Mail Order Bride: The Master: A Historical Mail Order Bride Story (Mail Order Brides) (4 page)

Matthew collapsed in defeat. Whatever else happened, he couldn’t lose the Master. Maybe if he didn’t find out Matthew kept the confrontation secret, he would marry Polly and live happily, never the wiser.

“All right, Miss,” he whispered. “I won’t tell him.”

Polly straightened up. “Good,” She got to her feet. “Now I have to get back to the hotel. I have to get ready for my dinner with him.” She eyed Matthew. “Are you going home now?”

Matthew shook his head and moved a pebble back and forth on the ground with his toe.

“You’re not going to his house, are you?” Polly asked.

“No, Miss,” he answered. “I won’t do that.”

“Then where are you going?” she demanded.

Matthew shrank under her gaze. How did she seem to know what he planned? “I’m just going around town, you know…to visit my friends.”

Polly pursed her lips. The tears dried on her cheeks. “All right. Go ahead.”

Matthew hesitated. Did she know he didn’t intend to go anywhere, but to wait there behind the elm trees to watch her in her room? He stared at the ground, unable to look her in the eye. But the longer he hesitated, the more certain she would be that he was
lying.

“Go on,” she repeated.

He couldn’t wait any longer. He turned around and walked away, back around to the other side of the church yard where she couldn’t see him. Finally, he dove down behind the bushes to wait until she went into the hotel

He didn’t have long to wait. After he disappeared, she passed the other way, around the corner toward the hotel’s front door. Matthew heard the creak of the hinges and the thump of the door closing behind her. Then he came out of his hiding place and resumed his watch at her window.

Something still disturbed him, though. What was it? He couldn’t settle into his role as sentry, not with the secret of Noah Bartlett’s latest assault on Polly hanging over his head. The specter of the Master loomed in front of his eyes. He would never be able to look the Master in the face if he kept this secret.

Polly would probably hide in her room for the rest of the day. Matthew couldn’t blame her if she never went out alone again. And now he, too, had made enemies of the
Bartletts. He would never be able to set foot in the schoolyard without the dread of meeting Felix. He would never have any peace again as long as he lived.

At least he shared that with the Master and his new wife—them and dozens of other people around this town. No one could live here without eventually making crossing paths with the
Bartletts. Even those people who tried to stay out of their way only made themselves known as cowards and easy targets for the Bartletts’ wrath.

Matthew fidgeted, trying to make up his mind. Should he stay here on guard, or should he go to the Master’s house and tell him what happened? He couldn’t win, either way. Polly’s curtain swayed with some movement inside the room. She was safe in there. She wouldn’t catch him sneaking off.

He made up his mind to go, to pour out his guts to the Master and throw himself on the mercy of the Master’s good nature. He turned around to walk away and ran bodily into the Master standing behind him.

The Master caught him by the shoulders of his shirt and prevented him from toppling over into the dust. “What are you doing?”

“I was just going to find you,” Matthew admitted.

“What for?” the Master demanded. “Is everything all right?”

Matthew’s resolve flew away from him, leaving him once more floundering in a quandary of indecision. “Everything’s fine. She’s up in her room.”

The Master looked up toward the window. “I’m just going inside to have dinner with her. You don’t need to stay here. You can go home now, if you want to.”

Matthew stuttered a lame reply. “I don’t want to go home.”

The Master smiled at him. “You’ve done a good job for me. I’m grateful to you.”

But the incantation failed to produce the same effect that it had yesterday. “It was nothing.”

“What are you going to do now?” the Master asked.

Matthew shifted from one foot to the other. “I don’t know. I’ll think of something.”

“You’ve got your fractions to work on,” the Master teased. “Are you sure you don’t want to spend your Saturday catching up on schoolwork.”

Matthew hung his head and shook it. “No.”

The Master frowned at his strange behavior. “Well, I’m going in now. I’ll see you at the church tomorrow.”

