Love's Reckoning

by Laura Frantz

  Within the building’s austere confines, Eden followed Silas’s lead, sitting beside him in a back pew after speaking with a dozen or so people in the churchyard, all expressing surprise at her coming—or more noticeably, Elspeth’s absence.

  “My sister has gone to Philadelphia with Papa,” she said, which seemed to mystify rather than satisfy them. Beside her, Silas spoke quietly with the congregants about other matters, mostly sheep and the smithy, as if trying to lessen her discomfort.

  Though she sensed their minds spinning with unasked questions, she was comfortable in the knowledge that appearing with Silas at church was well within the bounds of acceptable behavior. They’d give no quarter to salacious gossip. From all appearances they were simply the apprentice and the master’s daughter intent on church. Yet even if these people entertained the blackest thoughts, nothing could dampen the near-holy awe Eden felt as her eyes roamed the hushed interior.

  The smell of cold stone and warm candle wax filled her senses, as did the jingle of coins in the wooden collection box by the door. She felt a lingering embarrassment that she had nothing to give. Nothing but her heart. Her gaze kept returning to the stained-glass window behind the pulpit, drinking in every lovely shard—verdigris, crimson, ochre, ebony—all blending to form a picture of the Savior, the cross behind.

  Beside her, Silas sat still, and she wondered what he thought, if his time here made him yearn for the Scottish kirk of his boyhood. When the minister appeared, she felt a small start that she’d paid so little attention to the fact that he was a Scotsman. His lilt was less honeyed than Silas’s, subdued by years spent in York County, perhaps. She simply knew him as Owen McCheyne, the widower farmer who lived north of Hope Rising, his white hair glinting like ice, his rugged features kind. He’d come often to their shop over the years, but Papa wanted little to do with him, and lately it was Silas who minded his business.

  Though they’d been here but a few minutes, she was already loath to leave. The silence, the austere beauty of wooden pews and arched windows, lent a profound peace to the scene. Her troubled thoughts seemed to melt away as she listened to the solemn prayer intoned in Gaelic, followed by a Scripture reading. Silas took her hand as a Psalm was sung, their entwined fingers hidden beneath her voluminous skirts.

  “Would the brethren care to give a testimony as to how Christ is precious to them?” one elder intoned from a far corner.

  Eden watched as several men in surrounding pews stood up one by one to share how the Lord had made them alive in Christ. This was what her heart was hungry for—to hear firsthand the life-changing power of the Savior. Her Savior. Tears trickled down, dampening the lace of her bodice. She’d forgotten her handkerchief, so Silas took out the one she’d made him, a square of soft linen with SB marked in dark blue thread.

  They were preparing to sit at the Lord’s Table, McCheyne said. She watched transfixed as bread was broken and wine poured. And they were to . . . eat, drink? One by one the congregation went forward to receive something from the pastor’s hand. Silas returned with a small lead token.

  Seeing her confusion, he leaned nearer and whispered, “’Tis an old Scots custom called ‘fencing the table.’ The aim is to keep out those who shouldn’t partake and keep in those who should.”

  “And am I . . . out?”

  “Not if you speak with McCheyne after the service.”

  To show him she was spiritually sound? Her heart thumped harder. “But I can explain nothing . . . I only feel.”

  He nearly smiled. “I would worry if you felt nothing and could explain everything.”

  This only befuddled her further. As those around her celebrated this strange practice from which she was excluded, she mulled over what she would say. The service went another hour, then two, breaking for a meal in early afternoon. But it was the testimonies and Scripture reading that best fed her needy spirit, far more than the basket of food she’d brought. They sat together beneath an oak’s leafy canopy, sharing their picnic and looking out on the lush valley and rolling hills to the west. To the wilderness. Their future.

  “How long will it take us to reach Fort Pitt?” Her question was a quiet one. There were other people seated around them, too close for comfort.

  His response was equally measured. “A month, if there are no mishaps.”

  Mishaps. The word turned her cold beneath the brilliant June sun. As if realizing his wording had gone awry, he said, “There will be none, Lord willing.”

  “Are there any churches in the wilderness?”

