A few days after the camp meeting, Noah entered the house for supper to find Mrs. Avery hurrying toward him. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re home.”
He scrutinized her unsmiling face. “What is it, ma’am?”
“It’s Melanie. She has a fever.”
He started walking past her immediately, heading for the stairs. “Have you fetched Dr. Peters?”
“I sent Tad and Robert. He should be here any moment.”
Noah heard no more, but took the stairs two at a time. He found Melanie lying in bed, Mrs. Johnson sponging her forehead. She turned to him as soon as he entered. “I was hoping you were the doctor. She’s burning up.”
He leaned over and felt his daughter’s forehead.
“It hurts all over, Papa.”
He was alarmed at how hot her skin felt, but tried to project calm as he took her hand in his. “I know, sweetie. But Doc Peters will soon be here and give you something to make you feel better.” Even as he said the words, he hoped they were true.
Children and adults died every day of fevers. Fear gripped him, leaving him paralyzed.
“I’ll sit with her, ma’am,” he told Mrs. Johnson.
She rose and set aside the cloth in the basin. “Very well. I hope it’s not contagious,” she added quietly. “I have my boys to think of, you know.”
“Yes, I understand,” he said tersely, taking her place beside his daughter.
The next hour passed in a blur. The doctor, whom Noah trusted and had known for years, straightened from his examination and said the dreaded words. “Scarlet fever, most likely. We won’t know for sure until tomorrow or the next day if the rash develops.” His lips puckered and he drew his thick gray eyebrows together. “We’ll have to quarantine her and keep the boys away from her. Let’s hope they don’t develop it, as well. She’ll need constant nursing for a week,” he added.
Noah could hardly think straight. At the word nursing, his first thought turned to Rianna. But she was busy with her mother.
Mrs. Johnson immediately began getting herself and her sons ready to move to an aunt’s in the next village. Mrs. Avery bustled about helping her.
In the midst of this confusion, Rianna knocked on the doorjamb leading to Melanie’s room. Noah looked up and felt a wave of relief wash over him.
“I stopped by to see if Melanie would like to come over tomorrow and Mrs. Avery told me.” She entered the room softly. “I’m so sorry. But she should be fine as long as she keeps to her bed.”
He made room for her as she approached Melanie. She put a hand to the girl’s forehead. “Hello, there. I’m sorry you’re feeling so poorly. Don’t try to talk, darling. I know your throat hurts. I was sick just like you when I was your age.”
As Melanie closed her eyes again, seemingly reassured by Rianna’s gentle words, Rianna turned to him and beckoned to the other side of the room.
He stood and accompanied her over.
“I spoke with Mrs. Avery. I think she’ll need some help. Would you like me to nurse Melanie?”
He stared at her, hardly believing her generous offer. “But your mother—”
Rianna smiled. “I’ve been meaning to tell you. Mother is doing much better.” Her smile grew. “Ever since the camp meeting, she has shown remarkable improvement.”
Before Noah could say anything, she touched his arm. “If you give me permission, I’ll go home and pack a few things and come over. The first few days will be the hardest.”
He nodded slowly, relieved beyond measure to have Rianna’s presence.
Rianna placed the cool compress on Melanie’s hot forehead and leaned back. The room was perfectly still, the house quiet. She removed her pocket watch. Three o’clock in the morning. Thankfully, Noah had finally agreed to go to bed. The poor man had been exhausted, his face gray with worry.
Rianna touched Melanie’s hand on the quilt. Dear Lord, I pray for Your mercy and grace for this little girl…show Noah how much You care for his daughter. More than he could ever imagine. She continued praying for Melanie. She knew well how fragile human life was, but she had also witnessed God’s healing grace time and again.
When Rianna took up her shift once more after sleeping a few hours, Noah sat as she had left him that morning, one hand engulfing his daughter’s.
She leaned over and touched Melanie’s forehead. It was still hot.
“She’s all I have.”
