Chapter 1 #2
“He promised he would tell me everything once we were together,” Julie said. “He said he didn’t dare write it down in case someone read my letters. I can’t imagine who he thinks I would show them to, but it’s his endeavor, and I’m just glad to be part of it. I have a good feeling about him.”
“Well, just in case,” Mrs. Edwards said, pressing a piece of paper into Julie’s hand. “You keep this safe and come and see me if your good feeling turns sour. Or drop by when you’re in town. We can have lunch or something. I will be keeping you in prayer.”
“I will definitely drop by once I’m settled.” Julie kissed the dear old lady’s cheek and moved to her berth to get the last of her things together. Her mind wandered off again, thinking about Andrew and everything that awaited her.
At twenty-five years old, Julie was entering the realm of the unfortunate spinster, where married women would whisper behind their hands that it was so sad that she hadn’t been able to find a decent fellow. As though that was all there was to life.
Mrs. Edwards’s concern about Andrew’s secrecy mirrored her own closely.
She wished he had felt comfortable telling her more, but she was willing to trust that he was an honest man.
In his letters he had been so sweet. He had seemed supportive of her medical career, which was definitely not the usual.
On a personal level, they had connected over books and their love of discovering new things.
His letters in response to hers were a long time in coming.
It was only after the first one, in which he explained the situation, that Julie understood.
There was nothing where he lived. They were staying in tents along the banks of a creek.
She thought it would be great fun to watch the town growing around her.
She was going to be part of building something from the ground up!
When she had finished packing and was leaving the sleeping car, Martha and Anna came in again.
“I won’t miss you,” Anna said nastily.
Julie didn’t rise to the bait. “Have a good journey, Anna, Martha. I hope you are both happy in the future.” And just like that, she left them.
Julie helped Mrs. Edwards onto the platform and called a porter over to help with the woman’s many bags. She had been in New York visiting her son, who was a successful lawyer. Now it seemed she was bringing half the city back with her.
Julie flagged down another porter to fetch her own trunk out of the luggage car. Aside from that, she only had her carpetbag and her valise.
“Well, all the best,” Mrs. Edwards said.
“Is someone here for you?” Julie asked. She didn’t like the idea of this kind old lady trying to manage her things on her own.
“Yes, here comes Giles,” Mrs. Edwards said, waving to a man who was striding over, negotiating the crowds of people both disembarking and getting ready to board the train. “Don’t forget to stop by.” She gave Julie a hug and then was gone.
Soon the porter came back, trundling her trunk along on its wheels. From the moment Julie clapped eyes on it, she could see that all of her instructions for its storage had been ignored. There were visible stains where some of the tinctures that the trunk held had dribbled out all along the rim.
“Oh, that is just not acceptable! I gave specific storage instructions.”
“Oh, well, I don’t know nothing about that,” the porter said, looking around nervously.
“I said it had to be stored standing up like this!” She took the handle and set the trunk up straight so that the lid would open like a closet door. The smell of alcohol and herbs was strong.
Gingerly, Julie opened the trunk and grimaced in dismay at the chaos of the previously neatly packed contents.
“Well, let’s hope no one needs ginger oil or tincture of chamomile.” Those two bottles’ stoppers had come open. Their contents had spilled all over the inside of the trunk. Oh, this was going to take ages to clean!
Drat! There was another bottle that had come open, and the label was so messy and smudged now, Julie might never know what was in it. It might be something like mugwort. Or maybe it was St John’s Wort. They didn’t have a strong identifying smell.
“Good afternoon,” a voice said behind her. It was a pleasant voice, which had just a touch of a Texan drawl. “Are you Julie Tully?”
“What gave it away?” she asked without turning around.
“To be honest, the bottles of herbs,” the man said. “I’m Andrew Carter.”
Julie stopped lamenting the loss of her precious medications and with her pulse suddenly speeding up, she turned to see the man she had come so far to meet.
He was tall and had a broad-brimmed hat in his hands that he was twirling around.
His hair was fair and his eyes blue. For a moment that seemed to drag out as though it was made of taffy, she stared into his blue eyes.
He seemed genuinely happy to see her, and her heart leaped in her chest. His smile was kind and turned his full lips up in the corners.
He was much better looking than she had expected, and suddenly she wished she had done something with her hair.
Raising a hand to pat her brown curls back into place, she realized that her hands were covered in oil and all sorts of things. She flushed self-consciously.
“You seem to have caught me at an interesting time,” she said. “It’s an Oriental curse. May you live in interesting times. Oh, I’d like to have a word with the people who ignored my instructions and created this mess!”
Andrew chuckled and peered past her at the trunk. “I’ve got a cart outside. We can load it in the back. Unless you need to take care of that now?”
Julie inspected the mess inside once more and then sighed. “I can’t do much about it here.” She closed the trunk.
When she turned back, he was holding out his handkerchief to her. It was cotton, clean and large, and smelled of woodsy soap.
She wiped her hands and then accepted his to shake. “I’ll wash this before giving it back to you,” she said, sticking the handkerchief in her pocket.
“If you insist,” he said, winking at her. “But I don’t want you to think you’re here to do my laundry.”
“Perish the thought.” She grinned back at him. Were they trying to flirt? It was so odd. She’d never done that before.
“Gosh! I’m just so pleased you’re finally here,” Andrew said, his whole face alight with joy. “Julie, although we’ve only exchanged a few letters, I can’t help but feel that we’re going to get along well.”
“I hope you’re right,” she said, thinking they were getting off to a good start. He wasn’t at all flustered, while she was her usual mess. That was probably good. A relationship needed at least one stable person. “Well, what now?”