Train Station Bride Read online

  Flossie straightened from looking in the oven. “Are you sick, Julia?”

  Julia shook her head. “No. I was just wondering why I’ve not gotten pregnant.”

  “No, I don’t think there’s anything the matter with you. But if you’re worried go see the doc. You’ve only been married six months. Some folks take longer than others.”

  Julia shrugged and looked out the window, head in her hand. “I know. It’s just that I know Jake wants a family so much. I want to give one to him.”

  Flossie sat down beside Julia. “My brother is happier than he’s been in years. I know he wants a baby, and you do, too. But seeing him the way he is now, well, I think it’s just fine for the two of you to be happy all on your own for awhile.”

  “I am happy, Flossie,” Julia said with a smile. “I didn’t think I could ever be this happy.” If only she knew how Jillian was doing at boarding school. If only she could talk to the girl or hear from her. “If only . . .”

  “If only what, Julia?” Flossie asked.

  “Nothing. Now tell me what kind of dress we’re going to make Millie for Christmas.”

  * * *

  Julia was going to go see Dr. Hammish on her next visit to town. Most likely Flossie was right. Some folks just take longer than others. Right now, she and her sister-in-laws had lots to do to get ready for the Christmas holiday. There were gifts for the children, and gifts for each other, and recipes and decorations to think of. This would be a bitter sweet holiday for her. She looked forward to spending Christmas with Jake and his family. But this would be the first year she had not celebrated with Jillian.

  And the more Julia thought and planned about her first Christmas in South Dakota the more she missed Jillian. She worried about her at her new school. She wondered if her Mother gave Jillian her letters or if the girl thought Julia had completely abandoned her. This ache was gnawing at her and would not let go.

  The wind was blowing snow horizontal to the barren fields Julia could see out of her window. The kitchen was toasty warm and smelled like cinnamon. There was a stack of cookies in the middle of the table, and Julia had draped fresh pine over the door frame. Julia was as happy and as miserable as she’d ever thought she’d be.

  She had gone to town with Flossie the day before to see Dr. Hammish. Flossie had picked up a letter addressed to Julia while she was in Snelling’s General Store. Julia fingered the letter while she waited for Dr. Hammish to see her. The return address was her Boston home, but she did not recognize the handwriting. She slid her nail under the seal and looked at the last page first. It was from Eustace and apparently written by the woman’s daughter. Eustace’s mother was failing fast. Life with the Crawfords was much the same and Jennifer was being hotly courted by a young man Eustace had seen at the last party. Jillian, however, was very unhappy at school. The last time she had been allowed to come home from Ramsey for a weekend, she had either kept to her room or gotten into an argument with a family member or a servant.

  Julia buried the letter in her bag and gone in to see the waiting doctor. When the kindly old man had announced that she’d be presenting Jake with a child next summer, she burst into tears.

  “What’s the matter, dear?” Dr. Hammish asked. “These don’t look like happy tears to me.”

  Julia wiped her eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m happier than you can imagine. Just awfully emotional. That happens, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, it does,” he said. “You’ll feel a whole lot better when you get home and tell Jake. You want me to call Flossie in?”

  “No,” Julia said. “I want to tell Jake first.”

  “Then it will be our secret,” he said. “Eat right. Don’t go lifting something too heavy, and make sure you get back in town to see me in a month.”

  Julia made the ride home in silence, only answering Flossie’s questions with a shake of her head. Every bit of joy she felt was at odds with how low she was feeling about Jillian.

  * * *

  Jake came into the kitchen, stomped his feet and shook his head like a dog. The house was warm and smelled good. He grabbed two cookies from the plate on the table on the way to kiss his wife.

  “Hey, darling,” he said as picked Julia up and twirled her around. “I’m glad to be out of that weather and in here with you. The house looks real nice. What’s the matter?” he asked. “Why you crying?”

  Julia laid her head against his chest. “I was thinking about my sisters back in Boston. We always loved Christmas.”

  “Then why don’t we plan on going to see them once the crops are in this spring. We’ll make it a belated honeymoon,” he said.

