The soft glow of firelight warmed the slender glass of the chapel’s windows. At least Philip would be warm in there tonight. The chapel didn’t have a proper porch yet or iron railing. Three tree stumps staggered in height up to the entrance. There wouldn’t be a Sunday service until the approach to the building was safe for the older folks. Hopefully, Eva would behave herself by Sunday so they could have the service in the inn’s dining hall once more.
Under the dark cover of winter’s early night, Sybil carefully stepped up the stumps and balanced on the one nearest the door while holding the food basket. The aroma of freshly hewn gray leaf lumber filled her nose and calmed her nerves. She knocked softly, hoping she wasn’t disturbing the overseer.
Philip opened the door still wearing his overcoat. He didn’t smile but only adjusted his round spectacles. “Miss Roberts. Is everything all right?”
“It is. May I come in?”
“You may.” He pushed the tall door open on its new hinges, then offered his hand to help her safely step in. He looked outside before closing the door behind her. “Did you come alone?”
“Yes, is that all right? I’ve never visited an overseer before.” It seemed tonight was a night of many firsts, and she rather enjoyed the thrill.
A hint of amusement brightened his small eyes. “You are always welcome here. An overseer makes himself available to his flock at any hour.”
“Well, I’m not sure about the flock part, but,” she held up the food basket, “this sheep brought you a dessert. And snacks for later, should you get hungry tonight.” After letting her gaze follow the pitched ceiling across the empty room, she glanced at the recently lighted log burning on the grate in the fireplace. “At least you have a fire to keep you warm.”
He folded his hands behind his back and stayed by the door. “Yes. It will be quite comfortable in here soon.”
She pulled the blanket off the top of the basket and offered it to him. “I was worried you would be cold, so I brought you this.”
“Thank you, Miss Roberts.”
“Sybil, please.”
“Miss Sybil.” He accepted the blanket and crossed the room to place it on top of a trunk near the fireplace.
“You’re welcome, sir. Still, I do wish you would stay at the inn until the parsonage is built.”
“The inn’s manager feels differently.”
She sidestepped the basket on the floor to step closer to him. “Please, forgive my sister’s behavior. She’s overwhelmed by our father’s condition and wasn’t herself this evening.”
He pressed his lips together in a slim line, accentuating the solemn air that never let him. “I have already forgiven Eva, just as God in Christ forgives me of all my sins.”
“That’s very gracious of you. Though I fear you haven’t been shown the usual Falls Creek hospitality. Eva is normally the perfect hostess, quite pleasant. People find her charming, and beautiful, of course. But these days she’s afraid. Deeply afraid because of our father’s health and the changes around here. That’s why she has been acting so badly. She is scared.”
Though Philip wasn’t old enough to be her father, he angled his head as her father used to back when he could carry a logical conversation. “Eva isn’t the only one, is she? You are afraid too.”
Somehow in all the fuss about an overseer having authority in his village, she’d forgotten his primary work would be as a pastor, an advisor—something she’d never known but had read about. The gray leaf log was already warming the room, adding to her comfort. She pulled off her gloves. “I’m not afraid the way Eva is. I’m just tired of waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
“For life to go back to normal.”
“Normal?” Pity changed his expression. “The way it was before the attack, you mean?”
She hadn’t meant that at all. “No. I want to have my family back together. To have my mother and brothers come home. I’ve been waiting for that since I was twelve—my whole life really. Waiting for things to go back to normal.”
“How would their return make your life normal?”
“Well, if Revel took charge of the inn, Eva wouldn’t have anything to complain about. She could raise Zeke and marry Solo and simply do her chores around the inn without feeling so much pressure. And I think my mother will be pleased that Falls Creek will grow into a village. She enjoys being around lots of people. When Revel returns, James probably will too. And my mother can bring Grandma here. And once Mother comes back, Father will feel much better.” She shrugged happily imagining it all. “Then everything will be as it should be, as it used to be. Normal.”
Philip stepped to the hearth and used an iron poker to adjust the grate. “That is quite a plan.”
“I plan everything.”
He glanced at her, poker still touching the log. “Everything?”
“Mm hm. And I thought I would have the chance to make it all happen soon, but now that the overseers decided there won’t be a courier system in the Land, Revel won’t come through Falls Creek twice a week.”
“Ah.”
“Oh, I don’t blame you. Or them. I understand they are trying to keep things simple for the people of the Land.” At least that was what they had said during the private meeting that she wasn’t supposed to have overheard. “Now it will be harder for me to fix things in my family. But I have an idea for getting Revel to come home this spring. Of course, getting him to stay here might take divine intervention.”
“God doesn’t simply intervene, Sybil. He orchestrates. He composes. He ordains.”
“Even the waiting?”
He grinned slightly, giving her the first hint of a smile all evening. “Especially the waiting.” He set the poker back in its holder and faced her. “Some people believe waiting isn’t from God, that it is a weakness. Did you know there was waiting before the fall of man?”
When she didn’t answer, he continued, his voice calm and gracious like she imagined a great teacher’s would be. “There was waiting in the Garden of Eden—waiting for seeds to grow and eggs to hatch and baby animals to be born. God tells us over and over in His Word to wait on Him. But waiting should be joyful anticipation, not being frustrated until you get what you want.”
