by C.P. Murphy
Chapter Five
There was less tension around the breakfast table the following morning. Amelia smiled across the table at Anna who had helped her prepare the meal. The companionship in the kitchen had cleared her mind for a while. Her smile grew wider as she held back laughter building up inside of her. Anna had made a mess of things trying to cook and the thoughts of flour on her face and egg in her hair had made Amelia chuckle. Anna sensed this and blushed with embarrassment.
Henry rubbed the side of his coffee cup as he studied the face of his eldest daughter. She appeared to be in better spirits and the thought of her being happy overjoyed him. He hoped that things would get back to normal. “Amelia,” he started, “I was wondering if you could do me a favor today?” She had often helped him by doing small errands. Leaving the store early the day before had put him behind on a few things but he didn’t regret a moment of time he’d spent with Ruth.
Relieved to have something to do other than sulk, she answered, “Sure Father. What would you like me to do?”
“Well, I meant to get medicine out to the widow Hewlett yesterday but I forgot about it.” He wasn’t ready to tell his children about his true relationship with Ruth. “Do you think you can stop by the store and take it out to her farm for me?”
The widow Hewlett lived on a farm south of the village and Amelia knew it would be quite a walk to the farm and back but she looked forward to it. It would get her away for a while and Thomas wouldn’t find her. “I would be glad to. It’s such a nice day; I look forward to the walk.”
Henry leaned back in his chair and glanced out the window. The lack of sunshine and the sway of a nearby tree was evidence she wasn’t correct. “Why don’t you go to the stable and pick up the carriage? It looks like it might rain.”
“I’ll be fine. I care little for taking the carriage,” she told him. Henry shrugged; there was no point in arguing with her. He stood and excused himself then left for work. Anna helped clean up and an hour later Amelia head out to the apothecary store.
When she arrived, Amelia noticed her father’s employee sitting on the steps and leaning against a rail. “Where is my father?” She asked.
The young man gave her a puzzled look. “I don’t know, Miss Samuels.”
She was alarmed and wondered why Henry hadn’t made it to his destination. “When he left the house he came straight here,” she started but then caught of glimpse of her father walking down the street, rushing towards them. As he got closer she exclaimed, “Oh Father, I was worrying. What happened?”
It surprised Henry to see his daughter standing outside his building. He didn’t think that she would be there that soon. “I’m sorry for the delay,” he said intended more for his employee than for Amelia. He could give an excuse to his worker but coming up with something that Amelia would believe would be a challenge. As if she wasn’t standing there, he said to the employee, “I will pay you your full wage of course.”
Amelia was growing very impatient. “You left well before me and I still beat you here. Can’t you at least tell me what happened?”
He unlocked the door and his employee worked right away. Not satisfied with his lack of an answer, Amelia followed the men into the building. “Won’t you answer me Father?”
He could not delay answering her question. Henry appreciated that she was concerned, but he knew that there was no reason to be. The truth was he had forgotten his keys at Ruth’s the day before when he went to visit her and this morning he needed to go retrieve them. He knew she wouldn’t understand so he stretched the truth, “I ran an errand yesterday afternoon before coming home and somewhere along the way misplaced my keys.”
“This is about your keys?” She asked, letting out a sigh of relief.
“Yes,” Henry wondered if she believed him. “I spent the last hour traveling to all the places I was at yesterday trying to find them and I was thankful when I did.” Jiggling his keys in his hand for confirmation, he looked at her and could tell that she believed his story.
Amelia shook her head as she followed him into his office. Sometimes, she told herself, she forgot who the parent was and who was the child. She left but first turned to say, “I’m glad you are all right.” Henry hugged her and assured her he was fine.
Though she was glad to feel his arms around her, she could sense the growing tension between them.
Amelia dropped off her father’s remedy to the widow Hewlett and was on her way back home. Not wanting the thought of Thomas to bother her, she picked flowers to take her mind off of her troubles. She had walked a good mile or more away from the farm before she realized that she had other troubles coming her way. Thunder had started and was getting closer and closer. Amelia walked faster and glanced back at the farm but it was out of sight. There was no point in going back; she wouldn’t make it on time. Another loud crack of thunder sounded and she knew she would get caught in a downpour.
The bit of sun that appeared throughout the morning seemed to have disappeared and darkness took over. One hand squeezed the flowers she had picked and her other hand grabbed her dress and pulled it off the ground, giving her limbs room to walk faster. The thunder lasted for what seemed like forever and when it finished, a flash of lightning lit the darkened sky. “Oh no,” she said to herself and then ran. She searched for shelter but there was nothing in sight. She couldn’t find a tree to stand under either for she was on part of the road that ran along the meadow. Then the rain came down.