Rianna started at the sound of Noah’s voice, low yet harsh. Her heart went out to him, his features so stern and strong and yet the words speaking of an anguish she could only imagine. She ached to comfort him. Instead, she touched his shoulder gently. “The Lord is merciful.”
“Was He merciful to Charlotte?” his voice lashed out immediately. “To your husband—to your baby?”
She could only stare at him. “God’s grace is so terribly wide and grand, we frequently don’t realize it until later. I don’t know why He took Charlotte or Ralph…or my little baby. I only trust that He sees your love for your daughter. I’m praying and believing for her to make it through this illness. We’re doing all we can with nursing her. The rest is in the Lord’s hands.”
He said nothing.
The crisis came four nights later. Both Rianna and Noah sat by Melanie’s bed, one on either side. Melanie thrashed about, crying out at times.
Noah looked haggard. He had not taken out his boat, despite Rianna and Mrs. Avery’s reassurances that they would take good care of Melanie.
The house was quiet and time seemed to stand still. Finally in the wee hours of the night, Rianna noticed Melanie bathed in sweat. She felt her forehead. It felt normal. She turned to Noah with a smile. “The fever has broken.”
Without a word, his own hand reached out and he touched his daughter’s forehead. “You think it’s broken for good?” He sounded skeptical. She well understood his fear of getting his hopes up. How often she had seen it at a patient’s bedside.
“Yes, I believe Melanie is over the worst. Why don’t you get some sleep and I’ll sponge her off and change her nightgown.”
“No, I’ll help you. You need sleep, as well. You’ve been here ’round the clock.”
“I’ve managed to catch some sleep on the cot you set up for me.” She indicated the narrow bed at one end of the room. “I’ve grown used to sleeping anywhere over the years,” she added with a smile.
He nodded, his eyes looking beyond her words and probably seeing the war years.
Together, they soon had Melanie in a clean nightgown. They watched her for a moment sleeping a more peaceful sleep.
“Now, you get some rest. I know you’ll soon need to go back out in your boat, and it would do you no good to fall ill from neglect.” As she spoke, she shooed him out of the room. With a few more protests, he finally left, after making her promise that she would let Mrs. Avery take over at first light.
When he’d gone, Rianna knelt by Melanie’s bed.
In the few weeks she’d spent time with the child, Rianna had realized how easily she could imagine Melanie as her own. Their friendship had felt as natural as if they’d always known each other.
Rianna bowed her head.
“Dear Lord,” she prayed in a soft voice, “thank You for sparing this girl’s life. You know how much Noah needs her…and how dear she has become to me…” she ended on a bare whisper.
Chapter Eight
“Tell me what Mrs. Bruce used to be like when you first knew her.”
Noah looked from his daughter, who’d asked the question, to Rianna, whose raised eyebrows told him the question had taken her as much by surprise as it had him.
Before he could answer, Melanie gazed up at him from her bed, where she sat propped up by lots of pillows. “Don’t you remember, Papa?”
Noah couldn’t help smiling at his daughter, who seemed to get better each day. He glanced over at Rianna, his smile lingering. If not for her, who knows what the outcome would have been. No one could have given more selflessly than Rianna. M
elanie’s own mother couldn’t have shown more love and care for Melanie during her illness. Rianna had truly become a woman of depth and maturity, someone he could trust with his heart and his daughter.
He rested against the small rocker by his daughter’s bed, easing his long legs out in front of him and beginning to rock slowly before answering. “Well, let’s see, Rianna was in grammar school with me. She was about four years younger, so she was a little girl in pigtails when I was just becoming a teenager. Her oldest sister was more my age and in my year in school.” He paused, enjoying watching the heightened color in Rianna’s cheeks as he spoke of her and her family. “She was sharp. All the Devon girls were, weren’t you?”
Rianna smoothed the front of her skirt over her knees, making a small sound, half laugh. “I don’t know about that.”
“Sure you were, always at the head of your class, all of you. Of course, I hardly noticed Rianna back then,” he said with a chuckle.