  “You’d go see my family after how rude they were to you?” she asked.

  Jake bent his head down to see Julia’s face. He’d dread going to visit the Crawfords. He didn’t think he’d ever known anyone as conniving and duplicitous than her mother and father. Paying his hands to leave and sashaying into his house making Julia feel like a child and expecting her to board the train back to Boston. There was some secret deceit, too. Just what, he’d not figured out. But he’d endure a visit for her if that’s what she wanted. Lately Julia hadn’t been her usual cheerful self. Not smiling and gay like he’d become accustomed to. She had been crying at night when she thought he was asleep. Nearly tore his heart in two to hear her suffer.

  “Sure, honey. If it makes you happy,” Jake said. Julia wobbled a smile.

  * * *

  Julia rested her head against Jake’s chest. He was all solid warmth. His arms held her, and he rubbed lazy circles on her back. She had waited six months to tell Jake she was pregnant and now that the time had arrived, she could not bring herself to tell him. How would she explain how unhappy she was?

  The door flew open and Flossie and the kids burst through the door.

  “It’s freezing out there, Uncle Jake,” Danny said.

  “What are you doing out riding around in this weather,” Jake said. “Harry will kill you.”

  “Me and the kids are fine. Snow’s stopping anyway,” Flossie said.

  Julia helped Danny and Millie off with their coats and Flossie was pouring a cup of coffee.

  “What brought you over, Flossie?” Julia asked as she handed each child a cookie.

  Flossie pulled a letter from inside her coat. “When I got home yesterday I sat down to read the letter from Harry’s sister. There were two letters there. I didn’t realize.” Flossie was grinning ear to ear. “The other one’s another letter for you. I know the one you got from your friend the cleaning woman made you sad. I just know this one’s going to be good news.”

  “You got a letter from home, Julia?” Jake asked.

  “Eustace’s mother is dying. And Jillian is very unhappy at school,” Julia said and looked up at her husband. She’d been so preoccupied with the news of Jillian and finding out she was expecting, she’d forgotten to tell Jake about Eustace’s letter.

  “You’ve been waiting for months for word from them. I just kind of thought you’d have told me,” Jake said.

  “Bad news is no fun to share. But this letter is good news,” Flossie said. “I can feel it in my bones.”

  “Is it a letter from the sister at school, Aunt Julia?” Millie asked.

  Julia shook her head and turned the letter over in her hand. The writing was clearly Jane Crawford’s. Jake slipped his arm around her shoulder and kissed the top of her head.

  “Maybe you want to read your letter alone. Up in our bedroom. Then you can tell us all the news,” Jake said.

  Julia climbed the steps without a word or glance to anyone standing in the kitchen. She closed her bedroom door, opened the curtains and wrapped a shawl around her shoulders. She pulled the old rocker near the window and sat down. Julia turned the envelope over and over in her hand. Desperate for news. Unwilling to submit herself to her mother’s censure. She would have no happy news to share with Flossie and Jake she was sure. Julia lifted the edge of envelope with her nail and saw her mother’s
cream-colored stationary inside. Julia opened the letter with shaking hands.

  Dear Julia,

  Your behavior and appearance during our visit was shocking to your father and me to say the least. How you could have deemed life on a farm preferable to your home and family in Boston is hard to imagine. And a farmer of all things, Julia. Although he seems attentive enough. Remember, though, it will not last. Whatever you have done or are doing to gain this man’s attentions will fade soon enough. I am telling you this with your best interest at heart.

  Jennifer sends her greeting. Jolene as well. Although your older sister bears the brunt of the embarrassing questions regarding your absence.

  I received a letter from Jillian of late. She sends her regards as well and wished me to pass on to you some message concerning a Mrs. Beechly. The woman is alive and well. Hopefully this is not more of Jillian’s make-believe nonsense. Her time at school would be best spent studying and making friends with girls of similar families. Remember Jolene met Turner’s sister at that school not so many years ago.

