INTRODUCTION
In a near-filled church, Conrad and Lydia Fitzgerald held hands while watching their youngest daughter Bella at the altar in the process of being married to Fergus McDuff.
The youngsters had met unromantically, being arrested for drunkenness. When they appeared in Court next morning they were let off by the Judge who probably remembered his own youth. Being first-offenders counted in their favor. Bella and Fergus had reunited outside the Court and grinning sheepishly they swapped telephone numbers.
Lydia was sorry that Bella, despite her romantic name, was a rebellious young woman and her idea of dressing up was to wear a fancy top with jeans.
Lydia's mind slipped back to the time when she was nineteen...
CHAPTER 1
"Girls, girls, this just will not do," Lorna Rush had said, clapping her hands. She looked at her three daughters but really focused on only two of them, Bess and Nell whom she thought would both have to work hard to find a husband. Lorna thought her youngster with long-flowing auburn hair looked like her, with high cheekbones, green eyes and a manner that seem to say, 'Hello world; here I am. Challenge me."
"Back to the bathroom Bess. Please brush your hair twenty times with your left hand and thirty times with your right hand and get your lipstick on straight."
The 22-year-old raven-headed beauty said, "Aw mom" but was ignored.
"Nell get out of those pants and skimpy shirt and into one of your best dresses. This could be a defining afternoon for one of you three lassies."
"Aw mom, why pick on Bess and me? Lydia with her fancy name and fancy ways is your pet."
"Whatever you say dear and you know it may or might not be the truth. You both can see your sister is beautifully dressed."
Bess said, "I can't understand why Lydia is included. I'm twenty-two and sexy Nell at twenty-six with her blonde enhanced hair will appeal to a young doctor who is twenty-eight. Lydia is still not out of her teens."
"I run a democratic house Bess and you know it. If anything is a matter of choice I always insist you three have equal rights of selection and if two or all three of you want the same thing it's decided by a toss of a coin. But in this case the young physician will choose."
"Come on Bess to the bathroom; I'm off to my wardrobe where I have nothing to wear. Mom get Miss Perfect to do those flowers... you know she does most things better than you."
"That's because she listens and is obedient Nell but that's an excellent idea. Re-arrange the flowers please Lydia and watch out in that white dress for pollen."
The Rush family lived in the small town of Magnum where the young women outnumbered by 5:1 the young men remaining in town.
Lorna, formerly Lorna Stewart of Kingussie, a small town in the heart of the Scottish highlands, knew what she had to do because her family lived in a district with a shortage of eligible men who had left after the demise of fishing to chase better work and better opportunities.
When Lorna turned nineteen her mother sent her to live with an aunt, a doctor's wife, in the town of Magnum in America. Lorna married their son Walter when he joined his father in the medical practice.
Now a generation on the problem of a lack of eligible men had revisited Lorna. She advertised in the newspaper in the city of Newton not too far away and requested contact from eligible men interested in marriage with three sisters to chose from aged nineteen to twenty-six.
A dozen responses had been expected. Lorna received eighty-four.
On Saturday when Walter was away fishing, she sat down with her daughters in the living room and read out the letters, the three girls being instructed to vote on each response.
The girls had opened the envelopes but left the contents unread.
Lorna drew the first one out and blushed and said, "Ohmigod."
Recovering she said, "You girls are well-educated and I have educated you even more at home to be worldly-aware and have allowed you to read literature no matter how depraved I suspected it might be."
"Yes mother," Nell the usual spokesperson for the girls said. She giggled, setting off the other two.
Lorna ignored them and read the first letter. Fearlessly she read the piece, 'I'd love to lube my hand and push it up the cunt of each one of you sisters with your entire family watching and I'd then call to a volunteer or volunteers to jerk me off'.
Lorna watched approvingly as her daughters who'd been laughing so much they were dabbing their eyes. Now was that a sign of maturity or was it what?
Almost half the responses were almost as disgusting as the first one. By the time Lorna picked up the thirty-first letter the girls had twice voted she continue reading. Eight of the letters had received votes, three of them gaining three votes.
That thirty-first letter was out on its own, the writer saying he'd had an extensive education and had lost contact with most women from his younger days and he'd been unable to find an acceptable female who was pretty, graceful, caring and possessed a calm and considered outlook on life.
"That's us," Bess said.
"Yes indeed," Lorna said, flicking a glance at Lydia that was too quick for her daughters to spot.
"Good gracious, what university did he attend," Lydia laughed and Bess said a med school for deprived children.
But there was something about that letter and all three voted for it and when it was decided to select the best three of the eleven letters with three votes and invite the men to visit them, that most favored writer, who'd signed himself as Dr Conrad Fitzgerald, was the first to respond and said he could come on Saturday.
"I really don't think someone with that name comes from a deprived childhood," said Lorna. "He's provided a phone number so I'll call him."
On Saturday at 2:00 a guy in a white suit and wearing black sunglasses drove a red Italian sports car drove up to the house.
"Ohmigod, he's mine even if he has a hairy chest," Nell cooed.
"Out the way bitch; he's mine," Bess challenged. "You'd be better off with the guy who lubes his hand."
"Girls," Lorna said mildly. "You are ladies, remember."
Lorna brought in the tall, slim and quite good-looking guy.
"Conrad these are my daughters."
"Wow."
Lorna smiled. "This is Nell who is twenty-six with a nursing degree and is a hospital theater nurse. Next to her is Bess, aged twenty-two, who is big into sport and horse riding and manages the women's fashion department in the emporium in our small town. And beyond her is Lydia, aged nineteen in her first year studying advertising at college and she does most things well."
"I hadn't really known what to expect Mrs Rush. If you don't mind my saying this arrangement seemed so quaint that it intrigued me. Having said that I expected to find three daughters who were, um, let's say less than generally socially acceptable. Instead what I find is an almost dazzling line-up."
"Thank you Conrad. Well expressed."
"Bess do you ski?"
"Yes I manage to stay upright."
"My daughters love to tease Conrad. Last year Bess was State runner-up champion in the female giant slalom. Look why don't you sit with Bess in the snug and after talking to her for a while you might like to talk to one or both other girls?"
"Yes, great idea."
When Conrad had finished Lorna sent the girls out for a walk and poured coffee.
