Hazel's Mail Order Joy (Home for Christmas Book 4) Read online

  Hazel’s Mail Order Joy

  Home for Christmas

  Annie Boone

  Contents

  Join Annie Boone’s Readers Group

  Hazel’s Mail Order Joy

  Home for Christmas

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

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  About Annie Boone

  Sweet River Publishing

  Hazel’s Mail Order Joy

  Text Copyright © 2019 by Annie Boone, Sweet River Publishing

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Hazel’s Mail Order Joy

  Home for Christmas

  ...a sweet, romantic journey spanning decades - even centuries - of holiday cheer.

  There’s no better season than Christmas to look back with gratitude for all the family blessings and forward with anticipation to all the joy to come. A holiday romance or a surprise Christmas wedding that leads to a lifetime of happiness is an irresistible story for a true romantic. Add some snow, hot chocolate, and carols at the piano and you’ll fall in love again and again.

  Second chances, mail order brides, marriages of convenience – this clean and wholesome series brings all this and so much more. Join our heroes and heroines from proper Regency England to the majestic Rocky Mountains as they find peace, true love, and inspiring Christmas spirit.

  This multi-author Christmas series is brought to you by these best-selling authors:

  Joyce Alec

  Rose Pearson

  Natalie Dean

  Bethany Rose

  Annie Boone

  Hanna Hart

  Sophie Mays

  1

  Not for the first time since her sister had left, Hazel Ellis wished Minnie was still in Boston. Her sister was caring and sympathetic — quite different from her other sister, Clara. Nothing frightened Clara. When they were young, Father used to tease that if his daughters had lived in Boston during the time of the war against Great Britain, Minnie would have tried to reason with the British; Hazel would have run from them; and Clara would have told them exactly what she thought of them in no uncertain terms. Hazel didn’t think her sister’s bravado was a matter of being less susceptible to doubts and apprehensions than the other girls. She simply had found a way to handle whatever might frighten her until it was reduced to something she could dispose of.

  Minnie balanced Clara’s domineering ways and Hazel’s timidity. But Minnie was in Colorado now, the first of the Ellis sisters to take their fates into their own hands and head West as mail-order brides, rather than languish in Boston while Father’s financial woes continued to worsen. Minnie had gone first because it had been her idea for them to leave Boston. She’d answered advertisements in a magazine where men out west published their interest in acquiring a wife. Women, it seemed, were in short supply in the west and that made their plight a tiny bit easier to solve.

  Minnie had diligently scoured the advertisements until she found exactly what she believed would serve them well. She sought three men whose characters appeared to match those of the sisters who would marry them. Additionally, residence in the same area so that once gone from Boston, the Ellis girls could remain close to one another in their new homes.

  It was rather outrageous, pointing out yet another of the stark differences between settled Boston and frontier Colorado. There were plenty of men in Boston, of course. The problem was that the sort of man who would make a suitable husband for a daughter of Jonathan and Betsy Ellis wasn’t one who would agree to marrying into a family of dwindling financial prospects.

  While it was acknowledged that the Ellis girls were far and away the most beautiful young ladies in Boston, with a pedigree which reached back into the early days when Massachusetts Bay was a colony and even further back to England, there could be no denying that their father’s business acumen had failed to weather the financial calamity which still had the nation in its grips. Jonathan Ellis was himself an inventor, as well as a gentleman, whose commercial instincts had brought great wealth. He had weathered the risks with panache and ridden the waves of financial upheaval, but now, the storm was too vast and powerful to overcome. Jonathan Ellis was now practically penniless.

  It was all more than Hazel could understand. They had gone from being a family with their own carriage, a stable of fine horses, servants to take care of everything that needed to be done in a majestic Boston mansion on Beacon Hill, a social calendar which integrated their busy days with the activities of the finest families in the city, to living in what was known as reduced circumstances. The horses were gone, the carriage had been sold, the servants had been dismissed and the Ellis daughters had taken on the domestic chores formerly done by paid immigrant lasses.

  The piano was even gone, the beloved instrument around which the girls had gathered to sing while Betsy played and Jonathan sat, an audience of one, admiring his lovely ladies and their musical gifts. But Mother had fallen ill; her lungs, Father explained. He needed to find a place for her in the country where the fresh air and tranquility would restore her health. He had sold the piano in order to pay for the fees. Then Minnie discovered that Mother wasn’t simply resting in the country because her lungs were weak, rather, she was in a sanatorium where people went when the burdens of their lives were too much for their bodies to handle. In Betsy’s case, the relentless financial blows that had steadily placed the family in those ‘reduced circumstances’ were too great a burden to endure.