  Perhaps Jillian needs to understand the great gift your father and I give her by sending her to Ramsey. A girl in her position will need every connection necessary for a rewarding future. A dose of reality may be what Jillian needs to hear to understand her situation in this family and her good fortune. Undowered girls, even beautiful ones, struggle on occasion.

  I must close this letter for there is much left for me to do regarding the party your father and I are hosting this weekend. Eustace’s mother died and many of the details have fallen to me.

  Mother

  The letter shook wildly in Julia’s hands. Tears smudged the loops of her mother’s writing. Eustace’s mother had died. And Jillian’s only message to Julia was about Mrs. Beechly. How miserable and desperate was the girl? Did Julia’s mother intend to mold Jillian to her specifications by shaking the very foundation of the girl’s existence? Was the implied threat her intention? Or the final gesture to make Julia come home? Could Julia risk it by calling her mother’s bluff? And possibly leave Jillian alone to face and understand all that was said? Could she leave Flossie and Millie and return to Boston? Leave Will and Harry and Gloria. Never see Danny or little Joshua again? Could she leave Jake?

  Julia dropped to her knees in front of the smoldering fireplace. She poked the ashes to life viciously. Her shoulders shook with hysteria and she feared she would vomit. Julia rolled each page of her mother’s stationary into balls and threw them each into the ashes. She curled up on her side, her back to the fire as fresh tears surfaced.

  * * *

  Jake, Flossie, Danny and Millie ate dinner in silence. Julia had not come down stairs. Flossie kissed her brother goodbye and left. Jake sat at the kitchen table, drumming his fingers, wondering what to do. The quiet was more unnerving, more overwhelming than any shouting could have been. Jake didn’t want to intrude on Julia. He knew from experience that sometimes the only hope of a solution was found in silence. Whether prayer or contemplation, he didn’t really know what to call what he did, but he knew when life’s trials threatened, a good long look at a sunset or even a blank wall seemed to point his mind in the direction he needed to take. Maybe Julia was deciding to ask him for help or advice. He’d surely give it. Whatever that family of hers were feuding about caused his sweet wife a lot of pain.

  Jake glanced at his pocket watch. Six o’clock. Flossie and the kids were long gone and Julia had been upstairs nearly three hours. He knocked softly at their bedroom door and got no response. Jake turned the knob and peaked in the room. She was not in their bed. Julia was not in the rocker he had heard squeaks from earlier in the day. He stopped with a start, stunned at what he saw.

  His wife was curled tight as a ball on the cold stone hearth. What could her mother have said in the letter for his wife to lie down there, with their bed feet away? Jake knelt and swept the hair from her face. Julia’s shoulders shrugged in her sleep, and she grimaced. Dried tear tracks marred her face that was tense and painful even in slumber. Jake picked her up, kissed her forehead and lay her down on the bed. He stared at her, his gut clenching. His own problems in the past had been difficult. But none of them caused the pain he was feeling now. Watching Julia suffer harkened back to how he felt when Flossie got cut. He picked up the now empty envelope from Jane Crawford. Poison mailed the whole way from Boston. Touching the hands and mind of the woman he loved. Jake turned to the fireplace and picked up Julia’s shawl from where it lay in a heap. And then he saw them.

  Tightly curled wads of paper amongst the ashes. Cold ashes. Julia had meant to burn the letter he was sure. He stared at the stationary and then knelt to retrieve it. He turned the balls of paper over and over in his hand. Curiosity killed the cat was what folks said. But were those folks watching someone they cared about, loved, being torn apart inside? Jake flattened the paper out on the dresser and read.

  Chapter Twelve

  Julia awoke as the sky turned from a brilliant blue to an orange glow. She stared out the window, her eyes gritty from tears. Hysteria had not solved her problem. The solace of sleep held escape only as long as her eyes were closed and her mind unconscious. Julia looked over the blankets when she realized she was not alone in her room. Jake stood, leaning against the wall, watching her. Studying her.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t come back downstairs. Mother’s letter was . . . disturbing.”

  “Why would your parents leave your youngest sister without a dowry?” he asked.

  Julia’s eyes widened. She looked at the crumpled papers in his hand. “You had no right.”