  “Aye, the one I’ll build you.” His gaze held hers thoughtfully. “Christ’s kingdom has no frontier, ye ken.”

  She warmed to the thought. “You have such plans. Ambitions.”

  “Are you only just realizing that?”

  “I’ve known it since I first met you. You aren’t made for York County, nor Philadelphia, but the West.”

  “And you, Eden? What are you made for?”

  She gave him a tentative smile. “I’m made for you, Silas . . . I’m meant to be your bride.”

  The words, so heartfelt, had hurtled past a wealth of fear before reaching her lips. They seemed a binding promise here in the churchyard. With the sun caressing her skin and the promise of summer banishing winter’s dark thoughts, she felt she had wings. She had only to look at the man beside her, savoring his nearness and the striking slant of his rugged features, to throw all caution to the wind.

  “Not much longer now and we’ll be one,” he said in low tones, locking eyes with her. “Silas and Eden Ballantyne.” The rich words were muffled by the ringing of the church bell, returning them to the service and a final sermon.

  Afterward, when the pews emptied, she poured out her heart to the godly minister while Silas waited outside. When she joined him, she held a Bible, the worn leather cover obviously beloved, the contents the same.

  “Pastor McCheyne gave me this.” Her heart was so full she nearly couldn’t speak. “’Twas his wife, Elizabeth’s. They have no living children.”

  “Then you no longer have need of a poor apprentice penning you Scripture,” he said, a teasing shine in his eye.

  “I need you in other ways,” she said, laying a hand along his cheek. “I will always have need of you, Silas.”

  25

  Should I have learned to fiddle, I should have done nothing else.

  Samuel Johnson

  Without Papa and Elspeth, the farmhouse had an entirely different feel. Time passed in a peaceful haze, full of whisperings and fervent kisses, twilight walks, and fiddle music far into the night. Even Mama seemed to bloom under Silas’s oversight, talking and laughing more than Eden had ever seen, at last emerging from her melancholy shell. Though Mama had been denied her own happiness, her joy for them knew no bounds.

  “Ah, you have Corelli, I see.” Looking over the makeshift music stand in the summer parlor, Mama selected a song. “’Tis been years since I’ve heard his ‘Adagio.’”

  As Eden and her mother sewed by the light of the three-sided lantern, Silas wooed them with the sweetness of his tone. Sitting on a stool by an open window, he played with an uncommon life and spirit, and his slow airs left Eden breathless. The music seemed like candlelight—flaming, flickering, trembling—each note hovering on the warm air. Unmindful of the sewing in her lap, she lingered on the easy gliding of his bow, his keen concentration, the elegant silhouette of the violin as it rested beneath his bristled jaw, knowing their newfound intimacy was not to last.

  “So this was your father’s fiddle?” Mama asked as he placed the instrument into her hands. “I see something just inside.”

  He nodded. “It reads ‘Broken on the ice at Stairdam in 1764 and mended in Aberdeen.’”

  Her eyes roamed the polished maple appreciatively. “Light as a feather and strong as an ox. Who is the maker?”

  “Giuseppe Guarneri of Cremona—Italy. ’Twas a gift from the earl of Dalhousie.”

  Mama studied him, features softening. “You
saved it from the fire—from burning in the clearances?”

  He nodded, and Eden thought of all he’d told them these last few eves, things that still made her shudder. She sensed he didn’t want to speak of the past, but Mama had gently drawn him out, and in doing so Eden began to measure her own blessings.

  What were an ill-tempered father and sister in light of poverty, starvation, and loss? How would it feel to be forced from the Highland home you’d always known to a rocky coast, where conditions were so harsh that children had to be tethered to posts to keep them from being blown over the cliffs while their parents worked?

  Though he spoke of it all dispassionately, she saw beneath his calm to the wounds beneath. The scars on his hands, she realized, were nothing like the scars on his soul. He’d come here to America, borne along on a tide of Scottish emigration, only to arrive in the colonies just as poor and hungry as before. How he—and his violin—had survived seemed a miracle.

  His features assumed a rare pensiveness when he showed them the Latin phrase burned into the wood beneath the strings. “It reads Soli Deo Gloria. To the glory of God alone.”

