I am willing to pay you five dollars a week, and you get your room free and you also get breakfast and dinner for the two of you.”

“Hush, child. What I suggest is that every morning you go to your other job, and then by three o’clock you come back here to clean the morning dishes and prepare for dinner, and then wash the dinner dishes as well.” The woman sighed. “But you will have to move out of the room you are staying in so that I can rent it out, and you can use Chloe’s old room. It has one bed, which is large enough for the two of you to share.”

By the time Elizabeth got to bed each day she was so exhausted that she stopped only long enough to take off her apron and frock, and fall into bed. She always found Virginia asleep and was glad that the young girl was getting good rest and looking happier.

But two weeks later Elizabeth was not smiling when she realized what was making Virginia happy. One night she woke up to find that she was alone in the bed, and thinking that Virginia must have gone to the outhouse, she turned over to sleep once again. However, she got up at around four o’clock when she heard the door opening, and was in time to see Virginia creeping into the room, still fully clothed.

“What are you doing up at this time?” Elizabeth struggled to sit up in bed and Virginia gave a start, dropping her purse. Elizabeth lit the candle that was beside the bed.

“You frightened me,” the young girl tried to say with a laugh. “I have a running stomach.”

“I did not want to go out in my petticoats, so I threw this dress over them.” Elizabeth looked at her sister in the lightening room and sighed.

Something troubled Elizabeth at the way her sister seemed to have changed. Elizabeth went through her sister’s things and realized that Virginia had acquired some very expensive clothes, nothing that the little money she usually took from Elizabeth’s purse could pay for.

“What is this girl up to?” she wondered as she scrubbed the pots that evening. “I must find out where Virginia is getting these expensive things.” Dread filled her heart when she imagined that Virginia might have met a rich old man who was giving her all these gifts in return for her body.

When she asked her sister about the expensive items, the younger girl told her some kind ladies at the church had given her the clothes and shoes, and for a while Elizabeth believed her. But when she found face powder and lipstick among the things, she realized Virginia was lying to her. None of the ladies in church used such items. Something else was going on.

“I will kill that girl,” Elizabeth fumed, but decided that she would not ask her because Virginia would just lie to her. Instead she decided that she would watch her and see, and her patience was soon rewarded.

One Saturday, Virginia got out of bed, thinking that Elizabeth was asleep. She dressed in the darkness and silently opened the door and snuck out. But this time Elizabeth was waiting for her, and gave her a few minutes head start before she threw on a thick coat and crept out after her.

Virginia, oblivious to the fact that she had a shadow, walked briskly down the dark street and slipped into an alley, with Elizabeth following her at a discreet distance. When Elizabeth got to the alley, she peered into the poorly lit street, not seeing her sister, and she got very worried. Was her sister visiting a brothel? Then she saw it. The sign said ‘Wild West Tavern’ and Elizabeth wondered if that was where her sister had gone. She hid in the shadows and drew closer, and soon heard a familiar voice singing.

She could not believe that Virginia was singing in the seedy tavern, and she slipped in, praying that no one would notice her. And sure enough, there was her sister, dressed in a very tight fitting gown, her face heavily made-up, and she was dancing seductively on the stage, as men whistled and one or two joined her on the stage, pawing her, and far from being offended, the young girl giggled.

Elizabeth wanted to march to the stage and grab her sister, but she realized that the kind of crowd that was in the tavern was not the kind that would take kindly to such an interruption, and so she slipped out of the tavern and went to the rooming house, where she spent the rest of the night on her knees, sobbing her heart out in prayer.

“Oh Lord,” she wept over and over again. “Do not forsake me in my hour of need. You are our Father, we have no one else. What do I do about Virginia? Lord, I do not want my sister to go down a dark path, and end up as a ruined and fallen woman. But what do I do? How can I stop her from going to that place? Please help me,” she sobbed.

By the time Virginia crept into the room early in the morning Elizabeth was calm, and resolved not to let the younger girl know that she had discovered her secret. She knew that in Virginia’s present state of mind the girl might even take it into her head to run away. So Elizabeth continued as if nothing was wrong, but she spent sleepless nights on her knees praying for her sister, with the result that she soon had bags under her eyes for lack of sleep.

Meanwhile, Virginia went on as before, unaware that her actions were causing her sister so much distress. But not for long. She got a very bad cold and could not sing or rise from the bed, and Elizabeth silently gave thanks for this malady that had put her sister down.

The doctor came and pronounced that Virginia had an inflammation of the lungs. “This weather is not good for your sister. You need to get her to a warmer place, if you can.”

“Thank you, doctor,” Elizabeth said with a sad smile. Where was she to take Virginia? Virginia had always been a sickly child, and this was especially aggravated by spring.

As Elizabeth nursed Virginia back to health, an idea began forming in her mind. While working in the kitchen scrubbing pots and pans, she had become friends with Matilda, who was the cook.

“A fine lass like you should not be scrubbing too much in someone else’s kitchen. If you could only go west, you might find yourself a mighty dandy farmer to wed you, and you can then scrub in your own home. ‘Tis a great shame,” she ‘tsked’ over and over again.

At first Elizabeth had laughed and ignored her, but then as she watched her sister tossing and turning in bed she decided that she would ask Matilda for more details. Matilda was only too pleased to pass on more information.

“Chloe, the one that was here before you, got herself a man from the west, and left.”

“The newspapers. Men in the west are always putting ‘adverts’ in the papers to find mail-order brides. I reckon if you get hold of the Boston Daily, you might find yourself a man, my dear lass.”

And the very next day Elizabeth took some of her savings and bought a newspaper. But the adverts that were there for mail-order brides did not appeal to her. The men seemed to only want women to clean, cook and breed. Besides, none of the men professed to be Christians, and the last thing Elizabeth wanted was to be wed to a pagan. The cleaning and cooking part was not bad. It was the breeding part that irked her. She did not need a man to touch her. If only she could find a man who wanted a woman to work with him, sort of in a business way, then she would go. And three days later she saw it:

Christian widower seeks mother for his two daughters.

My name is William Edwards and I am a widower aged thirty years. I have two daughters, aged ten and twelve years. I am a rancher in Missoula, Montana. We attend the Missoula Baptist Church under Pastor Thomas Clifford. I am looking for a Christian woman to marry and be a mother to my daughters. She should be between nineteen to twenty-one years old. A widow with children is also welcome. Send me a letter if you are interested, and I promise to reply.

Elizabeth looked at the advert and when Virginia was asleep, she knelt down beside the bed.

“Father, I am your child and you know my needs and my desires and my suffering. Matilda told me about finding a husband from the west, and today when I went and bought the paper I found this advert by Mr. William Edwards. He sounds like a fine man who will not place too many unnecessary demands on me. If it is in your will, let my letter reach him and let me find favor in his eyes. You know the hearts of all men and Lord, if you have looked into the heart of Mr. William Edwards and seen a kind man, then I pray that you allow this process to go speedily, because I have to take Virginia out of this place before she loses her soul. In Jesus’ name, amen.”