Mock Wedding (Grass Valley Mail Order Brides Book 1) Read online

  On Sunday morning, she woke to the sound of bells ringing out, all of them mingling and rising towards her new home from the valley below. Almost as soon as the first peals were finished, Silas was knocking at her door. Mary was already out of bed, searching in her bags for her Sunday best.

  “Mary, it is time for church,” he shouted through the keyhole. “Five minutes if you want a lift.”

  “I’m nearly ready,” she said, pulling on the dress, and buttoning up the collar.

  “Well, the ladies and I don’t want to miss the start of the service. If you’re late, you’ll have to walk.”

  “The ladies?” Mary opened the door, her boots still in her hand.

  “The miners’ wives,” he said, as though explaining to a child. “Are you coming to church, or are you going to stand there in the doorway forever?” He looked down at her feet, smiling. “Best put your boots on, it's not very warm.”

  She looked over his head at the cart and saw several women already seated, shawls wrapped over the heads. One or two held babies in their arms. She knew, without being told, that more women would be coming soon, and that her presence would squash them all.

  “I’ll walk,” she said, holding up her boots and pointing down the track.

  “Can fine ladies from Gotham walk down a mountain?”

  “I don’t know. But I expect that housekeepers from Wolf Creek can do it.” She didn’t smile, but nodded her head towards the cart. “I don’t think everyone can fit into your little transport. And I don’t think Henry would welcome the extra struggle.”

  He laughed suddenly, and then shrugged. More women had come to the cart, and he greeted them all with quiet welcome. Mary was watching him closely, and noticed as he discretely offered one or two coins to each women. Some refused, but most took his money with a grateful murmur.

  The walk into town allowed Mary to have a good view of the town, and the scenery around it. The mountains, capped with white, were sharp angles pointing towards the sky, and covered in thick forest. She was walking above the level of the water, and could not see it, but she could hear its roar. She realized, with surprise, that it was the only noise, and then remembered that it was a Sunday. The mine and gold smelting machines were still.

  She was so accustomed to the roar of traffic and the sounds of people in New York, that she was surprised by the quiet. Even in Sacramento she had had the bustle of a new city, coming to life in her hands. The silence of Grass Valley made her head spin, and she paused to take a few breaths. She might have stood there for hours, lost in her own world, but the ringing of the bells forced her to her senses, and she ran down the street towards the church.

  Each week came slowly to its end in the same way, with Mary walking down the mountain. Occasionally, Silas would give the reins to one of the women, and walk with Mary. At first, she had pointed out the mountains to him as a child would, keen and excited, but he had not been that interested until she made him listen to the running stream, and the silence of the rest of the world. Later, at home, with his big feet propped against the fireplace, he said that he had not realized God’s creation could be so close and immediate. “I work with men who are as close to devils as they come, working down shafts with toxic air. I’ve never stood alone on my mountain when the machines have stopped. It is, perhaps, as the good Lord intended.”

  Mary slept contentedly that night, thinking that perhaps the West did have its own magic, after all.

  Chapter 6

  Walking through the mountains each week allowed Mary to note the passing of time, which moved gradually across the land, first turning a few of the leaves green, then the whole of the mountain was covered with vegetation. Only a small white peak remained from the cover of snow. As the months passed, there were the bright colors of summer, cutting the green through with contrasting lines, much like her quiltwork. Patterns and suggestions came from the quilting bee regularly, and Silas was able to help her find thread and materials at one of the local stores, while she stitched several different items for the house, and also for her own hut nearby. She was turning the place into a home, rather than living quarters for a servant.

  Silas enjoyed watching her work on her blankets, and had even claimed one for himself, sleeping under it in front of the fire after dinner, or on Sunday after church. He talked to her often, his dry voice cutting across the living space. He told her about the gold mines; stories of conflict, for the most part, and anger against him. The bosses chose him because he was an honest man, Silas said, but the miners only wanted to take the gold they dug for themselves, rather than bring it to the company as they should.

  It was the problem of different metals, he thought, that caused many good miners to take gold when they saw it. How much real gold had she seen in her life? “None,” Mary said, and he nodded agreement. “These cousin Jacks and Jennies, all of them working in tin before, come here to find gold at their feet. They explode it out of the ground, and then they are expected to resist temptation.”

  “That’s what I mean about them being devils down there. It turns the horses blind, and it makes men blind too, in their way. It’s my job to keep them honest, since they can’t be so from their own free will.” He raked down the fire, and stood up. “Honesty really is the only way for men; miners and bosses alike.” Then he turned and went to bed.

  As the days marched into nights, Mary worked on the house, and when Silas came home she served their meal. After eating, Silas would help her wash the dishes, and then they would both sit down by the fire. Mary regularly took out her quilt, following patterns sent by Elizabeth or the other quilting girls, or sometimes sewing according to her own needs. She had made herself a decent blanket by the end of the first month.

