Page 6 of Seven Brides for Beau McBride (The McBrides of Montana #3)

Ellie liked reading the advertisements and imagining the people on the other end of them.

It was like reading a novel, but better, because the people were real.

There were advertisements for industrious shopkeepers in towns with names like Hatchett Springs and Mule Hill; from lonely miners in California and Colorado; from a bereaved minister in Belle Plaine, Kansas; and from farmers from every territory on the Great Plains.

The brief advertisements inspired flights of fancy in Ellie.

She imagined the grieving minister meeting his blushing bride at the Belle Plaine station, his hat clenched in his nervously sweating hands.

What kind of bride had he chosen? One who reminded him of his saintly lost wife?

Or someone brightly, shockingly different?

Whoever she was, she’d make his heart skip a beat for certain.

For the miners, Ellie imagined a row of pretty brides like colored buttons, and for the farmers she dreamed up apple-cheeked girls in sprigged calico, their smiles fresher than April clouds.

But she certainly hadn’t imagined Diana stepping off a train to marry a total stranger!

Diana had initially scoffed at the ads. She’d been impatient with Ellie sighing romantically over the brave brides.

“They’re not brave.” Diana had rolled her eyes at Ellie’s relentless romanticism. “They’re desperate.”

They’d been sitting in the airless parlor of their boardinghouse after supper, passing the brief hour before the bedtime bell rang over at the mill, shrilling through the sleepy streets of Fall River.

“This one’s not,” Ellie had replied, reading aloud a delicious advertisement placed by a woman of substantial means . “Imagine being of means at all, let alone substantial ones. I bet she could have her pick of any man—and yet here she is advertising for one. Wouldn’t you love to know why?”

“Maybe she’s sour as a lemon.” Diana was unmoved.

She’d been in one of her dour moods, moods which had rolled in more frequently this year.

“What do you think Montana is like?” Diana had asked her abruptly.

She’d been staring at a landscape painting on the wall.

It was a picture of a brooding mountain scene, complete with an eagle circling a dreary sky.

Mrs. Tasker liked a stern landscape. She said it was due to her Northern English blood.

Ellie personally would have preferred something sunnier, with a flower or two; maybe a daffodil, or better, a host of them, like in the poem.

“They have a lot of cows, don’t they?” Diana mused. “In Montana.”

Ellie was perplexed by the sudden talk of Montana and cows. The picture on the wall was of the White Mountains in New Hampshire—it said so on the little brass plaque on the frame. What did Montana have to do with anything?

“You just read that ad a moment ago, from the man in Montana,” Diana reminded Ellie impatiently, as if reading her mind.

That was the kind of bond they had. Even though Diana was a touch cross, it still warmed Ellie to have someone read her mind like that.

She was eternally grateful that Diana had joined Chattaway Mills and not another company.

Imagine if she’d gone her whole life and never met Diana.

It would have been a tragedy of substantial proportions.

“Ellie.” Diana was more than a touch cross now. She tended to get worn out by Ellie’s woolgathering.

“ Did I read an ad from Montana?” Ellie scanned the folded newspaper in her hand.

Yes, she had. Charming gentleman seeks beguiling woman to warm the long Montana winters.

“Well, judging by this, Montana is cold.” Her nose wrinkled as she re-read the ad.

Copious and symmetrical attractions indeed.

This “gentleman” sounded no better than the men at the mill, who were prone to whispering indecencies to girls as they walked past them at the end of the day.

“I wager there are no mills in Montana,” Diana sighed wistfully.

“Probably not,” Ellie conceded. “I think it’s still a frontier, isn’t it?”

“Wasn’t that dime novel you read me yesterday set in Montana?”

“No. That was New Mexico.” The book had been about a woman abducted by rustlers and the lone cowboy who’d rescued her.

It had ended with a kiss and a delectable bit of swooning.

Ellie wondered how it would feel to swoon.

Good, she imagined, judging by the ways her toes tingled when she read about it.

“Montana, New Mexico.” Diana waved a dismissive hand. “Either would be better than here.” Then Diana had snatched the newspaper from Ellie to see the ad for herself.

“What’s got into you?” Ellie asked, perplexed. “Since when do you care about Montana or New Mexico?”

“Since today, when I decided I couldn’t stomach the mill for another minute.

” Diana wasn’t alone in hating the mill.

