A Bride for Donnigan

Chapter One

Kathleen

She stood for a long time, staring through the dark of the morning mist at the posted notice. Her lips moved ever so slightly as she read again the strange words by the aid of the flickering streetlamp beside them—then read them once more to make sure she understood their meaning.

“Ladies!” The word seemed to shout off the printed paper. “The Opportunity of a Lifetime in the New American Frontier! Well-Secured Ranchers, Farmers, and Businessmen Desire Wedded Partners to Share Their Life and Prosperity. INQUIRE WITHIN.”

“Surely it doesn’t mean …” She mentally began an argument with the words. But she didn’t even finish the unspoken statement. Her eyes were locked on the notice, and she read it through for the fourth time.

“Would a girl—a woman really think of … ?” Her argument picked up again. “No, surely not. I never could even—even think of such a thing.”

But a few of the phrases still clung to her mind. “Well-secured.” “Prosperity.” And then the strange little phrase “wedded partners.” Did it really mean what she thought it did? She could only imagine one possibility. But she had never heard the phrase “wedded partners” before. Was the sign really saying that men—somewhere—were advertising for wives?

Her slight shoulders gave just a hint of a shrug. The thin coat, much too small even for her tiny frame, was reluctant to allow even that much room. She seemed to shrink back within its strained seams. The chill of the early morning made her shiver slightly in spite of her resolve to endure the cold.

“Sure now, and I’d best be on or I’ll be late for my hawking,” she scolded herself and was about to leave when two other young women approached quickly—excitedly.

“There—ya see it for your own eyes. I wasn’t yarnin’. Look—right there.”

Kathleen did not have time to move away from the notice on the wall. The girls seemed not to see her, so intent were they on their mission. They shoved right past her, and the taller of the two read the notice aloud for the shorter, more sturdy one. Kathleen took a step backward and hoped she was hidden in the shadows.

“Ladies. The opportunity of a lifetime in the new American frontier. Well-secured ranchers, farmers, and businessmen desire wedded partners to share their life and prosperity. Inquire within.” There could be no mistake—the now-familiar words had been confirmed by another.

“Well, I never—!” exclaimed the shorter girl, and the two clutched each other and hooted and squealed. Kathleen found her cheeks staining red. For a reason she couldn’t quite understand, she felt embarrassed.

“And you’re thinking to apply?” demanded the shorter girl.

“Aye, Erma,” answered the taller, a bit of Scottish brogue tinting her words. “And I’ve already done.”

“No! Go on with ya, lass!”

Another squeal. Another shriek of laughter.

“And why not? There’s no prosperity to be had here in London. Not for the likes of me.”

“But to leave home—”

“Home? Home has been little more than the streets for me—”

She broke off, but her words trembled in the cold, early morning air. Both girls became instantly serious, and Kathleen again shivered in her thin coat.

“Do you think—? I mean, do you really think that a body—well, might … ?” The one called Erma was unable to finish the sentence.

“What’s to lose?” said her companion with an obvious shrug of her broad shoulders. “We have nothing here.”

Erma nodded. “And you’ve already signed up? What do you have to do? I mean, do you need to have a dowry? Make promises?”

“Just give your name and promise to be there on the day of sailin’, that’s all.”

“It can’t be that easy.”

“But it is, I tell you. They’re already holdin’ a passage ticket with my name on it. I saw it for myself.”

Kathleen stirred in the shadows. She had to get to work. She would lose her job if she didn’t; and though it wasn’t much, it was all she had, and it did bring in a few pence each week.

It was the first time the two girls seemed to notice her. Their heads jerked around in quick attention, but when they saw the slight girl move into the light they visibly relaxed.

“You gave me a start, dearie,” said the bigger, taller girl.

“Sure, and I’m sorry,” apologized Kathleen, her Irish accent becoming thicker with her discomfort.

“No need to fret,” said the shorter Erma. “No harm done.” Her voice was soft and friendly, and Kathleen felt herself drawn to her immediately. She wished—but she quickly chided herself and shook her shoulders as though to also shake off her desire for the unattainable. Yet it would be so nice—so nice to have a real friend.

“Are you thinkin’ of signing up?” Erma continued, her eyes still on Kathleen.

Kathleen was about to make quick denial but Erma went on.