  The year had begun with no prospects for improvement and it did not appear that the end of the year boded any better fortunes. Hazel couldn’t bear to think what her favorite holiday, Christmas, would be like this year, even though it was only April. Minnie’s meticulous arrangement had managed to find prospective husbands who all lived in the same area so that the sisters would be near one another, certainly for the holidays. But they would be far from their parents and far from Boston and in Hazel’s mind, nothing would ever be the same again, including Christmas.

  What did it matter if Minnie had found a rich rancher for Hazel to marry? Harley Wyatt’s letter had been very precise as he described his assets, his work, and his plans for the future.

  I own some of the finest grazing land anyone has ever seen. With cattle costing a dollar to raise, and bringing in twenty-three dollars when they’re driven to the railroads, I am confident that I will be able to build one of the cattle empires that flourish in the West. I work from sun up until sundown a
nd I can do turn my hand to any task that is required of me. The cattle business is booming and our town is booming as well. We’ve built a school in the last year, and next year we’ll be building a theatre so that traveling performers can come here and entertain us. The telegraph connects us to the east and the railroad does likewise. It’s honest labor but at the end of the day, a man wants a woman to share it with. That’s the one thing we lack in Colorado — women. I am thirty years of age, a bachelor, a Christian man and I can read and write. I am a temperate man. In height, I am what folks call a tall drink of water. If interested in learning more, I will oblige with a photograph. I am looking for a virtuous woman, no less than twenty and no more than twenty-eight, who is willing to travel to Colorado to marry me. If you are that woman, please address your correspondence to Harley Wyatt, Darby, Colorado.

  Clara thought him vulgar for speaking so candidly on the subject of money, but Hazel supposed that out West, the people had different standards of refinement. It did not make them wrong and it did not make Mr. Wyatt vulgar, despite Clara’s disdain. But the letter was so… so very… exact. This was the only word that came to mind when she tried to describe his tone in the letter.

  The letter told her what Harley Wyatt did and what he wanted and what he had. It mentioned nothing of whims or fancies or dreams. She could not bring up these concerns to Clara, for she was very much concerned with prosperity, for all her contempt voiced against those who enumerated the terms of their wealth. Clara found the family’s penurious state a battle she could not bear to wage. Her life, until the financial collapse, had been replete with the best of everything. It had consisted of yearly trips to Europe to replenish a wardrobe with the latest fashions from Parisian seamstresses, and she found it hard to wear dresses that were no longer in style.

  Hazel didn’t care about her wardrobe. She didn’t care if they never went to another ball for the rest of their lives, nor rode in a carriage, nor received love letters from smitten swains. She simply wished the Ellis family could have remained in their mansion. That they could have remained together.

  Even if they could not afford servants, and even if the girls had to continue taking care of the cooking, the cleaning, and the management of the household as they had been obliged to do. Hazel would have been content to go on preparing meals in the kitchen with her sisters, as they had been doing, so they could be together.

  But tomorrow she would board the train and leave her home, and she would be the second to do so, after Minnie. It had been determined that Clara would leave last, because she would bear the responsibility of persuading Father to leave the house before it was taken from him. He could no longer afford something called a mortgage. Hazel knew that Clara would accomplish this objective because she would refuse to accept anything less than Father’s capitulation. She was to find a place where Father could live and be closer to Mother; Minnie’s instructions had been clear. If Mother saw Father daily, her health might improve.

  Hazel knew that if she were the last sister scheduled to leave, she would not do so. She would stay in Boston with Father. But her sisters had known, she supposed, that she lacked the will to leave what was beloved and familiar. This was why Minnie had gone first, so that she would be there when Hazel arrived in Colorado. Clara would come last because she would take care of everything that needed to be done before the Ellis family disappeared from Boston.

  Tomorrow, Hazel would board the railcar headed to Colorado and her future. Minnie had bought their tickets with the money she’d gotten for pawning Grandmama’s sapphire bracelet. She had not asked nor expected her sisters to part with the jewelry that their grandmother had given to them - emeralds for Clara and diamonds for Hazel. It was this sacrifice that forced Hazel to accept her fate. She couldn’t disappoint Minnie, who had given up one of her treasures from their loving grandmother so that her sisters would be able to travel west in comfort. Pullman cars, Minnie had said, and there would be maid service, sleeper berths and exquisite food.