Most of the girls dreaded the sound of the wake-up bell, followed by the start work bell.

Their whole lives were regulated by the company.

Where they lived, what they ate, how they behaved.

Their ears rang at night from twelve hours of the cacophony of the looms and their hands were calloused and stiff; they had sore feet and sore backs, and their eyes were irritated from the cotton fluff which thickened the air.

So when Diana had snatched that copy of the Matrimonial News out of Ellie’s hand, she’d known her friend well enough to feel a frisson of unease. “Diana, you’re not thinking…”

“I am thinking.” Diana had shot Ellie a fierce look. “I’m twenty years old next month,” she’d said shortly, “and I don’t intend to be in that mill when I turn twenty-one.”

“But you don’t mean to answer an ad for a mail-order bride!” Ellie had given a horrified laugh. “I only bought that thing for a laugh.”

“It could be a way out of here, El.” Diana was serious, flipping the pages with sharp snaps as she scanned the advertisements.

Ellie had grown prickly with dread. She couldn’t imagine her life without Diana. “There are other jobs, if you hate the mill so much,” Ellie said weakly. Although if Diana got another job, she’d have to move out of the company boardinghouse. Away from Ellie.

Diana had issued a bitter laugh. “Sure, I’ll go into service and scrub out chamber pots.”

Ellie tried to think of another job that didn’t involve mills or chamber pots.

“We work six days a week, El,” Diana complained. “Twelve hours a day. We get up when they tell us to, eat when they tell us to, sleep when they tell us to.”

Ellie hadn’t known what to say to that. It was all true.

“Doesn’t it bother you that we’re trapped here?”

Trapped was a strong word. Ellie’s mind went back to the tenement— that was being trapped. With a boorish husband, who kept you pregnant and poor.

“Don’t you ever want to spend an afternoon in the sun?” Diana demanded.

“I do spend afternoons in the sun. On Sundays.” The pun made her smile weakly. But Diana didn’t smile back.

Diana made a noise like she was suffocating. “When my parents had their farm, I spent every day in the sun.”

But Diana’s parents didn’t have the farm anymore. Now her father worked in the boiler room of a mill, and her mother worked in a laundry, and they could barely keep their heads above water, even with most of their kids put out to work.

“Diana…” Ellie sighed gently. “We should be thankful for what we have.”

Diana gave her a disbelieving look. “Thankful! For this ? Don’t you want something better?”

“This is better.” Ellie rubbed her sweating palms against the twill of her dark skirt.

Here, she could sleep. Here, she had enough to eat.

Safety counted for a lot. Food counted for a lot.

Being able to read books in a quiet corner counted for a lot.

And having someone like Diana, who actually cared for her, counted for everything.

“What about all those books you read?” Diana demanded.

“What about the things they promise? Open trails, mountains, freedom. Don’t you want those things?

” Her blue eyes were shining. “What about a man who knows how to make you swoon? What about that? What about love and romance and tingling from your head to your toe?”

Ellie was stunned. “Those are stories, Diana. They’re not real.” Having a job and a roof over her head, a full belly—that was real.

“Well, what about this?” Diana shook the Matrimonial News at Ellie. “These aren’t stories. These are real.”

Ellie laughed. “You think one of those men could make you tingle from your head to your toe?”

“Why not?” Diana was obstinate. “It’s a chance anyway. I’d rather take the chance on a rancher or a cowboy or anything other than a mill boy and a lifetime here.”

Ellie shifted uneasily. “What are you saying? You’d answer a mail-order bride ad?”

“Why not?” Diana smoothed out the paper on her lap.

“I could move somewhere without mills and factories, without bells ringing at me to eat, like I’m a cow being brought into the byre.

Look, this says ‘gentleman is attentive, of landed family, and more than ready for the love of a good woman’.

Landed means wealth, right? And he sounds nice enough. ”

“He sounds lecherous! He’s the copious attractions one, isn’t he?”

“Oh, Ellie. Honestly. As if lechery isn’t everywhere. Just look at our overseer at the mill!” Diana pulled a face. “At least this one is looking for a consenting wife and not just molesting innocent girls.”

“How do you know? You don’t know him! He could be the worst kind of molester, for all you know.”

“Well, I’ll get to know him, then.” Diana had a rebellious set to her. “I’ll write to him.”