Promise Me This (26 page)

“She’d be a fool not to come,” Daniel said as though that decided it.

“Well, she wouldn’t be the first girl who—oh, Daniel, she sent his letter back unopened.”

“Maggie, Maggie Allen.” Daniel shook his head. “You’ve got to stop playing matchmaker.”

“I’m not playing matchmaker, Daniel McKenica! I’m simply trying to help Michael! Annie has the Spragues, but Michael has only us.”

“Let the boy be. Let nature take her course. It will all come right in the end.”

“You didn’t read her letter. She said not one word about Michael but sounds ever so happy now that she’s tending the gardens her father started. Her spirits are lifting.”

“It’s natural. Gardening is in the Allen blood. It’s good and gladsome, a healing thing. You know that. What did you expect?”

“I just don’t want to see Michael hurt. It’s almost as though he’s falling in love with her, possessed with the idea of bringing her here.” Maggie shook her head and sighed. “What am I saying? He’s only sixteen years old, and he’s never met her face to face! I am a goose, but I won’t tell him she returned his letter!”

“Nay, lass. You’re not a goose. You’re a good and wise woman. Michael is living for and would die for Annie, though he may not say it in those words. He’s in love with the idea of her, and I’m thinking ’tis not only to do with his promise to Owen. Whether or not she’ll look his way is another thing. She’s been raised in the golden mansion. It’s hard to know if she’ll find farming to her liking. But you must let things lie—don’t vex yourself. They’ll come out as they’re meant to. Your fretting will not help them either way.”

Maggie sighed. “Daniel McKenica, that’s got to be the longest string of words I’ve ever heard tumble from your mouth. Sometimes I don’t know whether to hug you or throw you out.”

He raised his brows, picked up his paper, and smiled behind it.

Weary and thirsty, Michael stepped inside the kitchen door for a glass of milk, just in time to hear Aunt Maggie’s and Daniel’s every word. “I’m not in love with her—nor the idea of her,” Michael swore beneath his breath. “Annie’s a sister to me because I promised Owen. I promised him! And I won’t fail him. I failed Megan Marie—I didn’t keep watch; I didn’t stand guard. But I’ll not fail Annie.”

Annie loved receiving Aunt Maggie’s warm and lively letters—until her most recent one.

Aunt Maggie knew about flower gardening, more than Annie herself. She understood the joy and beauty of flowers and herbs, considered the importance of cutting gardens planted purely for bouquets meant for tables and live wreaths, as well as those for drying. She appreciated the graceful layout of paths and sitting areas in a garden’s design. She understood the significance of texture and fragrance, of hues and colors arranged, and of flowers and shrubs rotating through their seasons—beauty from a woman’s point of view. There was no one in England with whom Annie knew to share such joys.

In her last letter Aunt Maggie had enclosed a sketch of Allen’s Run Gardens in New Jersey. It was crude; Aunt Maggie was not artistic on paper. But Annie was surprised and delighted by the new layouts of winding paths amid themed gardens. In some places they mirrored the gardens of Hargrave House. Certainly more expansive. Some large areas were cultivated for rest and beauty, some for cutting, efficiency, and productivity. In a few spots Annie sensed a whimsy she’d not imagined from her aunt and uncle, and she had written, questioning the newer designs.

Aunt Maggie’s responding letter rang with laughter, at least at first:

I should say not! Your uncle Sean was not the creative one of the Allen brothers. Your own da took the lion’s share of that—even as a youngster before he left Ireland. Hardworking as the day is long, my Sean was, but you’d think he was more German than Irish in his long, straight rows and rigid, sharp corners. He ran our gardens as a well-oiled machine.

I’m sorry to say he hadn’t the necessary strength once his heart gave way—nor did he always seem to know what it was our customers craved. But the gardens are changing. For the first time in many years, I hold hope for our gardens—hope for our home, hope that we will be able to offer to share it with you, sweet Annie, in another year’s time—if you are ready and wanting to come.

Your brother designed the new gardens I sketched for you—at least many of them. Michael delivered the drawings Owen had placed in his charge, and Daniel and Michael have made them a reality.

When Michael landed on our doorstep, I did not know if he would live, let alone become the strapping young man and the great help that he is. He is doing all he can to stabilize our business and to raise money for your passage and living expenses. He promised Owen he would work to bring you here, you know.

You should know that I was the one who urged Michael to write you. He feared that you would not want to hear from him, but I assured him that his letters would do you good. I reminded him that the two of you share a natural love for gardening and a great love for Owen. I was certain you would want to hear from someone who loved your brother and who Owen held dear.

Perhaps I was wrong. Still, it was not necessary for you to return his letter.

I’ve come to love Michael as the son I’ve never borne, my dear. I hope, in time, that you will be able to forgive him for living. He did not take Owen’s place; Owen insisted upon and secured Michael’s safety—for him, for your future, for all of us. Michael would have given his life for Owen’s had he known how.