Amelia was wet in an instant. The drops felt like ice on the back of her neck. She ran to get to shelter but the weight of her wet clothes were keeping her from advancing far.
Chills came over her and she knew that she had to dry off but the rain wasn’t letting up. She let go of her dress, lowered her head so that the wind and rain were not hitting her straight in the face, and then ran forward. At last she saw a house with smoke coming out of the chimney. She felt relieved to see that someone was home and prayed that whoever lived there would let her come in until the rain let up.
By the time she arrived at the house she was wet from head to toe. She could feel water gushing in her shoes from the puddles. The bottom of her dress was full of mud. Yet, somehow she held onto the flowers she had picked before the sky had turned on her. Her body was shivering by the time she reached the door. Amelia reached out to knock with her free hand but it was shaking from the cold. She formed a fist and pounded on the wooden door.
When the door opened she was surprised to see Patrick standing before her. “Thank you for the flowers, Amelia, but you shouldn’t have in the rain.” He laughed and reached for her hand to bring her in out of the nasty weather. He shut the door behind her and pointed towards the fireplace, “Go warm up. I’ll go get a blanket for you.”
Right away Amelia thought she should continue on her way home. Her father wouldn’t approve of her visiting with a man, a strange man to top it. Glancing out the window, she saw the rain she ran through just moments before and suddenly it didn’t matter to her how inappropriate she was being; there was no way she would head back out into the rain. She stepped closer to the fire and rubbed her hands together. She looked around the small house that had no decorations at all. It was a simple home, unlike the houses in the village. She spotted a hound lying in the corner. His body stretched out and his stomach move up and down as he panted. He didn’t seem alarmed by her presence and he moved his head once to look in her direction before nodding back off to sleep.
Patrick stepped inside his bedroom to find a spare blanket to throw over Amelia’s shoulders to keep her warm. He reached for the spare hanging over the back of a rocking chair but knew that it wouldn’t be enough. She would need to get out of those wet clothes or she would catch a cold. He thought for a moment on what to do. Then he bent over and pulled a chest out from underneath the bed. He hesitated before opening the latch. It had been a long time since he has seen the insides of the chest. It pained him to take anything out of it but yet he knew that in doing so he could prevent an il
lness for Amelia. From the inside of the chest, he pulled out a dress and laid it on the bed. Then, with the blanket in his hand, he went back to the main room. He noticed Amelia looking around the room and realized how awkward the situation must have been for her. “Get out of those wet clothes. We can hang them by the fire to dry. There is a dress on the bed. Put it on until yours is dry again.”
Amelia didn’t stop to wonder where he got a dress. She walked into his bedroom and shut the door behind her. The room was similar to the main room, colorless. She saw the dress lying over the bed and undressed right away. The dress was too big for her but she welcomed its dry material. Something caught her eye as she pondered who the dress belonged to. A picture frame stood on Patrick’s night stand, the only picture she’d seen in his entire house. She picked the picture up out of curiosity and inspected the portrait. She saw a woman in the picture and Patrick standing with his arm around her. It all made sense to her; he was married, this was his wife’s dress. She opened the door and went out to hang her clothes by the fire before sitting down next to Patrick.
“I’m glad to see that the dress fits you,” Patrick told her. He never thought he would see someone wear his wife’s clothing ever again.
Amelia smiled. He was a very generous man. “It’s a little too big, but it’s dry,” then she continued to thank him for his kindness.
Patrick hung his head so that the girl couldn’t see him wipe his eyes. He had not seen that dress for several years and now it was out of the chest, it seemed to have brought out bad memories. “I’m sorry that it’s on the large side,” he started. “My wife made that when she was pregnant with our son.”
Amelia was confused. There were only two rooms in this small house; she wondered where the son slept? Amelia beat around the bush to figure her questions out. “Patrick, may I ask how old you are?”
He grinned. Amelia wasn’t shy; he could tell that already by the brief encounters they had together. “I’ll be thirty-two in February. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, I’m sorry if I’m being rude. Please accept my apologies,” she began. “It’s just that this house seems so small and I was wondering where your son slept. I thought maybe if I knew your age than I could guess his and try to figure it out for myself. I should’ve just asked.”