Matthew didn’t look up or reply. He didn’t have the heart to tell the Master about tomorrow. Maybe he wouldn’t go to the church after all, if it meant watching Noah Bartlett gun down the Master and Polly. The whole town would be there to see them get married. No one but Matthew and Polly knew it would end with blood and mayhem.

The Master studied him another minute. Then he left Matthew standing there with his heart in his shoes.

The confusion he felt before paled compared to this. Should he go home, the way the Master told him to? Should he go to the sheriff? Should he wait there for the Master to leave the hotel again? Should he keep guard over Polly until tomorrow?

Matthew walked to the end of the row of elm trees. Then he came back. Then he walked around the side of the hotel toward the door. Then he went back to his place under Polly’s window.

He turned one way, then the other, trying to organize his thoughts into something resembling logic. But it didn’t work. All of a sudden, a door opened in the back of the hotel and the cook came out carrying a bucket of slop. He dumped it into a barrel behind the building and disappeared inside again.

Matthew’s face brightened with a brilliant idea. He went up to the kitchen door and pried it open a tiny bit. Inside, the cook and his two assistants slaved over their blazing stoves, mixing cauldrons of brew and turning meat on a spit over an open fire. None of them noticed him looking in on them. He snuck into the kitchen.

Matthew knew something about that hotel that almost no one else knew. He ducked into the pantry. He slid along the rows of jars and hams hanging from the ceiling to the other end of the pantry, where another door opened behind the bar.

He hid inside the pantry until the bartender went out to get another crate of whiskey bottles from the cellar. Then, Matthew crouched down and slunk behind the bar to the dining room window, where he hid behind a curtain.

Polly and the Master sat at a table just across the room. From his hiding place, Matthew heard the Master giving the butler his order for the meal.

“And bring us your best bottle of brandy, too,” the Master told him.

The butler
left, and the Master snapped his napkin open and laid it in his lap.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Polly told him. “I told you in my letter that I don’t drink spirits.”

“You did tell me that,” the Master replied. “Well, then, I’ll drink it all myself.”

“You will not!” Polly exclaimed. “I won’t let you.”

“How will you stop me?” the Master asked.

“If you drink it all,” Polly replied, “you would be so drunk you wouldn’t be able to walk home.”

“You’re right,” the Master admitted. “Well, then, I’ll drink part of it by myself.”

“I didn’t know you were such a libertine,” Polly remarked.

“Me, a libertine?” the Master asked. “No, I just enjoy a nice drink every now and then. I have to celebrate my own wedding tomorrow, even if no one else will celebrate it with me.”

“Won’t anyone in town celebrate it with you?” Polly asked

The Master cocked his head. “It’s strange. Word seems to have gotten around that tomorrow is a sorrowful day. I don’t understand it, but you’d think from talking to people around this town that they were going to the church tomorrow to celebrate a funeral instead of a wedding.”

Polly looked away.

The Master scrutinized her. “And you don’t seem all that happy about it, either.”

“I’m just tired,” Polly replied. “The journey must have tired me out more than I realized.”

From his hiding place behind the curtain, Matthew heard the heavy silence that followed. How well he knew that silence, when the Master peered into your heart and soul!  He saw exactly what went on in a person’s innermost being. That silence hung over the dining room, waiting to fall on the heads of everyone in it.

“Has something happened?” the Master asked.

“What can have happened?” Polly asked. “I’ve been here all day.”

“You seem especially upset,” the Master replied.

“You already know what happened yesterday,” Polly told him.

“You seem more upset than you were yesterday,” the Master maintained. “If you were here all day, I would expect you to be at least somewhat recovered from your shock yesterday. But you aren’t.”

“I told you,” Polly replied. “I’m tired. You would be tired, too, if you traveled all that way.”

The Master didn’t respond to this comment. “And just now, when I mentioned celebrating our wedding, you evaded the subject.”

“I didn’t evade it,” Polly muttered.