  She found Silas was warmer when he was sitting in his own home. More often than not, he would read out loud to her as she sewed. He used his Bible regularly, and not only for prayers. One night, he showed it to Mary, and she realized that there were several sheets of blank paper at the beginning and end of the book. A fly-leaf at each end was usual, but there were five or six at the beginning, and maybe eight at the end.

  “This is my family Bible.” He said. “My mother bought it when she married, and she meant to put all of her children’s names down here. I was her only child.” He stroked the page, with his own name and birth date written in tiny, neat writing at the top of the page.

  “Your mother gave you the Bible?”

  Silas shook his head. “Both my parents died not many years after I was born, of Cholera. My father had left a careful will dictating how my half-sister and I were to be brought up. My half-sister was 10 years older than me and went into service immediately. I was taken to Texas by an uncle, then made my own way here in my twenties.” He smiled, ruefully. “I came with the Gold Rush, carrying a little tin pan and a tent, thinking to go back East a rich man. I never found any gold, and I never went back. Rachel came here, eventually, but she was married after a while and I have lived alone ever since.”

  He shut the book with a snap, and instead pulled out a novel. Mary went back to her stitching, and Silas read until the fire died down. As she walked towards the hut, Mary was astonished at her own happiness, feeling glad that she could share this intimacy, where they could sit beside the fire without talking, but still keeping each other company.

  He opened the Bible once more for a purpose other than praying, and that was while they talked about future families. He regularly asked her about her letters from the matrimonial paper, and she would tell him that she had not yet found a man suitable for her needs. When he asked her what she was looking for in those letters, she found that she could not really tell him. When she shrugged, he pulled down the Bible, and showed her the empty flyleaves. “I want a woman who can help me to fill these pages.” He turned one over in his hands. “I haven’t had a life worth putting on the page, and I always supposed that my wife would give me that real, true life.” He shut the book suddenly and put it back onto the shelf. “I do
n’t think my mother would have wanted me to die alone. But if she is coming, my perfect woman is taking her time in showing me her hand.”

  Mary opened her mouth, and then closed it again. Standing up, she gave a low bow. “I am sorry,” she said, although she didn’t know why she was apologizing, “I will have to go to bed.”

  The pony and cart trundled down to the store. Mary had a list of things which needed to be bought, partly to clean the house, partly to make her own quarters neater. She also wanted to pick up the letters which Silas had said were waiting for her. She knew that it would be a long time before she could start traveling again; she couldn’t afford the $80 it would take to leave California, and she was still hoping to find a husband out here in the West.

  Mary collected the letters without a problem and opened them right away, there in the street. Some of the letters were from her quilting friends, reporting that Lydia and Elizabeth were also heading West as future brides. One letter, tucked into this message, was written to her real name. It was from William, she saw immediately, and her heart sank. He had addressed it to her old apartment in New York, so he couldn’t know she was here. That much, at least, was a relief.

  She still had William’s letter in her hand when Silas came up to her, leading Henry by his harness. He smiled at her, and offered her his hand, but as she stepped forward, the letters slipped away from her, hitting the wood path with a surprisingly loud thud.

  Before she could stop him, Silas had reached forward and picked up the letters, turning them over in his hands before she could claim them back. His smile faltered as he came to the envelope which had held William’s letter, and he read the name on the front. He stopped for a second, then looked up at her.

  “Is this letter addressed to you?” he said.

  “It is,” Mary said.

  “It is your maiden name, then?”

  Mary didn’t say anything, but she shook her head slowly.

  “Mary?” She couldn’t look at him, and kept her eyes fixed on the floor, continuing to shake her head. “Mary, would you tell me what this name is?”

  “It is my real name,” she said at least. “I have never married.”

  Silas didn’t move for a moment, then thrust her package of letters towards her, pressing them into her hands roughly so that she had to grasp them in order to prevent them falling to the floor. As she struggled with the papers, he climbed back into the cart, and budged Henry onward. The cart started moving slowly, and then Silas was urging Henry to go faster and faster, running Henry as she had never seen before. She called him twice, but he would not stop or look back at her.

  Mary could only watch as the horse dashed off towards the mountain. She stood in the street for a few more seconds, clasping the batch of letters closely to herself, and then started off towards her home. Her feet were leaden, and it seemed as though the ground was slipping away from her with every step that she took.

  Chapter 7

  Walking up the mountain suddenly seemed a very difficult prospect. Her feet were still leaden as she struggled up the track, and the trees seemed to close in on her, rather than shelter her from the outside. The usual murmuring of the stream now seemed to be a full flow, threatening her as she tried to run past it. Even the gentle animal sounds, the ones that she loved and was now used to, seemed angry and mocking. Owls hooted at her, but she could also hear the baying of the wolves, much closer at hand than previously. She wanted to run, but her legs would not allow her. She felt frightened, more anxious than she ever had before, and she only wanted to reach the house and try to sort out the problem. If she could only talk to Silas, then she knew that he would understand, even if he didn’t agree with her position.

