At first the women didn’t know whether to rejoice or cry.
Carrie grinned. “Congratulate me. I’m almost a married woman.”
They congratulated her, but they also let her know that they thought she was crazy, and they couldn’t resist telling her for the thousandth time that Mr. Greene was going to be quite angry when he found out how he’d been tricked.
Carrie ignored them, for she was delirious with happiness. Now all she had to do was get her father to sign her papers because she was so young, then she had to find a minister to perform the proxy service.
Carrie handled it all in the same way that she had handled Joshua Greene: She lied.
She went to the offices of Warbrooke Shipping, which her family owned, and nonchalantly volunteered to deliver a sheaf of papers to her father to be signed. Slipping the proxy papers in with the business papers, her father signed them without reading what he was signing. Money found a minister who would perform the service.
So, on a late summer morning, one year after the War Between the States had ended, Carrie Montgomery legally became Mrs. Joshua Greene, with Euphonia acting as the stand-in for Josh.
At the end of the service, Carrie threw her arms around each of her friends in turn and told them that she was going to miss them, but that she was going to be very, very happy in her new life. The women bawled copiously, wetting the front of Carrie’s new dress with their tears.
“What if he beats you?”
“What if he drinks?”
“What if he’s a bank robber or a gambler or he’s been in jail? What if he is a murderer?”
“You didn’t worry about the hundreds of other women we’ve sent out, why should you worry about me?” Carrie asked, annoyed with the women for not being happy for her.
Her friends just cried harder into their handkerchiefs.
To Carrie, all that she’d done so far was easy compared to what she still had to do: tell her parents. When she did tell them, her mother wasn’t nearly as stunned as her father. Her mother gave her husband a look of disgust and said, “I told you that all of you spoiled her, and this is the consequence.”
Carrie thought her father might start crying. He adored his last child, and it had never crossed his mind that she might grow up, much less marry someone and go hundreds of miles away to live.
Carrie’s mother suggested that the marriage was illegal and that they could have it annulled. With utter simplicity and absolute conviction, Carrie said, “I will run away.”
Studying her daughter’s humorless face, her mother nodded. The Montgomery stubbornness was infamous, and she knew that if her daughter had made up her mind to stay married to a man she’d never met, then she would stay married.
“I wish ’Ring were here,” her father said, speaking of his oldest son.
Carrie shuddered. Had her oldest brother been there, she would have waited until he left before presenting the fact of her marriage to her softhearted parents. Her oldest brother was not softhearted nor particularly indulgent of his sister’s schemes. In fact, Carrie would not have told her parents while any of her brothers were home.
“I don’t see that there’s anything we can do,” her father said sadly. “When will you leave?” His voice was heavy with tears.
“As soon as I can pack,” Carrie answered.
Her mother squinted at her youngest child. “And what do you plan to take to this wilderness?”
“Everything,” Carrie said in answer to what she thought was an odd question. “I plan to take everything that I own.”
At that, h
er parents’ long faces changed from sadness to mirth. They looked at each other and began to laugh, but laugh in a way that made Carrie feel defensive.
Straightening her back, Carrie stood up. One could almost take offense at the tone of their laughter. “If you’ll excuse me, I must go to my room and start packing for the journey to meet my husband.” Stiffly, she walked from the room.
Chapter Three
Mrs. Joshua Greene fanned herself with an ivory-handled, feather-tipped fan, stroked the little dog beside her, and tried to still the beating of her heart. In another few minutes she and the other stagecoach passengers would be in Eternity. Since they were a full four days later than scheduled, she wondered if her husband would be there to meet her.
Every time she thought the word husband she smiled to herself. She thought of the pleasure she was going to see on Josh’s face when he realized that his new wife was not a woman with a back meant to pull a plow, but was instead a young lady of some…well, appeal.
Thinking of their first night together, Carrie began to fan herself harder. Even though her brothers thought they had been successful in keeping their little sister’s mind pure and uncluttered with any knowledge of the world, Carrie had learned a great deal about men and women from sitting quietly and listening to her brothers’ remarks about bachelor life. She was certainly sure that she knew more than most young women. And if she was sure of anything at all, she was sure that she wasn’t afraid of what happened between a man and a woman. According to the laughs and comments of her brothers, what a man and woman did together was the most exciting, pleasurable, worthwhile event on earth. All in all, Carrie was very much looking forward to the experience.