“Of course not,” she agreed. “You were too busy horsing around with the older boys and girls.”
“I like it when you call her Rianna. It’s such a pretty name. Is that what you used to call her?”
He nodded, watching the way Rianna cast her eyes downward, her long, auburn lashes brushing her cheeks. “Yes, ’cept I didn’t call her much of anything till she started growing up.”
“Were you sweet on her, Papa?”
His rocker came to a stop. “Not back then. That came later.” For the first time, it was no longer painful to admit. He chuckled as Rianna stretched forward to adjust Melanie’s quilt around her. Was she made uncomfortable by his words? “I mean, she was just a pesky girl as far as I was concerned. Sort o’like the way Robbie and Tad feel about you. All I was interested in at that time was going out to sea with my pop.”
“Oh.” She sounded disappointed.
Rianna settled back in her chair. “Your father was single-minded in his desire to follow his grandfather and father out to sea. He was the handsomest boy in Wood’s Harbor and yet, he didn’t give any of the prettiest girls a second look, too focused on growing up and becoming a fisherman to notice their little ploys to get his attention.”
His gaze sharpened on Rianna, surprised at her assessment. Had she even noticed that much back then? “How would you know so much?”
Her lips curled up coyly. “Oh, I had eyes in my head…and three sisters who would talk.” She burst into laughter at his surprised look.
“When did you ask Mrs. Bruce to dance?” persisted Melanie.
Noah fell silent, the only sound in the room the slow creak of the rocker. His thoughts went back to that first dance, remembering it more serenely than he had since seeing Rianna again.
Now it seemed so far away. He couldn’t help smiling, rubbing a hand over his beard. “It wasn’t till Rianna turned about fifteen that I began noticing her—as a young lady, I mean.”
“Was she pretty then?”
He chuckled. “Oh, yes.”
Rianna’s cheeks turned a deep pink.
It wouldn’t hurt to tell Melanie. It would be like a fairy tale. “I remember a particular dance at Grammie and Grampie’s. I think they didn’t want me to be lonely, growing up without my parents and having no brothers or sisters, so they were always having socials, as they called them.
“That one dance—I was about nineteen. Rianna stepped into the parlor. She must have been the prettiest girl there with her thick, auburn hair just falling around her shoulders like sea foam and tied back with a big bow. She had a new dress on, down to her ankles. It was the first time I’d seen her wear a lady’s gown. She looked all grown-up.” He shook his head, unable to take his gaze from Rianna, who had picked up her mending and seemed intent on it, the way she had when he’d watched her sew her lavender dress.
“She was standing in the doorway,” he said softly, picturing it all in his mind. “Her face was flushed a pretty pink, just like she looks now, her lips half-parted as she watched the dancers on the parlor floor, as if she wanted to join in but didn’t quite dare.”
Rianna’s gaze had flown up when he’d begun describing the scene, and now she seemed as riveted as Melanie. “Then Rianna looked across the room and smiled at me. It was the most dazzling smile I’d ever seen.”
Her eyes had held a mischievous glint as if she knew something he didn’t. He’d known in that moment that she would be his wife.
“I walked across the room with one thought only in mind, to ask her to dance. It seemed like I was meeting her for the first time.”
The room was quiet as the two listened to him. When he paused, his daughter asked, “What did you do then?”
A deep sigh escaped him, as if he’d forgotten to breathe during his travel back in time. “Well…we danced quite a bit with each other that evening. In between, we talked. Seemed I’d never talked so much with another soul.”
Rianna smiled at Melanie. “Your papa was always a bit of a loner. I guess he had to be to be content all those hours on the boat or in the woods in winter.”
“After that evening, I’d look for Rianna at each social. We’d dance and then we’d talk.”
“Your papa told me all about his dreams to be a fisherman, and I told him about mine to see the world.”
Once again, the silence stretched out between them. “What happened then, Papa?”
His daughter’s voice brought him back to the part of the memory he preferred to forget. “I’ll let Mrs. Bruce finish the tale.” How would she tell it?