  For the first time, she was not glad to see bend into the village, and she was even more reluctant to see the house, her former home. Instead, she wanted to turn around and run away, to never see the place again. Yet she was drawn to it still. Something about her life here made her want to try to keep the connection between herself and Silas. She also knew that the longer he had to think about it, the more likely he was to take against her and be set in stone. With that thought in mind, she hurried back to her house.

  Silas was not at the house when Mary arrived. She walked around to the hut at the back, and found it firmly locked. All of her possessions, everything she had brought to the house, were thrown into the garden. He had not even placed them back into her trunks, but had tossed them aside too, right on top of her clothes. Frantically, she knelt on the ground, knowing that it would still be damp from the night’s rain. She pulled her clothes from the ground, including her Sunday best, now damp enough to be ruined. She would have to dry it off quickly when she got home. Fortunately, her quilt blanket had been thrown down first, and had protected most of her clothes. As for the rest of her property, well none of it was broken, and that was alright. But it was strewn all over the patch of grass before the vegetable patch, and she had to spend a long time on her knees, trying to pick it all up.

  As she pulled the clothes back into the trunk, a piece of paper fluttered to the ground. It was plainly a piece of Silas’s Bible, and she picked it up, and saw Silas’s writing, crabbed and bold, across one side.

  “Mary”, the writing began, “Assuming that is what your parents called you, and not another part of your summer name. I brought you in to my house thinking that you were an honest woman, and now I find that is not the case, your services are not required. I owe you $24, to the week just ended, which will be available at the post office tomorrow.”

  He had not signed it, and the letter had been quickly written, but his feelings were plain. She went around to the front door, knocking in the hope that he had not left her to pick up her own things entirely, but there was no answer. He had either gone back to work with no more thought of her, or he was watching from his rooms, as closed to her as he had been to his workers.

  When she had put everything pack into her trunk, she stood up, and started to head back to town to try to find somewhere to stay. She probably couldn’t have afforded the rooms she had rented before, she had spent too much cash on collecting mail and buying small items to make her area more like a home.

  Had she really thought of this small hut as her home? It had been an error of judgment to spend money on fripperies when she had no idea whether she could earn the money to take her home. She kicked angrily at a broken piece of wood in the pathway. She kept thinking about a home, but really, she had no home. Here would never be her chosen living place, and she could not think about any other city without comparing it to her life here. This is what this disaster really meant, that she had lost her situation and her living space, and her chance to get back to New York, or at least to Sacramento. But while she had been looking for that role at the start, in fact it was no longer possible for her to view a big city as her place. She wanted the wilds and the rivers and the mountains, everything that she had never planned to see when she came to California in the beginning. What her new loss of work meant was that she could not live where she had become comfortable, and she could not survive. There were other jobs in Grass Valley, true, but sewing or dressmaking would only bring in so much every week. She would never put enough aside to make it back to the place the West called Gotham, or to live her by herself. She needed that small hut which had taken pieces of her heart.

  As she started the long walk back down the mountain, she felt her heart sinking in her chest. The thing was, that New York no longer felt like the home she wanted. She had left it only too gladly, and now she wanted to stay away. More specifically, she wanted to stay in Grass Valley and work for Silas.

  Her footsteps echoed against the trees, and every step was more of a challenge to her. She could not breathe any more, she was even struggling to manage the weight of her two trunks.

  This experiment in earning her living had ended in disaster, and she didn’t know what she should do from here. Going back to town meant living in one of the back streets, alongside the sal
oons and the brothels. That didn’t seem like a good idea to her, but where else could she stay while she tried to find another way to escape? Grass Valley would have to be her home until she could find a way to leave, or until she could find a husband who would pay for her carriage to his home. Neither prospect seemed very appealing.

  Chapter 8

  Mary sat in the saloon bar where she had first talked to Silas, drinking the last dregs of a cold cup of coffee. She had hardly any money to her name, and even the money which Silas had said he would give her would not be enough to cover all of her expenses. How could she save the money to travel back, even as far as Sacramento, when she could barely afford to stay in this small town? The barkeeper was watching her carefully, repeatedly circling her part of the room. She would have to put down the cup soon and leave, and possibly go without even seeing whether Silas would leave her the money that he promised.

  She stared out into the street, hoping to see Silas and his cart. From time to time, she saw a pony, but it was never Henry, with his side-to-side gait, and it was never the friendly, uncovered cart which she had grown used to. She sipped the last of the coffee and reluctantly stood up. Silas wouldn’t break his promise to her, would he? She knew that he had held back miners’ wages in the past, when they had done something to displease him. She didn’t know whether he would treat her in the same careless manner. Doubt crept into her mind, but she quickly pushed it away. One thing she knew about Silas, he was honest, sometimes so honest that he couldn’t overlook the faults in other people. She paced the side of the street next to the bar, half-hiding, half afraid that if Silas saw her, he would not stop in town.