  Hazel didn't share with Clara her suspicion that Minnie had bought her sisters luxury passage on the railroad but had not afforded the same opulent choice for herself. Clara would never think of such a thing. They were Ellises, and of course they must travel as their social status demanded. The poor, the immigrants, those who had nothing — they could travel as paupers. But not an Ellis.

  Even though their financial situation had changed drastically, their heritage was indeed still intact. The son of Jonathan and Georgianna Ellis of London, England, their father retained his upper crust breeding. That, however, did not bring back the fortune that was now lost.

  Clara had already lectured Father regarding acceptable behavior at the train station. He must not give way to his emotions, Clara had told him, her message intended to deliver the same meaning to Hazel. They must all comport themselves as proper Bostonians and heed their English heritage, as well. It simply would do no good to weep and cry as if they were from the lower classes. She had privately told Hazel that she must not cry when saying farewell, for it would make Father sad. Hazel was quite sure that she had told Father the same thing. She didn’t understand why it was such a shame to show how one felt; why shouldn’t she cry, and Father too, as they bid farewell? She was leaving Boston and her family to travel across the country, across lands where wild savages still dominated parts of the landscape.

  The fury of weather sent terrible elements to punish the land for its location. Hazel thought of the scorching heat, devastating winds, and all sorts of frightening manifestations of nature at its most violent. Trains wrecked sometimes, or left the tracks, and people were maimed or even killed. There was every chance that the journey alone could be dangerous.

  Hazel might never see her father or Clara again. She might not reach Colorado safely. There was nothing demeaning about being tearful at facing the caprices of travel, even in this modern age, when trains were able to conquer the miles in between destinations. She had traveled by train before, of course, but never so far and never alone.

  It occurred to Hazel as she sat in her bedroom, her trunks packed and ready to be taken to the train station, that she had never really been alone in her life. She and her sisters were always together; they were known as the ‘Beacon Hill beauties’ by the social columnists for the newspapers and they went everywhere together. Now, for the first time in her life, she would be alone, entirely alone, in an environment that was entirely foreign to her.

  What would he be like? Harley Wyatt, the rancher, who wrote about the price of cattle but said nothing of himself beyond the assurance that he could read and write, that he was thirty years old, temperate, and a Christian. He knew what age he wanted for a wife but he had written nothing more personal than that, as if it was enough that she meet that particular requirement. Presumably so that she could bear children to work on the ranch and inherit, Hazel thought resentfully. She was venturing all the way across the United States, traveling through parts of the nation that were barely settled, much less civilized, risking untold dangers, to marry a stranger.

  Hazel buried her head in her pillow. Dear God, she prayed. Please make him love me. I can’t bear it if I leave everything in Boston to marry a man who may want a woman who is entirely different from who I am. I am not brave like Minnie, or strong like Clara. I am just Hazel. Please let that be enough for Harley Wyatt.

  2

  It was rather pleasant, Hazel had to admit, to be pampered and looked after by the Pullman porters, who made certain that the passengers received the very best service that the railroad could provide. The food in the dining car tasted as if it had been prepared by the chefs at the Waldorf Astoria, the hotel where the Ellis family typically stayed when accompanying Father on one of his New York business trips. The female porter was assiduous in helping Hazel prepare for the night’s rest and, to her surprise, she was lulled to sleep by the rhythm of the tracks.

  Hazel found that, although she was traveling to a rugged region where she could not expect
Bostonian standards, the railroad was bringing her there with no loss of refinement. In the dining car, the linens were blinding white and the silverware was polished to a shine. At home, Clara, who had assumed the cleaning duties in the household, was vigorous in her regimen and the Ellis silverware was maintained in its customary state. What would happen to it now, Hazel wondered, as she sat down to eat. She welcomed the offerings of Russian caviar canapés, eggs stuffed with Smithfield ham, veal cutlets smothered with mushrooms, braised celery hearts and minted new peas, with tea in fine China cups. Thinking of such matters in the presence of so sublime a travel experience seemed unappreciative. She thought of all the trouble Minnie had gone to in order to arrange for their marriages, and so, with a faint sense of guilt, Hazel concentrated on her meal.

  But those thoughts were not easily vanquished. What would meals be like at the ranch, she wondered? At least she had learned to cook as a result of the family’s downturn in finances. She would bring that much to this marriage. She didn’t know if she was particularly good at it, but her father had privately told her once, when she had been ill and Minnie had taken her place, that Minnie was a darling daughter but she would never make a culinary paragon.