Lily of the Valley

Chapter 2

Chapter Two - New York City, New York, 1892

Jasper Connelly brushed off some dust from his coat and tails and hopped off of his personal horse-and-carriage and onto the front porch of his large Victorian mansion. He smoothed back his golden brown hair that curled just under his ears and smiled, lighting up his whole face, including his light green eyes.

"Hello, mother." He said, kissing his mother, Georgina Connelly, on the top of her head, as he towered over her with his height of over six feet.

"Hello, Jasper. How was work, my dear?" Georgina asked in her refined, New Yorker accent.

"Fine. Father decided to stay for a bit and clean up some mess with some settlements, but other than that, it was a good day." Jasper replied, referring to the bank business. His father owned Connelly Bank, and Jasper has been working with him so as to take over the business in a couple of years.

"Now, are you packed and ready to go on the weekend?"

"Mother, I'm not sure this is the best time. More people are starting to move into the city, so the bank had been getting a lot of new clients. Business is booming, and I don't think I can abandon father at a time this busy." Jasper said for what must have been the hundredth time. Georgina was asking if he was packed and ready to go to the dusty southern town of Stockard Valley in North Carolina, where his father grew up. Jasper's parents wanted him to meet and marry some daughter of some friends of fathers, but Jasper wasn't sure he was ready to marry a girl he hadn't met.

"Oh, you're father has been running the business on his own for over thirty years. He will be fine for a few weeks. You need to go meet the girl and start planning the wedding until your father and I can join you in a few weeks." Georgina and Jasper's father, Samuel, wouldn't be going to Stockard Valley until a few days before the wedding. Jasper was on his own, and he felt the loneliness envelop him as he stomped upstairs and began to pack, feeling nervous and scared for the coming weekend and his coming journey.