The Master persisted. “I find this strange, because it’s the same reaction I have had from everyone else about our wedding. You would think I was going to the gallows instead of the church. I could understand it from men who’ve been married forty or fifty years but I wouldn’t expect it from you.”

“Maybe...,” Polly returned. “maybe they don’t feel like celebrating when someone has determined to kill us both at the altar. I don’t much care to celebrate it myself.”

“Do you mean,” the Master asked. “
that you don’t care to celebrate Noah Bartlett’s hollow threat? Or that you don’t care to celebrate him killing us?”

Polly folded her hands in her lap. “You know, Mr. Buchanan, I really don’t appreciate you making a joke out of this situation.”

The Master sat back in his chair. “Oh, come on, Polly. I’m just trying to lighten up the conversation a little bit. You can’t blame me for that.”

“I just wish you’d take this situation a little more seriously,” Polly replied.

“I’m sorry I can’t take Noah’s Bartlett’s empty threats seriously,” the Master told her. “They’re too ridiculous to consider at all.”

“What makes you think his threats are hollow and empty?” Polly asked.

The Master shrugged one shoulder. “I’ve been in this town a few years now. He hasn’t done anything to me yet, and I don’t think he’ll have the guts to do it now.”

“And you’re willing to bet both our lives on that?” Polly asked.

“Noah Bartlett is a schoolyard bully, just like his son,” the Master replied. “He isn’t dangerous if you only stand up to him. He wants the chance to try something underhanded at the church tomorrow so I can de-fang him.”

“I think maybe you don’t understand just how malicious he can be,” Polly remarked.

The Master raised one eyebrow. “What makes you think you know more about him than I do? You saw him once at the train station. I’ve lived in the same town with him for more than two years now. I think I know something about him that you don’t. Unless there’s something you aren’t telling me.”

“I found out everything I needed to know about him yesterday,” Polly mumbled.

“You’ll just have to trust me about tomorrow,” the Master replied. “I promise you, it won’t be the disaster you think it will be.”

“I hate to see you in trouble,” Polly returned. “You seem like a good man. I think I would have liked being married to you.”

The Master studied her for a while. Then he said, “I won’t try to argue with you about it anymore, Polly. I only wish you would trust me on this.”

“I wish I could,” Polly whispered.

The butler came over to the table just then with their brandy, and they stopped talking. Not long after, the food came, and they ate almost the entire meal in silence.

Afterward, the Master saw Polly to the foot of the stairs. As she laid her foot on the lowest step, the Master took her by the hand. “Promise me you’ll come to the church tomorrow. Promise me you won’t back out of this before then.”

Polly refused to look him in the eye. “I don’t want to go if it means watching Noah gun you down at the altar.”

“I don’t think that will happen,” the Master replied.

“You think what you want to think,” Polly told him. “You don’t recognize the danger you’re in.”

“Maybe not,” the Master admitted. “Just promise me you’ll come.”

“I didn’t come all this way to back out now,” Polly replied.

“Just promise me,” the Master repeated. “Promise me you won’t run away.”

“I won’t run away,” Polly replied. “I’ll be there, even if it means attending my own funeral.”

The Master kissed her hand. “Thank you. Rest well. After tomorrow, no one will separate us again.”

Polly ascended the stairs without saying good night.

The Master turned away from the staircase. But instead of going out through the front door of the hotel, he went back into the dining room. He strolled over to the table he and Polly just left and drained the rest of the brandy out of his glass. Then he turned around and pulled back the curtain.

“You can come out now,” he told Matthew.

Matthew kept still, skewered like an insect to a cork tray.

“It’s all right,” the Master told him. “Come out. I want to talk to you.”

Matthew stepped out from behind the curtain. He still couldn’t face the Master with his head up.

The Master observed his shameful behavior. “You don’t have to worry. I know you came here to watch us, and it’s all right. It shows that you’re concerned about us, and I appreciate that.”

“I’m sorry,” Matthew mumbled.

“Never mind about that,” the Master replied. “Now tell me what happened. Tell me what happened to Polly today.”