  Jake nodded. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right. But then it’s not every day a man finds his wife curled in a ball on a stone hearth. The only news she receives from home in months, meant for ashes.”

  “There was nothing extraordinary in the letter. Nothing I couldn’t relay to you or Flossie from memory.”

  Jake stalked the bed. “You flattened the dandelion Millie gave you in a book, Julia. And a letter from home is crushed and thrown in the fire?” Jake shook his head. “Give me a little more credit than that. What kind of position is your sister in that she needs to make ‘connections’? And who is Mrs. Beechley?”

  Julia’s lip trembled. She should have told Jake the story when she didn’t love him. It would have been easier. Yet she couldn’t remember a time here she didn’t love him.

  “Mrs. Beechley was my make-believe friend when I was a child.” Julia dropped her eyes. “One night when Jillian couldn’t fall asleep I told her. Jillian sort of adopted her. I often saw her talking to thin air. As she got older, Jillian and I got closer, and she didn’t mention Mrs. Beechley very often.”

  Jake shook his head. “Why would that make you so upset? So Jillian has a vivid imagination? That’s what made you cry yourself to sleep?”

  Julia shook her head. “No. As Jillian got older she only mentioned Mrs. Beechley when she was horribly upset. She must be devastated to risk passing that message through my mother.” Julia looked up at Jake, misery in her eyes, on her face and in her heart. “Jillian’s telling me she’s very unhappy. Wretched, in fact.”

  “And you’re far away. Too far to do anything for her.”

  Julia nodded and looked out the window. “She’s alone at a school. Away from home. Probably suffering like I did when I was there. It was horrible.”

  “Why did your parents make her go there if you had such a horrible time of it?”

  “Ramsey Academy for Young Ladies is the school where all the best families send their daughters. Everyone there is from a wealthy, influential family. Where the connections are made for the best marriages between those families. Where young girls are educated in all the necessary social skills to control those around them. Where they learn to be cruel.”

  “Why would your parents leave their youngest child undowered?”

  Reckoning time had arrived, as Eustace would have said. Jake had married a woman he didn’t know and wouldn’t have wan
ted to if he’d been privy to the Crawford skeletons.

  “Jillian is not my parents’ daughter.”

  “But they’ve raised her as one.” Jake said. “She obviously doesn’t know she’s not their daughter.” He stared at her. “Your mother is threatening to tell her.”

  All Julia could do was nod and swallow.

  Jake turned, stared out the window and turned back to Julia quickly. “Who’s daughter is she, Julia?”

  “Mine,” Julia whispered.

  “Turner Crenshaw,” he said.

  “My mother and I took a year long trip shortly after Jolene’s wedding. Jillian was born in South Carolina.”

  Jake shook his head. “So you stood at the altar, carrying the groom’s child. But you were not the bride.”

  Julia swallowed. “Yes.”

  “And after all these years your parents decide to withhold an inheritance from a girl they’ve raised since infancy. This is unbelievable.”

  “It was not my parent’s idea. My father, in fact, held out for quite a while.” Julia met Jake’s amazed look grimly. “Jolene did not think our family holdings should be split four ways rather than three. If Jillian was entitled, then her children should be as well.”

  “I thought Turner had money? Your parents are as rich as Croesus. How much God damned money does your sister need?”

  Julia cringed. Jake was screaming. “There were only three daughters . . .”

  “Don’t defend them. Don’t ever defend them,” Jake shouted. “If the decision was made to raise Jillian as their own then, damn it, she’s their daughter. No matter how much your older sister whines.” Jake dropped into the chair near the window to whisper. “Who are you, Julia?”

  “I know. I had a child out of wedlock. Turner was the first man to pay attention to me. It was so stupid. So childish. I am so sorry. I wish I had waited for our wedding night. I wanted that so much. Especially now.” Julia stopped talking and her crying dwindled to hiccoughs as she watched Jake’s face. It had turned from astonishment to disbelief, and finally to anger. He had married a woman so beneath him. A woman who allowed her chastity to be stolen for a few moments of attention.