  “That is why the tone is so sweet,” Eden said, taking up her sewing again. “’Tis heaven’s music, truly.”

  He smiled and began playing a hymn. As she listened and mended, she tried to ignore the rising ache in her head, but squinting at the tiny stitches didn’t help. A few minutes passed and she excused herself, taking an empty pitcher to fetch cider from the springhouse.

  Beneath the light of a full moon, the skeleton of the barn loomed large, lacking all but roof and doors, reminding her that the livestock would need to be brought home from Hope Rising. She was glad, weary of meeting David every morning in the stables before he rode out to oversee his lands. Of late he seemed so fractious. He was concerned for her safety, he said, as was Jemma. The fire still worried them, unexplained as it was. She, however, barely thought of it, consumed as she was with Silas.

  At the sound of a boot scraping the stone walk, she started.

  “’Tis only me, Eden.”

  Turning toward the warm voice, she extended a hand.

  “There are wolves about. They’ve been harassing Greathouse’s sheep. I don’t want you out here alone.” Setting the pitcher aside, Silas clasped her fingers in his own. “What’s more, your father is coming down the lane.”

  She shut her eyes at the unwelcome words. How quickly time had flown! It had been but eleven days. She rested her head against his chest, heeding the creak of the wagon. How like Papa to press on in the moonlight rather than part with precious coin at a tavern. The groan of wagon wheels grew louder, shattering the calm in her spirit. She breathed in Silas’s beloved scent, felt the bristle of his beard as she pressed her cheek to his.

  “I love you, Eden. More than you know. More than life.”

  Yes. More than life. That was how she’d oft felt but couldn’t put into words. “And I you.”

  He stepped away from her just as the wagon pulled into the yard. Unwilling to let go of him, she fastened her eyes on his broad shoulders as he walked toward his room at the back of the smithy. They couldn’t risk being seen together. Their precious time alone had come to an end.

  “Eden? Is that you?” Papa’s voice was like the rasp of a saw. “Come help with the horses! Your sister is tired from the journey.”

  And so it had begun all over again.

  Elspeth was not too tired for a tirade. Indeed, the trip to and from Philadelphia seemed to have invigorated her temper. Eden felt nearly burnt from the heat of it. Wearing a new hat, an outrageous concoction of ostrich feathers and silk lilies fashioned by a city milliner, Elspeth stepped down from the wagon with the airs of Beatrice Greathouse alighting from a Philadelphia townhouse.

  “I’ll not leave home next time, I tell you. My very bones seem broken from such a ride! The so-called Forbes Road is a disgrace!” Pausing mid-rant in the yard, she turned and surveyed the nearly finished barn in the light of a full moon. “I thought Silas would be done by now. Papa was expecting it.”

  Her voice, strident enough to reach the back of the smithy where Silas boarded, was hardly necessary. He stood beneath the eave, arms crossed, with nary a greeting. Eden was struck by how forbidding he could be, a cold sternness marring his features.

  Was he remembering their altercation on the stairs? Thinking of who’d sired Elspeth’s child? Whatever it was, he gave no welcome. Catching sight of him, Elspeth averted her head and hurried into the house while Eden pushed down the overwhelming urge to throw herself into his arms, if only to shield herself from the hurtful things to come.

  While Papa unhitched the team, she hayed and watered the lathered horses in a barn resounding with Papa’s various complaints about the journey. The main thoroughfare to Philadelphia was in dire need of repair, he groused. A steep toll was exacted just outside the city, during which he’d felt fleeced. The tools he’d purchased were of inferior quality, the tavern fare worse. He hated the dirty air, the street urchins, the stench of Philadelphia.

  Finally escaping to the house, Eden climbed the stairs to her bedchamber, where she fared no better. Elspeth stood before the clothespress, admiring her hat in the small oval mirror. She tilted her chin first this way then that, her eyes narrowing when she spied Eden. “I suppose we’ll have to share my new bonnet, as Papa was in no mood to buy two.”

  Eden said nothing, amazed by how insensible Elspeth was to the fact she would never wear such an outlandish hat. She’d as soon parade about in her shift! Unhooking her work dress, Eden let it fall to the floor before untying her petticoat, aware that her sister’s attention was now fixed on her.

