Love's First Bloom (32 page)

Jake ran a hand through his hair. “Can you stay for a while or do you have to get back to the ship?”

Capt. Grant looked out the window and shrugged. “It’s already dark. I’ve got about five minutes, maybe less if the fool waiting for me in that dinghy out there takes one more swig from that bottle of hard cider I bought for myself. So speak fast and don’t dawdle on details.”

Jake cleared his throat. He probably needed a good hour, just to lay a proper foundation before he could ask this man to help him make the right choice. With only five minutes, he had to go straight to the core of his dilemma, but had difficulty choosing the right words. “What matters more? A man’s principles? Or his work? Or … or his—”

“Or his heart?” The older man chuckled for a moment, but when he turned to face Jake, his expression was sober. “If a man has the right principles, he invariably chooses the right work to do. His heart will lead him to the one woman who will help him to be true to both.” He walked to the door and opened it.

Looking back over his shoulder, he smiled. “Perhaps you might consider a more important question that makes all the others seem irrelevant: What could possibly matter to any man if he spends even a single day of his life without serving God? Answer that question correctly, and you won’t have any trouble knowing what to do. He’ll show you.” Then the captain walked out the door and closed it behind him.

Dumbfounded, Jake could not move a muscle. By the time he recovered his wits and rushed out of the cabin to the shore of the river, the captain and the dinghy, along with the seaman at the oars, had all but disappeared into the darkness. He waited until he could no longer hear the oars swiping through the water before he turned and started walking along the shoreline.

The air outside was warm, but it was a far sight cooler than the heat in the cabin. He fumed as he walked. When he grew weary of his anger, and his disappointment that Capt. Grant had left him to ponder such a provocative question, he walked over to the bench he had built for Ruth and found that pesky turkey sitting there.

Annoyed, he shooed it off and sat down, then became even more annoyed when the bird decided to stand a few feet away watching him, as if ready to reclaim its spot when he left. He had built this bench to encourage her to visit her garden more often or to stay longer when she did. She had never returned to use it, not even once, but he hardly wanted the bench to end up as a place for that turkey to roost. He glared at the bird, getting only a few squawks for his effort, and dismissed it as far too inconsequential to worry about when he had his future, as well as Ruth’s, to ponder.

As Grant’s words echoed over and over again in his mind, he looked up at the night sky. Thick clouds obscured any view of the moon and the stars, yet he knew they were there. He had seen the sun disappear at sunset more times than he could remember, but he never doubted that the sun would return to shine light upon the world the next day.

Yet somehow, in his search for success and his need to prove himself to his brother and the world itself, he had lost sight of His Creator and had doubted Him more often than not. He had forgotten to faithfully love and serve the very God who had created the moon and the stars and the sun, and more important, the God who had created him.

Humbled, Jake grew desperate for the redemption of not his career but his very soul. Bowing his head, he prayed, truly prayed like he had done as a child: with a faith that was strong enough to resist the temptations of this world, a heart that was open to the wonders of His love and the power of His mercy, and a spirit yearning to serve Him and Him alone. He prayed exactly the way Capt. Grant had encouraged him to do each time he had given him one of the seashells stored now in his trunk, seashells bleached white by the sun, just as the stains of his sins had been bleached white by God’s grace when he asked for God’s forgiveness.

When he was done, when his heart and his soul were completely at peace with God for the first time in many, many years, it was not the image of his brother that flashed through Jake’s mind.

It was the image of Ruth. The grief she hid behind her smile. The tiny freckles sprinkling the bridge of her nose that crinkled when she laughed. Her small hands holding Lily’s hand as they walked together down the sandy path toward her garden or the planked sidewalk on Main Street. And her eyes. Her beautiful, haunting, soulful eyes, sparkling up at him when she told him he was a prize at the Fourth of July celebration—eyes that simmered with emotion just before she closed them to kiss him.

And it was not the echo of his brother’s voice that he heard, either. It was Ruth’s voice, echoing the challenge of holding true to principles like truth and honor while reporting the news, and having the strength to resist the public’s thirst for scandal that overwhelmed the rights of innocent people caught on the fringes of that scandal and victimized.

Principles he had once embraced just as passionately as she did, before his ambition had blinded him.

Innocent people like Ruth. And Lily, the most innocent victim, and the one who would be hurt the greatest if he chose to write the article Clifford expected him to produce and deliver by week’s end.

Thirty-Three

“There’s still hope. She’s no better, but she’s no worse.”

Ruth sat by Phanaby’s bedside at midmorning on Tuesday, her spirit clinging to Dr. Woodward’s parting words an hour ago and her faith in God resting in endless silent prayers she said for Phanaby’s recovery. Her heart was still heavy with disappointment that she had not been able to respond to Jake’s note to let him know that she would not be able to meet him at her garden at dawn today or any morning until Eldridge Porter left the village, but the tiny blue flower he had picked from her garden and left with his note was pinned to her collar.

When Phanaby grew restless and stirred awake, she took the woman’s hand very carefully to calm her and tried not to disturb the bandages on her arm that covered the several places where Dr. Woodward had bled her.

“Elias?”

“He’s downstairs with Lily in the apothecary. Would you like me to get him for you?”

Phanaby tried to moisten her cracked lips with her tongue, but shook her head instead of voicing her answer.

“Drink some more tea. Dr. Woodward seems to think it’s helping you,” she urged. She managed to get the woman to drink nearly half a cup of tea, and she was pleased how little of the dark liquid had trickled out of the corners of her mouth before Phanaby pushed Ruth’s hand away.