“Peg here has already signed. Says there’s nothing to it. I …” The girl hesitated, then lifted her chin as though suddenly coming to her own resolve. “I’m thinkin’ on signing myself.”

The bigger girl, Peg, gave a squeal and reached to impetuously give her friend a hug.

“I need to get to my work,” apologized Kathleen, moving to leave. “I’ll be losing me job and that’s the truth.”

Peg cut in quickly. “When we get to America, we won’t need to worry none about hawkin’ posies in the street or sweepin’ out the city gutters.” Then she stopped and seemed to look more closely at the slender girl before her. “You’ve a pretty face,” she observed candidly. “They’d be right glad to have you sign.”

Kathleen stopped mid-stride. She opened her mouth but no words came out. She felt her face flushing again.

“If you’re thinkin’ on signin’,” the girl named Peg said in a confidential tone, “don’t wait too long. They only have room on ship for about twenty, and the passages are being taken real fast.”

“Where do you sign?” Erma asked Peg quickly.

“Right there—through that door. I’ll take ya in,” said Peg excitedly. The two girls turned toward the door and Kathleen stood and watched them go, feeling alone and forgotten.

“If you decide to join us, we’d be most happy to travel with ya,” Erma flung back over her shoulder.

So she had not been forgotten, after all.

Kathleen stirred herself once more. She had to get to work. She pulled her thin coat more closely about her shoulders, took a deep breath and moved forward. She needed to make up for lost time. If only she could hurry. If only—She shook the thoughts from her head and hunched into the biting morning air. She couldn’t hurry and that was that. She would do the best she could to make up for lost work time. And she started off down the dark, dirty streets, her body rocking slightly with each step she took. The decided limp had been with her for as long as she could remember.

The day did not go well. Kathleen had been a few minutes late in spite of her extra effort to get there on time. The old man who ran the bakery had been terribly upset with her. He scolded and swore and threatened to cut her pay. She knew and he knew that if he did, she’d never hear the end of it from Madam.

Madam! Kathleen inwardly hated the title, though she had never allowed herself the pleasure of hating the person. She was, after all, the only mum she had. She was, after all, the woman whom her father had married two years after the death of her own mother. Kathleen, who had been a child of three when her mother died, had few memories of her own mother, but what she had she cherished.

Madam was the woman who had taken over the home and the man who was Kathleen’s father. The woman who had presented him with a daughter and two sons. Three children that Kathleen herself had tended more than their mother had. Three children who were more than a little spoiled and difficult. But regardless of their faults, three children that Kathleen had quickly learned to love.

The years had not been kind to Kathleen. At seven she had lost the grandmother who had tried in her own limited way to shield and protect her. Also at a very early age she was expected to take on a mammoth portion of the household duties in spite of her thin frame and the limp that had been there since she learned to walk.

“She needs to learn the care of a house,” defended the woman who insisted that Kathleen address her as Madam because of her French heritage.

Kathleen’s father had nodded slowly. He did not interfere with “matters of the household,” but Kathleen thought she read concern in his eyes many times.

So Kathleen had learned to do all the housekeeping chores by the time she was ten. She had also been nursemaid to the little ones, which included getting up in the night, changing their nappies, and taking them to Madam for the nighttime feedings. The limp that had begun as slight became more and more pronounced as she carted heavy babies and full laundry baskets on her tiny hip.

“She’ll never marry,” Madam complained to Kathleen’s father, fretting about the limp.

“Nonsense.” Kathleen was surprised to hear him dare to argue. “Look at her pretty face.”

“But a pretty face won’t be enough. It might turn heads—but they’ll quickly turn away when they see her take a step.”

“I won’t hear such drivel,” Kathleen was surprised to hear her father state, his voice firm with command. Apparently he did still feel he was master in his own home. “Kathleen is intelligent and pretty. One is not—not brushed aside and discredited for—for one small flaw. Such—such drivel. Sure now—I will hear nothing of it again.”

As far as Kathleen knew, Madam never spoke to her father about the limp again, but she did speak to the girl. Over and over, when the two were alone and Kathleen hurried as best she could about the house scrubbing laundry, preparing supper, or tending babies, the woman clicked and pratted over the girl’s “unfortunate condition.” Kathleen burned with the humiliation and unfairness of it.

