Four Seasons of Romance

Four Seasons of
Romance

Rachel Remington

Table of Contents

Prologue

Part
One: Spring

The
First Interlude

Part
Two: Summer

The
Second Interlude

Part
Three: Fall

The
Third Interlude

Part
Four: Winter

They say every good town has a river running through it but
that no river runs alone. That’s certainly the case in Woodsville. The
Connecticut River runs straight through the heart of the town, calm and
straight as a deep blue arrow, but just before the old covered bridge, it
shoots off into the
Ammonoosuc
, frothy as a hem of
fine lace. The rivers intertwine like two lovers holding hands, their fingers
laced together, knuckles pure white with love, which is only fitting because what
you’re about to hear is a love story.

If you walk a few paces to the east of the crossing, you
find yourself staring at the Bath-Haverhill Bridge. It’s dusty, muted red—the
color of a heart that’s seen a few good breakings— the oldest covered bridge in
New Hampshire, the records state.

But if you grew up from youth in Woodsville, then you
wouldn’t go for the history. You’d know the bridge as the perfect place to
steal away with your sweetheart and a picnic basket on a sleepy summer day.
There, surrounded by a pitcher of fresh lemonade and cucumber sandwiches, she
might let you lay a hand on her freckled arm. And if you were feeling
particularly lucky, emboldened by the water coursing strong beneath your feet,
you just might hazard a quick peck on her creamy white cheek.

Life was good in Woodsville back in those days. The Boston,
Concord & Montreal Railroad brought enough commerce to keep the townspeople
fed and informed. They were happy on an island of tranquility, floating along a
slow-moving stream despite the cold winds of the Depression. The hard times
gave the residents—all 750 of them—a reason to come together. Indeed, that time
was chockfull of life-transforming stories… but none quite like the story of
Catherine and Leo.

A good love story’s much like a river—it twists and
bends,
ebbs and flows. Frankly, sometimes, it’s a real mess.
The rivers in Woodsville were lazy in the warmer months but violent during the
rainy season. When a family lost a child to the river’s wrath, the Woodsville
minister would press the Bible to his chest and preach from the pulpit on
love’s redeeming power—a familiar theme for Catherine and Leo.

Like any veritable force of nature, the rivers could be
downright tumultuous. Leo and Catherine were the spitting image of each other,
passionate as a summer thunderstorm. Sometimes, things seemed warm and sunny,
but for many years, trouble brewed in the depths.

Woodsville birthed its share of famous baseball players,
prominent businessmen, and wholesome regular folk. One could tell a dozen yarns
of decent people, fine tales of love and hope, attainment and transformation,
but no story from Woodsville comes close to the one you’re about to hear.

In the gentle spring of 1935, Leopold Taylor first laid eyes
on Catherine Woods and their journey began. Theirs was a love that coursed
strong and dangerous, eternal and eternally unpredictable. It’s a story of
love, but not a perfect love story; the good ones never are.

Neither Catherine nor Leo imagined the first spark igniting
a fire that would burn for more than seventy years—a fire that neither the
Connecticut River nor the
Ammonoosuc
River could wash
away. A fire that went through the pouring rains to burn until Catherine and
Leo took their last breaths. And while they are both gone, the flame that
fueled their hearts is not extinguished. It burns on in each of us through this
story—
forever
.

The sky was a flawless blue that warm April morning. Spring
in Woodsville came quickly on the heels of winter, and that day was the warmest
day of the year so far, though that wasn’t saying much. Through most of March,
the schoolchildren wore thick wool long johns under their clothes and the
little red schoolhouse was as cold and drafty as an attic and just as dusty.

When it came to schooling, the good citizens of Woodsville
didn’t have many options. There were no fancy highbrow institutions, no
boarding schools and prep academies like there are today. The town had two
schools: one red brick elementary for the first through seventh grades, and one
brown brick high school for eighth through twelfth.

Catherine and Leo first met at the little red schoolhouse.
On that beautiful day, the wildflowers were slowly beginning to emerge—the
lilies, the trillium, the violets, the milkweed, the columbine, and the
black-eyed
Susans
. The snow was gone; the rivers were
high; and the sun lingered long hours in the evening sky.

Because children came from many miles to learn reading and
arithmetic in Woodsville, there were enough children for two fourth-grade
classes that year; something the headmaster told them when the Taylors moved to
Woodsville and went to enroll their young son Leo. So, there was a fifty-fifty
chance that Leo would not wind up in the same classroom as Catherine, a
fifty-fifty chance this love story would never have found its footing beneath
blackboards and composition books. The odds, however, were in their favor that
brisk April morning.

Catherine looked up from her book as the headmaster lumbered
into the classroom. He was a strange-looking man with a beard like a wedge of
watermelon on his chin. The children called him Master Melon behind his back.
But Catherine didn’t notice the beard that morning, noticing the slender
dark-haired boy at his side instead.

“Students,” Dr. Ayers drawled in his nasally voice, “
we
have a new student joining us this morning. I hope you’ll
all be ambassadors of Woodsville Elementary in welcoming…” He checked the paper
he was holding, “Leopold Ellis Taylor, Jr., recently moved from Littleton, New
Hampshire.”

