Meet me in St Louis… a quilt inspired story
A few years ago, my software engineer husband, Tim, wrote a short story spread over five parts to accompany my St Louis 16 Patch- if you would like more of the back story and to read that story, you can click here.
So when I decided to make another St Louis 16 Patch (pattern available here), I asked Tim to dust off his pens and notepad (aka notes section of iPhone) to write another story- and he came up with the ‘epic saga’, “Meet me in St Louis”- you can read this on my individual blog posts but I decided to put it all here as well :-)
“The silverware in the dining car rattled on the tables as the maitre d poured the first glass of champagne. Mary Stevenson looked up as her mother placed her order of Cornish game hen for supper. Not one for fuss, Mary decided on soup for supper as the slow rocking of the train throughout the day always folded her appetite in the evenings. Her mothers patience was wearing thin on this trip and both of them couldn’t wait to be rid of the train once they got to St Louis.
Her father said business was booming when he sent for them by wire. It had been almost 3 years since they’d seen him after he’d left with their savings to start a dry goods store out west. Mary didn’t know what to expect when they got there but was sure that life would be a lot different to the one she’d grown up with in Manhattan.”
“Adeline Stevenson was fast asleep when Mary slipped quietly out of their sleeper cabin. The low drone of her mothers snoring seemed to accentuate the rocking of the cars and she decided that card games in the parlor car would help distract her.
She had barely taken one step into the hallway when the sudden slowing of the train threw her forward and onto her knees.
Pressing herself back up, she could hear shouting and commotion coming from the cars ahead. Before she could get to her feet, a broad figure crashed into her from behind and they both fell forward onto the crimson carpet of the narrow corridor.
Looking up, she saw the pale blue eyes of a young man, the rest of his face shrouded by a gray bandana. On the ground between them was a silver pistol with an ivory handle.
As if her hands had a mind of their own, she reached for it and picked it up, still on her knees.
The young man eyes softened as if he was smiling at her as he darted forward and jumped out the carriage door and disappeared into the night.
Mary, shaking with tension and stared blankly at the silver revolver in her hand and noticed an engraving on the handle: “J. Finnegan””
“The hand-mirrors clattered as Mary dusted the haberdashery in her fathers store. Her first month working in the store she broke a dozen items. Now going into her second year working there she dashed around the shelves and items with an elegant nimbleness when performing her duties.
Mary loved working in the store and developed a great skill for all her tasks- from selling toys and candy to the local children to wrapping the beautiful Manchester the ladies would buy to make cotillion dresses. She even developed a knack for tallying the accounts books, a task her father was sceptical she could undertake at first but is now delighted he no longer has to squint into the little numbers on the ledger.
All her involvement in the store left her very little time to meet with suitors - and there were a great many. Benjamin Dalton would come around with his fancy suits and offer to take her to the cinema. He dressed very finely but had an air of arrogance that Mary found distasteful. Sam Powells father would often invite her over for dinner while Sam stood behind him looking down at the floor. His shyness made him seem disinterested and besides, she didn’t like a man who needed his father to speak for him.
As she sat down at the desk in the store office and opened the accounts book she sighed one last time to herself and began doing the sums. She worked through all the familiar names and amounts and no surprises there. However, a large purchase of horse feed, bullets and rope caught her eye. On the accounts it was made out to “James G Finnegan”.
Mary dropped her pencil. That was a name she never expected to see again”
“Mary recognised his eyes even before he stepped foot inside. The playful look on his face resembled the one she had stared into that fateful day on the train, albeit without the kerchief over the rest of his face. He cut a dashing figure in a linen pinstripe suit and a Stetson hat that gave away his working-man status.
He had arrived at the store just after 9 in the morning on a horse drawn wagon to pick up his purchases. Mary had anticipated his arrival and stayed out of sight in the back of the store behind the pinewood shelves that held the bags of grain. She was peering cautiously through the shelves when her father called out “bring mr finnegan out another 30 feet of rope please dear!”
Mary’s heart raced. She would have to make herself seen to this violent criminal. She froze and slowly ambled out from the shelves and locked eyes with him for the first time since the robbery on the train.