And like the great overseers she’d read about, his teaching cut to the quick. “That’s what I do every day.”
He nodded. “It’s what most of us do.”
He was easy to talk to, almost like a parent or like Eva was when she wasn’t in a tizzy, which was rare of late. She wanted someone to talk to about Isaac. She could talk to Bailey but wanted a deeper opinion, more spiritual insight than telling her to make the first move and plant one on him. Claudia had plenty of wisdom, but she also had her husband’s directive not to encourage Sybil regarding Isaac. It was only fair since Leonard had to make an honest choice about which man to make the farm manager.
She stepped closer to the warm fire, to Philip. “Are overseers able to give advice on all manner of topics?”
His brow furrowed then released. “From a spiritual perspective, certainly.”
“What about… men?”
“As in romantic relationships?”
“Yes. May I ask you something?”
He folded his hands loosely in front of him. “You may.”
“In confidence?”
“Unless I believe you to be a danger to yourself or others, Miss Sybil, I would never divulge a matter you tell me in confidence to anyone.”
She glanced at the slender windows at the front of the small chapel. A sliver of the inn was visible. Oil lamps glowed in several of the downstairs windows. Since the kitchen was on the other side of the building, Philip wouldn’t have seen her and Isaac kissing from here. She could leave that part out. Not that she would lie to the overseer. It would probably be as awkward for him to hear it as it would be for her to say it.
“There is someone who has come into my life recently, and…” Her tongue went dry. “He is very special to me. I thi
nk I’m special to him too, only I don’t know how serious he is.”
“About your relationship?”
“About our future. Or his.” She paced to the window. It would be easier to talk if she didn’t have to face the overseer. “He says he doesn’t want to think about the future. Which makes it hard for me because I plan everything. I want to know what will happen.”
“No one can know what will happen in the future, even with the best of plans.”
“But if we’re in love, shouldn’t we forge our plans together?”
“Are you in love?”
“I am.”
“Is he?”
She looked back at him. “He hasn’t said. And I want him to be. So badly.” Her insides ached with yearning. “I want to know that he feels what I feel, that he is in love, that he will marry me and we will be in love forever.”
Philip was quiet for a moment, then paced to the next window over and looked out at the dark night. “Being raised as an overseer’s son, I grew up watching married couples come to my father to complain about each other because they had based their marriage on the elusive and usually short lived experience called being in love. And once those feelings faded for one or both of them, they were faced with the magnitude of their vows, the reality of a lifelong commitment to being each other’s perfect partner.
“The point of marriage is not to wake up feeling in love every day, but to choose to love every day. It doesn’t matter so much that you experience the sensation of being in love but that you understand the commitment of love. Is this man someone you could spend your life choosing to love?”
Sybil imagined waking up beside Isaac one day in a little cottage, his gray-blue eyes gazing at her lovingly, just as she’d imagined it so many times after they’d first met.
Now he’d been at Falls Creek for almost a month. He’d rescued her, he’d kissed her, he’d stopped at her kitchen and made her feel like more than a cook every day. It was easy to feel love for him now while they knew so little about each other. But what would the fantasy of waking up beside him look like if she let a whole day play out?
Was he kind even when he was having a bad day? Was he good with children? Would he mind that she spent her days at the inn cooking or would he want her to stay in their home all day?
He’d pummeled that young trader in her room that night. Were his actions out of chivalry or did he have a temper? A violent bent? Could she choose to love him even then?
She looked at Philip, whose attention to her hadn’t wavered. “I don’t really know him well enough to say. I want to though.”
“And perhaps that is the purpose of the feelings of being in love. They compel us to get to know the other person well enough to make the right choice. Or at least they should.” Philip sighed. “Though from what I’ve witnessed, those feelings often blind us and we make the wrong choice.”
“Are you saying I shouldn’t be with Isaac?” She hadn’t meant to say his name.
His eyes briefly widened. “No, I’m saying you, me, any person who falls in love or is pursued by someone should take the time to consider whether they could choose to love that person each day for the rest of their lives. No matter what.”
He was right. The shadow behind his expression showed his years of counseling broken marriages while training with his father.
This was all so much heavier than the lightness of being in love, the infatuation of dreaming about Isaac for months, the intrigue of seeing him around the property and wondering what he was thinking about and if he was thinking about her.
The depth of commitment Philip spoke of wasn’t wistful glances and passionate kisses. If she married based on what she’d felt thus far for Isaac, they would probably end up like her parents—one leaving the other when the feelings of being in love wore off.
She couldn’t imagine leaving him as her mother had left, but he might leave. And whatever reason he gave might sound just as noble as her mother’s excuse. He might say he needed to go to another village to find better work or to help the traders or to take care of relatives back home. He might even promise to come back.
She’d only pictured their lovely evenings by the fire in the quiet of their home when they would be newly married. She hadn’t imagined the years after. The times of colicky babies and storm-flattened barns and ruined crops and repressed dreams. That was when he would leave. Just like everyone else had left.