  “Why, Eden, you look quite pale. By now you’re usually brown as an Indian from being in the garden.” She held aloft a candelabra from a nearby table, suspicion narrowing her eyes as she focused on Eden’s waist. “You aren’t hiding something, are you? I remember how sick I was at first, hardly out of sight of the chamber pot. Let’s see. Whose could it be? The gunsmith’s son? Master David’s? Silas’s?”

  Even hinting of such unspeakable, intimate things flooded Eden with a profound dismay. She looked away. “I’ve a headache, is all.” Beneath the stark white hem of her linen shift poked her bare feet, an earthy green from grass stains. But she was too tired to fill the basin and wash them tonight.

  “A headache? Is this to be a new malady of yours? You’ve never complained of such before.”

  A near-blinding pain in her right temple gave Eden pause. Till she’d fallen on the stairs more than a month ago, her head had rarely hurt. But now . . .

  Leaving her clothes on the floor, she eased into bed, not bothering to brush and plait her hair. Mercifully, Elspeth snuffed the candles, undressing in the dark.

  “I see you finished your Sabbath dress. It takes up half the clothespress.” Her sour tone forewarned the gown would soon be hung elsewhere to make room for Elspeth’s own. “So how did you find your first church service?”

  Humbling. Inspiring. Miraculous. She bit her lip at Elspeth’s caustic tone, glad she’d hidden the Bible Pastor McCheyne had given her in the garret. The past few mornings she’d been reading it aloud at breakfast, realizing that Mama seemed as Scripture-hungry as she. “The church is lovely. ’Tis a blessed way to spend the Lord’s Day.”

  Though the darkness hid her, Eden sensed Elspeth grimace. “Blessed? ’Tis better to call it what it is—tedious. McCheyne should save his sermons for his sheep and spare us all any dullness in future.”

  The careless words sent a shiver through Eden. “Oh, Sister, best mind your tongue lest the Lord silence it someday.” The caution was more breathless whisper than rebuke, but Elspeth pounced on it and spun toward her, a formidable shadow.

  “Don’t play holier-than-thou with me, Eden Rose. No doubt you’re far more smitten with Silas than with an old sheepherder’s sermons.” She lay down, only to jump up again at the sound of a fiddle. Slamming shut the casement window, she collapsed atop the bed and
wrestled with the covers. “I suppose you want to know all about Philadelphia.”

  Did she? Nay. Surprise gained the upper hand at the realization. Not once had she lamented the fact Elspeth had just gone to the city that once housed all her hopes and dreams. Silas’s love for her had changed all that. Though she still had a heart for the foundlings, she felt the Lord calling her to a different task—that of wife and mother. Philadelphia no longer held the appeal it once did. She would go west, Silas leading. She had put her fears, her former plans, behind her for good.

  26

  Gardening is the purest human pleasure.

  Francis Bacon

  Eden dropped to her knees within the wattle fencing of her herb garden in the July twilight, unsure of what pained her more—her aching head or the gaping crater Sebastian had dug. Again. She supposed it didn’t matter, as her leave-taking was creeping up as fast as the thyme along the far fence. Soon she’d be free from worries of mischievous sheepdogs and their fondness for digging, and ponder crossing mountains and rivers instead.

  Taking up a trowel, she sighed. If she missed anything, it would be her garden, a place of pleasure and profitableness and peace. Though not as elaborate as Hope Rising’s with its miniature box hedges and ornamental topiary, it was the work of her hands—and heart. And tending it meant more to her than ever after reading about her namesake in Scripture: “And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed . . . to dress it and to keep it.”

  She took in the feathery fennel and skin-softening mallow, gaze drifting to the purple spires of sweet rocket that grew more fragrant as the sun went down. Surely the West wasn’t so wild she couldn’t keep a garden. For now she needed a remedy for her aching head. Feverfew? Valerian? Skullcap? Margaret had advised her to take an infusion of lavender flowers—indeed, had made her drink three cups yesterday at tea.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the flick of a wagging tail. She sat back on her heels, her smile a trifle sad, a trifle wry. Sebastian had simply come looking for Silas again. She didn’t blame him. Wasn’t she always doing the same?