Page 1 of His Perfect Bride
One
Manchester, England
May 1863
She had to find a way to help her family.
Sage Rhodes stepped carefully through the muddy street in front of the Manchester City Mission and glanced at the square of tattered paper in her hand. The short list of charities was growing even shorter.
“Two left out of the five,” she whispered. “Only one after the City Mission.”
She was running out of options.
The familiar clench of desperation wrapped around her empty stomach.
She stuffed the paper back into her skirt pocket and pulled in a breath of air to fortify herself for the humiliating task of asking for help.
The May morning air was damp with the spring rains that were nearly constant. Dark clouds sagged with moisture, and sooty coal smoke poured from towering chimneys rising into the skyline for as far as the eye could see…Hundreds of plumes of black smoke from hundreds of chimneys from the hundreds of factories.
If only those hundreds of factories were filled with the usual workers. Last year, as a result of the war in the United States, the cotton imports from Southern states had come to a standstill, and most textile mills in Manchester had closed.
Some were beginning to hire back employees. But too many people—especially women and children—remained jobless, including her. Even though her dad had been among those rehired, his hours as a mule spinner were sparse and sporadic. He only made enough to keep the family from being evicted from their one-room flat. They were constantly hungry and cold. Their garments were turning into rags. And they were restless with so little to occupy their time.
To make matters worse, Dad’s health was rapidly declining. Ever since he’d resumed his position, his white lung disease had returned with a vengeance. His barking cough wracked his body, keeping him awake at night so that he was exhausted all the time.
As Sage made her way up the front stoop of City Mission, she stuffed her list of charities deeper into her pocket. She tapped the mud off her clogs then straightened her shoulders. She’d never thought she’d resort to begging, but she would do whatever she had to for her family.
The three-story building was tucked between a bathhouse and a women’s boardinghouse. Even though the red bricks were darkened from coal dust, the place was well-kept, and the area was safe and mostly clean, absent of the squalor of the crowded slums where she lived with her dad and three younger sisters.
She opened the door and stepped into a large front room that was busy with women—probably volunteers. One group seemed to be organizing clothing donations. A couple of others were studying a map and list of names, likely making plans for how to spread charity and the gospel to as many poor and hopeless people as possible.
At Sage’s appearance, every person paused in their conversations and swiveled to look at her—with kind eyes, to be sure. Each of the charities she’d visited so far had been staffed by sympathetic people who’d offered her suggestions. But none had been able to give her what she really needed—passage for her and her family to Vancouver Island.
She smoothed a gloved hand down her dark gray wool cloak before untying the headscarf knot underneath her chin. She slipped off the threadbare covering, hoping that without it she appeared older and more capable than her nineteen years.
She’d taken the time to coil her reddish-blond hair into an elegant chignon, and she’d worn her Sunday best—a simple blue skirt and a white blouse. Both were frayed and thin. But she’d disguised the worn hems with lace she’d taken from the curtains.
She knew she was considered pretty with her fair hair, unblemished skin, and blue eyes. Her heart-shaped face, dainty chin, and high cheekbones were all family traits and added to her beauty. Today, she had to use every single asset to her advantage, even her looks.
“May we help you, dear?” A middle-aged matron stepped away from the map. Her milky white hair framed a pleasantly plump face. With spectacles perched upon her nose, her eyes were as round as bobbins. She was attired in a modest gown that set her apart from the working class but wasn’t so elaborate as to put her in the aristocracy.
Sage lifted her lips into a practiced smile—one she’d tried to perfect that showed her to be an upright and respected woman. After all, most charities made a distinction between the worthy and unworthy poor—those who’d fallen into hard times versus the shiftless, lazy, and drunkards.
She was praying she would get a better reception and more assistance if she proved beyond a doubt that she was the former—a woman of stellar repute who’d simply experienced the hardships of the recent economy.
“Thank you, ma’am.” Sage spoke as calmly and as politely as possible, trying to sound cultured and not like a poor mill worker. “I was hoping someone here might have information on any emigration opportunities.”
“Emigration?” The hesitancy in the woman’s question told Sage that she wouldn’t have any more success here at the Manchester City Mission than she’d had at the other agencies she’d already visited.
Still, she had to try. “Yes, my sister was one of the women recruited last autumn by Miss Rye to travel to Vancouver Island.”
Sage hadn’t received any letters from her older sister since she’d left in September on theRobert Lowe. With every passing day without word from Willow, Sage was growing more and more convinced that she had to take matters into her own hands, which was what she’d finally done yesterday when she’d made the list of local charities to visit about the possibility of emigrating.
The woman nodded. “Ah, yes. Miss Rye and her Female Middle Class Emigration Society.”
Sage didn’t know anything about a Female Middle Class Emigration Society. All she knew was that Miss Rye had overseen two emigration opportunities to the Pacific Northwest last year for single women. The ships had been called bride ships because the women were expected to go and find husbands in the English colony where there was an overpopulation of unmarried men in need of wives.
Sage wasn’t interested in finding a husband, not when she was still reeling from the broken engagement with David just a few months ago. Even so, she was more than willing to endure sailing on a bride ship with her sisters if it took them to Vancouver Island and to Willow.