Maybe in Isaac’s heart he knew it. Maybe that was why he hadn’t declared his love and wouldn’t speak with her father about her. Maybe he was protecting her, rescuing her like he did that night in her dark room.
She offered a hand to Philip. “Thank you, sir. You’ve been most helpful.”
He shook her hand lightly, his eyes clear with sincerity. “It was my pleasure, Miss Sybil.”
“Do come to breakfast tomorrow, please.” She flashed him a quick smile. “Or you’ll force me to leave my kitchen and bring you more food.”
His narrow grin hinted at more happiness than she’d seen from him yet. “Since you were so kind to invite me, I will be there, Miss Sybil.”
Chapter Ten
Icy wind whistled through the barn door as Isaac carried a full milk pail to a cart at the front of the barn. He poured it in a deep bucket on the cart. Eddie met him there with the milk from the last cow and poured it in too, sloshing over the rim. Who couldn’t aim to pour milk into a bucket?
He wouldn’t give Eddie the chance to haul the cart to the cellar. Eddie was a wiry fellow, but he’d worked circles around Isaac today while they helped Philip build the small cabin everyone was calling the parsonage. Eddie might be a faster worker, but Isaac was the better farmer. This would be his farm to manage one day, so he was ready to take charge now.
As he lifted the cart handle, Leonard lumbered away from the tool shelves. “Wait there a minute, Isaac. I need to talk to you boys.”
A serious look shadowed the older man’s face. Isaac wondered if he was in trouble or if Eddie was. Or both. “Yes, sir?”
Leonard drew two folded pieces of paper from his overcoat’s pocket, his arthritic fingers moving slowly. He flipped a toothpick from one corner of his lips to the other as he scanned whatever had him concerned. “I’ve been going over both of your crop plans.” He glanced up at Eddie first. “You sketched yours out real nice and all, but I don’t think you thought this through. The south end of this field floods late spring. I showed you that first hand when we rode out. Remember? Wheat won’t survive there. And here,” he thumped the page with a swollen knuckle, “you have far too many rows of sugar beets. Half of them would rot before we could harvest.”
Isaac held back the smug smile that wanted to splay across his face. Every farmer in the south of the Land knew sugar beets had a narrow harvest window. And all farmers knew better than to waste by planting more than they could harvest. There was no way Leonard would choose Eddie’s crop plan. Or give him the job, even if the twerp was a fast worker when he wanted to be. Besides, what Isaac lacked in speed he made up for in strength.
When Leonard was done critiquing Eddie’s plan for the spring planting, he folded that page and opened the other. Isaac inhaled, filling his lungs with anticipation. This was it. Leonard would confirm what they knew all along: Isaac was the obvious choice. If he knew anything it was farming. This other guy—this Eddie McIntosh—he was simply the grandson of a friend of the inn’s owner. He didn’t belong here running a farm any more than Isaac belonged in an office balancing ledgers.
Leonard plucked the toothpick from his lips and used it to point at the paper in his hand. “And Isaac this is, well…”
Here came his praise. The older man was about to say he wished he’d thought of planting the crops in this way long ago.
“This isn’t what I was expecting from you, Isaac. You may have known the soil on your family’s farm in Southpoint, and this plan might’ve worked there, but the ground is different here. I was expecting better from you.”
Isaac’s heart lurched in his chest. “Wait, what?”
He didn’t mean for his blunt words to come out with a disrespectful tone. Leonard’s brows wrinkled like he’d just been kicked by an angry cow, so Isaac quickly apologized. “I beg your pardon, sir, but my plan will work.” He turned to be side-by-side with Leonard and face the paper too.
Leonard flicked the toothpick out the barn door. “You said you could help us become independent of the traders. Your plan doesn’t show enough wheat to feed the family let alone all the guests.”
“But we’ll have oats here and here—”
“And that’s too much corn.”
“That corn isn’t for the kitchen. I plan to grow field corn for the livestock.”
Leonard scratched his head under his straw hat. “If you say so. But you completely ignored this field here. I grow ten acres of wheat there every year.”
“That’s why I think it should be left to fallow this year.”
Eddie snickered while he played with the barn’s dirt floor with the edge of his boot. He was just like Nathan. Isaac wanted to shove him out the door.
Leonard didn’t respond to Isaac’s comments or to Eddie’s attitude. He simply handed their papers back to them. “Well, I want you boys to come up with better plans than these. Have them in my hand on Monday.” He lifted his chin at Isaac and pointed at the cart. “After you take that to the cellar, go see Eva. The trader from Southpoint brought some letters. Eva said one is for you. Get your shuteye, boys. Church service will be in the chapel tomorrow morning, and I want you both there early to help Philip set up the benches.”
Isaac stuffed the wrinkled paper into his coat pocket and turned up his collar. The cold wind spit sleet in his face as he pulled the cart across the yard to the inn’s cellar. Its squeaky wheels needed oil. He would oil them after he got his letter from Eva and, hopefully, saw Sybil. There was so much he wanted to tell her even though he didn’t feel like talking at all.
He tightened his scarf around his neck, imagining the yarn still smelled like Sybil’s hands from when she made it, although by now it only smelled like the barn and cows and his own frustration.
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