“Please,” she whispered and weakly pointed to the dresser where the wooden chest was sitting next to the oil lamp.

Ruth furrowed her brow. “Would you like me to light the lamp?” she asked, fearful that Phanaby’s vision had been affected, because the natural light in the room was quite sufficient to see, even with the curtains drawn.

Phanaby closed her eyes for a moment as if trying to garner the energy she needed to speak. After she opened her eyes again, she managed to say one word: “Chest.”

“You want me to bring you the chest?” Ruth asked, certain she had misunderstood, since Phanaby had reacted so strongly when she had merely moved the chest to dust the top of the dresser some weeks ago.

A single nod.

Still confused, Ruth retrieved the ornately carved wooden chest. It was a bit bulky to carry with one hand, but it was light, and she wondered what type of sentimental keepsakes Phanaby had stored inside.

Phanaby’s eyes widened, and the fever-bright glaze to her eyes grew brighter still once Ruth placed the chest on the bed. “Would you like me to open it for you?” Ruth asked, but the lid refused to lift, and she barely took note of the keyhole when Phanaby lifted one of her hands, reached out, and flipped the chest over before collapsing back onto her pillows again.

Ruth separated the key on the bottom of the chest from something that looked like red sealing wax and slid the key into the keyhole. Before she could turn the key, Phanaby placed a hand on top of Ruth’s to stop her. Once again she closed her eyes, and it was a good bit of time before she opened them again. When she spoke, her voice was barely a whisper and her words were clumped together in phrases, although they were clear and plainly uttered. “I received that chest … from Reverend Livingstone … several days before … you arrived,” she said and paused to rest for a moment. “Open the chest… . His note to me is lying … right on top.”

Ruth’s fingers trembled as she unlocked the chest. With the key still in the keyhole, she lifted the lid, praying she might also find a letter inside that her father had written to her. With one glance, her hopes soared. A stack of papers was piled neatly inside the chest.

Once she lifted the small note lying on top, she saw the faded green ribbon that tied the rest of the papers together. With her heart throbbing in her throat, she unfolded the note, which was dated two days before she had left, and read it silently:

My dearest daughter-in-faith,

Within days, Capt. Grant will bring to you Widow Malloy and the precious child entrusted to her care, whom she can now claim openly as her own, precisely as planned. Circumstances dictate that I must send this chest to you immediately, and I trust you will guard it well until she arrives and can guard it herself.

With faith in His wisdom and mercy,

GL

Blinking back tears, she ran her fingers over the words her father had written and rested her fingertips on the fancy initials her father used for personal correspondence, as well as the notes he would leave for her if he left the house in the morning before she woke up. She was not certain she understood his message entirely, but the date alone told her that he had sent this wooden chest to her and not to Rosalie Peale, who had already been murdered by the time he had written the note.

“He meant this wooden chest for me,” she murmured. Although she was highly anxious to read the other letters her father had stored inside, she wondered even more why Phanaby had not followed her father’s wishes and given the chest to Ruth months ago when she first arrived. She looked to Phanaby for the answer, but found the woman was weeping silently, with her hands steepled at her waist, lying on top of the sheets that covered her.

“Forgive me,” Phanaby whispered. “Please … forgive me.”

Ruth swallowed the lump in her throat. “I forgive you. Just tell me why you waited so long to give this to me. Please tell me why.”

She had to wait a good while until Phanaby stopped crying, then waited even longer before the woman found either the courage or the energy to answer. When she finally did begin to speak, Ruth leaned closer to capture every softly spoken word.

“Please don’t blame Elias. He … he thinks it’s mine … He doesn’t know the chest belongs … to you.”

“I’m not fixing blame on anyone,” Ruth insisted. “Just tell me why you never did what my fa … Reverend Livingstone asked you to do until now.”

Phanaby’s bottom lip trembled. “Those first few days were so hectic … you seemed so … overwhelmed, and Lily was so fussy… .” She stopped to draw in several shallow breaths of air. “Once we all … settled in together … I kept putting it off because … because I was afraid … so afraid,” she whispered and closed her eyes.

When she appeared to be drifting off to sleep again, Ruth took her hand. “What made you so afraid?” she whispered.

Phanaby sighed, and she did not open her eyes when she started to speak again. “I was afraid you’d read something inside … take Lily and leave us … We’d both come to … love the two of you so much … I didn’t want you to go.”

Ruth understood now why Phanaby had been so upset when she had found Ruth holding the chest while she had been dusting. “Then why give me the chest now?” she asked, although she had a good idea of the answer she would receive.

“I’m afraid … I’m not going to get well … and you’d never know … the secret I’d been keeping from you.”

Ruth smoothed the woman’s troubled brow, alarmed by how warm she was, and wiped away her tears. “Shhh. Rest now. Just rest,” she said.

Ruth stayed by Phanaby’s side until the poor woman finally drifted off to sleep, without telling her that as soon as she recovered, the fear that had driven her to keep her secret would become real. As much as Ruth wanted to stay, she knew she had no choice but to take Lily and leave. Even if by some miracle the reporter from the
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left empty-handed, another reporter would appear in the village sooner or later and threaten the life and the love they had found here. That reporter would pose a threat to the life Elias and Phanaby enjoyed here, too.

Unless by some miracle there was something within the wooden chest that would allow them both to stay.

Thirty-Four