Arms of Love (35 page)

“Adam Wyse? ’Tis good to see you. God has sent you to me for mercy’s sake, and also to save me a bit of postage.”

“Where are you going?”

“Home,” Dale said. “Home to England and out of this forsaken land—my apologies. My father has somehow arranged a buy-out of my service and imprisonment, and it is one thing for which I cannot fault the old gentleman, for I long to see my wife and children. But you, you I will miss.” He indicated a velvet upholstered chair. “Please, sit down.”

Adam sat, wondering if he should tell his friend of his own plans. He gazed about the luxurious room, and his eyes lit on a side table. He rose again, drawn with surprise to the incredible workmanship in carved wood that he saw. Children’s toys, a perfectly round ball of cedar, a clock case, all standing beautiful and poignant among tools and curled shavings of wood.

“This is your work?” he asked in wonder.

“Aye.” Dale chuckled, pausing in his packing to come and join Adam at the table. “ ’Tis been time on my hands that bids me back to my boyhood dream to be a wood-carver. Father had other plans for a son, though. Only the military would do.”

Adam fingered the curve of the small clock case. “Your father was wrong.”

“Indeed, I believe he was. But no matter. Here.” Dale handed him a chain of carved links. “I had planned to send it to you.”

Adam held the smooth wood, admiring the strong curves and tangle. He could not see how the carving had been done to chain the links together without seeming end or beginning.

“It’s remarkable.”

“It is for you, Adam Wyse, carved from a single block of wood.”

“It is perfect, but surely your children—”

Dale turned to face him fully. “ ’Tis no toy, never meant to be. It is the chain that holds you, that enwraps your heart and mind, perhaps your very soul.”

Adam stared at him, frantically shuffling through their times together to see what he might have said or done to expose his true self to the other man.

Dale smiled. “It is the Lord who has revealed this to me. And now bids me tell you that it is He Himself who is revolutionary . . . not this heavy war, nor the stand you take. Nor the one I imagine that you are about to take. Going to fight, probably got your possessions bundled up like some boy on the run. Do not, Adam. Know instead that it is only God who can change the heart, who can even change the past.”

Adam stood, holding the chain, thumbing the initials
AW
that had been burnt into the wood. His heart stirred.

“Keep the chain as a reminder that personal freedom does not have to come at a cost you cannot bear. Our Lord has paid the cost, and freedom waits for you if you will but ask.”

Adam sighed, turning the links between his fingers. “I have asked, for years now. And always I am met by this darkness that holds me.”

“Perhaps you do not ask aright,” Dale said.

Adam stared at him, feeling his heart begin to pound. “What do you mean?”

“Ask . . . with your father in mind.”

“My father, but why . . . ?”

Dale shrugged, then clapped him on the shoulder. “Again, the Lord convicts, and I but speak. Think on it, my friend.” He dropped his hand and began to scoop up the carved toys.

Adam helped him to pack, then faced his friend once more.

“I will think on all you’ve said.”

“Good. Well, until we meet again, Adam Wyse.”

“Ya . . . fare thee well.” Adam returned the hug of goodwill and had a sudden wish that he might have shared the past few minutes with Lena.

He bowed his head as he left the room, the chain clutched tightly in his hand. He stood still for a moment in the dark of the staircase. “
With your father in mind
. . .” It didn’t seem to make sense. Perhaps all of Dale’s suggestions were but the talk of an enthusiastic man, giddy with relief at going home. Yet something convicted Adam’s heart, made him go over his friend’s words again and again. “
With your father in mind
. . . ”

Lena couldn’t sleep. She thirsted for a drink of the cooled cinnamonspiced cider that was in a small wooden keg in the kitchen. She bit her lip as she eased from the bed, intent on not waking up Abby. Then she pulled on a housedress over her nightgown, should the bishop awake and find her traipsing about the house in the predawn.

She tiptoed in bare feet across the wood floor and turned the notch on the cider keg, filling a pewter cup.

“A bit of that would be most welcome, my child.”

Lena jumped at the sound of Bishop Mast’s cheerful voice, and some of the cider splashed out of her cup and over her hand. She glanced toward the low-embered fire to see the old man sitting up on his elbows, a smile on his face.

“Of course.” She hastened to wipe her hands and fill another cup, then hurried to take it to him. He had moved into one of the rocking chairs and gestured to the other chair.

“Would you join me, Lena?”