Matthew studied the toe of his shoe. “Nothing happened to her. She’s been here all day.”

“Don’t waste your breath on that,” the Master snapped. “Something happened. It’s written all over her face, and she’s lost all hope for tomorrow. What was it? I told you to follow her, so you must have seen it.”

“She went out for a walk,” Matthew muttered.

“Where did she go?” the Master asked.

“Just around town,” Matthew replied. “She went to the haberdasher’s, and to the general store, and to the dressmaker’s shop.”

“Okay,” the Master prompted. “Then what happened? Did she meet Bartlett somewhere?”

The weight of guilt and responsibility fell from Matthew’s shoulders. The Master had trapped him, and he dropped all pretense of keeping Polly’s secret. He nodded.

“Where?” the Master demanded.

“In the church yard,” Matthew told him.

“What was she doing there?” the Master asked.

“I don’t know,” Matthew replied. “Maybe she was on her way to the church and he grabbed her and dragged her into the church yard. I think she must have just been walking by on the street.”

“So what happened?” the Master asked. “What did he do?”

“He grabbed her,” Matthew told him. “When I got there, he was holding her around the waist and shouting into her face. She was trying to get away from him, but he only held her tighter and laughed at her.”

The Master gritted his teeth. “What did he say to her?”

“Mostly the same things he said to her at the train station yesterday,” Matthew replied. “He threatened to kill her, and said that she better not tell you he’d been with her. That sort of thing. Then he said he would come to the church tomorrow and get you and her.”

“He said all that yesterday,” the Master snapped. “There must be more. She looks like she’s seen a ghost.”

“When she wouldn’t give in,” Matthew told him, “Bartlett pulled a gun on her. He was going to shoot her.”

“So what happened?” the Master asked.

“I…showed myself to him.” Matthew started babbling. “I didn’t know what else to do. I know you told me to come and get you, but he was going to shoot her on the spot. She would be dead by the time I got you. There was nothing I could do. I just stepped out where he could see me and I watched him. That’s all I did.”

The Master stared at the young boy in front of him. Matthew squirmed under his gaze and screwed his toe into the floor. Then, to his great surprise, the Master laid his hand on his shoulder.

Matthew’s eyes flew up to the Master’s face and he found the Master smiling at him.

“You’re a remarkable man, Matthew Burke,” the Master declared. “I’m proud of you. You’ve done a great thing today, perhaps the greatest thing a man can do in his life. You’ve won my undying admiration and respect. Whatever else you become in your life, I will never forget this moment. I look forward to knowing you and calling you a friend for the rest of my life.”

Matthew couldn’t believe his ears. “I’m sorry I didn’t do what you told me to do. I only wanted to protect Polly.”

The Master patted his shoulder. “You did exactly what I told you to do. You protected Polly better than I could have done myself. You protected her better than anyone else could have. Now come on. Let’s get out of here.”

The Master steered Matthew out of the hotel by his shoulder. They walked side by side until they reached the lane where they would separate to go to their own homes. The Master stopped and faced Matthew.

“Go on home now,” he told the boy. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the church.”

Matthew glanced down the lane toward his house, then back at the Master. “Are you sure it’s a good idea for you to go to the church tomorrow? Are you sure it wouldn’t be better to get away from Noah Bartlett?”

“Don’t worry about tomorrow,” the Master replied.

“I can’t help it,” Matthew told him. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

The Master chuckled to himself. “I appreciate your concern. Go home and try not to worry too much.” He chuckled again. “I’m counting on seeing you at the church. Tell me you’re going to be there.”

“I’ll be there,” Matthew replied.

“Good,” the Master exclaimed. “I wouldn’t want to get married without you there.”

Matthew stared at him. “Really?”

“Really,” the Master replied. “After everything you’ve done to help us
get married, I wouldn’t want you to miss it. If anyone’s going to be there, you should be.”

“Really?”
Matthew gaped.

“Yes, really.”
The Master flipped his coat as he turned away. “Now go home.”