Now tell me more of your own gardens, dear, and your Red Cross work. It brings me closer to you to think how you spend your days.

Know that I love you, my sweet niece, and look eagerly to the day I can welcome you with open arms.

Always,

Aunt Maggie

Annie felt the heat of shame spread across her cheeks. Immediately she wanted to argue with Aunt Maggie for pointing out her poor behavior, to force her aunt to pity her. But something quiet and insistent inside Annie recognized the ring of truth.

Owen would be astonished at my behavior. He would say I’ve grown arrogant and bitter, like . . .
She pushed a tendril of hair, and the trickle of a tear, from her eye. She knew her feelings toward Michael were unfair. But it helped to have someone to blame.
Does Aunt Maggie never feel like blaming someone for Uncle Sean’s dying?

She reread the letter, then spread the map from Aunt Maggie’s previous letter across her lap and read again the names of the new gardens: Annie’s Evergreens, Elisabeth Anne Rose Garden, Owen Allen’s Old World Flowers and Roses.

And now, in this new letter, there was the newspaper clipping. Aunt Maggie had enclosed a story from a New Jersey weekly about Michael and his lawn and garden furniture for Allen’s Run Gardens. There were three photographs—two of birdhouses custom built to look like miniatures of the houses of wealthy patrons who had placed orders. The third photograph was of a tall young man, broad of shoulders, boasting an unruly shock of dark hair and a half grin, his arm draped over the railing of a gazebo he’d built—one that looked very much like the one set in the far corner of the Hargrave gardens.

He’s grown strong and handsome enough. He smiles. Still,
Annie thought,
his eyes are sad—the same sad and anxious eyes he wore that Easter Sunday and that day on the bow of
Titanic
. What made them so?

Annie realized that Michael was not arrogant or crude or rude as she’d once thought, but tortured. After living a year with torture, she recognized it readily enough in others. She cringed to recall her childish behavior during her last days with Owen in Southampton.
How did Owen stand me? What did Michael think of me—rude and cruel as I was?

Then came a ripple, a trickling current of pity for Michael.
Aunt Maggie’s right. It’s not Michael’s fault that he lived and Owen died. If anyone was to “blame,” it was Owen. If Owen had not saved Michael, he would have saved someone else at his own peril—anyone willing to be saved. He would not even consider that there was anything to forgive. I’m the one demanding Michael pay for the gift Owen gave him.

“God, forgive me,” Annie prayed. The image of Aunt Eleanor loomed before her. “No, Father! No! I don’t want to be like her. I want a heart like Owen’s.” She choked on her sob.

Annie sat and thought long in the garden that afternoon. She knew that Owen had found his example for everyday living in Christ. But Annie didn’t think she understood either of them enough to know how they would have addressed her situation.
What would they have done about Michael? About Aunt Eleanor?

Annie had no clear answer for her questions of duty or love. She only knew Owen had loved Michael and had always treated their aunt respectfully.
He was never spiteful or insulting, though he did separate himself from her. He must have understood what Aunt Eleanor had done to Father’s spirit, even without knowing all she’d schemed and all she’d withheld. Owen refused to succumb to her wiles and pleas and threats—even when he believed it would cost him his inheritance. And he moved me—once he could, and once he believed it necessary. But if he had truly known everything—all she had done and refused to do for Mother—would he have been able to forgive her?

As much as Annie did not wish to see her aunt Eleanor, she loved the gardens. Her restoration—the work she’d done and the work she had ordered done—of the beds and borders felt like part achievement and part memorial to her loved ones. And restore them, she had. Fountains and curtains of roses filled the air with such fragrance that passersby stopped, breathed deeply, and lingered over the palette of color and light.

“Thank You, Lord,” she whispered as she folded the letter, the map, and the clipping and tucked them into her pocket.

Annie took up her trowel and loosened the soil surrounding her favorite pink roses, roses her father had propagated. Annie had no idea of their botanical name, but she remembered that Father and Owen had always called them the Elisabeth Anne, in her honor. She could not help but smile to think that Michael was preparing a similar garden in America—a garden that promised beauty and a home for her, should she want it.

Annie blushed suddenly and knew she was blushing. She dug deeper into the soil.
I should write to him, but what shall I write? It would have seemed natural if I’d responded to his letter. But now what?

She wished she knew how to propagate roses, how to combine the qualities and traits of more than one variety to create something new. She would love to create an Owen Allen for Michael’s “Owen Allen’s Old World Flowers and Roses.”

Perhaps I can write Michael about that. I wonder if Owen told him how to propagate roses. But how can I?
Annie groaned, throwing down the trowel. “It seems so contrived, so out of the blue! If only I had not returned his letter!”