Rianna looked back down to her sewing. “Oh, the dance would end. Everyone would say good-night and thank their host and hostess. Your great-grandparents were the most hospitable folks around to the young people. As I recall, I used to walk home with my sisters, humming the last tune we’d heard.”
Noah slowly rocked, his expression impassive as he listened to her words. Did she really remember it that way? Had she forgotten everything else so completely?
It was clear that season of their lives hadn’t meant as much to her as it had to him. He glanced at Melanie and was relieved to catch her yawning wide enough to crack her jaw. Hopefully, she’d soon be asleep and this conversation would be only a vague memory when she woke up. The way it needed to remain.
With an effort he stood up from the rocker, the soreness in his back a reminder of the hours he’d spent bent over his nets at sea. He’d put in extra hours the last day or so, once he was assured of Melanie’s recovery.
“I think it’s time you got some sleep, sweetie. There’s been enough talk of the past for now.” He bent over Melanie and kissed her cheek.
“Good night, Papa,” she said drowsily.
“Good night, Mellie.”
Rianna adjusted the bandanna around her head and picked up her stick. She was tired, but she mustn’t quit now. Her father had taken her mother to see the doctor and Rianna had promised herself she’d be finished by the time they returned. Only a few more rugs to go and she’d be done with housecleaning for the day. She whacked at the rug hanging on the line and kept at it.
“Good afternoon.”
Rianna whirled around, stick in her hand.
“Noah! I didn’t hear you walk up.”
“I could see that.”
She became conscious of how she must look, stick held up like a weapon, head wrapped in a red bandanna, her dress enveloped by a smudged apron. Her free hand came up to her head, and then she saw the humor of the situation.
She brought her hand to her mouth and began to laugh. Once started, she couldn’t stop. She clutched her waist, laughing all the harder at the bewildered look on Noah’s face.
He was carrying something wrapped in newspaper.
“Is—is th-at for me?” she gasped through laughter, gesturing with her hand.
He nodded, a smile beginning to form on his lips.
“Than-k you!” Regaining her breath, she dropped her stick and stepped forward. “You must sometimes think I’m no nurse at all, but a patient escaped from
a lunatic ward.”
He was looking at her so warmly, she suddenly glanced away, focusing on the newspaper bundle in his hands. Ever since they’d spent so much time together taking care of Melanie, there had been an easiness in their manner and Noah had seemed more relaxed.
“Not at all. It’s good to see someone laugh like that.” He cleared his throat. “You always seem to find something funny about the most commonplace things. As if you’re full of that joy you talk about.”
“You could be, too.”
“Yeah, well…” He looked down at his parcel. “I brought you some haddock. Just off the boat.”
She took it from him. “Oh, thank you! Let me set it in a cool place. We’ll have it baked for supper.” She began to turn away before pivoting back. “Would you like to stay for tea?” She hadn’t seen him in a few days. While she knew he’d had a lot of catching up to do now that Melanie was well on the mend, she’d missed his company. It had been nice looking across Melanie’s bed and seeing him there, both of them doing all they could for the little girl.
He didn’t quite meet her eyes. “I’ve had a lot of thinking to do.”
She nodded. They’d been through a lot in the past couple of weeks, and they’d never had a chance to talk about the camp meeting. She thought of all he’d witnessed there. Between naps.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“Nothing. I was just remembering the camp meeting the week before last.”
He smiled sheepishly. “I wasn’t very good company, I’m afraid. I guess religion just doesn’t take with some people.”
She shook her head at him. “I told you, it has nothing to do with religion. Anyway, if you’d like to tell me what you’ve been so busy thinking about the past few days, why don’t you go on in while I set this in the icehouse.”
He gestured to the clothesline. “Want me to bring in your rugs?”
She smiled. “Sure.”
When she came back, she found him beating one of the remaining carpets. “You don’t have to do that!”
“I don’t mind.” He looked down at her. “Besides, I’m stronger than you are.”
To Be a Mother Page 18