She did not want to, having felt that she had wrestled and won a victory in the orchard with the Lord’s help. She knew that Bishop Mast had a way of turning life matters upside down. Yet it would be rude to refuse. She fetched her cup and sat down on the edge of the rocker, curling her bare toes into a crack in the floor.

“I remember when you were eleven, like young John is now,” the old man said, stroking his beard and staring into the jewel-like coals of the fireplace.

She smiled. “It seems long ago, yet not in a way. So much has changed.”

“Your
mamm
was a fine woman, Lena.”

“I fancy that she still is.” She bit her lip, wondering if she sounded irreverent, but the bishop laughed in agreement.

“’Tis true as the pines stand, child. But then—you are child no longer, hmm? Soon to marry . . . make a new life, in a new home. The Deacon Wyse can be a stern man, I believe. Have you thought of how you will cope with this new household?”

Lena breathed a silent sigh of relief. At least he wasn’t discussing Isaac or Adam.

“I expect I’ll adapt. And the distance between the farms is not so difficult to traverse.”

“
Ach
, but there is distance of land, and then the distance of the heart.”

She felt the ground of the conversation begin to slide from beneath her feet and wondered if she might take her cider back to bed.

“
Ya
,” Bishop Mast went on, almost to himself. “Sometimes we can be close on one level and worlds apart on another. I once met a man and wife up in the mountains who had divided their cabin straight down the middle with a bit of chalk. He lived on one side and she on the other. Made for an inconvenience getting in and out of the door, but there you have it.”

Lena had to smile. “Really?”

“
Ya
, ’tis true. So I wonder what lines of division will lie in your own marriage, my dear?”

She clutched her cup tighter. “You jest with me. Surely there are no divisions early on in a marriage?”

“
Ach
, but that’s the romantic idea of marriage. Everyone who lives together in marriage must find some matters to work out at first—the chores, the
kinner
. . .”

Lena closed her eyes briefly against the image of carrying Isaac’s child. How could she do it? Always looking into little dark eyes and expecting them to be gold? Always wondering where Adam was, if he were safe, alive even . . .

“I trouble you, Lena?”

She met his eyes squarely. “Ya. You are wise with the grace of Gott, Bishop Mast, and as you have said, ’tis been long since you have known me. You should know that I agreed to marry Isaac to please my father, but that I love Adam, his
bruder
.”

“Adam Wyse—who would enlist when the time is right? Hmm?”

“
Ya
. I cannot take such a risk with my heart, a risk to lose him to the war. I have lost my
mamm
. The other would be too much.”

“Real love is always too much, Lena, and always a risk.”

“I will not be swayed.”

“You say that you marry to please your
fater
, but do you, I wonder, please your heavenly Father in the process?”

“Of course,” she said, fiercely pressing her toes into the wood of the floor.

“Well, then . . . you choose aright. And that is that. I think I shall retire now, my dear. Thank you for the drink and the talk.”

He extended his empty cup to her, and she took it reluctantly, somehow wishing he might continue, might push her further. She felt churned up and awake inside. But the man had already closed his eyes, and by the time she had cleaned the dishes she could hear his faint snore.

Chapter 31

R
uth burped Mary in the early light of dawn, then moved to watch Lena’s confident and quick movements about the kitchen.

“What are you making?”

“Pretzel soup. You crush the pretzels and add them to a boiling kettle of butter, flour, milk, and water. Then you add salt and pepper.

It’s very hearty.”

Ruth sniffed. “Sounds thick to me.”

“
Ya
, it is.”

Ruth put the babe in the cradle. “Well, you’re movin’ so fast this morn, dearie, that I can hardly catch up. What would you like me to do?”

Lena gestured with her chin to the outdoor bake oven through the window. “If you would, Ruth, go and check on the cookies. I made some horse shapes for the
kinner
and in honor of the Wyse farm. They should be nearly done.”

Ruth left to comply, feeling the moistness of the dew on the grass round her ankles. She so wanted the “paint frolic,” as everyone seemed to call it, to be a success for John, but it left little time to think about the wedding. She wondered what she should wear and, lost in thought, burned her fingers on the cookie sheet as she entered the bake oven house.

She let out a yelp and put the fingers to her lips when a strong hand caught her wrist.

“Allow me, my dear,” Samuel said in a hoarse voice. Ruth blinked at him when he put her fingertips to his lips and slowly kissed the burns.

“Any better?” he asked after a few delicious moments.

Ruth could only nod.

“You should be more careful with these hands, Ruth. They are beautiful to me.”

“These? Red and rough,” she said.