He admired the curiosity in her. In fact, he realized that he was admiring everything about her. It hurt him to think about what happened to his wife and son but recalling how she blurted out her personal life to him earlier in the week, he decided that she would understand his story. He stood up and leaned his forearm against the mantle and then laid his head on his arm. He could feel his throat harden and his eyes water as he told her, “I lost them three years ago. My wife suffered a hard labor, and I lost them both that night.” He looked over at her but she had lowered her head. He explained the matter more, “I wanted to go fetch a doctor, but she insisted that I stay. I kept telling her it was many miles to the nearest doctor and that I had to go. She cried and cried and begged me not to leave her. She gave in and let me go but by the time I returned with the doctor, our son was already stillborn. The doctor told me we had to make my wife comfortable. I tried everything I could do, but she was still in pain. She passed on just before dawn.”
Amelia had tears rolling down her face. She didn’t mean to bring up so many painful memories for Patrick and prayed that he would forgive her. “I’m so sorry, Patrick. I feel I brought back heartache for you.”
He wiped his eyes and sat back down. Patrick couldn’t let her go on thinking that any of this was her fault. He was the one who opened the chest to give her something dry to wear. “It’s not your fault. I couldn’t let you sit in wet clothes. It was my decision to let you wear that dress.”
Amelia felt he wasn’t ready to let go of what happened in the past and sensed that he blamed himself. She reached over to him and put her hand on his arm. “It wasn’t your fault either. You did all you could have done.” She had seen still-born births while helping her father and recalled telling other parents the same thing.
Patrick felt her touch his arm. A welcomed touch, a touch he thought he wouldn’t want to feel again. “That isn’t what her parents thought. They blamed me. They said that I could have prevented it.” He stopped talking and thought about how they had treated him. As they mourned the death of their daughter, they told him he shouldn’t have listened to her when she begged him not to leave. They told him she would still be with them if he would have done the right thing. He wiped his eyes for a final time and decided not to dwell on bad memories. It was time to change the subject. “What are you doing out in the rain, anyway?”
Knowing he didn’t wish to talk about it anymore, Amelia dropped it and answered his question. “I was out doing an errand for my father.”
A puzzled look came to his face. “Your father didn’t let you use a carriage on a day like this?” He must have known it would rain sooner or later.
Just then Amelia laughed as she realized that getting soaked in the rain was her fault. “Oh no, he told me to take the carriage, but I insisted on walking. I was such a fool for not listening.” She continued to tell him about the way she preferred to walk and why she was out near his house to begin with.
Patrick prepared tea for the two of them. Amelia never had a man serve her anything before; it was strange to her. He laughed and told her he was only being respectful to his company. Together they sipped tea and spent the next couple of hours talking. Patrick had many questions about Millersport and Amelia was glad to answer them. She also asked questions about him but was careful not to bring up anything that might have been painful. She found out he was from the Rochester area and moved to make a new life for himself.
Patrick told her he planned on growing an apple orchard and that is why he was out in the fields that previous time she had seen him. She thought it would be delightful to purchase home grown apples to make pies and fritters. Amelia never knew that she could have such a delightful conversation with a man before. He made her so comfortable and she wondered how she made him feel? Before they knew it, the sun was shining again outside and the fierce rain had gone away. Deciding that her clothes were dry enough, Amelia went back to his bedroom and changed. When she came out, she told him she should get home before her family wondered what happened to her. Patrick agreed and walked her out.
They were only a few steps away from his door when he remembered her flowers. “Your flowers, don’t you want them?”
Amelia smiled and thought that his house could use them more than hers. She had placed them on his table while they drank their tea and thought they cheered the room up. “No, you keep them. It’s the least I can do for all your kindness.”
She turned and walked towards the village. He stood and watched her go. At that moment he wished that she were staying. She was almost out of sight when he ran after her, “Amelia, wait.” He was just about out of breath by the time he caught up with her. “I wanted to tell you I enjoyed your company today and I wondered if we can do it again sometime.” He couldn’t believe what he was saying to her, knowing it wouldn’t be right. Still, he had to ask.
Amelia blushed. Why couldn’t she feel this comfortable around Thomas? Why couldn’t her fiancé be so kind? She despised Thomas Van Martin but admired Patrick. She knew her father wouldn’t approve if he knew what she was thinking but she couldn’t help but be happy that Patrick wanted to see her again. “How is tomorrow? I planned to go pick berries but then I can stop by.”
It thrilled Patrick that it didn’t offend her. He meant no harm, and he was sure she understood. “Can I pick with you? I know a place where the berries are plentiful.”
“Okay. Then I will see you tomorrow.” She smiled and then continued to walk home. Mud clung to the bottom of her dress but she was thankful for it. If it weren’t for the rain, she wouldn’t have been able to spend the day with Patrick Buchanan.