“Where’s the rope?” Muttered her father who stormed off to cut a length from the spool in the back.
Mary’s arms drew goosebumps as she sensed he undoubtedly recognised her and leaned in, whispering into her ear “I believe you have something of mine”””
“As the smooth mahogany lid to the jewellery box opened, a dainty figurine of a ballerina emerged upwards from a hole in the centre of the box. She pirouetted gracefully as the tune of Für Elise played from within. Two side compartments lined with green velvet opened outwards to reveal her cherished trinkets scattered inside the base of the box. Mary gently brushed aside the items to reveal the shiny pistol with the ivory handle.
Shortly after picking up the pistol, she scurried back to her cabin and hid it under the mattress of the sleeper car. Mother had slept through the entire incident and eventually the whole thing became buried in the excitement of relocating to their new life.
Mary wrapped the pistol in a satin scarf and gently made her way downstairs draped in her woollen cloak, careful not to wake her father and mother. She walked out of their house and down the garden walkway when a tall dark figure of a man emerged and took her by the hand.
The back of her neck bristled as he leaned in and held her in a strong embrace. She had barely noticed he had taken the scarf wrapped pistol out of her hand. As their eyes met, Mary knew from this time on her life would never be the same again. That unsettling feeling in her stomach gave way to a sense of dangerous excitement and she leaned forward to kiss him.
“Take me with you, James””
“The wind rushed through Mary’s hair as her horse galloped across the open range. No sooner had they crossed Canadian border when the mounted police began their chase. Each gunshot that erupted from behind them sent a jolt down Mary’s spine. James galloped beside her on his white gelding shooting his pistol behind him to try to throw the Mounties horses off their gait.
As the Mounties gained ground, a flurry of thoughts ran through Mary’s mind of the whirlwind that had been the past 3 months.
Since Mary slunk off in the middle of the night to go with James and his gang, they had been riding across the country at night - away from the gaze of local authorities. James would leave her in a camp or cabin for a few days and come back with fresh loot and wounds to match. Though she never saw another train robbery herself, Mary knew in no uncertain terms what they were doing when they were gone.
Just as the danger grew, so too did her and James love for each other. His gentle voice and soft embrace as she patched his wounds at night gave Mary chills - both intoxicatingly scary chills as well as exhilarating ones. She had never felt as alive as when she was with him.
The shots from the Mounties’ pistols wizzed closer as they approached the crest of the prairie. As they went over the hill James forced his gelding across the front of Mary’s horse stopping them out of sight of the approaching Mounties. “Ride east and we will lead them west.” Shouted James. “No time to argue. Meet me in saint louis”
Without thinking, Mary drew hard on her reigns and pulled her horse westward as James his gang rode off into the distance eastwards. Smoke billowed from the pack of red coats chasing them as they seemed to gain on them.
Marys heart sank as the wind blew the tears off the corners of her eyes as she continued to ride off alone. Each trailing tear blew away just as quickly as the fleeting love she’d known with her mysterious train robber. His rusty voice rang through her ears over and over like the sound of the galloping mares hooves. “Meet me in Saint Louis.””
EPILOGUE
“On a brisk November afternoon Mrs. Mary Dalton of East Saint Louis strolled through the civic gardens with her two children, Benjamin Junior and Jemima.
Her husband was a well todo stock broker and was travelling to New York as he often does.
Their courtship had been brief and became seriously upon her return from a summer in London - or so she had told her parents how to account for her disappearance for three months. No one had any knowledge of her whereabouts during that time and she had rejoined saint Louis society seamlessly.
Mary’s life as a mother and socialite in Saint Louis finest family circles was gentle and care free. She spent much of her time doting over her children as an adoring mother and attending garden parties with her friends and their children.
On this occasion she was attending the birthday of one of her good friends Susanna McDonald and was walking through the civic garden when a familiar colour cloth caught her eye. She wandered over to tree in the middle of the garden and saw that it was a scarf tied to one of the lower branches of a small oak.
Her heart fluttered instantly and she let out an audible gasp. The last time she saw this scarf it was rolled up and taken out her hand with a pistol wrapped inside. “