And then had come the most difficult event of her young life. Her father became sick and, in just two months’ time, had been taken from them. Madam ranted and raved. The man had left her, alone, with five mouths to feed. Kathleen was no longer asked to stay at home and care for the household—though most of those same tasks were still awaiting her when she returned home at nights, tired from a long day in the streets. It was not easy to find the job that Madam sent her off to secure. She was thirteen and frail and basically unskilled except in household chores. She could read and do sums—her father had seen to that.

As Madam had warned again and again, her limp figured into her success in finding employment. Most shopkeepers did not want her as an apprentice. They feared the customers would be unnerved as she moved about to serve them. Nor was she to be accepted as a governess. Only the old man at the bakery had seen her limp as a possible asset. People, bless their souls, often responded to a handicap. With her small, sensitive, and pretty face, combined with the pathetic limp that wasn’t even a carefully practiced put-on, Kathleen might prove to be a good source of income selling his penny rolls and tuppence meat pies.

He had been right. Kathleen sold more wares than any of his other hawkers—though he had never revealed that fact to her. Daily he lived in fear that Kathleen might find a job elsewhere or meet some young man who would wish to make her his wife. So when she arrived a few minutes late after stopping to read the posting, the man was beside himself with worry. What if he lost her? A good share of his daily profits would be lost as well.

When she did appear, he scolded and raged and piled her basket with a larger than usual load of his baked goods.

“And mind ya get right on with it,” he fumed. “Ye’ve already lost half the mornin’ crowd.”

Kathleen struggled under the weight of the load. Silently she went back out into the cold to peddle the breads and pastries.

As she called out to passersby and collected the pennies for the sale, her mind went back again and again to the words in the notice. “Well-secured. Prosperous. Wedded partners.” Would a man from the American frontier be willing to accept a wife with a limp? No, it was unthinkable. But the words still stayed in her mind to haunt her throughout the entire day. She wished—she almost wished—that she were one of the other girls. Like Peg, tall and straight with broad shoulders and a strong back. Or the shorter one named Erma. She had such kind eyes. Such a soft voice. The girl was plump and solid, not scrawny and slight. She would have no trouble pleasing a frontier husband, with her robustness and friendly demeanor.

Then Peg’s words returned to her thinking. “You have a pretty face. They’d be right glad to have you sign up.”

But Peg had not known of her limp.

Just as quickly, the words of Madam came to mind. “But a pretty face won’t be enough. They’ll turn away when they see her take the first step.”

It was true—even a frontier man would never accept the likes of her as a “wedded partner.”

At the end of the long, difficult day, Kathleen made her way home through the gray streets, the gray buildings now enshrouded with gray fog. The gray gutters were almost hidden by the deeper gray shadows. Her shoulders drooped with weariness. Her steps dragged, accenting her limp.

Undoubtedly the week’s washing was still to be rubbed out on the scrubboard. There was supper to prepare. She did hope that young Bridget had been sent to the shops for meat and vegetables. When the days were damp and chill with fog, the younger girl often refused to go.

Kathleen loved Bridget in spite of her willfulness. There was no way that she could have withheld her love. The girl looked like their father. Kathleen, he had told her over and over before his untimely death, was the picture of her mother. So Kathleen mothered Bridget, even as Madam spoiled her. Kathleen did so want the young girl to grow up to be a credit to their father. To that end, she pleaded and scolded and fussed at her young half sister, teaching her manners, letters, and sums. For the most part the girls got along well—unless Madam interfered and chided Kathleen for “demanding” too much of one “so young and delicate.”

Kathleen reached the small cottage and pushed open the heavy iron gate with her shoulder. The gate growled and whined on its rusty hinges.

“And if Father were here, he would use some oil,” Kathleen said to herself. “It won’t be long until it’ll refuse to budge.”

A deep sigh escaped her as she moved toward the crumbling concrete step. She dreaded to enter the room and deposit her few small coins on the kitchen table. The house, always dark with gloom since her father had died, represented so much work to be done. She wished that she could just—What? She didn’t really know. All she knew was that she wished she didn’t have to lift the latch and cross the threshold into the dank kitchen chamber, the gloom, and Madam. But enter she must.

She put her hand on the door latch and dragged her reluctant foot up to the last step.

With a flurry that was totally unexpected, the door jerked inward out of her grasp. There stood Bridget, hair tossed, cheeks flushed, hands clapping to her breast. “Kathleen!” she shrieked. “You’ll never guess what has just happened! Mama is marrying again!”