“Leo,” the boy said. “It’s just Leo.”

The headmaster scowled at Leo over his glasses, unhappy with
the interruption. “Very well, Leo. You may take a seat.”

Leo shot like a dart toward the first open seat he could
find, which happened to be the desk behind Miss Catherine herself. The
headmaster stomped out of the room. No sooner had he left than Arthur
Yarger
tripped in with his satchel stuffed to the brim with
books.

Now, Arthur might as well have had a “kick me” sign painted
right in the middle of his forehead. He was a scrawny boy, permanently disabled
from polio. An easy butt for the kids’ jokes, Arthur wore Coke-bottle glasses
and spoke in a high-pitched voice.

That morning, as he stumbled into class, Catherine saw right
away what was about to happen. To get to his desk, Arthur had to go right past
Thomas McCaffrey and that was unfortunate for two reasons. The first was that
Arthur’s book satchel was yawning wide open—he hadn’t strapped it very tightly.
The second was that Tom was the biggest bully in the school.

“Arthur!” Catherine called, trying to warn him, but it was
too late. Thomas casually stuck his foot into the aisle, and Arthur went
flying. The boy and his avalanche of books thudded to the floor as Thomas and
his cronies snickered.

Catherine was by Arthur’s side in seconds, taking his hand
and helping him to his feet. His eyes were full of tears, and his chin was
banged up from the fall as she dabbed at the scrape with her handkerchief.

“It’s okay,” she said softly, gathering his scattered books.
“You’re a bigger man than he’ll ever be.” Gently, she helped Arthur to his
desk.

She glared at Tom as she returned to her seat. Although
Catherine was petite, she was a force to be dealt with when angry, her green
eyes flashing, and her freckles standing out against her pale skin.

“You think you’re so clever, Thomas McCaffrey,” she hissed,
“but you’re a coward through and through.” She plunked herself down at her desk
just as the fourth-grade teacher appeared in the classroom doorway. 

If Leo hadn’t noticed Catherine when he first sat, he
noticed her now. He couldn’t take his eyes off her as Catherine felt his gaze
boring into her back and straightened her posture in response. She already felt
flushed from her confrontation with Thomas, and the attention from the new kid
only made it worse, forcing her to sit so straight her spine felt like the
yellow pencil lying in the groove on her desk.

The teacher welcomed Leo and picked up the lesson where he
left off, but Leo was oblivious, busy sizing up the brave girl in front of him.
Her long brown hair cascaded down her shoulders, glossy as the toffee Leo’s
mother used to make, grace and strength infusing her every move. Something
about her presence reminded him of the home he never had; he was in love before
she ever turned around.

Leo knew her freckled face with those green eyes burning,
the calm and level courage in her voice. And he knew he would spend this
lifetime with her, God willing. Leopold Taylor was ten, but he knew exactly
what he wanted.

Meanwhile, Catherine tried her
darndest
to pretend the boy in the seat behind her didn’t exist, not daring turn around
once in her seat. She hadn’t meant to draw attention to herself that morning,
but she had. Now, she felt like an object of the new boy’s curiosity, and she
didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of being curious back. Besides, she’d
seen enough of his looks and demeanor to know he came from a different world,
noting the dark curls that fell into his eyes and over his ears. She could hear
her father now.
“What kind of boy has hair that long?
Certainly
not a respectable one.”

Even at nine, Catherine prided herself on understanding the
ways of the world very clearly, and she had a good hunch that Leo didn’t come from
a proper family, which meant a lot in a town like Woodsville.

 “Hey,” Leo whispered. “
Pssst
.
Hey, pretty girl!”

Catherine stretched her spine again, determined not to give
in to the temptation to swivel around and tell him to
please be quiet.

“I made you something,” he said. “Don’t you want to see it?”

I most certainly do not
, she thought; though in
truth, she was curious.

She made it through the rest of arithmetic class, having to
wipe her sleeve across her writing tablet and starting from zero since her
simple addition was a mess. Thanks to the new boy, she couldn’t focus on a
thing.

Catherine made a point to ignore him at recess, playing with
her friends on the monkey bars, eyeing him slyly ever so often as he sat on the
schoolhouse steps where he had fashioned a piece of chalk out of an old rock.
Several other children, including poor Arthur
Yarger
,
gathered around and watched as he drew all manners of animals and castles on
the sidewalk. Even from far away, she could tell that they were impressed with
the new kid’s handiwork, but she kept a safe distance.

As the students lined up to go back inside after recess, Leo
filed in line behind Catherine. “You should see the clay sculptures I made,” he
said, Catherine pretending not to hear.

When she returned home that afternoon and unloaded the
schoolbooks from her satchel she noticed a small piece of clay fall to the
floor. Suspicious of what it might be, she pinched it between her thumb and
forefinger as if it were a thing diseased.

It was a tiny clay figurine, hard to determine what form it
conveyed—it had gotten a little smashed in her bag—but she guessed it was a
black-eyed Susan.
That
boy must have stuck it in my bag when I wasn’t
looking
, Catherine reasoned, angered by the intimacy of the gesture.